Some of what we do

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Blizzard

The trees are really beautiful today. It's amazing how much snow has stuck even with 50 mph wind gusts!

We did get the driveway shoveled this evening. However it is also still snowing. And there has yet to be a plow anywhere near our neighborhood. So it's a good thing we have a snow day tomorrow!

Maya made this with "Miss Kelly" (she's from the local school district's Way to Grow program and comes to our house once a month to do a project with Maya. Great program, totally free and for anyone). She likes painting the glittery glue on more than actually sticking anything on with it.

Alex made this at the small local library. There was also a cup of candy to put on like a gingerbread house. He ate it. Maya didn't even pretend she wanted to make the log cabin, just said no thank you and ate the candy.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Quick....I see the sun!

We got a brief break from the snow yesterday. Brief. Then another inch or two last night...now it's cloudy and gloomy and we are waiting for a big winter storm over the weekend. I better get out and shovel one more time before we get dumped on!

Monday, December 06, 2010

The snow

The snow continued yesterday, and last night - these pics were taken out the back patio doors this morning. Then it continued snowing all day and is actually still snowing right now. Despite the NOAA websites assurance that only "isolated area totals exceeding 12 inches" we are well over 12 inches at this point.
The kids are having a blast. We played outside for a little over an hour after school today and shoveled (again). Saturday we could see grass sticking through the snow, tonight we have big banks alongside the driveway and Maya can barely walk in the yard!

Now we have the tree and get home

After a very snowy and windy drive with the tree on the roof we are all happy to get home. The tree took on a TON of snow and ice and didn't seem to be melting in the garage so we decide to bring it in and just put a ton of towels down on the floor.
Above you see a cute picture of Maya. Yes, behind her is our tree laying on the floor. No that was not on purpose.
After getting the tree up in the stand and straight and tightening it, it promptly tipped right over. And bent up the stand. We tried again, more tightening. Tipped right over.
Finally we notice the little spikes in the bottom of the tree stand that keep the trunk from slipping are all broken off. Nice.
So we left the tree on the floor and ate lunch.
And then Alex and I went into town to buy a new tree stand. While shopping he suggested that he look for a gift for Maya which I thought was a very nice idea. I love how much care and thought he puts in when looking for gifts for her and he gets truly excited and joyful about giving her things.
He also had been asking for a couple weeks if we could buy a star for the top of the tree this year. We haven't had one in a long, long time - ours broke before he was born and since we went through quite a few years of having no tree or tiny trees in our apt in Houghton we just never bothered. So he picked out a very nice, colorful new star for the topper.
The reindeer antlers they found in a box we were unpacking. I *think* Matt and Amy gave them to the kids last year. They babysat then overnight right after Christmas last year because Ben and I had to come back to Traverse City so I could work the day after Christmas. Well the antlers are a HUGE hit this year and are being worn constantly.
Unfortunately we learned the hard way that Maya should not wear them while decorating the tree. She would lean forward to put an ornament on and stick the antlers right in the tree and pull back knocking a ton of other ornaments off!

Oh Christmas tree.....

Saturday was a beautiful day, we spent all afternoon playing outside. The smarter family would have utilized that nice weather to go cut their Christmas tree. We are apparently not that family. We waited until Sunday. We started off for the tree farm (not the most glamorous or "authentic" tree farm but the one closest to our house) in a light snow. As we get closer to the tree farm the snow becomes quite steady.
Once there we find out that all the fields nearest the barns and parking lot are idle this year and the good trees are out in the back forty. But not to worry - there is a fancy trailer pulled by a tractor to deliver us to the trees. The same tractor/trailer is also used for their scenic "sleigh" rides. So a couple other families and all of us climb on and wait....and wait.......the snow is now what I would consider heavy. The expression seen above on Maya's face never changed the entire ride. Alex was up for the adventure and excited, Maya was not impressed with the ride.
Wayyyyyy out in the field he stops and lets off those of us who want to cut trees, one other family stays on for the rest of their scenic ride. The driver says not to worry, he'll be back in 15 min or so to pick us and our trees up, in the meantime enjoy the bonfire (as he gestures to a smoldering fire pit nearby). He drives away. The wind picks up.
Despite the wind and snow, the kids are having a great time. Maya wanders around eating snow and Alex rushes from tree to tree trying to find just the right one. The other couple in the field with us is done with their tree right before we are and while the woman kindly takes the picture of our whole family the man heads over to try and revive the "bonfire".
By the time we have our tree down he has a roaring fire! And we wait. And it snows harder. And Alex asks if we have to walk back ourselves or if the tractor is really coming back. We assure him that he is coming back and just when we start to really wonder ourselves we can see the tractor lights in the distance!

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Playing outside

Today we spent a ton of time outside. It was Maya's first time out this year in full snow gear. The other times we've been out it was either warmer, or very little snow and we just didn't need all the gear. She walked outside, took one step out of the garage and did a full feet in the air, flat on her back Charlie Brown type fall! But she got up, brushed herself off and got right down to playing.

Alex had his heart set on sledding, there really isn't much snow but he shoveled the driveway to use the snow to sled on. Despite the small hill we have in our yard and barely any snow they had a blast.

The second time Maya went down she pitched face first off the sled into the snow. It was in her mouth, down her jacket....thankfully she only cried for a minute and then was ready to go again. She's a tough girl....which is a good thing because she seems to be quite accident prone.

Maya stayed out for two hours and Alex stayed out for about three and a half!

Looks like it will be a good winter here!

Downtown Tree lighting

In previous years, the giant tree downtown usually is lit the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year it was moved to the next week. If the organizers moved it to try and draw more of a crowd - well I think the succeeded. There was an insane amount of people downtown, much more than any other year we've gone. There was more going on as well.

We got downtown at 5:30pm (Santa's arrival and tree lighting were suppose to be at 6pm). Carol singing started shortly after we got there but they had sound system issues so no one could hear the wonderful choir from Interlochen. BUT, unlike other years, Santa actually arrived at 6pm so we weren't standing out there very long.

The kids complained and were squirrely the whole time we waited. Alex LOVES this event, talks about all year and he was our loudest complainer this year. Ben and I were not having fun. It was snowing some really wet snow that was almost rain. And they complained about not being able to see.....

Then the countdown began and the tree lit up and it's amazing how all the kids (and most adults for that matter) react. It's just getting plugged in, you can see the cords....but for some reason it seems magical. Ben and I were talking later about how we both think every year during the complaining portion that this isn't worth it and we aren't coming back again....until that tree lights up.

Then the kids were excited. They got up closer and waved at Santa. We walked down the street and saw the reindeer (real, live ones!) and that was a huge hit. Although Alex was disappointed that Rudolph wasn't one of the ones that came downtown as he really wanted to see how his nose worked. We saw some ice sculpture carving and drank hot chocolate. And even though it was the same temperature and possibly even a little wetter, there was no more complaining.

Camping

Maya's dresser

It's been very gray and gloomy here, not very good for getting a good natural light shot of the dresser. So here is a kind of crummy flash photo. It's really pretty and she is so excited to have a "big girl" dresser instead of storing her clothes in the old changing table. The dresser came from a consignment shop in Land O Lakes WI and my dad refinished it. It started out that very 1960's looking orangey stain and you couldn't see any of the grain really and it had very "heavy" looking wooden drawer pulls.

School Christmas Concert

Alex had a narrator part this year.

There was quite a lot of dance moves that went along with this production!

Alex's class gets split in half for music, gym, and art - this is the Music "A" group and above is his music "B" group.

This year they did songs from the Nutcracker. I had no idea there were songs with words based on the Nutcracker music but there is! It was very cute. Alex's groups sang the Russian dance, the Arabian dance and the entire K-3 did the Waltz of the Flowers together.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving break

Alex had off school Wed, Thurs and Fri for Thanksgiving. He seemed excited to have the days off and he and Maya had so much fun with the extra play time. In this picture I believe they are playing camping. Alex is under there somewhere. He thought it was funny to hide every time I got out the camera.

They played school, store, and camping. They built ramps and jumps with blocks for the hot wheels cars. They drew pictures and made forts. They read tons and tons of books together. And all of this with very, very little direction or input from grown ups. And very little arguing. It doesn't always happen that way but we had a very charmed series of days.

For Thanksgiving day we had a relatively simple early dinner, watched football, played and rented a couple video games.

Saturday afternoon we went to the Opera House to see the musical show "Duck for President, Fancy Nancy and other stories". It was very cute and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Alex liked Duck for President best and of course Maya's favorite was Fancy Nancy. Maya did not care for the pirate story (Pirates Don't Change Diapers) but Alex said he liked them all.

By the time we got home Grandma and Papa had arrived and we got a couple mellow days of visiting in with them. They brought Maya a new (new to her) dresser that my dad refinished, it looks great in her room. I will take some pictures this afternoon.

Ben and I went out Sunday evening to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (2 thumbs up by the way!) and the kids got to order pizza with Grandma and Papa while we were gone.

Now today we are back to school and the regular routine. We have some stuffy noses. But what a great Thanksgiving break!

Random Projects

I've been trying to finish up some easy random projects around the house.

This cabinet holds all of our art/craft supplies. It sits at the end of our upstairs hallway so you look right at it every time you come up the stairs to the bedrooms. Even with mason jars and boxes and bins inside to help organize all those artsy odds and ends look messy. I was sick of being able to see the mess through the glass doors. So I got some cute, relatively cheap fabric and covered the inside of the windows. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, absolutely more pleasant to look at than the clutter inside!