Ice Fesitval

We love city festivals, but most are in the Summer. That's why I love the Plymouth Ice Festival - all the fun and none of the heat. Everyone knows I do much better in the cold, so this festival is perfect for me. It also involves power tools and men hacking away at large blocks of ice, so it's perfect for Benjamin. And they even have a petting farm every year, so it's perfect for Bella and Christian. It doesn't get any better. Lots of yummy food to buy, cool ice sculptures and ice sculptures-in-progress to look at, animals to pet, and a mini cross country ski course for kids. We had a great time, despite the horrific crowds and my oh-so-terrible attempt at parallel parking on the overly-crowded city streets. (It was so bad that I heard people laughing at me as I was parking and saw people pointing and laughing at my van as we returned later.)



Benjamin and Bella fell in love with this little goat and wouldn't leave it alone. Benjamin started making goat noises to it and the goat began answering. He and Benjamin honestly sounded like they were conversing back and forth at one point. People actually stopped and watched for a while because it was so entertaining. I was also happy to see that Christian had gotten over his fear of fluffy animals and seemed to enjoy being around them.

Simple Fun

Christian and I have 4 hours a week of one-on-one time while the other two are at school. I try to make the very most of those precious moments, but that doesn't mean we always do fancy things. For this day I decided he might like to play with the pom-poms we had in a jar since last year when we spent the year earning "warm fuzzies" for good deeds. He loved it. Dump the jar, fill it back up, put the lid on, take the lid off, dump it out, etc. etc. There was also the occasional throwing and scattering and shrieking with laughter. So entertaining and so simple. I love this age.

Staying Sane At Home

I'm feeling obligated to update my blog since it's been quite a while, but there's so little new going on around here. Mostly we've stayed at home more lately. For some reason the kids have shown less interest in going out, which is very unusual for them. Maybe it's the weather. In looking through my pictures on my camera, here's the highlights:

Bella got her hair cut fixed and she looks really cute. She still hates to have me brush it, though, so it's hard to get a picture of how cute it really is. Had to take this picture, though. She loves to play pretend with me while Benjamin's at school and it's always the same thing: she's the mom and I'm the child. She takes me to swim lessons, where she becomes the teacher. Then she becomes mom again, takes me home, and puts me to bed, complete with goodnight story and songs.

This is Bella as swim teacher (sorry it's so blurry): gymnastic leotard pulled over the dress she was wearing that day, carrying the other "kids" in the swim class in the pool (Benjamin's bed - because he has the blue comforter). Note the animals all have their leotards/swimsuits on too. I forget what the backpack was for...oh! it was because we were going camping after swim lessons and that night we'd be sleeping in the tent. Her sleeping bag is in the backpack. She's truly a mom - prepared for every possibility!

Since we've been home more lately, I've tried to find fun things to do so that I don't have to just spend all day fighting ogres and taking swim lessons on the bed. We've made crystals. (They loved that, although waiting for them to form was hard.)


We've microwaved ivory soap. (Never done that? You should.)

We've made oobleck (corn starch and water - that trick never gets old.)


We've made puffy paint (the fun is also in the microwaving afterwards).

We've climbed trees in the backyard.


We made a light box. (Punch holes in the bottom of a box and stick christmas lights through them. So fun to crawl inside and close up.)



We made our own playdoh for the first time. (Never felt like making it when you can buy it for $.99, but it gave us something to do and we loved the result.)


We made a catapult out of popsicle sticks. (Great at launching food you don't like).


We made squish paint monsters. (Fold a paper in half, put paint along the fold and close. Reopen and embellish with eyes, arms, legs, etc.)


We also played a game where you draw something on half a piece of paper and then extend just a few of the lines from your drawing over to the other half of the paper. The other person sees only those extended lines and draws another picture off of them. We had some awesome results, such as an elephant with duck feet or a tree trunk with a ghost rising out of it.

And last, but not least, we've played "I'm stuck in the pot!" A lot. (Christian's favorite game.)


One day I took the pot to make some spaghetti and he was so upset. "Stuck!" he kept crying out, pointing to the pot on the stove, until I found another pot of suitable size so he could continue his game. (In case you're wondering, Bella had a stomach ache that day and wasn't up to much, as you can see.)

Today I took the kids to Millrace Historical Village for what they advertised as a "Fairy Class for 3-5 year olds." I figured it was going to be a tour of the village with some people dressed up as fairies doing fun stuff in the various houses. When we arrived, we discovered it was taking place in only one of the houses and they had a list of those who'd preregistered and wanted to know our names so they could check us off. Apparently I hadn't read the ad carefully enough. Luckily they were kind and added us and then proceeded to ask for a mere (ha!ha!) $15/kid. They'd conveniently failed to mention in the ad that there was a fee. I know I wouldn't have overlooked that. But now we were stuck, so I paid for Benjamin and Isabella and then had to leave. Didn't see in the ad that parents weren't included either. So I got some unexpected 1-on-1 time with Christian at the playground while the older two were transformed into a fairy and a troll and had a wonderful time. They had their faces painted, made magic wands and magic potions, had cupcakes and lemonade, colored pictures, dressed up, etc. etc. I guess it was $30 well spent.




One last cute picture: Christian loves his box of balls. Mostly he loves to climb in and throw them out. This day he'd also found Bella's crown, tore most of the letters off and put it on. Guess he wanted to claim it as his own.

Rites of Passage

Bella passed through a classic rite of passage this week - she cut her own hair. I remember doing that as a kid and I'm sure many others do too. Grab the scissors, close the bathroom door, climb up on the sink, and hack away.

I was in the kitchen with Christian when I heard the sound of scissors cutting through something thick. I heard it two or three times and decided this needed investigating. I came into the bathroom to find this:


She was completely undeterred by my arrival and continued to cut long after I'd come in. She was so happy doing it and so proud of herself that I didn't stop her. I was curious to see how far she'd go. She ended up doing quite a hackjob on the sides but left the back mostly in tact so she now has a bit of a rat-tail look.



When she finally laid down the scissors, I asked, "Do you like what you did? Do you think you look pretty?" She beamed back at me in the mirror, nodded her head, flipped her hair with her hands, and said, "yes!" "We should probably go somewhere and have it fixed a little," I said. "Why??" she asked, truly puzzled. So we've decided to let it go for a week or two and then get a friend to clean it up a bit. "I wanted it short like Benjamin's because my hair grows so fast it's crazy!" she explained to Kelly that evening. If only that were true. It's taken us 2.5 years to fully recover from her hair ripping as a 1 year old. But alas, if she wanted short hair, she's definitely going to have it.

As for Benjamin, he didn't want to be left out of the action and cut his hair too, but he was so timid about it and cut so little that I couldn't even tell. He insisted he cut a lot and had me take pictures and asked me if I thought he looked good, but they aren't even worth posting - they look exactly the same. So funny. His rite of passage this week was his 5 and 1/2 birthday. He was so excited.


We made cupcakes - a rarity around here - and sang to him and I agreed to play whatever game he chose and so of course he chose to pretend that I'm his horse. I got to crawl around whinnying with all the kids on my back for an hour or so before I declared the 1/2 birthday celebration over.

We also, not as part of his birthday, did some fun snow and ice experiments this week, to make up for the lack of such things outside. We played with sodium polyacrylate (fake snow) and made frost develop on a can. (The frost experiment can be found here.) It's so great playing with snow in the warmth of the kitchen while still in pajamas! Benjamin decided his bugs would like to play in the snow too.



It was a lot of fun talking about the various scientific principles behind these things. Benjamin loves that kind of stuff. It is so cool to see his brain working to understand these things which he can't see. He's dying to have a microscope and a telescope - although he can never keep the terms straight! :) So funny how he's always asking for a microscope so he can look at the stars.

My Little Sunbeam

The start of a new year always marks the start of new primary classes (Sunday school for ages 3-11). I was a bit more stressed then usual this year since it was my first January as Primary President, but we survived with little drama. The best part of today was seeing my little Isabella in the front row with all the Sunbeams (youngest class)! That was awesome. She was such a little cutie in her pigtails, barefoot, beaming up at me. All excited to be with the big kids. Church started at 1pm and all morning she kept saying, "I'm so excited to be a Sunbeam! I'll get to be with you again!" Ever since I left nursery 2 months ago, I've missed being with my little nursery kids, but there they all were again! They all did great. After church, she came running to me and said, "I love Sunbeams, but mommy, did you know, we don't get a snack!?" She was shocked and dismayed. I'd warned her but apparently she hadn't thought it possible. "I told my teacher I was hungry and she said we don't have snack!!" The harsh realities of the grown up world. She's still excited to do it again next week, though. :) Love that girl.