Sunday, February 23, 2014

REAL snow days

Most of the time the Carolina "snow days" crack us up. There will be a light dusting and EVERYTHING shuts down. Well, this month we had legitimate snow days. I heard that we got 8 inches. We haven't had that much snow in YEARS. (Am I sounding like an old woman yet?) We stayed safe and warm and enjoyed a few carefree days here at home together.

Whit and I worked on puzzles together.

The kids played out in the snow.


Care Bear attempted to make a snow angel.
But it didn't go so well.
It snowed. And then it rained/iced. And then it snowed again.
Not good "snow angel" snow.

Look how deep she sunk into it!

The girls dug through the crunchy snow
 and with a lot of effort and teamwork...
built a snowman! So fun!

The kids also did just about everything they could to earn extra video time:

Piano lessons

Trumpet practice

 Shredding all of my documents that have 
been piling up for the past few months. :)

I can't believe how long the snow has hung around.
We've had some beautiful 60+ degree days, 
but check out the snow pile in a parking lot:
 Caroline thought it was AWESOME.

OK. We had our fun with the snow. I'm ready for spring now. Please?

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Shall we dance?

 I wasn't sure if Andrew's back would allow him, but he insisted on taking the girls to the annual Daddy/Daughter dance at their school. I'm so glad he could. They LOVED it.

There are actually two dances at the school, first the younger grades then the older ones. Drew knew he couldn't dance all night, so they had a slightly shorter date night than usual. But still so fun.






Andrew danced a song or two, then watched on took pictures of the fun.








Grateful to share these fun moments with the kids. What a fun tradition.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Circus time

We had so much fun at last year's circus, that I decided we should go again this year. If you go on opening night, you can get 4th row seats for twelve bucks. Not bad. The only downside is that your kids have to stay up late on a school night. They don't see that as a downside. But when you try to wake them up the next day, you are reminded that it was.

It was another really fun night, but not quite as good as last year's. I think part of the reason we loved it so much last time was the novelty of not having been in several years. This time, I found myself mentally comparing everything to last year's show.

There were some things we liked better, a few things we missed, and some new things that we could have done without.

*BETTER*

*THE GLOBE OF STEEL


They did not have this last year. I thought I had heard it was because it was too dangerous and someone got hurt or killed. Well, it was back! And they had EIGHT people in that little thing riding motorcycles at the same time. It was crazy ridiculous. I thought for sure we were going to witness at least one death, but we didn't. Yippee! I've heard that deaths put quite the damper on your circus enjoyment.

*CHINESE ACROBATS

These performers were amazing and multi-talented. 


They rode super tall unicycles while throwing and catching bowls on their heads,

   made a giant human pyramid on a pair of bicycles,

and performed amazing acrobatic feats while jumping through hula hoops.
(The blurry picture doesn't do it justice!)

*LION TAMER

I liked the lion tamer last year, too, but this time they had a big male lion with a gorgeous mane. And the tamer liked to make the lions and tigers growl at him. It was intense.


Doesn't she look hungry?




And he had a leopard on a leash,
which Caroline loved.

His finale was putting the big lion on top of a disco ball.
It struck me as humiliating for that giant, powerful animal.

*ALL-ACCESS PRE-SHOW

I don't think they did the pre-show last year. Or else I didn't look in the right places to find out about it. But the kids and I headed down to the arena early so we could get a look at all the animals.






We even got to witness the elephant artist in action.

*WORSE*

*They didn't fire anyone out of the canon. I loved that part.

*Also no tight-rope walkers. Caroline was disappointed. (They did have a couple of tight-rope motorcycle riders. Not the same.)

*The circus puppies, which are one of my favorite acts, were relegated to the side ring instead of center ring. They had farm animals in the center instead. Boo. I didn't have a very good view of those cute dogs doing awesome tricks!




The closest we got a tightrope walker.
*Performing Kangaroos. In theory it sounds pretty cool. But they were a new act, and not at all impressive.
This was the extent of their performance:
Jumping over a two foot flag being held by a clown.
As I learned in one of The Magic Treehouse books,
kangaroos can jump over a school bus.
That flag looked measly. Boo.

*Ponytail hangers. This act was just weird. The girls all hung from their ponytails. What? I don't get it.



*OTHER RANDOM MOMENTS*

*"Legends." That was the name of this particular show. Their poster had a picture of a pegasus and a unicorn on it. My girls were SOOOOO excited to see them. I wondered how the circus people were going to pull that off. Well....they did. Sort of.

 A pegasus!

And a unicorn!
(The lighting was so low! More blurry pics!)
Caroline was enthralled.

Even weirder to me was...
the wooly mammoth.
Again, I felt sorry for the poor elephant.

Overall, though. it was a very fun night. I so love this phase of parenting.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

What January Looked Like

 Brandon wrote this mock-spotlight for me:
Do you have a hobby? yes, I spend my free time studying gender and DESTROYING PEOPLE IN TENNIS!!! OOOH YEEEAAAH


Are you good at tennis? I take it you are great!  OOOOH YEAAAH! I WAS BORN WITH A TENNIS RACKET IN MY LEFT HAND A NICE, FUZZY, GREEN TENNIS BAL IN THE RIGHT!!! MY WINNING PERCENTAGE IS 110%! OOOH YEAH!!!

You seem to be very passionate about tennis! I haven't heard you scream this loud since you heard that 3000 GT's were out of production! Ohhhh, The 3000 GT. It's like happiness and allen iverson's jumpshot and drew brees and, oh yeah!, Andrew. Tee Heee HEEEE.

OK, this is awkward. Bye bye!


wannabe bouncer

 wannabe cop







SNOW DAY!!


Brandon only ended up under this truck at the end of the road once.







 Gotta love Whit's sled...a cookie sheet.

It doesn't work so well.

Luckily, our nice neighbors take turns with their sleds.

FHE activity:
nerf gun target practice.


The craziest way that Caroline put herself to bed.

chocolate milk party