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We are glad this is the last weekly photo of February. March is just a few days away and we are hoping to start seeing some grass soon!

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Bubbles!

Peter Pan

On Saturday night we had tickets to see the Christian Youth Theater production of Peter Pan. The show was incredible! Wendy was played by a high-school student who attends our church, and she did an incredible job. The 17-year-old girl who played Peter Pan was amazing.

We were excited to realize we knew 11 of the young actors and actresses in the show! We weren't allowed to take any photos during the performance, but here are the kids before the show began. (We were some of the first people in the door!)

On the Iditarod Trail

I have been having a blast teaching my Iditarod class at our home-school co-op. We are only a week away from the start of the real race in Alaska. So, this week, we tried to experience a little of what it might be like to hit the trail.

We loaded up our "sled" (aka, the Little Tykes wagon) with the required items every musher must have. This included an ax, a pot big enough to boil three gallons of water, a cold-weather sleeping bag, dog food, 128 dog booties (two pairs for each of our 16 dogs) and several other items.

The boys are holding our map of Alaska, which shows all of our mandatory checkpoints on the 1,150-mile trail.

I got to be the musher for our first round, and the boys were the dogs. They had to learn all of the dog commands, like "Hike!" to go, "Gee!" to turn right, and "Haw!" to turn left.

We stopped at some checkpoints as we made our way around the building.

Just like in real life, our lead dogs were the fast runners. The dogs in the back were our stronger pullers. 

I gave each boy a chance to be the musher and I helped pull the sled. For awhile, we switched the order of the "dogs" and it was amazing what a difference it made! When the stronger boys were in front and the faster boys were in back, the "lead dogs" would start to fall behind the fast runners, the rope would get mixed up and the wagon would hit someone in the rear. It was comical!

We also found that even though the load we had to pull was heavy, when everyone worked together, it was effortless. We have learned that the 16 dogs on a real sled team barely feel the weight of the sled. It was a great lesson!

Bump!

This girl has had so many knots on her forehead during her first year of life. We are so proud of her that FINALLY after MUCH instruction, she has agreed to go down the stairs on her tummy.

She gets a really big start, lying down halfway across the room and scooting backward until she gets to the stairs. We all breathed a big sigh of relief because now we don't have to worry about her walking off the edge.

But on one attempt, she lost her balance half way down and hit the railing at the bottom. This bump popped out instantly.

Don't you love the contrast of the big goose egg with the flower? :)

Budding artist

Jayda has a new love. Coloring.

She loves to color with crayons and fill her little cups with crayons. She also loves markers, and the bad news is that she has learned to remove the caps! We are constantly on the look-out for any markers that she can reach!

Portraits, part four

And here is Alayna. This girl is growing up before our eyes. She has always been a joy to our family with her energy and enthusiasm. It's so fun to watch her play with friends and excel in school. 

She definitely falls into the brown-eyed side of the family.

Another portrait

So.... since this is MY project to post at least one photo a day, I also reserve the right to make my own rules. Once in a while, I take several good photos in a day and will post them on a subsequent day. This was one of them. 

Jayda actually was really sick today. Her nose was running all day and she was wheezing when she breathed. I almost took her to the doctor. 

Instead, here is a portrait I took of her a few days before. We are all amazed by those blue eyes.

Art gallery

Andrew loves Sonic. He loves to color Sonic pictures. He loves to draw Sonic. He loves to play a Sonic game he made up with his friends.

He invited us all to come to his Sonic art gallery. We each got to vote on our favorite of all of his Sonic drawings.

Ice sculptures

Well, our skating rink has changed to a swimming pool. Or maybe a fishing pond. The kids have been fishing in it anyway.

Here are a few of their catches, which they proudly displayed in a SHADY spot:

They found a guitar:

And an ice garden:

Louisiana:

And the United States: (oops! It's upside down!)

And, of course, with three boys in the hunt, you knew they would find a gun:

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What a difference a week makes! Can you believe ALL of that snow from last week melted? The kids were celebrating the sunshine and 50 degree temps by wearing T-shirts and light jackets.

They were even jumping for joy!

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Games and more

One of the other moms at our home-school co-op wasn't able to make it today, so I got to be the substitute for her class, "Games and More."

Now, this is totally MY kind of class! Basically, it's a great chance to get out all of those educational games that sometimes get put on a shelf and play them for an hour.

For me, that meant pulling together a big bag of my Discovery Toys games. Some of the kids in the class are a little younger than mine, so it was fun to dig out some of our old favorites, like "Zingo." 

And lots of others... I'm not sure who had more fun... me or the kids!

Another portrait

Matthew, on the other hand, has brown eyes ALL the time!

Changing eyes

I've been trying to learn how to use my new camera lens by taking portraits of the kids. When our oldest son was young, his eyes were definitely brown. Now look how they are changing to green.

And the next minute they are brown.

New subject

I recently added a new subject to our schoolwork. My kids have become masters at making movies on the computer using iMovie. I decided it was time for them to learn to use all of the other programs, too.

Of course, they all love playing with the computer programs! For the past couple of weeks, we've been working on desktop publishing. They had to create a bio sheet about themselves and an advertisement.

Valentine's Day

I asked Kent if we could skip the flowers and candy this Valentine's Day. Neither of us is a big fan of the "Hallmark holidays." He agreed. But then, later in the afternoon, I found this:

No... It's not a diamond necklace. My husband knows me far too well! Inside was this:

It's a new lens I have been wanting for my camera! It is supposed to take really good portraits. Here is my first attempt.

Also today... the temperature is supposed to get up to nearly 50 this week! Here is a shot of our snow as it is starting to melt. We probably won't have anything left by Friday.

Runner

Jayda has decided she no longer wants to walk. No... Instead, she wants to RUN!

She is so hilarious. She tries to run all around the house. Her little chunky legs are so unsteady that she usually only makes it about five steps before she falls over.

Like a little kid with new shoes, she feels she can run even faster when she doesn't have clothes on.

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Are they getting taller or is that tree shrinking?

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Valentine's Party

Our home-school co-op had a Valentine's exchange after our regular classes. The kids got excited about making boxes for their valentines and worked hard on them all week.

Andrew's was a Sonic themed car. He is really into Sonic lately and spends lots of time coloring Sonic pictures, drawing Sonic and playing an imaginary Sonic game.

Matthew's box was a spaceship, which was manned by his Galactic heroes.

Alayna's box was a pink craft creation, covered with stamp art.

Roller skating

Today we went roller skating! We have tried taking the kids roller skating in the past, but it wasn't real successful. Now that they have been ice skating all winter, I felt more confident they could handle themselves on the rink.

Every Thursday, one of the local rinks has a home-school skate. This week, it was a 50s theme with a Valentine's card exchange.

The kids were a little uncertain at first. But after a few times around, they decided they have a new favorite past time!

Shape sorter

Jayda is really starting to get active now that she is a full-fledged walker. However, her favorite activity is still to be carried by Mom or Dad. Because of this, she has earned the nickname of "hip rider" (or HR for short).

As you might imagine, this gets kind of tiring for a mom who is trying to home-school three other children !

So, I'm always happy when I can find an activity to keep her busy for a few minutes. 

One of her favorite things to do right now is to sort her pegs. We have a big bag of pegs that go with our Giant Pegboard toy.

She pulls them out and then puts them in the circle hole in this shape sorter toy. She isn't quite big enough to match up all of the shapes on the shape sorter. But she can handle the circles!

She works diligently at this task until she fills her little blue box with pegs. And as long as she's busy, I work as fast as I can to complete whatever task I need to accomplish!

Is that fun, Jay-jay?

SciTech Museum

We had a field trip today with our home-school co-op to a science museum about 20 minutes from our house. This was a ton of fun. They had converted an old downtown post office into the SciTech Museum, which was full of hands-on experiments perfect for the ages of our kids.

We felt like we had discovered a hidden treasure when we arrived and "signed in." The only other people who had signed in before us were other families in our co-op.

Alayna loved playing with the "bubble wall." She is blowing on her giant bubble in this photo.

Here are some of the kids getting ready for "lift off" in a hot air balloon.

This was Matthew's favorite part. He had to generate electricity by pedaling a bicycle. As he rode harder, more lightbulbs would light up. He was talking about that for the rest of the day. In this cold weather, we certainly are glad we don't have to generate our own electricity!

Jayda had a great time running from one side of the museum to the other. Here she is standing in the foot of a mastodon. Grrrr....