The world of food...

We growth and development comes the addition of real food. Malcolm has become a huge fan of yogurt, and you can really tell from these shots below. It's hard to believe he's already 8-months-old!

 

Valentine's Cards 2013

Last year, Aiden's class list for the Valentine exchange came with a request for no candy. Very few parents complied with the request, but I anticipated a similar one this year for both Aiden's and Devin's classes. Of course, this year, treats were allowed as long as they were peanut-free. But, I had already been formulating plans for treat-free Valentines, so we moved ahead with what we had! I think both types came out really nice, and the kids had a good time putting them together!

For Aiden's class, pink Valentines for the girls and blue Valentines for the boys with two mechanical pencils attached to each

"Valentine, You get WRITE to my heart!"

For Devin's class, Valentines with heart stickers attached to boxes of sparkly crayons

"Valentine, You COLOR my world!"

Happy Hearts-and-Candy Day!

100 Days of School!

Last Monday, Aiden came home with TWO project assignments. The first (due the following Monday) was the 100-Days-of-School project. They ask the kids to collect 100 "somethings" that you might have laying around the house and present the collection in a "creative" way.

[Why they couldn't give us
a little more than a single week
to come up with this creative project,
I don't know. But I digress.]

Thankfully, I'd seen some ideas for 100-day projects on Pinterest and showed them to Aiden. He loved this idea of collecting crayons (and I loved it because I knew we had at least 100 crayons on hand). We saw them presented in a variety of creative ways, but we both really liked this idea at Kitchen Advenures: http://www.52kitchenadventures.com/2011/09/12/melted-crayon-art-tutorial/.

We decided to switch it up a bit, though, so our project looks a little different (and "different is good").

After counting out 100 crayons, we sorted them into two piles and organized them by shade. Then we attached 50 to two edges of a 20x16 canvas. I attached ribbon to avoid having small fingers remove any of the crayons once they arrive at school.

We covered one side of the canvas with foil and a piece of painter's tape to protect one set of crayons from being melted on while melting the first set.

One side melted and ready to melt side two!

While the crayons melted in a more liquid fashion than expected, Aiden loved the outcome (and I think it's pretty neat, too!). He couldn't keep his fingers off the melted trails of crayon while we took pictures!

How is your school celebrating 100 days?

On the move...

Malcolm has been rolling all over the place for a few weeks. Now, he has added a new form of mobility to his skill-set. We are in the pre-crawling stages of moving, and he's getting pretty good at getting what he wants while he's roaming around on the floor.

Building up the neck muscles


Working on the plank position


Up on the hands and knees


And back to the plank


And, here's the whole thing in motion!


So cute!

Blizzard 2013

"Nemo" was forecast for several days in advance, so we had plenty of time to prepare for the "Blizzard of 2013." We always store water, extra food, batteries, flashlights, and a little extra gasoline for the snow blower and lawn mower. But I did add a back-up power pack for my phone (or anything with a mini-USB or regular USB charger) and got an extra gallon of milk on Thursday.

Nemo moved in on Friday afternoon as predicted and started to grace us with big, fluffy flakes. Every school in the state closed in anticipation of the event. So the kids and I were home to enjoy the lack of snow and watch endless weather reports. Ian went into work early and came home on the 2:10 train (the MBTA closed down at 3:30 to prepare for the weather).

By 4:30 we had a few inches of snow, so Ian and the kids headed out even though it was starting to get a little dark.





Snow baseball. If you look closely, you can see that Aiden has gotten a piece of this one!








Malcolm and I mostly stayed inside, but, in an effort to be "in the picture" and to bend to the demands of peeps on Facebook, I took Mr. M outside for just a few minutes. I don't think he was impressed.


On Saturday morning, we woke up to the power on (YAY!) and a just a little more snow.






Everyone was fascinated by the continuous weather updates!


Ian took the kids outside, but Devin was overwhelmed by the snow (of course, if you were shorter than the average snowdrift, you'd probably be a bit nervous, too). So he came inside to enjoy some fun in his "fort."






Ian and Aiden lived it up outside for close to TWO hours!




Love this picture! I might have to have it framed.


And, who needs a hill when you have stairs?


The following day, Ian got down to the business of clearing the driveway. Thank goodness we bought a snow blower when we moved in to this house!




You can see all the pictures of our fun here: