Thursday, December 31, 2009
sledding
making a snowman
Back inside for some hot chocolate and some of the craft projects that we received as christmas presents.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
teeny snowman
Monday, December 28, 2009
at the library
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas morning
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
blowing out the candles
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Winter Solstice sun
Monday, December 21, 2009
learning cordage
Bushy Hill class .. cordage and beading. The kids learned how to weave and how to debark and polish wooden beads. L got a bit frustrated at first but then once she got the hang of it she was totally focused and into it. e even did a little but was more taken with the exhibits in the nature center. He did get into the sanding of the beads on the rocks though. We also visited with the farm animals. Both kids got to feed the llamas and goats some hay and L got to hold a duck for a minute. It was soooo cold out .. that we stayed as long as we could manage and then headed home. We decided to skip caroling and had a nice quiet last night of Channukah at home where it was relatively warm.
Friday, December 18, 2009
http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/exhibitions/2006/christmaspalettes2006.html
working on snow paintings
Dance class .. the kids LOVE their teacher. Then off to Florence Griswold for class. We explored the art galleries and took in the holiday trees each with a theme. My favorite was the easel tree. I am going to see if I can find a picture of it since we could not take photographs. Then we learned how to make snow pictures by layering colors and using the toothbrush trick.
hike at arboretum
We took a hike at the arboretum .. J had the day off so it felt like a Saturday. It was so cold that the kids did not last long. We saw a flock of robins. I believe e actually scared them by screaming about being cold. Sigh. But then we later saw a bunch of titmice, nuthatches and chickadees. I can't remember the last time we went hiking and did not see chickadees. They are the most curious birds. When we don't see them we hear them coming to check us out.
light parade
Grampa and Grandma came over for dinner (after all our friends had gone home .. thanks to everyone for being flexible with plans and coming our way since we did not have a car for the day! It was so nice to have some friend time .. for me and the kids!)
After dinner, we headed to the light parade. We had a great time and kept relatively warm .. there were some long waits and some annoying people around us BUT we loved the polar express and the firetrucks and the oxen (!?) and just seeing all the lights with g&g. (Thank you g&g for the ride!) Highlight was the firefighter who ran up the kids with his last 2 candy canes. He made a big impression. :) And we took a small detour on the way home to see some light displays.
hunting for the perfect tree
Birdfeeded is finally back up. We discovered that a few house finches had conjunctivitis so to keep the other birds from catching it ... we took our feeders in for a week and bleached them out. Actually we also got a nice new feeder. It has been a slow start but we have now seen some juncos (yay, we didn't lose them!), cardinals, downy woodpecker, chickadees, and titmice. I have noticed a merlin around our house and even swooping though our yard recently so that may have more to do with our slow feeder than the fact that it was in for a while. We used to have about 12 mourning doves in our maple tree each afternoon and I think I have seen one recently. Merlin meals?
