Letters & Drawings

Every day, (well, almost every day), I write a letter to the boys on this big chart paper. Each day I can focus on a different skill for reading, writing, even math or science/social studies. At the beginning of the year, I did more rebus pictures, such as the sun over the word "morning," which I still use. On "Mammoth Mondays," I leave uncapitalized words that should be capitalized, and toss in some capitals in the middle of words, etc. They've learned the formal editing marks to fix it up! On Tangled Tuesdays, I draw a picture to go with a spelling word, write the word "tangled up," and leave blanks for Andrew to write correctly, etc, etc, etc.

Anyway, it's a favorite school activity of both mine and theirs, so they were disappointed when I didn't write a letter on Tuesday, but they were then excited when I said that they could write the letter to Grandma to help her feel better! It just made me smile to see Andrew add the sun over "morning" just like I do! I helped Jacob write the date, and that was all he wanted to do with writing...he was intent on drawing a picture of Grandma!

So, the little green figure on the right is Jacob's drawing! It's amazing to me to watch him draw, because it was just weeks ago that he still wouldn't attempt a drawing of a person without help. Now he's drawing people all over the place! Notice that there are eyes, nose, mouth, even ears and a bit of hair on top!

Then he drew the body, arms, legs, and feet...then the "scribble" over the rest are the pants and "fweatshirt!" Voila! Mom, now you know that you have the honor of being that little green figure on your letter! :)

Baby Walruses

Our snowshoe trek ended at a creek bed, maybe a mile and half from our house. Since we've been studying about the arctic in science, I guess it was just natural, when faced with a wide expanse of snow, for the boys to start flopping themselves around in a game of "Baby Walruses!"

"Outdoor kids"

Now you can see why I haven't blogged in over a week...I was paralyzed by the decision-making process I would have to go through to blog about our snowshoeing day. I took about 70 pictures, and narrowing it down has been a little tough. I hope you like the winning entries. :)

Wordless wonder...

These are just a glimpse of our surroundings while snowshoeing...

Snowshoe Saturday!

We geared up last Saturday (not as in yesterday, but over a week ago now), to spend the morning snowshoeing in our neighborhood, which happens to be a National Park! :)
It was a glorious day, clear skies, warm temps, and lots of sunshine!


Headed out. Abby had a great time, even though she was a working dog for most of it. Jacob's pace is not conducive to a good work-out, or for having time to make it to new trails, so part of the time he rides in the sled. Abby did great pulling him-we just keep her on the leash so she doesn't take off after a squirrel while dragging him behind!

What's not to love?
Anna's a good lil' rider...she got in a good nap!

Hiding

Reason # 127 why parents don't bother trying to have too many decorative items around the house. Elmo is hiding...good thing I don't light the candle till after the kids go to bed.

Avalanche Season

Ready or not, it's avalanche season. A tad early this year, too. This avalanche happened at mile 21 last Wednesday (we live at mile 6 and the church is at mile 29)...so we weren't sure we were going to make it to MP for Bible study/music practice. But, they had it all cleaned up by 2 p.m., so no problems. It wasn't terribly big, we heard it was about 30 feet wide and 50 feet deep, or maybe the other way around!
We had heard they were going to shoot down two other avalanches, but we didn't see any sign of them.
(For those of you not familiar with MP, its in a valley that has a several avalanche chutes...yes, some people do actually build their homes in past problem areas, "But there hasn't been an avalanche here for 30 years..." kind of mentality). We do not posess that mentality, which really cut down on our options when looking for a house, part of how we ended up here!

Hangin' Out

Anna hanging out with my parents and Rebecca. If she wasn't hanging on to Dad's glasses, then she was trying to hold on to his ear!



























Rebecca gave Anna this "adorable" outfit for Christmas...suits her well!

Firefighters

Don't you love the new firefighter get-up? I'm not often one to get the kids things "just because." Gifts are saved for birthdays or Christmas...but this was one time I couldn't resist. With Jacob's unabated infatuation with firefighters and fire safety, the jackets and helmet were just too much to miss. They already have the fire hose backpacks (Christmas gifts from Aunt Kimmie), and this will save them dragging in their winter coats and hopefully their boots and mittens, too (so their hands and feet don't get burned, don't you know. Maybe they will overlook that part since they have "real" jackets now).
My excuse for them was Valentine's Day gifts...they've been well worth the investment so far!

Anna's Predicament

"I've scooted under my crib and I can't get back out!" (I promise you she got herself into this by herself. I am the boys' alibi)!

Boys lately

One of Andrew's favorite ways to help me is to feed Anna! She enjoys it, and he does a pretty neat job of it, too!












I was nursing Anna the other day while the boys were eating lunch, and I heard Jacob repeating in a sing-song voice "my dog sled, my dog sled..." I looked over to see what he was doing, and he was "driving" around his sandwich, which he had eaten into the shape of a dog sled. Whether he had purposely eaten it into a dog sled shape or happened to eat it that way and then observed what it looked like, I'll never know. We had just watched a movie, as part of our unit on the Arctic, that had dog sleds in in. Could go either way!









Jacob's been working on shapes and colors in preschool, not that he needs a whole lot of work on either. But he likes these new Pooh and friends cards he got for Christmas, so we've been using them. He was quite proud of himself for matching the correct pegs with the cards!














Andrew's use of the puzzle-road lately: sometimes they're a house, sometimes a boat, sometimes a dog-sled, sometimes a bed...you get the idea!

Nap Time

Jacob likes to take his naps up in Andrew's bunkbed, to which Andrew graciously concedes (I think in part because he can pretty much be assured that I won't make him lay down if Jacob is already in his bed)!
The other afternoon, I had one of those heart-stopping panic moments that only parents can have. I peered up over the edge of the bunkbed to wake him up, and he wasn't there! Then I saw him...he had pulled all the stuffed animals in the "cubby space" at the head of Andrew's bed, and had fallen asleep there!

Jacob's Hat...

...after he put it on Anna!

Spelling

For our spelling lesson the other day, Andrew was writing the words in chocolate pudding powder. I had just given him the word "dig" to spell. I look over to see what Jacob is doing in his tray of powder, and he is furiously raking it all over to one side. I asked him what he was doing..."Look, mom...I'm digging!" :)