Snow days

We've had snow this winter in Tennessee. Not much by Northern standards, but plenty by the Southern way of thinking. I think the kids have missed 5 actual days of school due to snow, but we've been housebound for quite a few more days. We also discovered we have no appropriate snow shoes. Thank goodness this doesn't last for months!

Here the kids are measuring the snow on our deck (in their pajamas).

"Momma, can we go outside now?!?

If it snows, no matter how deep, we must make snow angels!!!

This precious boy just threw a snowball at me. I couldn't take a picture of the one I threw back at him. :)

More snow angels.

I can't keep her from eating the snow...

...no matter how hard I try.

Rosy snow cheeks.

On day 2 we did some face painting. I let the kids pick out a design for their faces.

Eli chose a pirate.

Adrienne chose a leopard. Grrrrowl.

On day 3 we did crafts. Adrienne designed this butterfly mobile to use as a "cat toy" when she's pretending to be a cat.

Eli designed this pirate chest & made it out of shipping boxes & paper bags.

Notice the detail work.

If you happen to open the chest & look at the skull you will be cursed. You've been warned!

The Discovery Center

In the past two months we have been to the Discovery Center quite a few times. Every time the kids make something that they want me to take a picture of. So...here are a few of their latest & greatest.


For Dia de Los Reys (The day of the kings) we went to celebrate the wise men's arrival to see Jesus. The kids got to make crowns & have some of the "baby cake". The cake has a baby Jesus in it & if you find it it's good luck among other things. Sadly, no baby Jesus in the cake for us this year.


Eli & his very symmetrical crown.



Adrienne loves playing at the farm area of the water feature with any small animals she can find.


Adrienne & her very tall tower!


A shot of the inside.


The finished tower. She couldn't reach any higher.


Eli & his pirate ship. Remember the kid on Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium? This might not be Abe Lincoln out of Lincoln logs but I was pretty impressed.


Another side view.


The rear view of the ship & the Captain's quarters. Walk the plank matey!


The kids also got to design a quilt square, depicting what they could do to make the world a better place, for a quilt that is hanging up in the Discovery center.
Eli chose recycling as his platform.


"I will recycle!"


Adrienne of course, went with animal preservation as her platform.


"Be nice to animals."


Getting a little exercise.


Eli building another creation. This time it was a castle/fort.


Top view.

Front & interior view.

My kids love to come here & I'm glad they have so many community days that are free. Yea for holidays!!

Petting zoo at...Church?

What's a visit to church with stopping off at the petting zoo? As part of the New Year's series at church they brought in animals that might be found in Israel. They kindly even provided hand sanitizer. For the adults, there was also an iron forger, a weaver & a man creating clay pots on a potter's wheel. This last week we got to sample dates & figs. Yum!




Adrienne, of course, does not care where the animals are from or why they are there, but just wanted to pet them all.

Notice the little jumper Adrienne is wearing. She picked out the pink kitty fabric for me to sew her a dress & helped me lay out the fabric. It's reversible & has an "A" embroidered on it, but we made sure it wasn't scarlet.

A few random days in January

Here are a few other things we did in January.

Adrienne playing balloon games at Jill's birthday party. She won a prize for keeping the balloon up in the air the longest. Way to go girl!

Ahhh, yummy cafeteria food. Adrienne and I always have lunch with Eli on Mondays and this particular Monday Tony was able to come and meet us. Eli was thrilled.

We recently read the book Snowflake Bentley about a man who spent his life photographing snowflakes. The kids wanted to see if we could capture a snowflake on film so there you are. Here are some others if you want to see the professional version.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos3/photos3.htm

Believe it or not I actually had a few tokens left from our visit to CEC in California so I decided to take the kids one morning so Tony could get some sleep. Crazy fun.

Does anyone know what this is? I think it's an elephant or a vacuum cleaner but it has to be one of the strangest kids rides.

What's a visit to CEC without a hug from the main mouse himself?

Eli's Baskeball Game

Eli was on the honor roll for school & received a free ticket to a MTSU basketball game. The rest of the family was able to go too, at a discounted rate. Even though it was after church that night, we went & had a good time & saw several people we knew. As a bonus MTSU even won !

My smiley guy.

Eli decided to take some photos of the family enjoying the game.

Then of course Adrienne wanted to take pictures too.

Adrienne's photo of Eli.

The Discovery Center

My monkeys up in the tree.

Showing off their climbing ability!

The world of the tiny object is so fascinating. Adrienne could have stayed here the whole time.

A nod to Uncle Dusty. Just imagine it says Ford instead of Nissan. :P

She really had fun replacing the muffler, changing the oil, trading out the license plates & rotating the tires. We may have a future mechanic on our hands.

This was one of Eli's favorites of the day. Using levers the kids can make the bowling ball travel up & down the course. They would try & see how fast they could make it through. It required teamwork & it was neat to see them figure out how they could best work together to make it happen.

Transportation galore : cars, trucks & trains

Bringing coal from the mines to the train.