Snow Days

 Ok, there's not really snow here, but we've had a lot of fun pretending.

 

Watching the "snow" fall

 Not everybody loved it. (she might get that from me)

But she loved the snow globe.

 

 

Snow angels.

Snow storm

Visiting the North Pole

 Meeting the locals.

 December 17 was national hot cocoa day.

 So we celebrated with a hot cocoa party

and ice skating.

And last, but not least, homemade snow globes.

Tanner's

and Aravis's

My kind of snow.

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas......

A Little Late Night Science Again

The thing about interest led learning is that you never know when and where an interest is going to strike. Last night at about 10:00 several interesting things were happening at our home. Dominick saw something on tv about quicksand which sparked a desire to know more. So he got on youtube, his go-to source for learning almost everything, and spent the evening learning all he could about quicksand. While he was researching, he learned ways to replicate it. One way was with cornstarch and water and since we happened to have cornstarch and water, we quickly had a little cup of quicksand to play with.

 If you touched it on top it felt dry and solid

 But, if you slowly put your fingers in, it became wet and soupy.

       

Xury wanted a turn.

That little bit was fun but they're pretty sure it would be more fun if they bought lots of cornstarch and made a big batch that they can walk in. So, on the grocery list for this week is lots of cornstarch.

While Dominick was learning about quicksand, Aravis was learning about the eye. We were talking about pupils dilating and watching our own pupils get bigger and smaller in different lighting. I remembered that I had a book with a really cool magnified picture of an iris and pupil, so we got that and another body part book out and studied eyes for awhile.

Big eye.

 And while she wasn't playing with quicksand or looking at diagrams of eyes, she was in her tent reading.

So what was Tanner doing all this time?  We've been watching Extreme Homes on HGTV  which inspired her to design her own Lego extreme home.

Extreme Lego treehouse. 

I, for one, would totally live there.

I love sharing in my kids' learning but I love that it's theirs and theirs alone and that I'm just along for the ride.

Christmas, Sneakers, Doll Pampering and Vampires

 It's gray and chilly, there's Christmas music playing and we've got the Christmas decorations out to start decorating the house for Christmas. It feels like a perfect day. We've been taking it easy after a whirlwind weekend. There was the usual weekend busyness and then, on top of that, each of the kids had a special event all crammed into 3 fun, but very busy days. It was exhausting, but worth it.

It started with a fun trip to the Children's museum on Friday night.

 The special exhibit was The Wizard of Oz

 Xury loves it now that she's big enough to run around with all the other kids.

 Da-da da-da da-da da. Da-da da-da da-da da.

 While Dominick and Aravis did crafts, Xury and I hung out with the teddy bears.

On Saturday, Dominick and Aravis both had soccer games at the same time. Luckily the fields were next to each other so we could stand in the middle and mostly watch them both. After soccer, I did some laundry and house cleaning, while Aravis played with friends and Dominick went to a Dunk Exchange, a huge event to buy, sell and swap sneakers. He's recently developed a shoe obsession. My initial reaction was negative. I don't see the point in spending ridiculous amounts of money on shoes and bags and designer labels, especially not the latest in basketball footwear but I tried not to pass judgement on something that was clearly important to him. I was, however, honest when he asked my opinion about a particular pair or price. No, I would not spend MY money on those but if he thought it was a good idea and if he thought it was a good deal, then it was up to him. My plan was to ride it out, thinking it would die a natural death eventually, and glad to know he would be learning something along the way. Little did I know, how much.  

Apparently there's a whole, huge world of sneaker collecting and trading I knew nothing about. Some sneakers go up in value after you've paid (the unbelievably, ridiculously high) price at the store. Some shoes from years ago are still in circulation because they've been kept in such great condition. He's learned the names and styles and editions of countless pairs of basketball shoes. He's spent hours on the computer looking at pictures of sneakers. The pay off? Well, beside the knowledge itself, he's developing a good head for business. He bought a pair of sneakers from our neighbor for $35. On Saturday, he traded those shoes for another pair that he liked that were in really good condition. Today, he sold that pair for $150 on Ebay. Not bad! Of course, he's already planning which shoes he'll buy with the $150. Maybe he'll get tired of shoes. Maybe it will turn into a good way to make some money. Maybe he'll amass a huge sneaker collection. Maybe he'll grow up to design shoes. Who knows. I'm just glad I didn't stifle an interest because I didn't think that it was very worthwhile.

In the evening, we popped some popcorn, packed up the car and headed to the drive-in to see Wreck It Ralph and Breaking Dawn Part 2 because that's just the stage of life we're in right now. Tanner read the books when she was younger and has seen the other movies so she really wanted to see this when it came out. I'll admit, I even enjoyed this one a little.

 Xury wanted to sit up in the back of the van with the big girls.

Then on Sunday, after church, it was Aravis's turn for something special. I've always wanted to take my girls to an American Girl Place but never had the opportunity. Recently, one just opened not too far from where we live. I saw on their calendar that they were having some fun events on Sunday so we decided that was a good time to go. (Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite for thinking that overpriced basketball shoes are ridiculous but that overpriced dolls are not) Tanner still has her doll from childhood and while she never got to experience American Girl Place while she was young enough to appreciate it, she still had a lot of fun going.

 She got her doll's hair done and ears pierced at the doll salon. We paid for the hair, she paid for the ears.(I know, hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite!)

 They had a historical doll scavenger hunt and she did this fun embroidery craft.

 She's looked through the catalog a million times and thought how fun it would be to get to do this. I'm so glad we finally had the chance.

 It was a great afternoon with my girls.

Now, the house is quiet because Greg took the big kids mountain biking. The Christmas music is still playing, the sun's gone down and a strand of Christmas lights are sparkling in the darkness and I'm holding a peacefully sleeping baby in my arms. It has been a pretty perfect day.

A Week Outdoors

I'm an outdoor kind of girl. I love to be outside. Studies have shown that time in nature is beneficial to learning, attention and focus. I think its even more important to the soul. After several weeks of being trapped inside while we passed the flu from person to person, we needed time out of the house. The weather has been beautiful, sunny, in the 70s with a breeze, so we decided to spend the whole week outside. We spent our days going to parks, the beach, an outdoor event, and Tanner and I did some outdoor shopping on South Beach. It was definitely what we needed.  We took walks in the woods, explored, watched water, fed fish and turtles, found jellyfish and an assortment of different crabs, one the size of my fingernail. We played on playgrounds, played soccer, catch and tennis.

Here's how we spent our week.....

playing in the ocean

skim boarding, the surf was perfect!

playing in the sand

napping

  climbing

playing soccer

 and peek-a-boo

 chasing birds

and butterflies

 

   finding treasure

 

climbing trees

 

 swinging

 

uni-cycling

walking in the woods

  And we found an old fort, she helped build over a month ago, still intact.

We attended a Japanese cultural festival at the History Museum. Dominick loves origami so when I heard they would have origami, I imagined a Japanese origami master who could teach him something amazing and complex that he didn't already know. It turned out to be history museum volunteers, who knew one craft, and not very well. Disappointed, he started using the paper to make his own, which of course, everyone else wanted to know how to do, including the volunteers.

So, Dominick ended up teaching origami for 3 hours.

The volunteers came and went, but Dominick stayed. 

Aravis got to dress up in a kimono.

And we waited in line for at least an hour for this candy sculpture called Amezaiku.

It was amazing to watch her turn the warm, stretchy candy into beautifully crafted animals before the candy cooled.

Aravis picked a hamster and decided it was well worth the wait.

 By far, the most magical part of our week was this.

This picture is awful and doesn't even come close to capturing it, but I included it anyway. We were walking through the woods and came across a little hidden tree, covered in Zebra Longwing butterflies. Some were fluttering around and others were sitting on the tree. We stood quiet and still and watched as they flew all around us. There was something very special and sacred about the whole thing. They were not fluttering around our backyard, we were passing through theirs. It was truly amazing and something I'll never forget.