Pinewood Derby

This past Saturday was Carter's Pinewood Derby with Scouts.  The car was a collaboration between Daddy and Carter.

We all went out to see the races.  Carter's car typically came in 3rd or 4th place.  They had eight races, each car ran in each lane twice.  He even came in second once!

Although he may not have had the speediest car, but he did win a medal for the "I did my best award!"  He was very proud of himself.

I forgot to take a picture of Carter's car before it was impounded.  His car is the red car with yellow flames on the bottom right.

Next year we are learning all the secrets from cousin Ryan, but we are proud of you Carter!!

Snow Day!

Today was our fourth snow day, and we made sure to do it up big!

Big Fashion!

Story:  I had to put the shovel back into the garage and then I went back into the backyard.  I saw Carter and Dawson sledding on the hill but I couldn't find Ava.  Then from around the deck I saw Shadow's tail and I realized, I bet Ava is right there!  Sure enough I rounded the deck and she was loving on the dog.  All the kids have been wonderful at helping Shadow in and out to go to the restroom, but Ava girl loves to play with her and snuggle her so much.  It is adorable to watch.

Carter loves to sled.  And he loves snow days.  It is the best to tell kids in the morning, "Guess what, no school today!"

Snow Funny!

Today Dawson went to his four year check up.  It is crazy, he grew three inches this year!  But he is actually pretty short for his age, 38%!

Dawson has a patented talking out of the side of his mouth voice that makes me laugh.  Usually he uses it when he is telling a "weird" story, but I noticed when he is feeling shy he will do it too.  Today at the doctor's office for the first two minutes he only spoke out of the side of his mouth.  I was worried the doctor was going to think he needed to get his speech evaluated, but eventually he came around!!

Mr. Popper's Penguins Dinner Book Club

This month we read Mr. Popper's Penguins by Florence and Richard Atwood.  It's been awhile since we've had our last book club, in December we read Little House on the Prairie.  But life got busy and crazy with Christmas, so we never had an official book club.  Now we are back in the saddle this month!

I had planned a craft to make penguins out of toilet paper tubes, but they wanted nothing to do with it.  So with Daddy's help they made three lego penguins.  Ava assembled a theater and Dawson brought a cop car (Mr. Popper ends up in jail at the end of the book.)

We also had ice sculptures (ice frozen in various size cups) for decoration.  We ate white bean soup (the Popper's were really poor and subsisted on beans) with sandwiches and vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup for desert (I don't know, penguin colors!)

Carter with his penguins

Very creative, huh?

My favorite question we discussed was naming your 10 penguins based on characters from your favorite books.  It was interesting to hear what characters they chose.  Dawson couldn't pick characters so his penguins had names like: excavator, John Deere and dump truck.  Ava liked Madeline, Little House in the Big Woods and the Boxcar Children.  Carter picked Scooby Doo and then said he didn't like fiction, only non-fiction.  So the rest of his picks were names like Everest, Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay.

Flick and Float

Flick and Float!

While I was not impressed with the movie (The Boxtrolls) we had a ball playing and swimming in the pool.

What a Dawson face!

Mike and I were throwing Dawson in the pool.  At one point Dawson offered Mike money to throw him another time.  He agreed and when Dawson got home, he ran upstairs and brought Mike two cents.  He's a man of his word!

Carter had fun playing with his friend

Ava was glued to the movie.  We had to leave early to get dinner ready, but Ava made me promise to let her watch the ending.

What a nice way to burn some energy on these cold days!  

Heard and Written around the House

Ava: Mom, did you put pistachios on my sandwich?
Me:  Um, no.
Ava:  speaking of pistachios, can I have some?


Dawson:  Mom I only need four more heads until I'm a grown-up!  
(I think he meant he needs to grow taller!)

Carter left a list:

Carters Cmplants (I'm pretty sure he meant complaints)
Dawson is bugging me

I love laughing at the funny things that come out of their mouths!

Winter Cabin Fever

Wow.  This is what the toy room looked like after one morning of my three playing together.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but over at the couch they turned it into a doggie shelter.  I had to buy "dogs" all morning long.

But they were the cutest dogs I've ever seen!  

(Ava is wearing Shadow's coat.  And yes, Shadow wears a coat because she shivers when it is really cold outside, poor pup.)

It's funny because in Cincinnati one inch of snow covered roads would mean school would be cancelled.  Look at the road behind Dawson, you can barely see it!  But school was right on time and everyone got to school safely.  Then Dawson and I shoveled snow while Shadow cowered in the garage until we cleaned some of the driveway off.

Shopping with my very favorite little man, he he!!

Weekend Activities

 Well, we started the morning off at the water park and ended it by 

Snowboarding.  Kinda weird, but lots of fun.  No pictures of Ava or Doc because they made brief appearances before disappearing inside for hot cocoa. 

While Carter boy was outside for the longest time sledding, snowboarding and building a snowman with me!

We also went to a Jackson Basketball Game with Boy Scouts.  I brought Ava with me as well, and she really got into it.  Carter was pretty exhausted and spent most of the time staring blankly into space.  But Ava was watching closely the score board and cheerleaders.  

She also put together a stylish polar bears outfit with her polar bear sweatshirt, polar bear hair bow, and a purple glitter scarf.  Girls got to look her best!

Wonderful weekend and its not over yet!  Thankfully we had some time to rest today and tomorrow will also be pretty low key.