Building a snowman

Sunday we had a beautiful day here, we got 4-6 inches of snow Saturday to Sunday. And Sunday afternoon it made it to 40 degrees! Which is really warm for us as of late. This morning it was -12 and the water in our garage was frozen. Anyway, we took advantage of the warm weather and had some fun outside. It was perfect snow for building with.

Here's a picture of the back deck Sunday morning

And out our front window

The snowman in process. Damen (in red) has been wanting to build a snowman for awhile, we just didn't have good snow for it. He was VERY excited to be able to help with it on Sunday. 

Taking a little break while waiting for a carrot for the nose. The snow was plenty deep enough to throw the kids into. They loved it!

Kaleb being thrown into the snow

Hannah, after being thrown into the snow

Evie being thrown

Not a bad looking snowman, you can't really see the arms, but it does have them....

 After building the snowman the kids attempted to swing. As you can see in the picture, the glider wasn't really useable due to the dept of the snow. There was only a couple inches clearance below the swings.

Here's some perspective on how deep the snow is, nothing like Boston, but not bad. :-)

We did some sledding

Here's where I just fell back into the snow. It was fun to just free fall into it!

Damen falling back into the snow

Evie working on a snowball

Here she's sitting on two giant snowballs!

Nathan had made a wall for a snowball fight with Hannah, he left to help a boy so Hannah took over it :-)

All smiles!

Hannah and Evie with the snowman

 We have a small retaining wall type thing that's a couple feet high outside our front door, after everyone else went in Evie and I were having fun falling off of that into the snow. As you can see here, if you just free fell into the snow you could get buried pretty good! 

Evie didn't have quite the same level of trust in the snow as I had, as you can see her head is up :-)

Doing a belly flop!

celebrating the little things

We've been working on celebrating the little things more in our house. For instance since November whenever the kids notice the clock on the hour it's a party for a minute. It's pretty amusing. It's been great for the boys though because they ask what time it is all the time and are learning their double digit numbers because of it :-) Anyway, today we celebrated the fact that Hannah and Evie have finished their math book. Tomorrow we will start third grade math. They did five pages in their books today because they wanted to finish. They decided they wanted ice cream cones to celebrate, so they were motivated to get them.

Evie enjoying her cone

And Hannah super excited about hers :-)

zipping

Evie finally attempted the zip line two weeks ago (see how behind I am?!) and loved it. Here are some videos of the kids enjoying the zip line!

 Here's Kaleb enjoying the zip line

Hannah went on it three times (the alloted amount) every time we went. She loved zipping!

Damen as you can see would just hang out off the stand until they'd let him go he was so comfortable. 

And Evie, after we finally got her to go went as much as she could!

appointments

Today Hannah had an eye doctor appointment bright and early (8:30 am) so we all got out of the house by 8 am! At the appointment she sees the pre-doctor person who goes over some of the stuff with her and asks the question is she having trouble reading? No. Seeing the board....no real answer there. But when the doctor asked the same question she said Yes. I look at her funny and said "You don't have a board, you're home schooled!" She is such a smart kid, she figured out what they were trying to ask with the question and answers it with the correct answer for her problem. The doctor cracked jokes the entire time and Hannah only gave him a half smile the entire time. In the car on the way home she asked "Why did the doctor ask about me driving at night?" I said "he was trying to make a joke" "Oh, I only laugh if jokes are really funny" hopefully she'll keep high standards like that for dating! :-) And yes, Hannah does need glasses.
After the eye doctor appointment we came home, did very little school, the boys had library time and then Evie had two cavities filled and a sealant done. It was a busy day. 

Recovering

My sore throat is finally starting to go away and I'm starting to feel much better over all.....except for my infected finger from doing a through cleaning on our pellet stove on Saturday. I took Kaleb in for his follow up for his ear infection, and the doctor asked if anyone had any questions at the end. I asked about my finger, he gave me antibiotics if it gets worse, but try epsom salt four times a day first. That and I also found out I feed my kids too much fiber, well raw fruits and veggies. Damen was having issues with his bottom and has complained off and on for awhile, so I figured I'd take him to the doctor for it. He said I should give my kids juice to help soften the stool because it has too much bulk in it. But he didn't want to cut any of it out. Gotta love when you're told you give your kids too much veggies and fruit! :-)

material failure

Last week the girls had dentist appointments. Evie had a cavity and needs sealant on her new six year molar. Hannah.....well Hannah managed to break the band on her permanent retainer. The dentist was very surprised at the failure, I don't think he had seen it before. Not only the the band broken split right through, but it was bent as well. Poor girl didn't complain at all. I asked her if it was hurting after they had taken it out and she said yeah, for about a week, but she didn't want to say anything. Today we had a follow up with the orthodontist. He said it was a material failure. Nothing we could have prevented, which is good because we don't need to pay for the new retainer. But it does mean going through the whole fitting process again. This week it was the spacers, next week it's the mold, the following week it's the fitting of the new retainer.

Twins

My friend had a conversation with her daughter about twins, discussing a specific set they knew. At the end she asked her if she knew any other twins. She said "Yes! Hannah and Evie!"
I was totally going to insert a picture of the girls in the same outfit, since you know they wear matching outfits twice a week (ie whenever they go to things like Library programs and AWANA) but apparently my lacking of picture taking as of late has resulted in no such pictures. I will need to work on that! 

Healthy? What's that?

The current household status is Hannah is recovering from a good cold with some nice post nasal drip that gives you a killer soar throat. How would I know this you ask? Oh yeah, because I have it now. Kaleb has a double ear infection.....at least I think he does, we went to the doctor for his right ear, he got on antibiotics and now his left ear is producing lovely gunk out of it (with tubes you get nice discharge when there is an infection). Maybe after this round we'll stay healthy for more than a week.....maybe.