Winter Zooland

Last weekend I took the kids to the zoo despite the frigid temperatures (I think it was 15 degrees out), which means we are true Wisconsinites, Northern Bloods, or Crazy People (whichever term is more appropriate)  Only Leah mentioned when walking from the fish and reptile house to the giraffe house that her face was cold, but that is because they were feeding the seals as we passed by so we had to stop and watch outside for a bit (the polar bear next door was doing the same).  The zoo is one of our favorite places and it had been a while since we had been there, and since we had a nice long three day weekend we couldn't resist.  It really is best to go during the winter because no one is there except for the die hard families like us looking to get their kids out of the house.  This weekend however we have enough snow on the ground to go sledding, so that's what we are planning to do this morning after Joseph and Jay get back from Karate.  Joseph is a white belt and earned his first stripe for teamwork this week.  He's putting on his best Ninja Warrier face for the photo, but at class he is a bit more reserved.  I brought the girls with to his first class and they enjoyed it.  They each packed up their puppy purse with my little ponies and strawberry shortcakes with a couple of books and sat on the bench playing for the first half, and then for the second half they stood up and started trying out some of the chops and kicks.  And of course every weekend is a dress up weekend so Hannah is walking around as a Gorilla Witch and Leah is the usual Alice (notice Alice lying on the ground in Hannah's picture).  Earlier in the week Leah thought it was bright enough in the house to wear her shades and more than once she and Hannah have been arguing over who gets to wear the yellow sunglasses with the orange lenses (you can see from the photo that Leah lost that battle as she's in blue).  Everyone has been into Art lately, drawing, painting, playing with glitter glue and stickers and it's starting to be more than a 15 minute activity which is nice.  And we've been taking all three kids to swim every few weeks, which has turned out to be one of the most challenging tasks.  Partly because it's winter and you have to get everyone warm and dried before we head back out into the cold and that takes a while, but also because no one wants to get out of the pool or out of the warm shower.  So we have concluded this is more of a two parent task!  We have had lots of fun this winter with sledding, ice skating, hockey, and all of the other activities but we are looking forward to spring and summer and more time outside with chalk and scooters and sprinklers!

100 Day Celebration

Joseph's kindergarten class celebrated their 100th day of the school year this past week, by dressing up as 100 year olds and making a friendship snack mix (this was followed by friendship soup on valentine's day, where everyone brought their favorite vegetable to add to the crock pot of soup.  There were a lot of bags of chopped carrots!)  Joseph wanted to spray his hair grey but alas, I did not have that on hand....so instead he wore a hat and we used face paint to draw a beard and mustache.  Jay took his picture using his phone and then showed it to him, and Joseph responded with "what about the lines?"  It didn't take us too long to figure out he was referring to wrinkles (I'm just glad he didn't say, you know mom, like the lines that you and dad have around your eyes) so we added those by his eyes after we took this picture.  We also had a conference with his teacher this week and it was a really good meeting.  I now know that drawing letters and numbers backwards is normal, that Joseph is behaving in class but he is sometimes a little spacey (he hears and can repeat back the instruction but isn't fast to move into action), and that he is doing great with reading and math.  Joseph has always loved books, but preferred being read to and wasn't much interested in reading for himself.  But the past month or so he's been reading to us more and is getting good at Level 1 books and trying to sound out new words.  I however have realized that the English language is very difficult to teach, and that I myself stink at phonics or pronunciation, whatever the word is that describes long E vs short e.  Fortunately Jay remembers this.  Joseph is done with hockey lessons for the season and has waited patiently to now try out karate.  He went to his first introduction session today and has been showing off his beginner moves. He'll probably write KARATE on his calendar in a few places, as he keeps track of everything on his Angry Birds calendar that hangs in his room.  It's  a 1 mos view per page so he hasn't counted the days to his 6th birthday yet but he has flipped the pages to show that it is getting closer. :)

Big Daddy

Jay and our friends Nick, Jen, John, and Tiana all did the annual polar plunge again with our buddy Doug to raise money for the special olympics yesterday and can you guess what the theme was?  The girls had their photo snapped with the famous Elvis while he was prepping for the event the night before.  I think you will see the sunglasses again as we get into the summer....they are quite stylish.

Typical Weekend Scene

Someone in costume, just washed hair, hanging out in the girls room, and striking poses....all typical for us on a weekend.