February 17-23

 Story-time with Daddy. We read a book before bed each night and Luca has figured out the advantage of finding the books with a lot of text. This has resulted in my reorganization of the bookshelves.

 I can't remember what they were watching but the matching fingers to lips cracked me up.

I received these tulips on my birthday and forgot to water them...for several days. But didn't they wilt gracefully? I was tempted to leave them but I didn't they cheered up within a few hours.

 

We bought this light-up, noise making toy on our drive home from Colorado last spring...it was a mistake.

 Joe and Luca were playing with our new jigsaw one night and came upstairs with name boards so we turned Art Day with Noah and Anna into a painting extravaganza. Court painted a scrap but was inordinately proud.

Snowman!

Saturday = Movie Day. Playing this week: Peter Pan

The "Blizzard"

I will admit to being skeptical of 90% of weather forecasts (except for when we lived in Phoenix, those were quite accurate, even the forecasts by yours truly) but on Wednesday night when the meteorological world was giddy with the excitement of blizzard warnings I gathered the snow gear, purchased firewood and Joe transferred his work gear from the Accord to the Yukon. Then came "The Blizzard" which looked suspiciously similar to a "snow" and not nearly as impressive as was predicted. But, I had made blizzard plans so the kids and I still got out the sled and traipsed around for a bit with Noah. Then we had a picnic supper in the living room in front of the fire, made s'mores and read lots of books while drinking hot cocoa. Blizzard or not, it was cozy.

Happily, while this storm may not have lived up to expectations, it redeemed itself by being the first snow this year that was snowman-able. Luca was SO happy.

 Luca: "Look Mommy, that looks like people singing in rows. All the little balls are their heads and some are in front and some are behind. They're singin' a concert!"

Wheeeeeeeee!!!

Little Artists

A small sample of Luca's artwork this year (and yes, this is small comparatively).

After an afternoon at Zach and Sarie's, Luca drew a picture of "Sarie with a bow in her hair watching me and Court climb the stairs and Isaiah is helping Isla at the bottom". And that "49em" at the top must be in reference to the "49-ers" as this picture was drawn during play-off season and they're Daddy's favorite team. It's amazing how much kids pick up!

 

I love this patchwork that she called "squares and lines and lots of colors".

     
Luca "Riding a Dragon (and there's a ladder so that she can climb on).

"A picture of Mommy singing". Awwww....

A new art style has emerged in the last few weeks; scribbling, but with intention..I find it impressive. This is Aurora, her stuffed rabbit.

This drawing appeared shortly after our Huskers lost (sigh) their Bowl game. It is "Mommy, Luca and Court sitting in the rows at the Husker field".

New facial expressions...

Letters: She asked me to spell "mountain", "princess", "dinosaur" and "beautiful", we need to work on the left-to-right concept (note "Luca" and "mountain" in mirror image) but she's got most of the alphabet down!

I have completely neglected to teach Luca to write numbers. She recognizes them, can do simple addition and count but I didn't know that she could write them until I found this.

And of course, coloring within the lines. She's very good at writing each of our names. I find it curious that she prefers a capital A in her name over a lower-case one.

And now, not to leave out Court:

He has moved on from crazy scribbling to more compact scribbling and polka dots (our marker tips are looking a little stubby).

And this, I have to admit I am really impressed by, I mean, he's only 22 months old! And he's a boy! And yet, he's beginning to color within the lines, notice the hooves, manes and heads.

Coloring is still the #1 activity in our house and, as long as I strap Court into his seat so that he can at the worst color the table and his chair, it is so very simple. A pad of paper and a pack of markers = hours of quiet fun.

February 10-16

Court Robert playing Ring-Around-the-Rosy at church. Can't keep his tails tucked in!

 

Showing off a knitted gift from a friend at church. 

 

Peter Pan! Mom and Dan got tickets for Luca and Isaiah (and us Mommies too) and although we missed Papa Du (influenza, yuck!) we had an amazing night. Did I remember to take a picture? No, of course, I forgot my camera. Luca was enthralled, sat at the edge of her seat and giggled and asked questions throughout. Her favorite part was "when Peter Pan taught them how to fly" and after curtain call she had two questions: "Can we watch this again someday?" and "Can we buy this show to have at home?". I myself was in awe of Cathy Rigby. Sixty years old and wow, can she dance and sing and fly and, and, and. Bravo!

 

Court has figured out how to put on his own hat. Apparently he prefers gangsta to preppy.

 Playdate with friends! Luca was in heaven with "big" kids to play with all day and it was beneficial for me as well, I basically had babysitters! A playdough extravaganza took up most of Court's nap time. Poor Court, he missed it, but until he stops eating playdough...

On Friday night Grandma, Yia-Yia, Luca and I went to the community playhouse to see Pinkalicious the Musical (this time I remembered pictures!). Pinkalicious is one of Luca's favorite books and it was fun to see it brought to life. Our little girl had quite a week of culture!

 Saturday at Grandma's house! Sewing, coloring, reading and some shopping. A great way to end a busy, fun week.

February 4-9

I'm a little late in putting up last week's pictures but in my defense, the camera was last seen several days ago dangling from a certain little boy's wrist and by the time supper was at a hands-off point, the camera had vanished. I was unable to discover it's very impressive hiding place, although Luca did at some point. This morning I asked her if she had seen the camera anywhere and her answer was "oh yeah, I found it and put it away." and sure enough, she had.

Grandma Cindy made this dress for Aunt Whitney when she was a little girl. Luca is having her turn modeling it. 

I never tire of "Little Boy Reading" photos.

This arrangement was essential to the game of the day, unfortunately it's foundations were built on the laptop, which I needed. We managed....but barely.

Silly Face #1

Silly Face #2

I was short on pictures for the week so I decided to do a flashback. In retrospect, I should have anticipated Court's tendency for destructive curiosity. It seems that this boy is in favor of the take-it-apart-dump-it-out-messy-as-humanly-possible type of learning. Wheeeee!!!!!