Cold Days and Warm Rice

We've had a bunch of cold weather, and I'm ok with that, as long as we can stay inside and catch up on chores and homework.  

I have one of those warm rice bags from ages ago and I thought the kiddos would enjoy having one of their own, so on the 3rd day off from school, we got to work!

 The finished products

 filling the bags

 choosing and cutting the fabric

 Yoda using it to warm him them while coding

Mimi liked it so much she taught her girl scout troop how to make them! 

Mimi's jokes

During a discussion about college degrees, Mimi's teacher said, "oh, yeah I have degrees and degrees..."
Mimi, "well are they Fahrenheit or Celsius?"
Mimi's teacher *laughed big time*
Mimi's teacher then told this to the whole teacher's lounge and in the parent/teacher conference.

Reading

Reading doesn't come easily to our Yoda or Mimi.  It's a struggle and they work hard at it.  Because it's a struggle I love to see moments where they take time to read anything. This night we had to pick up Mimi from play practice (I'll post more about that soon) and Yoda decided on his own to bring a book along!  So sweet :)

One more Christmas photo

Mimi's comics

Having Mimi read me the comics is much funnier then reading them myself.  She's subtle, low-key and dry.


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The way she describes characters is hilarious and the reasons why things are funny to her are surprising to me.  I NEVER laugh at Beetle Bailey, but I did when she read it.  This is something like what she said, "Mom, did you read the army comic yet?  Someone is pulling all these pranks on the guy with the tooth.  Then they guy with no eyes gets so upset when he gets in trouble!"  


Also, this is my life...

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Emoji

Mimi, while sending an email to a teacher to thank them for help in something, "Ok, I'll send this-- wait, it needs a CAT emoji!"

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I saw our little, 4-yr-old neighbor and complimented her cute crocheted hat.  "My grandma sewed it with some fluff"

Passport for Parker

Parker is going with his high school to Europe in the Spring.  (He's filling out his application right now.)  He has a part-time job to pay for the trip.  He's been really busy getting ready! 

When I picked up his passport photos, Greg and I were agreed that his photo looked like something we had seen before...

Ah, yes, he looks like Jason Bourne...

Merry Christmas!

Lots going on this month... it's nice to be busy with nice things.

 First we visited a very special Santa :) 

The kiddos sang at the ward Christmas Party-- Yoda is doing a little boogie-pose off to the right, he's in a blue shirt. 

Mimi is in the middle, wearing pink.  She was super serious, but we were able to get this little smile our of her.

Yoda is in the back row, just under the flag.  This was a school choir concert.
Parker also had a school orchestra concert that same night, Greg attended so I don't yet photos or video from it...

We also visited Nana's good friend's house for cookie decorating and model-train inspiration.

Mimi was in her first play- Scrooge.  She was the pudding vendor and the tallest in the cast.
Here's a brief video, it's toward the end of the play.

There is a lot of work to do on the train track.  Every Christmas I think, "this year I'm going to make this happen!"  Fingers crossed! 

Fight walk

On Sundays when the weather is good, we make the kiddos go on a walk around the block.  Every single time they fight us on this... so now we call it the "fight walk"

On this Sunday Fight Walk, Yoda wasn't having it, so he jumped on Mimi's back. 

Words...

Mimi, "I don't like grammar, expecially since 'funner' isn't a word!"
Me, "Did you just say expecially!?  That's not a word either"
Mimi, "hee hee"

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Cooking show person, "I used caramel flavoring..."
Yoda, "ewww"
Parker, "why don't you like that?"
Yoda, "I don't like caramel"
Parker, "it's like carmel ..."
Yoda, "oh, I like that"

Hour of Code

Check out this dance that Mimi coded up. Click on "how it works" to see her code.

Bio Art

A few weeks ago we went to a Girl Scout outing where they taught us about bacteria.  Then they gave us Petri dishes and we sort of brushed the bacteria to create a picture. 

Mimi did BB8 and I did Starry Night

 The day of, it looked like almost nothing. 

A few days later the bacteria grew and created these...