February 2015

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There are two things we had a LOT of this February:  Cold and Snow (and days at home!)

From Teacher Workdays to Monday Holidays, weekends, cold days, snow days, and ice days, and sick days……we were home a LOT this month! 

We made the most of our time at home, while watching the snow fall!  We made a box village in our basement with Kristy and our friends on teacher workday.   We painted.  We made Valentine gifts (birdseed ornaments) for our bird friends.    We also made lots of art on our own!  We love to cut, paint, draw, glue and make creations! 

We worked on Valentines for school, family, and friends. We enjoyed putting all those heart shaped crayons in our Valentine’s and exchanging them at school. 

And we enjoyed lots of Valentine’s-themed treats, from heart pancakes and waffles to heart shaped carrots and strawberries, heart-shaped framed eggs, pink oatmeal and pink (strawberry) milk.

We cooked with Mommy a lot too!  We made Jell-O Jigglers, pudding, Valentine’s apple rose tarts, and filled pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, which just happened to be a snow day also (Mommy FINALLY broke out her Ebelskiver pan from MANY years ago, for the first time!!). Oh, and don’t forget the “Snow Cream!”

We played games, built with Legos,  played some favorite make-believe games, like prince/princess/castle/fortress,and Hide and Seek; and had dance parties before bed almost every night (a completely strategic energy-burner!).  

OH – and we did go outside, too!  We sledded, rolled in the snow, made snow angels, helped clear the driveway, made a snowman on the ground, when the snow wouldn’t pack, and made a great 3D snowman when the snow did pack. 

We had some fun outings when we could get out!  On a “cold day”, we went to a mom and tot skate at an arena in Maryland, and were SO proud to find ourselves skating across the ice confidently, on our first outing (holding the little walker supports).     We had lots of fun running pancake races at church, at the Pancake Brunch before Ash Wednesday.  Running and flipping is really tough, but 50% of our team still got an award for being the “cutest runner”, and was kind enough to share her medal and trophy with her brother.   And we got back to swim class and were thrilled to have our (Katharine’s) favorite teacher.  We had a ball, and really stretched our willingness to be so brave.

Our favorite February happening were the weeks that our classroom friend, “George,” the monkey, came to stay at our house.  Katharine got to host George for a week, and then it was Christopher’s turn.  You will see that George did just about everything with us!  We took lots of pictures, which were then pasted into George’s journal, in which we narrated his story to share with our class.  George even went to Christopher’s haircut, and rode the Metro with us, on our visit to the Native American Museum in DC! 

So, as much as we missed our friends at school, we have been a little bit gleeful about staying up, sleeping in, watching an extra show or two, and having time to pick what we’d like to do next.  But warmer weather, and the time change are on their way (soon, fingers crossed!), to get us back into a regular routine.

We hope February was kind to you too, and that you enjoy some of our favorite photos from this month. 

Dreaming of Spring!

Love,

Christopher and Katharine

Happy 2015!

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Happy 2015!

We kicked off the New Year by enjoying some family time together at home – Long Winter Vacations are a wonderful thing!  On New Year’s Day, we saw the National Christmas Tree and train display, near the White House.  Then we visited Union Station for lunch, and walked over to see the Capitol Tree, and the train and holiday displays at the Botanic Gardens!   We had such fun exploring in DC! 

We also took a day to enjoy Mommy-Daughter and Father-Son dates out together, and spent the weekend playing with our new Lego sets at home.  And then we started getting ready to go back to school.

Except…. The second day of school, it snowed, and we enjoyed the first of several snow days and delayed days.  We had great fun sledding and tubing in the yard, while the snow lasted!  It was often not good “packing snow”, or enough to play in, and VERY cold, which also gave us extra time for indoor fun.

We made snowball cake and snow ice cream; played pre-school board games and home-made fun games together; started our valentines; and began unwrapping, sorting, chopping, assembling, and melting crayon hearts for our valentine favors.

We enjoyed Dad’s day at school the first Saturday of the month, making boats and enjoying treats with Daddy! And then many evenings this month were spent floating, splashing, and racing our boats in the tub together.

And we made a long-anticipated trip to tour the Washington Monument later in the month.   It was a chilly, freezing rain kind of morning, but things settled down for our tour time, and we had a great time checking out the views and learning about this important monument.

The last snow of the month gave us some really great packing snow, and we were finally able to construct (with some help) and decorate that snow fort we’d been dreaming of. 

And we visited our friend Zach at his new house! We had a fun taco bar and gingerbread dessert for dinner, and had a great time exploring and playing together, and chasing poor Penny, the cat.  It was so fun to see Zach and his family again and celebrate their new home!

What a fun start to our New Year!

Love,

Katharine and Christopher

December and Christmas 2014

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December 1 marked the first day of our Advent calendar and Jesse Tree.  It also marked the start of our race to the holidays!  With just a couple of weekends at home before leaving for our Winter Break trip to Ohio, this month began, proceeded, and finished BUSY!

The month began with a major home project to replace a broken water line; complete with digging up the front yard and breaking through the basement wall.   The digging machines provided exciting watching, and in a day’s time, all was well again. 

We made a special trip this year to see the Merrifield Gardens Santa; a visit complete with carols, a telling of the real Christmas story, a Santa press conference, and a sleigh-side visit with the big guy himself.

Kristy’s family also invited us to join them at their church for breakfast with Saint Nicholas, who also read the Christmas story.  We enjoyed meeting him, having breakfast together, and working with our family to make some pretty and meaningful Christmas ornaments and crafts.

And at our church, we went to the Angel Breakfast, enjoying Star Pancakes with the story of the Angel Gabriel’s message for Mary about her baby-to-be, and even won a fun “Olaf” toy in a game of ANGEL Bingo!

At home, we helped Mommy make and dip white chocolate Christmas cookies, and decorated the tree with our ornaments.   We made some extra special presents for our teachers and families – hand painted Christmas trees on burlap canvases!  And we had great fun discovering the antics of our Elves (on the Shelves)!

Kristy helped us make some really cool projects at home this month!  Christopher realized his vision for a Wilson train costume from a packing box, some paint, and a tap light!  And Katharine constructed a Lego version of the tower walls of Jericho, complete with flags (she was inspired to create one for our Advent tree, when she realized that we were about to reach the Promised Land without Joshua’s challenge at Jericho).  And in our days off at home before our trip, we also went to a fun dance class with Emmie, and made peppermint candy ornaments together, which were fun and super cool looking!

We made lots of neat ornaments and crafts at school, and decorated giant gingerbread cookies at our friend, Maya’s house.  And we proudly sang with our class in our school Christmas Concert.  We did such great job singing “O Come All Ye Faithful”  (we even know the “Venite Adoremus” version!)  and “Jingle Bell Rock” with all the motions, in our “fancy” Christmas outfits.

We were thrilled to finally travel to Ohio for Winter Break to visit with our families there (after weeks of anticipation).  We spent several days in Wadsworth, visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Keller, and playing with our cousins from California.  We went to church and the Cleveland Orchestra Choral Christmas concert together.  What fun it was to hear all the beautiful music!   We even joined in on the “five golden rings” chorus, braving the trip up to the microphone to sing!  After Christmas Eve service and dinner, we had extra fun running around the house and outside, making “Rudolph sightings” in the sky, and putting out carrots for Santa’s team.

In Kenton, we had so much fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa Sturgeon and our Ohio cousins.  Christopher had a great time helping Grandma in the kitchen with cornbread and pumpkin pie, and Katharine had extra fun snuggling with Grandma and gaining confidence playing with Cupcake doggie.  We had great fun helping deliver gifts for Christmas and playing together with our cousins!

How much we love and miss our families in Ohio!  When we arrived home, we took a few days to recover from a variety of illnesses and unpack from our trip.  On a healthier day, we had fun tubing and riding the train and carousel at Zoolights.  We were still recovering on New Year’s Eve, so we spent the day in our PJ’s working on projects and watching TV.  For the big night, we shared a “fancy” toast, complete with a special dessert and party horns before bed.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas too! Happy New Year!

Love,

Christopher and Katharine