Elsie as Co-pilot

We enjoyed a couple of days here for a little R&R

Grandpa Hawkes comes to Kindergarten

Thursday morning, Grandpa Hawkes showed up in Lucas' class and performed his classic magic tricks and read them a story. He had them eating out of his hand. Actually, they were literally eating a banana out of his hand at the end.
Grandpa Hawkes pulled off his finger. I don't think Grandpa has ever had such an amazed audience. I thought I was going to have to lift some of the kids' jaws off the floor.

The little girl in pink had her mouth wide open for about two minutes.

Some of Grandpa's tricks were. . .

. . . catching a bird on a girl's head and having it sing in his hands,
making a coin disappear in thin air,

and magically reappear in a kindergartner's ear,

reading and telling stories, (does Lucas look proud?)

magically slicing a banana into pieces with the peel still on, then removing the peel to show it fall into neatly cut segments,

and making a piece of string slice through his neck without his head falling off.

It was just too much for some kids to witness.

Snow, sleds and sleigh rides

February is Wisconsin's most wintry month. We have been making the most of all the snow. Last week the kids had a half day of school and the weather was in the warm 20's. We took advantage of it and went sledding.

Lucas loves taking photos with our camera and got some pictures of me and the girls sledding. We did flips off the sled one time. Luckily, Ariel was in the front and landed on me but not on Elsie. I got a lot of snow up my back and down the back of my pants so I was ready to head to the car. By this time, the boys were through too.

Friday night, we went on a pony, sleigh & sled ride with Mike's work. We had a great time. There was freshly fallen snow and the temperature was above zero, maybe even in the teens. This work party is an annual event and this year was the warmest by far of any we have attended.

Lucas enjoyed the pony ride.

Ariel was thrilled with her pony ride.

Isaac was being one of The Three Amigos.

The kids and I were pulled on sleds behind the sleigh which was being pulled by horses.

The sleds were actually a smoother ride than the sleigh was.

January

January came and went with lightening speed. I thought I would try and do a better job documenting our lives and take my mom's challenge of a photo a day. Then at the end of each week make a digital scrapbook page. It has not happened yet, but I did get many more moments documented with the camera.
Mike took this photo. Somehow he never made it up to our room for movie night. I watched Planet Earth with the kids. I think Elsie made it through very little of the movie. Lucas crashed. Then Ariel and myself. Isaac lasted the longest. Mike said when he came to our room at 10 pm, this is what it looked like. This is the first time all 4 kids fell asleep in our bed. If we had a king bed maybe Mike could have left us all there. He spent half an hour putting everyone in their own beds. I love that Isaac put a pillow on top of Ariel and just lay right on top of her.
Ariel LOVES to play with the kids silverware. I guess I should call it cutlery. She can easily spend 30 minutes playing in this drawer. It still baffles me. Two weeks ago she took some spoons to her friend's house for a playdate. Her friend was not as excited as Ariel was.
This photo is for Haley. Ariel is saying, "Peace out, dude!"
Ariel and Elsie got this little kitchen for Christmas. We scored this table and chairs at an after Christmas sale at Target. As soon as we brought them home, Ariel wanted a tea party with Elsie. Elsie did her best to be accommodating.
Mike and Ike having a great time at Isaac's first pine wood derby.
Mike spent most of his free moments the end of January dreaming up a perfect pinewood derby car design. The boys got this bouncy ball maker for Christmas. It is really cool. You can spend hours making balls that really bounce. Unfortunately, a few days ago Ariel dumped out most of the powder needed to make the balls and we will only be able to make a few more.

Elsie ate solids for the first time. So far she is not too impressed with oatmeal, rice cereal, avocado or bananas.
Ariel set up for a picnic lunch in the living room.

Isaac tested and was promoted to a yellow belt on the 23rd. He blew us away with his execution of nearly flawless form. He does not take Tae Kwon Do as seriously as Lucas. Lucas had many sleepless nights leading up to his yellow belt test. The day of his test, Lucas' stress level was almost too much to endure. With Isaac, you would not have even known he was testing.

We finished the night of the 23rd off watching Mike play in the first annual Docs vs Jocks charity fundraiser. It was a great time. The competitive drive among the men in the gym was so strong it was palpable. The Docs had the lead at half time but were not able to pull off a win.