January

Well, January has come and gone and GOOD RIDDANCE! Most of our days looked like this, or worse:

Yikes. The kids have had FIVE cancelled school days this month, which felt like 100. Thankfully grandma and grandpa are here, otherwise we would have missed a lot of work. To top it all off, the girls had Croup for over a week, and missed even more school because of that!

What do to when it is this cold? Well, the kids have been enjoying a new indoor playground we found with lots of climbing and trampolines.

We blew bubbles when it was -25 and the bubbles froze in mid-air. That was pretty cool.

Moin also threw boiling water in the air, which was even better. It evaporates as soon as you throw it! I guess that's the one advantage of -25 degree temps.


 Quinn saw the 8th graders at his school perform the little mermaid and he loved it so much that he made me take him back in the evening.

 Quinn also read all of Harry Potter this month, and watched the movie (number 1) at least a dozen times.

What else did we do in the cold? We spent lots of time indoors, like at the library. Aren't kids supposed to read books at the library?

And eating out. These pictures at Smashburger were taken by Quinn!

Moin has done lots of cooking projects. Here are many packages of red sauce and butternut squash, ready to go in the big freezer!

We made indoor s'mores. 

Zahra got to go to her first Children's Theatre Company play with me - We saw the very hungry caterpillar. She slept threw the last 20 minutes, but otherwise she loved it! And, I will admit, I loved having her doze on me at the end. That doesn't happen too often these days.

We spent some time at the Science Museum with the dinosaurs. Penelope (pictured) really loves dinosaurs, and plays with her toy dinos all the time. This reminds me so much of Eli when he was little.

Zahra has been really into dancing, so we do lots of that in the evenings.

And the girls are back to gymnastics classes

Of course, we did make some time for outdoor play when it was above zero! Here is Zahra sliding down a makeshift hill made by Moin.

And here she is at the top of another makeshift hill in our yard. Zahra is by far and away the outdoors lover of our children, and this applies to winter outdoor play as well. She can't get enough.

Finally, we all got to go to a cultural celebration at Quinn's school. He and his class have been learning about culture all month (when they've actually been in school). Quinn had to give a 2-3 minute oral presentation on his culture (he talked about how Indian culture, California culture, and Earth culture), and the unit culminated with a big first grade celebration.

As you can see, the girls were excited to be at Quinn's school.

I managed to snap a picture of Quinn's vocabulary words for the week.

Grandma and Grandpa wore their matching Capitol Hill sweatshirts.

The kids did four song and dance performances. Quinn was paired with  a classmate named Willow, and he blushed every time they danced together.

It was such a wonderful celebration! At the end, we all ate lots of terrific food provided by the families. Quinn was really proud that we were all able to come watch the celebration.

See ya later January! Let's hope February brings slightly warmer weather and no cancelled school!