February

This February post will mostly be photo updates.

The kids have been continuing their activities. Here are the girls' new gymnastics photos. Could they be any cuter and funnier?

I love how they are holding hands in the group photo.

And here are Quinn and Moin patiently waiting for them to be done, on the hard high school floor.

We finally got Quinn to wear goggles for swim class and it has resulted in a huge improvement in his swimming!

The girls went ice skating for the first time and did a fantastic job. We took them to the pond at the local rec center. The good part is that you can borrow skates there for free. The bad part is that they didn't have skates in Moin's size. Since I don't know how to skate, that meant that the girls went out on the ice alone. They were so brave and are on their way to being great skaters.

Here is some new artwork/schoolwork from the kids

Quinn's "I am the color of popcorn" portrait from school

And his venn diagram comparing two different types of polygons

This is a love poem he wrote me for Valentine's day. It says, "You are the marshmallows in my cocoa, you are the jewels in my necklace, you are the pepperoni in my pizza"

Here is Quinn while he was giving his presentation on his culture. I love this picture, because it is exactly what I would imagine Quinn giving a presentation would look like. Sorry, this post is making it very obvious that I don't know how to rotate photos in blogger.

Zahra is in the "community helper" small group in school, which has sort of morphed into the "firefighter" group. They got a visit from a real-life firefighter and fire truck last week. I didn't get any photos of that, but Zahra got sent home with a fire-safety workbook to complete.

Look closely at the tool/toy picture. Zahra still has some learning to do with that one!

Z also drew this wonderful picture of "Penelope as an adult"

Speaking of Penelope, her small group is the "Penguin" group this semester. To continue their learning, she and her group were able to go see the Penguins at Como Zoo, and Moin was able to chaperone.

She was very proud of this trip, and even prouder that she got to go with her dad by herself!

Also, here is Penelope posing "just like Anna in my fancy dress"

Whenever you ask Penelope who her favorite person is, she says "My cousin Anna"

And here is Zahra with her baby. After I took this photo, I asked her to smile for the next one. She said, "That is my smile"

Here is Quinn helping me at work - trying to operate the video equipment in the observation room.

And here he is making breakfast for Penelope, which he does most weekday mornings. She wakes up starving! She likes it when he makes her breakfast because he is quite liberal with the butter.

And you can see Quinn's latest piano tune, here

And finally, here are the pictures we got the kids to hang in their rooms for valentines day. Happy February everyone!

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!