Is this still working?

testing, testing 123.

Anna turns EIGHT

I swear this kid was just born. And, yet, the calendar told a different story last week...

Our dear sweet girl turned eight.

In our household, eight years old is looking like this:

• Constant obsessive reading (percy jackson, dork diaries, and now starting on the Hobbit)
• Curiosity about the world (why can't we travel more?)
• Frustrations with multiplication and math in general
• Career goals, including becoming a spy! or maybe a nurse
• Lots of teeth coming in all at once
• Determination to ride a bike without training wheels
• Major love of Taylor Swift
• Continued love of fairies... they are definitely real!
• Newfound delight at using her new "real" camera - a birthday gift from mom and dad!

Seven was a great age and we are looking forward to watching our sweet girl grow into an even more curious and loving person this next year.

Valentines

We kept it simple with our school valentines this year. I printed off a cute printable from Smart School House and glued a carmel Hershey's kiss to it. Done and done. 

The printable is designed to cover a set of water colors, but I used it as more of a tag. Plus, it is gender neutral and I was able to use the same one for both kids. This week has been so busy that we needed something super quick. Voila.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Beadwork

Saturday morning

Explaining the finer points of the Normandy invasion

Tank, tank, tank, tank.

ATTACK!

He doesn't even play. He's just in it for the little tank pieces

Calm as can be

A girl in the snow

Taking off

I'm taking an online photography course. This should have been done years ago, but I've had a weird frustration/phobia/mental block about photography. However, THIS IS THE YEAR. I feel it in my bones.

The course encourages students to shoot in manual mode. My homework assignments this weekend were to take a bunch of "action" shots. This is one of the funniest ones.

I know someone out there could have done this really well. Artful, poetic, etc. But instead I just got a picture of Abe looking like a chicken trying to take flight.

Snow day

We got about 18 inches of snow this weekend. That meant three separate rounds of snow blowing and shoveling and two rounds of roof raking. Around 9:00 pm last night, we got the call. No school. Roads are still too hazardous.

I'd like to say I have a wealth of screen-free activities planned. But... it's 11:00 a.m. and I'm fairly sure we're going to be turning on PBS kids.

However, they've colored and attempted to play outside (it's hard to actually plan in this much snow they discovered) and I've cleaned my floors and toilets. I'm feeling surprisingly productive today.

So we'll go with the flow today and see what happens.