So Long, March!

Since the blizzard, we have kind of been in a funk over here. Ready to get outside and play. School has been hard to get through, we've exhausted the indoor play areas, we brought in the reinforcements (thanks for visiting, Gram!), the girls are bored of everything and each other and we just need some nice warm weather so the snow melts and we can play outside.

To keep busy, we took on a ton of spring activities, like weekday ice skating and swimming lessons.

We've crawled the mall more times than I care to admit.

And of course, we've been to the "fun" places like the Tree Paad again and again.

Just as we need warm, of course, it decides to snow. Again.

I think, thank goodness, that we are finally done with the winter sicknesses and sniffles and we have a lot of exciting spring events to look forward to. Tomorrow we are leaving for Virginia (and hopefully some nice weather) to visit my sister tomorrow. It better be spring when we get back!

A Blizzard in March??

Monday we got a blizzard. It snowed all day and by the next morning we had a good foot of snow. The girls were thrilled. How exciting to have a real snow blizzard!

After having a nice snow-free backyard to play in for a few weeks, I wasn't jumping up and down, but it was nice to be able to get out the snow gear and sleds one more time.

As much as the girls wanted to sled on Tuesday, there was just too much snow for it to work. we kept getting stuck in the drifts. And it was cold and windy.

Dunkin' Donuts to the rescue!

We did manage to get out in the nicer weather towards the end of the week when the snow had compacted some. There were plenty of icicles for eating which both girls loved.

And on Friday we even made it out sledding in the warm weather. BUT taking two kids over to the golf course and lugging one two year old up the hill while 8 months pregnant was just enough that I didn't even bother to get out the camera. Poor LittleL.G. was intimidated by the big kids and MiniM.E. loved it, but she got tired of climbing the hill pretty quickly. Again, food to the rescue- over to Stewart's for $1 St. Patty's Day ice cream!

MiniM.E. and I got one more exciting winter activity in which was (possibly?) more fun since there was snow- a winter owl prowl on snowshoes! We heard a spiel about owls and hiked in the woods on snowshoes for about an hour listening for them. Of course, there were none to be heard... but it was an adventure!

And now I can officially say I am ready for spring and done with snow. Bring on the nice weather!

Warm Weather, A Choir Perfomance & Art

 A nice warm walk in the rain:

Art projects for school:

LittleL.G.'s gem creation. "Look what I made! An octopus!!"

MiniM.E.'s latest choir performance:

And a walk with a puppet and climbing a tree:d

Babysitting and A Sleepover

The end of our week was full of MiniM.E.'s friend A. and her baby brother, Baby G.

Wednesday the dad's had a work dinner and A.'s mom had a work dinner so we babysat. I have to admit I was a bit worried about watching four kids at once during the witching hour, but it went really well.

princess already

having some babies

witching hour cuddle

finally one baby asleep

A. didn't have school yesterday, and since I've been promising MiniM.E. a sleepover for ages, we decided to keep A.'s mom or dad from having to drive her over in the morning, she would just sleep over.

A. was nervous at first, but fell asleep in no time. MiniM.E. had a bit of trouble adjusting to someone different sleeping in her room, but finally conked out too.

Even though everyone was tired, we had a ton of fun playing all the next day. MiniM.E. had such a good time she cried that A. had to go home at the end of the day.

A School Field Trip

Homeschooling lends us a ton of flexibility and lots of time to do neat things. With a kindergartener and a preschooler, most of our field trips tend to be "play trips" to places like indoor playgrounds or play dates or meeting out for lunch.

But yesterday we went on a real field trip that actually tied into our school science unit MiniM.E. chose for this session: Rocks.

Near to our house is a fossilized area that used to be underwater. Lester Park is a 490 million year old fossilized sea bed where we were able to see lots of stromatolites formed by blue green algae. It was a little colder than we planned on, but MiniM.E. really enjoyed looking at all the neat formations, making fossil rubbings and checking out some of the nearby rocks and trying to classify them.

Ice Skating Lessons for BOTH Girls!

This week we started ice skating lessons during the week, instead of just MiniM.E. on Saturdays. LittleL.G. has been doing a great job getting on the ice once and a while and was so excited to start skating lessons too (in her words, "HURRAY!!").

MiniM.E. kept on with her more advanced lessons on her own while LittleL.G. and I did the beginners lesson together. She did surprisingly well, considering the class was for 3 year olds and older. Of course, she tired out pretty quickly and was done after the lesson half of class and didn't want to spend another half hour on the ice. But she had a good time watching MiniM.E. and the other kids skate around.

A Trip To NH

Since this week is February break in NY, but not in NH, we decided to take a quick mid-week trip to see Gram and Grumpy and do some fun, uncrowded things.

Unfortunately, the girls were still under the weather and didn't sleep much since they both have bad coughs, but we still managed a few fun outings and lots of playtime with Gram and Honey Bunches.

We went to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center which was open during the week this week because of the MA school break.

The girls had lots of fun exploring and playing.

We even went to a planetarium show! MiniM.E. was a little timid about it because it felt a lot like a movie. And LittleL.G. was either so bored or just not feeling well enough, because she fell asleep halfway through.

It all worked out though because it was geared more towards older kids anyway and LittleL.G.'s nap gave MiniM.E. more time to explore and play.

The weather was so nice we had to get outside, so on Wednesday we went sledding at White's Park. LittleL.G. loved it, but MiniM.E. was definitely under the weather and was "done" after a few runs.

At least we got to play outside in the yard Thursday!

And then back home to NY for the weekend.