Thursday, February 20, 2014

Snow Much Fun

We had SNOW much fun last week! 
 
Our official snow accumulation was 8.4 inches over 3 days!  That's the most snow we've seen here over the last 12 years.  It was beautiful fluffy power snow, which was soon covered with a layer of ice, which was covered with 3 or 4 more inches of powder snow.
 
Which meant lots of fun for us all!
Guess who?

Guess who?



Watching the snow come down

Our street view - looking one way
 
Our street view - looking the other way

Our deck

I spy some furniture!

The sledding in our neighborhood was great!  Noah and his friend Ryan are on the sled in the middle of the picture, and Isaac is on the left pulling a sled up the hill

The snowman is taller than Isaac!
 
 
Sledding on a layer of ice in our backyard
 
The most awesome sledding ever! 
 
This was a hill in our neighborhood where Matt made a double jump.  Noah and Isaac are on the sled together and they earned a perfect 10.0 for Olympic form and speed!
 
We had our sledding fun for the year, and now we're back to 70 degrees again.
 
Snow in the South is the best! 
 
All the fun without all the prolonged agony of a long winter!

Lego Contest Winner!

Noah entered a Lego contest in January, and when he went to the mailbox last week, he discovered that he won his category! 
 
He was over-the-moon excited!
He was even more excited to open the package and find that there was a free Lego kit inside!

Yessss!


And a real certificate!

Noah immediately started building the new kit while Isaac looked on
 
He entered the contest under the "Augmented Kit" category: Taking an existing Lego-created kit and completely changing it into a new creation.
 
Noah's Lego Contest Entry Photos:
The Police Station Kit before it was augmented

The Police Station Kit after it was augmented
 
Text from Noah's contest entry:
"Noah augmented the Lego Police Station kit to add a helipad on top, he expanded the jail, and he also augmented the Lego Mobile Police Unit and placed it on the road behind the police station so the officers could check for robbers on the road.  Next to the augmented police station is a large construction area where Lego guys are constructing an even larger police station."
 
Noah took the "after" picture by himself, without even knowing that we were going to enter it into a contest!  Isn't that cool?
 
So, we have a winner in the house! 
 
Congratulations Noah!

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Reading is Dangerous!

Isaac is starting to read!  He has started reading signs along the road and words around the house, as well as the first few BOB books.  He is tickled that he can actually read the words on the pages of books!
 
Isaac loves to do things to surprise us, so he likes to say things like "This may knock you off your chair" or "This may knock your socks off" because you'll be so surprised by the wonderful thing that he's about to do.
 
It became a joke that we that we should wear a helmet so we don't hit our head when we fall off our chair from surprise when Isaac reads to us.  So naturally, in this picture and video, I'm sitting next to Isaac while he's reading and I'm wearing my helmet.  That just looked so fun that Isaac put on his helmet too.  Reading can be so surprising that you need to wear a helmet, of course!
 
Here's a video of Isaac reading:
We know Isaac has something else to surprising planned when he gets a glimmer in his eye and says "Get your helmet on!"
 
Who knows what surprises will come our way next?

Snow Day


 
We finally got some snow last week! 
 
We had about an inch of fluffy snow and the boys enjoyed every minute of playing outside.
 
Our snowy backyard
 
Isaac decided it was his job to shovel the snow off the deck

Noah had a great time riding on the sled like a snowboard.  It was a good workout for him!


Noah's snow angel


Isaac's snow angel

Our snowy house

School was still in session because it was a homestudy day.  Noah did lots of great work
 in between playing in the snow.
 
Noah spent most of the day sledding

Isaac spent most of the day moving the snow from place to place

Noah and his friend Ryan had some good sledding fun together

Isaac spent lots of time under the deck "chopping off" all the icicles that had formed there

And he had great fun hammering the ice that had formed in a bucket of toys
 
This might have been our one snow day for this winter, so we tried to enjoy every minute of it!