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!

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!

Speed Racer

Noah had fun making his very first pinewood derby car for Cub Scouts! 

Noah chose the design of an airfoil and decided he wanted it to be a Michigan car.  He decided where to paint the maize and blue and did the painting himself.  Thanks to a special candy bar, he had the perfect size block M to glue on the back. 

Matt had the fun job of drilling into the car and adding weights to get it to the magic weight of 5 ounces, and attaching the wheels.

Pretty cool speed racer, huh? 

 

Noah is already looking forward to designing his car for next year.  At the last report, he is thinking of a Carolina Panthers car.

Happy Birthday to Isaac!

We had so much fun celebrating Isaac's fourth birthday!

The celebration started with a birthday party on Saturday.  Isaac invited his friends from his playgroup.  It was the perfect combination of kids!

Waiting for friends to arrive

Birthday party lunch

Making wind catchers

Birthday party cupcakes

Isaac hid under the table while we sung "Happy Birthday"

Birthday party kiddos

Then, on Tuesday, Isaac celebrated his birthday with his preschool class.  His class also had a costume parade on the same day!

Isaac's last day of being three years old

Isaac woke up early on is birthday to open presents.  It was an avalanche of construction vehicles!

Before trick or treating, we sang "Happy Birthday" again and surprised Isaac with his construction cake

Police Officer Noah, Bob the Builder, and Ryan the Astronaut set off to trick or treat

Isaac has perfected the art of getting extra candy on Halloween.

This year he went to each house and said "I'm Bob!  I'm four!"  Then he would be given extra candy while he told people that today's his birthday.  It was too cute.

Happy Birthday to Isaac!

You make us laugh everyday with your stories and vivid imagination.

You are going to change the world with your unique perspective.

You are our wonderful gift from God!

Now you are four!