Dried bananas

The kids' school was closed today for a teacher workday.  So they made dried bananas with Zac.

New Work Benches

Zac made the kids some work benches for the garage.

Astronomy Days

Astronomy days at our downtown science museum are always a blast.

Garage gift shop

Simon has created his own gift shop in the garage, with shells and rocks and all sorts of things. Here, he has repurposed the insert from a box of chocolates to organize his "gems." I think Alice is "shopping."

Then, they'll use the origami paper and wrap up a bunch of "presents" for us. It's like Christmas morning sometimes.

Greensboro Science Center

Since we had a long weekend for MLKjr Day, we drove to Greensboro on Sunday to check out the Greensboro Science Center. Our favorite part by far was the aquarium.

The "zoo" outside was pretty minimal and most of the animals were inside and not visible due to the cold weather. The kids always complain that they can't go in the animal enclosures and play, because the ropes and logs and things they make for the animals seem really fun to our kids. We can never threaten to put them in a cage at the zoo when they act like wild animals because they think they would love it.

 The science part of the museum was underwhelming. It just had a little section on the weather, a dinosaur room, and a small play area. We finished the whole museum in a couple of hours, even after eating lunch there and going to the aquarium twice, we ended up watching a couple of the free movies just to fill the time. We're so spoiled with our great museums here in the triangle.

The kids each only had a dollar or two of their allowance left, so they went in together on a little box of shells at the gift shop. Here they are taking turns picking which shells they want.

Simon is thankful for math

Simon's teacher sent home a bunch of work, and I came across this, most likely from around Thanksgiving.

Bus stop beauties

Simon's new bulletin board

Zac installed a larger bulletin board in Alice's room, and gave her old one to Simon. All evening we heard banging, because it turns out he was using his pineapple rock (that he bought at the Linville Caverns gift shop) to pound the thumbtacks into his bulletin board.

Here it is two weeks later (1/26/20).

Simon's new garden shop and strings in trees

We stayed home again today, and the kids enjoyed the warm weather and mostly played outside and in the garage. Anna came over for the most of the day so her mom (Jess) could get her house ready for renters. Alice and Anna actually played really well together all day, and Simon played with Ellie a lot.

Simon had Zac build him a garden area on the back yard where he could put his little plant arrangements. Zac thought he wanted a raised bed filled with dirt, but Simon didn't want any dirt in it.

Meanwhile, Alice and Anna kept themselves busy stringing things up in the magnolia tree.

Christmas Tree Redux

On Saturday morning, the kids must have missed our Christmas tree because they decorated the living room plant with pipe cleaners, many shaped into fuzzy candy canes.

It was such an unseasonably warm day that we ate breakfast outside. These warm winter days would be so much more fun without the threat of global warming hovering over us.

Alice had a plan for the retired Christmas tree: put it in a tree!  The kids played in it a lot, but it was especially cute to see Simon and Ellie sitting in a tree...𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

Alice's First Fake Nails

In her stocking, for Christmas, Alice got some fake nails (from the dollar store). She finally put them on today.  They didn't last long, but she felt pretty cute while they lasted.

Zac's 41st Birthday

On Tuesday, Zac turned 41. I baked and decorated the cake the night before. Zac always makes the frosting and does the base coat for me, because I do not do it well and get frustrated easily. So he always contributes, even to his own cake. My creativity seems to have waned in these later years, and unfortunately the cake ended up pretty basic. The problem with cakes is that you can't do a rough draft and then continuously edit (like I do for my writing). When I make a cake, which is only once a year, I wish I could keep editing and revising it, but nope.

 Anyway, the kids were excited to see it in the morning and Zac is always a good sport about my amateur cakes.

After school, the kids helped put candles in the cake.

When they finally finished supper (quiche & salad & bread) Alice lit the candles.

Then we sang happy birthday and the kids greedily licked the candles.

After the cake, Zac opened presents. It took forever because Simon made him at least a dozen little packages of stapled-together paper with various rocks and cards and trinkets inside.

Science Museum & Panic Day

Sunday was the last day of winter break before we all went back to work and school. I scheduled Sunday as my "panic day" for getting ready to return to work after my extended leave. To help out, Zac took the kids to the science museum for the afternoon so I could panic in peace.  It turns out I didn't actually panic much--I had finished all my grading on Friday night so I just needed to get my units planned out and just kind of wrap my head around returning to work. It was easier than I expected, so maybe after 12 years at this school, I've finally got the hang of it and can begin to coast a bit.

Zac said the kids had a really good time at the science museum. 

Back at home, after supper, the dishwasher-loading training continued.