Fruit

 Every night before a school/work day, I cut a bunch of fruit for bedtime snack and lunches the next day. Needless to say, we buy a ton of fruit when we go to the grocery store every four days.

Simon's prank

 Simon found a dead animal the cat brought in and put it in Alice's room with a rude note. (But look at me being proud of how much Simon wrote!) Alice took it all in stride, with much complaining.

The "rats along your back" is a reference to song lyrics from "We Don't Talk about Bruno" in the movie Encanto.

Fire pit party

 We have frequent get-togethers at our fire pit. It's a great covid-safe activity. Except the kids get bored quickly and go up to the house and watch dumb YouTube videos together. Oh well. At least it gives the grownups and break and enough peace to visit.

Chores

 The kids are getting better at doing their chores without pitching a fit. I think Alice secretly likes having a list of things to do.

Haw River Hike

 I love that we can still find new places to hike! Today we took a warm winter walk along the Haw River. It was a gorgeous day and a fun flat walk. Simon still cried half way through when he was hungry and we forced him to eat an apple before we'd keep going. He finally did, and was fine the rest of the time. The trail goes on a long way, but we probably just walked about 3 miles.

When they make their own meals...

 ...it can be a bit weird. But they each met the requirements of grain, fruit, protein in their own way.

Nap time

 

Simon gaming

Simon talks to the video games when he plays. I surreptitiously took this video of him playing Mario Kart on the switch. It's not the funniest version of some of the stuff he says, but you get the idea.

 

Second Snow

 Our second snow came a week later. They closed the schools Friday because it was initially predicted to start snowing sometime Friday afternoon. Later the forecast changed to Friday night, but everything was already closed.  So Friday night when I went to bed, it had just started snowing and looked like this:

When we woke in the morning, we indeed had a proper snow. We spent much of the day outside. After breakfast we went sledding on the field across the road with the Weimers. We also tried sledding down the hill into The Gardens of Wellington (pretentious Facebook name for the patch of land under the power lines down between the road and the creek that they're developing a community garden in). After a while, we were cold and hungry and all adjourned for lunch. After lunch, I took a walk. Simon went out playing with the Weimers, and Alice did something in the house. Later, I invited the Weimers over for a fire, thinking we'd stand outside and freeze for an hour or so. They ended up hanging out for quite a while and we didn't go in until around 7pm. It was a really fun day!

Not much snow left the next day, but Simon and Zac managed to scrape together this snowman on our deck.

Legos

 Now that Simon spends most of his time indoors due to the cold weather, he's turned his attention more towards legos. He and Zac tried to find the peices to a previous lego set (we still have all the assembly books) and build another plane.  Simon builds pretty good things on his own too.  Not sure what's going on in the second picture.

First Snow: mostly ice

 We had our first snow of the year come through Saturday night. It was mostly little beads of ice.  By the time we got outside, around 10:45am, it was already turning to freezing rain. The kids tried to sled, but only lasted outdoors for about 10 minutes before getting too cold and bored. We stayed inside the rest of the day. I did laundry and Zac made gingerbread cookies with the kids.

This is my museum exhibit I keep in the laundry room of the stuff I find in the washer and dryer from the kids pockets.

Painting Butterflies

 I got the kids these wooden butterfly things that have a light in them at the dollar store for Christmas. The timing was finally right for them to paint them.