A Pleasant Sunday

We enjoyed a nice, relaxing Sabbath today . . .

. . . including some friendly rounds of Spot It! . . .

. . . and a little light reading.

We took our favorite Elephant and Piggie book (We Are in a Book!) to Papa's house tonight, and Anna read it to everyone.  "Banana . . . so funny."

Waiting Is Not Easy (But Acting Is)

Our kids are really into the Elephant and Piggie books these days.

We own several, and even Anna can read all of them, partly because she's heard them multiple times.

Last night, Joy and Daniel decided to act out one of the books entitled, Waiting Is Not Easy!

Such subtlety.

Such pathos.

With dramatic skills like these, I foresee Tony Awards in our family's future.

Train Ride to the Park

The kids love riding the local light rail train . . .

. . . so I took Anna and Todd on a train ride this morning.

Anna was pretty excited.

We got off near a park we haven't visited before.  The kids loved the unique playground equipment like the roller slide . . .

. . . armchair swings . . .

. . . and a little merry-go-round.

Giving Science a Lift

Joy's school hosted their annual science fair tonight.  Joy's teacher instructed her students to partner up and design a simple toy using recyclable items (cardboard, plastic bottles, etc.) they brought from home.  She also had the kids do all of their work in class, so parents wouldn't be tempted to do the project and write-up for their children.

Joy and her partner made a lifting toy.  It's a simple desisn, but I was impressed with the amount of thought and experimentation the kids put into creating something that would do what they envisioned.

Of course, Engineer Daddy was curious about their work and asked lots of questions.  We ended up staying five minutes after the fair ended, and we might have been there longer except that Joy's teacher pointedly mentioned that it was late and she hadn't had dinner yet.

A Quilt and Sweet Cookies

Joy came home today from a sleepover at Pink Grandma's . . .

. . . with a cute quilt they made for her toy creeper.

Grandma came bearing her traditional Valentine cookies . . .

Todd: "Mom, are you done snapping pictures yet?  I know a yummy treat when I see one!"

A Valentine Workshop and the Birthday Boy

The three older kids prepared valentines for their classmates this afternoon.

Anna also decorated a valentine box to take to preschool tomorrow.

Birthday Boy Daniel (cool crown, huh?) was determined to write out every single name on his class list . . .

. . . but ran out of steam halfway through and enlisted Daddy to help with the rest.

Joy opted to create her own valentines.

After dinner, Daddy and the big kids built an erector set crane.

The result was pretty impressive.  It swivels on its base, and the claw can be raised or lowered with the turn of a crank.

We wrapped up our day with a birthday celebration for Daniel.  His dessert of choice was ice cream sundaes.

The Genius and the Giant

Joy has a poetry project due this week.  She was assigned the poem "Me and My Giant" by Shel Silversten . . .

. . . and she decided to paint a giant leg and foot as a prop for her presentation this week.  She eventually decided to cut the paper in half  when she realized that it would take all night to paint the whole thing, and that she couldn't reach twelve feet high to pin the top to the wall anyway.

In other Joy news, today was Inside Out Day at school, and kids were encouraged to wear signs showing how they feel.  Joy made a sign saying she feels like a genius, especially since a lot of kids in class call her that.

When she got home, she added a Post-it Note with a complex equation to demonstrate her prodigious mental faculties.