Fire and Ice Fest 2014

 

Well, we survived the last week and that is all I can say.  After James, Noah and Audrey had the GI illness all about a week apart we had really put it out of our minds... until Wednesday afternoon...  Gabe and I both got it 12 hours apart.... the last several days have been a blur;) The picture above with the overflowing bowl of cheerios was the result of Ben trying to pour himself the second bowl of cereal...

Last week was Dr. Seuss's birthday celebration week at Noah's school.  Each day was a special day and Wednesday (pictured here) was "wacky Wednesday".  Noah's class had a competition to see how many books they could read during the week and it was amazing to see how all the kids in his class really got into this.  They had reached their weekly goal of 60 books after just 2 nights!  As a reward they had a special party at the end of the week.

Thursday was Noah's "student in the spotlight" day.  Each student in the school gets a month to be recognized so that other students may get to know them better.  They are recognized at an assembly at the beginning of the day and have to stand up and say something about themselves.  Noah's was, "a special skill I have is skiing". It was really cute!  Later that same day was also his last day of the ski program where he earned the award for "sweetest helper on the hill".  We are very proud of him!

This past weekend was Farmington's Fire and Ice Festival.  There were a host of cool winter activities for the kids to partake in.  Sledding, tubing, snowman decorating, a hay maze (James's favorite), ice sculptures, horse/wagon rides, cookie decorating, s'mores and fireworks.  The kids really enjoyed themselves despite several bumps and bruises (James's face took a bit of a beating from sledding).  The highlight of the day was getting to see the Lego movie! The kids loved it and daily ask when we will get to go back again.  

This movie has really created what we can only describe as "lego mania" at our house.  For the past month all anyone wants to do is play with Legos.  All three boys sat at the table and played little legos for 2 hours they other day..... it was unreal..... no fighting, less asking for tv, I am not sure what could be better.  They love the little legos, but after we pulled three pieces out of Audrey's mouth we have scaled back the use of those and they have happily transitioned back to the duple (bigger) legos.  Even Ben loves to create things with them.  This picture is a bit blurry, but a good representation.  James made this model of me... "She is the strongest man in the world"... I choose to take it as a compliment because he seems to really like it, but I definitely see the irony that it seems to be modeled after the villain "President Business" who insists on routine, order and following the instructions in the cities.... hmmmm... touché James:)

On Sunday morning we took James for his first skiing experience.  He was more than a little unsteady, but absolutely loved zooming down the hill with Gabe.  Noah was so excited to have James skiing too and tried hard to teach him all he had learned this year;)