January odds and ends

January was a whirlwind of a month!  Like usual, I suppose.  :)  School, preschool, choir, tutoring, library storytime, library volunteering, and ballet have been going strong all month.  Megan is in the school Math Club, so she stays after school on Thursdays to play math-oriented games with her classmates.  ("Mom, there's no math!  We just play games!")  Katie has tutoring at the same time, so she can't be in math club this year, unfortunately.

Medically, we've been keeping the doctors busy - and rich.  Katie still gets her allergy shots every other week, and she just had a new eye exam and picked out new glasses (bifocals again, in frames that are identical to Jessica's!).  Chris and I had our physicals, required by his insurance, and I had a new eye exam and have had lots of visits to find some contacts that are comfortable.  Jessica had her first cavity and first filling.  She goes back to the eye dr next week for a re-check, and might get a new, stronger prescription.  She is at +2.50 and needs to get to +4.0.  She needs her kindergarten shots and she needs a hearing screening before she can get into kindy.  Whew!

Socially, we've been party animals!!  :)  The girls had four birthday parties to attend over MLK Jr weekend alone.  Megan had another one this past Saturday, and Katie had a sleepover at a friend's house.  We hosted a chili cookoff with friends one night, and we went to Ottawa Lake for the Christensen Christmas.  We've taken the girls ice skating several times this month, including once to a friend's house on Lake Orion.  The girls loved skating on the canal where they went swimming this past summer!  Chris loved playing lake hockey with his friend and with the neighborhood pre-teen boys.  We also take the girls swimming about once a week.  All three are little fishies!  Jessi is a fantastic swimmer and loves diving for pennies.

Work has been a bear this month, esp for Chris.  He spent the first week of Jan prepping for an influx of Italian visitors.  The second week was when his Italian counterparts visited, and Chris organized all of their meetings/trips/meals/transportation.  The gang had a blast at the proving grounds (off-roading), at the auto show, and touring all of Chrysler's testing facilities.  Last week he was busy prepping for this week.  This week he is in Italy!!  February is shaping up to be just as busy for him, unfortunately.  My work is slow, mostly because I just don't have time.  :(

School has been wonderful this past month!  All three girls have really hit their stride.  Katie is doing well in every single subject.  She does her homework and studying independently, and is maintaining her good grades all on her own!  Megan is a confident reader, having just finished her first chapter book all by herself - she read Magic Tree House #1 out loud to us.  She is now reading book #2 to herself, a little bit each night.  She is doing great in math, too.  Jessica continues to amaze us with her "academics".  She knows so much math and is starting to read, plus she is soaking up everything her sisters do and talk about.  Little miss smarty pants!

The weather has been crazy warm this month.  I saw on the weather tonight that we've had four days of 50+ temps this month!  And many more in the 40's.  We have not had more than 3" of snow at a time yet!!  And when we get snow, it melts within a few days.  It makes me nervous for spring...will we get our snow in April and May????

OK, onto the pics....

Girls singing in the choir at a MLK Jr interfaith celebration

Megan and Katie with their treats from the Greektown bakery - peanut butter mud pie, and chocolate mice!

Jessi's face after a chocolate mouse!

Megan's tooth is hanging on by a thread!

And...it's gone!  Megan lost her 3rd tooth!  My adorable jack-o-lantern!

Jessica skating on Lake Orion

Megan chased me with snowballs on the lake

The girls cleared away more snow for their very own tiny ice rink

Jessi making a snow angel at home this morning.

Jessi rolling a snowball

Katie hanging out in her snow fort this morning.

 

Katie and Jessi sledding in our back yard.

Hope you enjoy the pics and stories!!  I'll try to do a better job of keeping up in February!!  :)

School fairs

Yesterday was the school's "Night of Art, Science, and Culture," aka art fair, science fair, and cultural fair crammed into one night!  Katie did three projects, and Megan did two.

Megan's science project.  She did a demonstration of this experiment for her first grade class earlier this year, when she was "star of the week."  It was neat to see her stand up in front of her class and talk!  So this poster was quick and easy for her, especially since Chris typed it all up for her!

Katie's science project.  Didn't it turn out nice?  She thought it up by herself, and Chris helped her do it, and helped her type it up.  She earned 10 extra credit points in science for doing this poster.

Katie's cultural fair poster.  The kids not only had to pick a country, but had to pick a certain aspect to research (from an approved list), and had to get the project approved by their social studies teacher.  Chris printed these pictures for her from his trips to Italy.  She LOVED doing this project,and now wants to visit these churches!  Katie earned 10 extra credit points in social studies for this poster.

Megan's art fair submission.  The theme this year was "Bless the present; gift of now."

Katie's art fair submission.  Katie created a beautiful 3D ribbon bow on top of her present, but it was lost at the art fair, unfortunately.  It really added a lot to the picture.  Katie won 2nd place in Visual Arts, and also won a Sister Helen award (Katie's religion teacher picks her favorite submissions from the art fair).

Sadly, we could not attend the fair last night.  Katie caught the family stomach bug, so for the third time in as many weeks, we were stuck at home with a barfing kid.  Katie started getting sick at school yesterday morning, just as I finished up the final details of the science fair (I am co-chairperson).  Chris is out of town, so I had to stay home last night with poor, sick Katie.  The girls and I were soooo bummed to miss the fair, especially since they had so many projects in it.  But I'm proud of them for their hard work!  (PS - Katie was just fine today, and she'll go back to school tomorrow.  It was a quick stomach virus, thankfully!)

Auto Show

Well, I blinked, and January came and went!!  Sorry I was a crummy blogger this past month!  I will try and get caught up tonight...

On Jan. 15th we went to the auto show.  Always a fun day!  We got there early to beat the crowds, and had a great time climbing in and out of cars, getting freebies, and posing for pics.

Neon green "matchbox" car

Meg and Katie in a Fiat 500.  Cute little Jessi thought all tiny cars at the auto show were all Fiats!  She walked around and commented, "look at the yellow Fiat!" (which was really a mini cooper or something similar)  It was cute!

Girls in a Jeep

Chris and a pretty girl.  We had to send this one to Dad C!

Girls and a basketball car.  The inside looked like a basketball court!  Wooden floors!

Girls with a hamster.

Girls and a disco ball. (I had to take this pic b/c Jessi always calls the mines in minesweeper "disco balls")

Not much room in the backseat of a Mini Cooper

We took a ride on the People Mover to Greektown for lunch.  The girls loved the ride!  My favorite part is when it goes by the Detroit River and you can practically reach out and touch Canada.  There was no ice in the river this year - so weird!

Here we are in Greektown, for an early lunch.  We beat all the crowds!  We had a spinach stuffed pizza at Pizza Papalis (what a surprise), and got loads of treats at Astoria Bakery.

We went back to the auto show for another hour or so after lunch.  The Michelin man was nice enough to pose with the girls.

3D glasses before our movie/commercial

After we were sick of seeing cars, we drove to Belle Isle to go to my favorite place - the conservatory!  The girls had the camera most of the time, and they took dozens of gorgeous flower pics.  This is the only one I have of people!

Auto show day is always a fun, exhausting day!