Katie-Megan-Jessica: February 2011

Sledding in Ohio

Last week the girls had Friday off school, for the end of the marking period. So we took advantage of the 3-day weekend and went to Ohio to visit Mom & Dad C. We went sledding three times - the weather and the snow was just perfect!

Here we are at Pearson Park. This hill was small and pretty bumpy, but the girls loved it anyway. Here's Katie, being a daredevil and holding her hands in the air:

Chris dreamed up this way to sled with the girls. It doesn't look to safe to me, but there were no casualties, so I guess it's ok! You should click on this picture to see it larger...the smiles on their faces are just priceless! :)

Jessica, Chris, and Katie about to hike back up to the top of the hill. Jessi got a ride every time, the lucky dog.

Megan was super fast. She must be the perfect weight, low to the ground, and GREAT at steering. It was hilarious to watch her zoom down the hill over and over, often face first!

Pretty little Megan, who looks so innocent. Just wait to see this speed demon on the slopes!

We also sledded twice at Maumee State Park, right on the shores of Lake Erie. This was a much bigger hills. Here we go up the hill:

Here's Chris taking Jessi down the big hill in his crazy method:

Chris and his girls at the top of the hill. See Lake Erie in the background? We walked on the ice of Lake Erie and on the ice on a smaller lake on the other side of the hill.

Here are the girls with Grandma and Grandpa. They were good sports, and did plenty of sledding with us, believe it or not!

It was a great mini-vacation to Ohio!

Art & Science Fair

As if our January wasn't busy enough, we had the school Art Fair & Science Expo this past Monday to prepare for!

Megan's science experiment was "Can Flowers Change Color in Different-Colored Water?" Here she is putting the food coloring in the cups of water:

We were surprised that within an hour or two, the flowers DID change color!

They turned out so pretty:

Katie's science project was "Dancing Spaghetti." Here she is adding vinegar to a baking soda-water mixture. The bubbles stuck to the spaghetti and the pasta danced up and down in the cup.

We tried several different pastas. Here's dancing rotini:

She also tried raisins (great dancers!), peanuts (only floated) and many other types of pasta. Here's the proud scientist:

Here's Megan at the Art Fair, in front of her painting:

Here's Katie in front of her drawing:

Katie won a drawing - and got a great prize of art supplies! Look at her stash - canvas, oil paints, artist's palette, and nice brushes. Here she is with her fan club of friends and sisters:

Here's Megan in front of her science expo poster:

And here's Katie in front of her poster:

I can't leave out little Jessica, who soooooo wanted to participate. She got her face painted with the Italian flag (I think), she sampled lots of food at the cultural fest, and she made this mask:

It was worth all the hard work for the girls to be in the art/science fair. They were SO proud of their great projects, and loved showing them off to their teachers, principals, and friends.

Auto Show

We have missed the Detroit Auto Show the past few years, but were excited to sneak in a trip this year. Chris was only home for a few days in between work trips to California and then the UP, so we drove to downtown Detroit bright and early on MLK Jr Day to spend a few short hours there. Chris had the day off, but Katie had school.

One new fad in the auto industry is matte paint, many cars had it, like this one:

Meg and Jess loved getting into any car that was unlocked. Here they are in a convertible Mini Cooper:

Scary image - Megan, driving!!

Chris by a Ferrari. (and a beautiful model)

Girls in a new Fiat 500, coming soon to the US.

Amy and girls by an old Fiat. It was sooo tiny! It's perfectly sized for Megan!

Megan and Jess in Chris' baby, the Dodge Charger.

Jess and Meg in a houndstooth Smart car:

Megan by a cool neon yellow car:

We had a lot of fun, and got out of there right when the crowds started to get bad. We took the girls out to lunch on the way home, and then dropped off Megan at kindergarten just in time!

January pics

January went by in a blur. School and work and afterschool activities started on Jan. 3rd and have been going full speed ever since! Here are some random pics from this month:

The girls had a ton of fun playing with their new Christmas presents. This painting kit and Moon Sand kit are from Uncle Kevin - hours of fun!

Grandma and Grandpa Christensen visited one Saturday, since we didn't get to see them over Christmas break due to our illness. The girls love Grandpa and Beau!

And they HAD to play Legos with Grandpa. Every single visit they play together! It's cute.

Megan took this pic of Chris in his Dads Club apron, when he took a break from working in the kitchen for the pancake breakfast. Doesn't he look thrilled? He'll be even more excited to know that I posted this for everyone to see! :)

Katie joined our church's children's choir, and they sang at the city-wide Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event at a local church. They sang two songs: Peace is Flowing Like a River, and We Are Marching in the Light of God. They were great! Katie is in the first row, 3rd from the right, in a brown shirt and denim skirt.

Sissies playing on the computer together. They are all so good at games and paint programs on the computer!

Jessica got a special visit from Furry Bear, who is a bear from preschool who gets to come to every kid's house for a few days. We did lots of fun things with Furry Bear, and took lots of pics. Jessi got to show off our journal and pictures, and she told the class about all of the fun things they did together.

Here's Jessi the ballerina. Her class is already learning their recital dance to "A, You're Adorable", the Dean Martin version I think. They performed the first half for us parents last week, and did a great job of remembering their dance. I can't wait to see the whole thing!

I'll post our auto show pics and science/art fair pics separately, since there are quite a few of those!

Christmas overload!

Again, I'm behind on posting pictures...sorry! Here's what we did on Christmas vacation:

We took the girls to see "Tangled" (the Rapunzel movie). It was great! The girls brought their Rapunzel Barbies to watch the show, too.

That night after the movie, both Jessica and Megan threw up a LOT. That's when we knew that Jessi's upset tummy was actually a stomach bug. Everyone got the norovirus, except me somehow! It was a rotten way to spend the rest of Christmas break, either throwing up or cleaning it up. :( Though we didn't get to do any of our plans, we were lucky to have a whole week to recuperate from that bug.

Here's what Santa brought! He wrote a note that there wasn't enough room under the tree, so he left the presents by the fireplace instead.

Here's our pretty tree, and all of the presents to and from our family. We're so blessed!

On Christmas morning, the girls got up bright and early. They were worried when there weren't any presents under the tree, but then they started screaming with excitement when they saw their stash! They each got Pillow Pets, shown here: