Whittling Wood

This weekend the girls and Dan took a course on wood whittling. Dan and Analise made spoons and Emma tried to make a wooden whale. They all started out with a block of wood and had to shave it down. They said it was hard work.

Bubbles

The girls got their much desired "cold day" free from the pressures of school today. We tried our bubbles outside in the negative temps for some mid-day entertainment. The bubbles quickly turned solid and shriveled up before busting in the ground. They had a hard time floating in the air for very long. We thought they might just sink and sit on the snow but they shriveled up quickly.

Snow Sculptures in Stillwater

We went to visit the snow sculptures today in downtown Stillwater. They had a cute Christmas display still up as we walked through the downtown to the event.

Erin and Emma liked the sculpture of a rabbit with the timewatch and tortoise which symbolized how different types of people spend their time here on earth. Erin and Emma also liked the man that had boxed himself in. The creators from Thailand represented the idea that some people have limitations placed on them and the importance of shattering those limitations. They want people to break free out of the box.

Everyone in our group liked the box with "Snow Balls" that were spilling out the side. It represented remembering the fun in life's small surprises.

Dan and Analise's favorite was the Mongolian cowboy on a bull. This was the overall winner of the competition.

The US design was a bunch of sign language hands coming out of a giant ball. The ball represented a call for unity and action for democracy. The outstretched hands symbolized collective effort and pulling together for solutions. The hands displayed peace and resistance in sign language.

Comedy of Errors

Analise's sixth grade group put on the Shakespeare play, A Comedy of Errors this year. Analise had multiple scenes where she got to show her passion for theater.

She played Luciana who gets proposed to but is already married. She definitely had the righteous anger expressions down to a science.

And so goes Analise's first marriage proposal..."How dare you even propose such a thought!"

There were some boys in the audience oooing at the proposal so I am sure this was a harder part for Analise to pull off this year. She was found singing loudly in the shower after the play was over-meaning thank goodness I made it through that drama trauma.

Makeover Time

Emma and Analise love to put on makeup and style hair. Tonight they had the opportunity, just once, to put makeup on, dress and style mom's hair. Mom was unsure about the hair style that was pulled fully back because it made her look bald. She was also unsure about the mascara but according to the girls you can barely see it.

The girls picked out jeans and a pink shirt for mom to wear. Somehow we all ended up wearing the same color of shirt. The girls had fun and mom was very glad when she could take all of the stuff off. She was also thankful that she is not at the stage of life where she is trying to impress others with how she appears. Whew!

Painting the Icicles "Red" and Rainbow

Analise loves icicles and regularly goes around collecting them from all sides of our house. When she was bummed that her friend Tessa was sick and could not come over Erin and Emma decided to get her in a happy spirit by designing icicles.

"We are painting the icicles red, painting, painting, painting...painting the icicles red." Well, it was not exactly like Wonderland rose bushes, we actually painted them many colors using food coloring and a bit of water.

We also spray painted the snow with our food coloring filled spray bottles with a "Love you" message for Dan (who is working hard designing a program for Erin to use with her students to help with vocabulary development).

More Snow Means More Skiing

We went out at the warmest part of the day yesterday for some more cc skiing. The sun was shining causing the snow to look like sparkling diamonds. Everyone was pushing forward until we met the giant snow mountain at the road crossing. Everyone eventually scaled it but many had to slide back down multiple times before they were able to continue on. We plan to ski again in the next few days now that we have received a few more inches of snow.