Holed up, Snowed in, Cabin Fevered

We've been having lots of fun the last couple of weeks with the alphabet, Valentine's Day, and of course, the SNOW. 

The snow is actually half way up the fence now. And more is coming tonight. This is where the garden is normally seen...but it's disappeared. The nice thing is that the lowest layers have frozen solid and the girls can kind of walk on the top rather than have to struggle through drifts up to their waists.

Also our perspective on cold has changed. Anything over ten degrees is completely acceptable for outdoor play and twenty or above is practically warm.

Daddy brought in this icicle...it's not even close to being the biggest one hanging off the roof.

Vivian has a small issue keeping her mittens on. Felicity has face planted a couple times when trying to crawl through a drift to reach her Mommy. It leaves her sobbing and shivering until we take her back inside. Miriam wanted to know last week, "Why is winter the longest season?" It's not. It just feels that way sometimes.

Until spring, we'll keep them cuddled up close.

D Week. So to offset the HOURS we are cooped up inside, Mommy has been trying to keep the girls busy with their alphabet activities. We talked about Daddy, dentists, dinosaurs, and more during D Week. While playing with dinos and playdough, we were reminded again that we're raising girls.

 Miriam made her dinosaur a beautiful saddle for a princess to ride him. And Vivian's dino sat on a throne.

Best activity award goes to elephant toothpaste. Miriam and Vivian were in awe. If you want to look like a superhero/genius to your kid this week, we recommend it.

E Week. Eggs, Easter, eyes, ears, Earth...and ERUPTION! Miriam is still freaking out that volcanoes exist. But she also wants to take a vacation to see one...mixed signals. To explain eruption to the girls, Mommy gave them a container of baking soda and a few small bottles (picked them up at Joann's) of vinegar and food color. This was Vivian's heaven. She could not get enough of "making the bubbles happen."

 And then they got to erupt milk!

During the milk bubbling, Miriam asked to try water. It doesn't create bubbles the same way as milk and we got to have a conversation about how liquids are composed differently and behave differently. She asked to mix the water and milk together and try to make bubbles. It was amazing to literally watch her mind working.

Valentine's Week. We love celebrating Valentine's Day with our girls. We never made much of a fuss about it before children, but like every other holiday, they make it so much fun. We made a reservation, got dressed up, and took them to a Japanese restaurant. They tried everything in our bento boxes. Miriam was crazy about the miso soup and salmon. Felicity gobbled up her first taste of shrimp. Vivian liked everything except the sushi! It came back out of Miriam's mouth, too. She politely said, "That is not my favorite taste." During dinner we also took turns saying something we love about each family member and exchanged Valentines.

Daddy gave his Valentines flowers, Mommy made hers brownies!

During the week, Miriam and Vivian made PILES of Valentines. It was craft mania and there were always tiny scraps of paper on the floor for Felicity to eat no matter how often Mommy swept. We also made a list on the white board of Ways to Show Someone You Love Them. The normal stuff came up like, "say I love you" and "give a hug", but they also thought of "say you're sorry" and "help pick up toys"!

It's so nice to have four Valentines!