18/25 Posts: A Little More Fun in the Snow

Like I said, the snow's here for a while, so we may as well have fun with it!

Here's our punk snowman that greeted everyone on Christmas morning.
Mohawk.
This is how much snow was still in Jeremy's truck, even nearly a week after.
The neighborhood is usually not much of a neighborhood. People keep to themselves. But with the snow, our neighborhood was crawling with people out walking, or sledding. This is the community next door. Tons of kids sledding for hours. I can't wait to move to a "real" neighborhood, hopefully when I'm done with school!
Creek.
Happy boys.
Happy boy!

Even in the cold wet snow.

17/25 Post-Christmas Posts: Snow Part 2

This is 5 days after it snowed: Even today there's still a lot of snow left. That picture above is from a creek near our house. We went sledding again-- always to the hill near the church across the street. It's a great hill to go down in a sled-- but NOT up. I hate the trek up, especially in deep snow. I may or may not have complained about that....

Here are my boys sledding. Charlie's first time.
He wasn't upset, but he wasn't laughing, either!
I tried, but got about the same reaction. No reaction.
Some ice.
More ice.
Green grass. Something we won't see for a while. It's supposed to be this cold for at least 2 more weeks.
After sledding, we took Charlie to the little playset. He was pretty relieved to be out of the snow.


Walking with Da-da. Did I tell you he says Da-da all the time. No Ma-ma. Da-da! :)

16/25 Post-Christmas Posts: Charlie Photos

So many moons ago, I hoped to have a child that my good friend Kim could photograph, but she moved away when her hubby graduated from law school! :( She's busy taking lots of family photos now with her own little one out in Idaho-- see here. Next time Kim is in town, I want her to take photos! :)

Then Charlie came along and we wanted photos! I loved Kim's style, but wasn't sure we'd find anyone in Rockbridge County who could take photos as good. Seems like all we could find at first were photographers with the awful backdrops or sitting poses....

But we got lucky and met Abbie! Abbie was also a law wife who was just starting a photography business when we first met. She took some wonderful family photos of us at Boxerwood. Like all those law families do, though, she moved away! (Why they don't want to stay in our little town??) She's doing great things in Nashville-- look at her blog here. I hope she'll take pictures next time we see here; if she comes back to town, or even if my in-laws decide to move to Nashville!

So, Kim and Abbie are gone, but I still want good photos! Randomly and fortunately, I found out about Brandi Hall! I sort of knew Brandi a little, from seeing her around town and a place where she worked, but I didn't know she took photos. I saw her website around Thanksgiving, and then a friend of mine had some photos taken. Immediately I had to ask her if she wanted to do some shots of Charlie!

Click here to watch a slideshow of all the photos!

I love them so :) and these were the ones I mentioned a while back that would be a little Christmas surprise for Jeremy. He especially loves Boxerwood, as he works with the Education Foundation, and Charlie had a great time.

If you live anywhere near Lexington, I would really recommend giving Brandi a call! I was so happy to discover someone who's willing to get out there and take pictures outside of a studio, for a reasonable price, and who is just really loves to do it!

15/25 Post-Christmas Posts: Snow, Part 1

So we were supposed to have holiday parties on the last day before Christmas vacation, but a big snow was predicted, so they cancelled school. All my French Club cakes and goody bags.... well, at least we got a real snow!

Here's Charlie that day. Always willing to tear things apart, he discovered an open box of pasta, and proceeded to spread them around the room. Here's just the start.
We like to participate in our local Christmas Basket Program. Here's how much snow there was in the early afternoon, about 3 pm, on Friday. It was fast to stick. After the program, I thought it would be a good time to take a quick drive around town-- soooo wrong was I! Our little Jetta just does not do well in the snow, and neither did a lot of other cars on the steep hills around Rockbridge County.

Actually, you might have heard about the people on Interstate 81, stuck in the Lexington portion of the road, needing to be rescued because their cars had no where to go for nearly 2 days.
Here's what it looked like the next morning, when Jeremy went to take the dog for a walk.
She HATED it, having to tunnel thru the cold wet stuff! She was confused-- where should she go?

More snow pics...

We thought it would be a good time to sled.....

But it was a workout walking thru the deep, deep snow. Carrying a 20+lb. kid and a sled, ... this was more than a workout.
Here's the accumulation by the next morning, and it was still snowing, although its' hard to tell in these pictures. It didn't stop snowing until mid -afternoon Saturday.

We finally made it to the church across the street for some shelter, and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. I put Charlie in the sling, thinking that would make life easier. Since he was all bundled in layers, I couldn't fold his legs under, so they stuck down. I could only lift the lower portion of my leg, and trying to walk in 1.5+ft. deep snow.... it was exhausting at that point.
Jeremy went on to try to sled, but it was too deep, even trying to make tracks to start.
Here's when Charlie said, "THAT's it! Time to go home, NOWWW!"
And we went. Happy to oblige. We'd sled some other day. This snow wasn't going anywhere!

10/25 Posts: Terrariums from Baby Food Jars!

So when you think Christmas, you think terrariums, right? Ok, probably not. But here in our house we've got a big collection of baby food jars that are just screaming to be used for something. (I want to recycle them, but our local recycler does not recycle glass anymore- boo!).

Truth is, I have been wanting a little terrarium for a while. I remember when I was little someone whose home I visited had a beautiful terrarium, and there was something enchanting about it. Plus, I have this odd thing for gnomes and little red mushrooms with white dots-- who knows?

Another reason I wanted to do this project is that we wanted to create a unique gift that the kids could create during the holidays that would last all year. They've already made tons of snowmen-- out of glue, of paper, of old tiles--; they've made ornaments, gingerbread men, and little outfits for candy canes to wear. Nothing against these projects, but we wanted to make something a little more special. These are not outright Christmas gifts, either; they're festive enough being green and red!

*If you are interested in doing this project, read to the end, and I got the idea from this page.

We did this project in two days with the kids, but it took some preparation in advance. Prior to the first day, we collected moss from a trail. We brought a big Tupperware and a few moist rags. We laid layers of moss between the rags, and put the moss in the fridge until we needed it.

Classroom Day 1- we created the mushrooms out of Sculpey. I was surprised just how much one little row of the clay will go, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. They created the most adorable little mushrooms; some had stripes, dots, ... just sooo cute! I baked the mushrooms later that day at home. *
That evening at home, Jeremy and I painted the jar tops. The jars had been soaked in very hot water, scrubbed, washed and dried. Rubbing alcohol removed remaining glue. We also purchased little stones and charcoal (carbon). We took a big glop of potting soil from a pot in the back.
Classroom Day 2- Kids put together the terrariums. I returned their mushrooms, they created labels with directions on how to care for them. The terrariums consisted of:

2 Tablespoons of rocks

2 Teaspoons of charcoal

2+ Tablespoons of soil

1 round of moss

Next, the kid spritzed the moss until it was damp but not soaked. They placed any mushrooms they'd made inside, along with plastic animals or little things for their forrest floor.
This was one of my favorite projects I have done, although it was more expensive and time consuming than I initially thought. We have plenty of supplies left over, so maybe I'll do this again later in the year; for now, I don't care if I ever soak another baby food bottle in hot water!!!
If you are interested in doing this project, here are some honest thoughts:

-I am interested in doing this again, but I am not a big fan of Sculpey. I did not like baking the Sculpey. It might have been because there were so many different thicknesses of mushrooms, so I had to check them at intervals and remove them. It was difficult keeping up with whose mushroom was whose, even with a number system. Really, though, it was the fumes that bothered me. It just doesn't feel right burning fumes like that- sort of seemed like I was burning plastic. I mean, is that what Sculpey is? I almost don't want to know!

-It is a costly project for a large class. I try to keep a class project to a max of $10-15, but this was much more than that:

$25/ Sculpey (enough for each student to have 1 red row and 1 small portion white)

$7/Aquarium rocks

$6/Carbon

Baby food jars- free (from Charlie!)

Soil - free (from my back porch planter!)

Paint-free (craft paint already owned)

Gift tags-free (from Christmas stash of wrapping supplies)

I thought for sure I'd have a ton of Sculpey left, but nothing is left.

-Baby food jars are a pain to get clean! I soaked them in hot, hot water and still some of the glue would not come off. I scrubbed and scrubbed. I finally used a little rubbing alcohol to get them clean.
What is most important is that the kids loved making these! They were so disappointed not to take them home that day, but we made them wait until all the holiday stuff goes home. I hope they last until next year!

8/25 Posts: Real Snow!

We took Charlie out to Raphine, Va-- it's about 15 minutes north of Lexington but still in Rockbridge County-- to Cyrus McCormick farm. Jeremy seemed a little skeptical to go (would it be worth it to drive that far when all the snow is gone in Lexington?), but it was totally worth it! The weather reports said that Raphine got 8 inches! We bundled up, grabbed the dog, and headed out!

I think it's been more than 10 years since we've had this much snow here, and we're supposed to get even more this afternoon (and this winter altogether!).

Having fun playing in the snow, but skeptical at first!
Absolutely beautiful!
The mill
The pond
Yet another shot of me, holding Charlie just like this... there are a lot! And he never looks! :)
A beautiful scene... a snowy path leading to a.. Coca Cola machine!
Jeremy and Lulu
She's not a fan of any sort of precipitation!
Parting shot-