January happenings

 Some of my students got me a most excellent gift for Christmas, that arrived after Christmas.  😁 I am amassing quite a collection of nerdy science shirts, and I am not sad about it.

We didn't let the girls stay up late New Years eve because it was Saturday night, so they stayed up Sunday night instead.  Cadence wasn't feeling well so she was in bed, but the other three played games and amused themselves while I tried not to fall asleep.

Bob got a box of Root Beers for Christmas and he ranked them... his favorite was on the far left. :)

We've had quite a few abnormally warm days for January, I'm not sure it was really warm enough for sandals though.

Emmy cleaned out my purse for me... much "why do you have this?" and "what's this for?"  I like to be prepared, ok? You never know when you'll need a pitch pipe.

Little brother is getting so big!

So we usually take all of the Christmas decorations down around New Years, but leave up the nativities until Epiphany and make the Wise Men visit Jesus.  On a whim this year I looked up how to make Kings cake for 3 Kings Day/ Epiphany and it's basically a tea ring or cinnamon rolls.  And since I don't take time to actually make cinnamon rolls but I had boughten, frozen cinnamon roll dough in the freezer, we made them look sort of like a King Cake and hid a baby for the girls to find.  They thought it was great fun.  :)

Cadence got to start piano lessons and she was soooo excited.  I think she practiced twice a day, everyday that first week.  😋  Perrin loves it when the girls are at the piano and scoots in to play too.

Grandma Beutel asked if I was interested in a big box of fabric that she had all cut out and ready to sew into a quilt.  We decided to take her up on it, because the girls need a project to work on.  (Plus, cutting is the tedious annoying part, sewing it all together is much more gratifying.

Hail to the orange, hail to the blue...

I've been working a little bit on turning this clock into a miniature Eagle and Child/Green Dragon mashup- I don't really have any room for it, so it might have to go back and live at Matt's house since he gave me the clock last Christmas.  :D 

Perrin is growing out of all of his clothes.  Ha.  This fit not that long ago. 

Ok, so people always talk about how boys put holes in the knees of their pants... but I'm pretty sure our girls can give them a run for their money.  Practically every pair of leggings we own has at least one hole.  One pair had a series of pin prick holes in a line across the thigh. Me: How in the world did you get holes in a perfect line across your pants?  Child: I stuck my pencil thru them. 😩 *sigh*  They also don't really like wearing jeans (they're too stiff/loose/tight/scratchy- pick your complaint and whine loudly every time you've worn all of the leggings in your pants drawer and all that is left is denim).  I'm so tired of buying leggings.  I'm pretty sure the teachers think we can't afford decent pants...  (mostly I just hate shopping.) I usually patch them once with iron-on patches, then once the patches tear out I cut them off for shorts and cut the legs up into loops.

So my great aunts used to use those weaving loom loops to cover wire hangers.  They were my favorite hangers (I still have a few) because they were colorful and they kept clothes from sliding off.  I've been taking the loops I cut from the pant legs of the leggings the girls destroy and use them to crochet/knot/braid, I don't know what you'd call it,  no-slip hangers.  The girls really wanted to try so we exhausted our hanger supply.  My sister: 'you'd think you grew up in the depression!'  Haha.  I guess we were reading the AG book about Kit Kitteredge who lived during the depression. 😏 'Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without!'

And speaking of learning useful skills, we started working on sewing together Grandma's fabric!  I set up my old sewing machine so we could have two girls sewing at once... they don't like it because it's not as fancy and doesn't have speed control and it goes 'too fast.'

They are all getting a lot more comfortable with the machines, and it's been a great screen deterrent.  Or at least, I can make them go sew a few quilt strips together before they can get any screen time. 

Miri-girl got to go to story hour!  She was pretty excited and was not shy at all. 

One day, the dishwasher was supposed to be clean, but everything was covered in this blue-ish haze.  So I ran it again.  It was still there.  We could not figure out what it was.  It kind of looked like detergent residue, but it wasn't sudsy when I rewashed things in the sink.  And everything seemed to be draining fine.  It took me ALL afternoon to rewash everything by hand in the sink... and when I finally got to the silverware I found this.  A blue crayon wrapper.  *sigh*  It was a thin film of blue crayon wax, all over my dishes.

 

And the culprit, who is very cute, was not very upset.  But, crayons are non-toxic, and wax isn't going to taste weird, so at least it wasn't going to affect future food prep?  And at least the dishwasher wasn't broken?  eeeeshh.

I got myself a late Christmas/Birthday present from Muddy Brook Potters.  Bob was not sure about drinking Dr. Pepper out of a mug. 😛 I maintain that it is not my fault that I don't enjoy hot caffeine sources, and cold caffeine tastes pretty good out of a hand thrown, wood fired mug.

The girls were out of school early the Friday before MLK Jr day, so we went ice skating! Perrin actually took a long nap so we left him at home with Bob. They were so excited.  And not worried or tentative at all.  I must be getting old, because falling makes me more nervous than it used to. 

Emmy was determined that she was going to spin...

Miriel just charged out onto the ice and didn't stop.   She did want me to push her around though, because I could make her go faster.

Cecily loved it, and of course made a few friends.  :) 

 

Cadence was having a great time too.  They think we need to go again every week. 

They were giving me funny looks at home before we left because I was trying to stretch a little bit; it seems to have worked though, because I was barely sore from skating!  That and carrying chubby little Perrin around is keeping me limber.
Just a quick puppet show...

Michelle and Nathan were in IL for the weekend. They got babysitters for all the kids at the farm and the adults and Perrin went out to eat.  Perrin, miraculously, slept through the whole thing.  It was so nice to eat my own food and not take care of anyone else.  😋

We made standard colorimetry curves in Chemistry.  So much fun.

We also broke a record 3 test tubes, and somehow broke a sink faucet, but, look at those beautiful standards!  😂

I made the older girls clean out their "stuff" drawers and the tops of their dressers.  It was a painful, but necessary process.  Why must they keep every piece of paper and used up glowstick and craft and library prize etc, etc, etc.??  Any tips on limiting the junk collecting would be appreciated.

It's been a pretty delightfully un-busy month thus far, which has been really nice.  Getting back to school was exhausting, but the girls have stayed pretty healthy, which is always a blessing. There has not been enough snow though.
Blessings.