Two snow day

Maybe the first should have been called a slush day. Not a problem. The snow, slush, ice ... DC is back in the wintry mix zone. And the schools are back to shutting down at the thought of snow.

So, two days later they are thinking about keeping the schools closed tomorrow (or a two hour delay), because it might snow. We'll see.

No matter, the girls enjoyed it.

Snow flakes

While it snowed outside we made snowflakes inside.



Fun!!

Yummy faces

We've been making graham cracker snacks lately, where I spread cream cheese on a graham cracker and they decorate them with dried fruit and pumpkin seeds. C6 LOVES these. Q likes them. Nobody else who has visited has seemed nearly as into them.

C6 had a friend over (third try was the charm. First try ... snow day. Second try ... Q4 was sick. Third try ... play date!) and she (S6) really didn't go for the yummy face. C6 ate S6's yummy face, while S6 played with Q4's friend, K4. What? They didnt' even know each other. They couldn't even remember each other's names. But K4 asked if next time S6 was over if they could play. She asked this because I kept telling her to go back and play with Q4 and not interrupt C6 & S6. Because she wanted to do so, and I know S6 would have played with her, then both of my girls would have been playing alone ... or with each other. I'm not hosting a playdate for other people's children! Well, actually, I was.

Anyway, here is the yummy face.

Potato Chips Potato Leeks

C6 had the day off from school so C41 had the idea that we'd go to the potato chip factory in Pennsylvania today.

Excuse me, Herr's Snacks factory tour.

It was fun, a nice tour, warm potato chips are quite delicious. But a long way to drive for an hour tour, 5 degrees out, and really honestly exhausted me. All that sitting in the passenger seat, you know.

But C6 and Q4 both loved it.

Q4 still seems a bit sick. Her fever is gone, but she slept until we had to leave this morning (I had to wake her at 7:30) and was asleep by 7:05 this evening. Crazy crying temper tantrum at the drop of a hat tonight. Yes, I was in the wrong (I should have let her string that salt-dough heart) but her reaction to the offence was WAY out of proportion.

On a nicer front, our hard-line eat-it-or-miss-out-on-dinner-and-don't-have-a-temper-tantrum-about-it-nor-should-you-call-it-disgusting-or-you-are-going-to-eat-it-tomorrow-night-too-and-you'd-better-be-polite-and-use-your-utensils-properly campaign is going well. I cut pasta from their diet until they were more polite. First pasta yesterday after about 3-4 weeks (since Christmas!) and the pasta was a butternut squash lasagna which was heavenly, but not the kids idea of yum. They ate it without a fuss. Without a fuss.

This whole campaign is really not for Q4. She works the system; she'll try it and say she is full if she doesn't like it, or try it and eat it if she does like it.

The campaign is for C6. C6 will cry about new foods that look strange or she doesn't like the name of or she just thinks are gross until she finally calms down and does what she is supposed to do. Tonight, however, the issues was not using her knife and fork appropriately. So we took away the part of her dinner she was eating rudely (a veggie burger, which just a few weeks ago she wouldn't have eaten but due to this campaign she is now a fan of), which left the delicious potato-leek soup. She cried for 10 minutes, 15 maybe, because she said she'd never NEVER try the potato leek soup. Then my distraction techniques (20 questions where what I was thinking was a Chihuahua) worked and in order to ask questions C6 had to take bites of her soupe. She ate a nice chunk of her soup, and guessed Chihuahua in just a few tries.

Then, as always (or, almost always, certain foods just don't make it past two thumbs down. Foods like cooked spinach. I can see her point), she gave the new food a rating of "OK, not bad" (one thumb up, one down) and after a few more tries she'll be asking to put it on the menu.

C6 is really quite exhausting sometimes.

Snow skirts!

Snow skirt or snowskirt? I don't know, but the girls have been after me to make these for a long time. We bought the nylon fabric, and I just made them in a wrap skirt fashion. They are messy and sloppy, and if I did them over they would be more a-line than what they are, but you know what? They are done. And haven't been worn outside yet, but if they were worn outside I'm sure they'd keep their tushies warm. They have fleece on the inside of that yellow & orange nylon.





Or, you can wear it on your neck:


Or you can make the colors POP!

Somewhere over the rainbow

I was going to write a little post about how Q4 got a new "big" bed (twin-sized) and has been sleeping really well in it (she has ... for the most part. I think it helps that the covers don't fall off as religiously and we bought her a down comforter .. warm warm warm!). She has a cute comforter cover that I like a lot, and pillowcase to match.

But I went to check on her tonight and found her bed like this:




Empty, that is. She wasn't in it. Where was she? Where she always is. In front of the vent. Tonight sleeping on Big Elephant with old blankie (light pink) and the sweater I wore today (dark pink):




So, I guess she's broken the bed in enough.

Crafty morning

Q4 had a hankering to make a pillow. She picked her fabric and pillow shape, and I drew 2 circles for her. She cut them out. I threaded and knotted the needle, but she sewed the circles together, she stuffed them, then she sewed them up.

Look, C0's quilt is done!!

Look C0's quilt is done! I love it!
If you look carefully you'll see that no triangle in in a row or column more than once. It is like sudoku for quilts. Or something like that.

If Q4 had glasses

She might look like this:




Or she might sing a song like this: