Greet the New Year & Encounter Happiness!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

2014 is the year of the Green Wood Horse

"If you hurry through long days, you will hurry through short years."
- Chinese proverb

Project: Anything That Goes

What is Linus interested in?
Action.  Things that move.  Preferably, things he can make move.

That Santa -- he's a smart guy.  He brought a Thames & Kosmos Air + Water vehicle set for Christmas.  Boy, do they make some great sets!  (I imagine we'll have a few of these when it's all said and done.)

We've built a few of the models so far.  This was the "tank," and it got great reviews!

I love this activity as an illustration of how much (academic) learning is happening using a project-based learning approach.  And to be clear: this isn't the real point.  But I think it's worth noting.  He's just "playing."  He loves to make things go.

"I want to build this, Mama!"

"Where does this piece go?"

"Do we have two big circles?"

"If we snap all of these together they make a chain that connects the gears."

"I can do it!"

"We need a ruler!"

"Fifty pumps to make it go!"

"When I pump it, the water goes from this tank to this bottle."

"We need signs!"

I think I *might* just be raising a winker.

I couldn't be more delighted.

Paper Airplanes

I didn't check this book out to be fancy, I just really don't know how to fold a good paper airplane.  Pretty sad state of affairs.  (When did I lose this ability?) 

It is a necessity here -- so I recruited some help.  We're loving it!

Bonus: it makes a winning "waiting for our big kid" activity.

Weekending

To know someone is to know what makes them truly happy.  If you know me, then you know this weekend's "weekending" with my littles was my absolute heart's delight.

My big girl learned to pour the pancake batter she's been perfecting and to know when and how to flip her cakes.  She was so proud.  That face!

We threw in a big kid how-to-clean-up-after lesson, too.  She did the dishes like a champ.  

(Bonus: she also now knows where the expression "first pancake" comes from.  And that it's all a part of the process.  Good life lesson shared.)

There were many games of Sleeping Queens -- special request of my sweet little guy.  He loves the game, but more so, I'm quite sure he loves that it's the first game in which he isn't on a "team."  He positively beams from his side of the game.  And, I do, too.

And while they made up their own radio show, I made good progress on a blanket stitch I can finally live with.

Thanks to Amanda, my inspiration for snapping a few shots of our weekending!

Make + Listen Along: Morning

This morning's all about comfort and home as we make + listen along with Dawn.  So Good.

Listening along:
Francis England

Making: 
Milo's Dutch babie
Memories

We made our FUN
playing Sleeping Queens
while we waited
for breakfast to cook

To You!

Happy New Year, friends near & far!

I am ever-so-grateful for the gifts you have given me. 

I carry them in my pockets, and I smile when I come across them --

(though they do get a little smudgy next to old tissues and wrappers and rocks I'm asked to hold on to).

They remind me of you -- and how fortunate I truly am.

Thank You.

And now I'm off to watch It's a Wonderful Life.  Because it really is.