Climbing kids

New Year's Eve

This year, for the first time, Juniper and Violet were allowed to stay up as late as they wanted on New Year's Eve. Both girls made it to midnight--exhausted, but hanging in there.

"But, Dad..."

At the Beaver Pond

The Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve is our new favorite nearby place for hiking with kids.

We discovered it over the winter and are looking forward to seeing it blossom this spring and summer.

Six!

Yesterday was Juniper's sixth birthday!

To celebrate at school, Juniper got to bring in her family and a favorite book for a special story time. It was an absolute delight to see Juniper mimic her teacher in reading the book to the class. She showed the pictures for each page, asked leading questions to get the kids to observe rhymes or details in the pictures, and admonished the other children to be quiet and sit on their bottoms. If you look closely, you can just see the top of Hazel's head snuggled up with the beloved Ms. Wong.

After the story time, Juniper happily passed out cookies to her classmates.

Back home after school, Juniper found it nearly impossible to resist the presents sitting on the dining room table. She kept trying to convince me that she should be allowed to open just one before Aaron finished work and joined us.

 The moment Aaron arrived, she delightedly tore into her presents.

Our little geologist now has a rock hardness testing kit. Her kit includes 9 of the 10 minerals that make up the Mohs hardness scale (the 10th, and hardest, mineral is the diamond). We're looking forward to putting it to use to identify some rocks and minerals!

Ziggles

Ellen got all the grandkids ziggles for Christmas. They were (and continue to be) a big hit. Our local park has a paved path with a delightfully steep hill. Hazel in particular can really get up some impressive speed.

Merry Christmas!

Happy cousins in their new Christmas Eve PJs. Juniper, in case you can't tell, is showing off her lost tooth.

 I'm not sure it gets much cuter than this.

Christmas morning delight! Hazel's remote controlled car was a  huge hit...until it stopped working before the kids had even gone back to school.

Hazel had been wanting sunglasses for a long time, so Aaron bought every single child-sized pair they had at Goodwill.This pair is the one that's had staying power.

It also has small LED lights to illuminate the object under examination (or just to shine in people's eyes).

CLUE PRESENTS! Luke didn't quite get the whole idea of following clues to get to his present. He was basically happy the whole time, but baffled by everyone else's excitement and desire for him to move on to the next step.

Hazel finds her clue present in the bathtub...

 

 ...and excitedly opens it. The enclosed painting supplies have been a big hit with our little artist.

Boundless enthusiasm + reading ability = a great age for clue presents.

Juniper enjoying her clue present: a box set of Roald Dahl books and a DIY fort-making kit.

 Hazel and Luke got matching truck sets to assemble and paint, which gave us a good excuse to pull out some of Hazel's new paints.

 Hazel can really focus on an art project when she is engaged.

Christmas morning part 2: opening presents with family at Janet's house.

Uncle Grier is the cool uncle who will give you fireworks for Christmas (and set them off, too).

 These terrific dress-up wings have been a big hit! They got eagle wings...

 ...and bat wings!

It's the traditional Christmas geode! I love that our family is so full of geology nerds that two different people chose to give geodes as Christmas gifts - and both Juniper and Rebecca were happy to receive them.

Mornings at our house

Sally: You have been getting ready for twenty minutes. And all you've done is put on pants.

Juniper: [growls] IT'S NOT!!!!!! I peed!! And I put on underwear under my pants!!!


We tried a new game/motivational technique of timing how long it took the girls to get ready this morning.With adults, tracking and measuring things typically leads to improvement. I wonder whether the same is true for children. At the very least, they were excited by the stopwatch and thrilled to hear their time.

Not including breakfast: 42 minutes and 19 seconds. (At 40+ minutes, breakfast was a banana and some peanuts eaten at the bus stop.)

"Let's go, geologists!"

A few weekends ago, Juniper spent the morning looking at her field guide to rocks and minerals and planning an expedition to go rock hunting. She was envisioning great rocky vistas, where she could hammer and chisel amazing crystals. We compromised on a family hike to a nearby creek where she could gather rocks. There was no danger of flying rock shards, but she was still prepared with her safety goggles.

As we set off on the hike, Juniper enthusiastically proclaimed, "Let's go, geologists!"

From the archives: Cousins

From Grace and Eliza's visit in summer 2012.