The Accidental Boilermaker

Last Saturday was a busy day.  Evelyn and I went first thing to the farmer's market to pick up paczki for an early Mardi Gras celebration. Then it was ballet followed by Bella's birthday party.  She had a girls only spa themed party, but Maryca assured me Jameson was invited. Jameson and all the girls.  He didn't seem to mind and none of the girls asked why he was the only boy. That night we also went to a Komets game.  Evelyn and Jameson are part of the Komet's kids club.  It's a free club and the one big perk is a voucher good for a ticket to one of the designated kids club games.  Everyone was a little tired, but the game was fun and the Komets won! We've started a tradition of sharing a bag of popcorn during the third period.  It really helps the kids get through the last 20 minutes.

Jameson isn't feeling ice skating lessons so to help encourage him we went to the outdoor rink Wednesday night.  As an additional incentive we also went to the bike shop and I let him pick out a (much needed) new helmet.  No more does Jameson have to wear Evelyn's old flower helmet! He prefers to skate with someone, but we had him practice skating between Nate and I with the promise we wouldn't let him fall hard. He practiced standing up on the ice too, but he didn't have a lot of success.  I'm sure that will be frustrating for him come Monday's lesson.

Evelyn and Jameson are taking ice skating lessons. Evelyn did well. She started in snowplow 2 but then got bumped up to basics 2. Jameson did good too but he fell, he fell a lot. It was so hard for me to watch. And the instructors are great but they just kinda let your kid figure it out. They fall, they have to figure out how to stand back up. They don’t baby them. Jameson once fell where his face kind of brushed the ice and he cried but he recovered and kept trying. He started crying at the end too. You could tell he was tired but he said it was because his hands got cold and wet.

Happy Valentines Day! Instead of presents this year, I made some special valentine treats. Evelyn and Jameson got to eat valentine trail lunch for lunch. For dinner we had heart shaped pizza which was a huge hit Evelyn also had to decorate a Valentines box. I hot glued the construction paper but she did the rest. It sounded like she had a fun party at school. 

We got some snow last night. Not enough to cancel school, just a 2 hour delay. Which was nice because today was Jameson’s Valentine’s Day party. Jameson’s teacher asked each student to decorate their own valentine box so we looked up some ideas and Jameson initially picked a t-rex. But when we got ready to make it, he changed his mind to a triceratops. I did most of the glueing but Jameson did all the painting.  

I did a thing tonight. The library has several Black History Month activities going on, including a class on Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas which I thought sounded really neat. It was taught by a local Fort Wayne artist and we got to paint our own canvas in the style of Douglas. I chose to mimic his painting The Creation . It seemed the simplest. There were stencils to work with so I didn’t free hand draw the silhouettes but I did mix my own colors. It was a nice opportunity to try something new and leave the kids home with Nate.

Evelyn and Jameson has their 6 and 4 year check ups yesterday. They are both healthy kids. And very flexible kids. Apparently they were the first children the doctor saw all day who could touch their toes without bending their knees. Evelyn weighs 47 lbs (63rd percentile) and is 46.25 inches tall (69th percentile). Jameson weighs 38 lbs (67th percentile) and is 41.5 inches tall (75th percentile).  Afterward like usual we got a special treat.

Instead of being in Decatur, today we went to the botanical gardens with friends.  They had a special day with games and activities to showcase the winter garden - Dog days of winter. Evelyn and Jameson are pretending to be dogs and Natalya is their owner. There was a fun obstacle course the kids could run through that was a big hit. We walked through the gardens and did all the fun stuff and then came back to the face painting.  That was everyone’s favorite part. 

Yesterday was a snow day. We only got an inch or so but the roads were icy.  Evelyn and Jameson enjoyed playing in the snow. Yesterday was supposed to be parent teacher conferences but they were cancelled due to the snow day. Today was a release day for teachers so no school again, 4 day weekend! We had planned to go to my grandma’s house today and attend an ice carving festival on Saturday. Nate had even taken the day off work, but the weather Sunday just didn’t look good for driving home. We were all disappointed. The weather today however was great so we took Evelyn and Jameson sledding. I thought the hill would be lots busier with school out, but it wasn’t so we didn’t have to stress about kids crashing into each other. On our way home, we picked up a pizza. Sledding is hard work. 

Evelyn is 6!  We often celebrate her birthday and the super bowl together, so yesterday we had friends from church over to watch the game and we made cupcakes. This morning we had a special breakfast - cinnamon roll donuts.  Just pillsbury cinnamon rolls pulled apart and baked in donut pans but they turned out really good. Evelyn's bus stop friend came over after school to play.  They have been asking for a play date forever.  After they left, Evelyn and Jameson did some letter writing practice. Once Nate came home it was time for presents.   The remote control helicopter was discounted at the VA commissary and I joked with Nate that he was really buying it for himself, not Evelyn, but everyone was pretty excited to try it out and learn to fly it (it's gonna take some practice).