Groundhog Day

When you are in Kindergarten, Groundhog Day is an important event. Paige woke up very early that morning so we could find out if the groundhog saw his shadow. He did and so the story goes--six more weeks of winter. Although, not too disappointed because here in Chicago you would have to be crazy to expect warm weather in six weeks.

Later that evening, in honor of the groundhog, who has decided to stay underground in his burrow for a little longer, Paige made the family chocolate pudding dirt bowls (inbetween playing dress-up.) Yummy. Good job Paige!

John 3:16

This week for family home evening, we learned and discussed the scripture:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Then we made Valentine boxes. Ashley made one for us to use at home. Paige will take her box to school, as it was a homework project.

Weekend Getaway

The girls had a couple extra days off from school around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we decided to take a little trip to Galena, Illinois. We have access to a timeshare condo that Dave's parents have there. The property has an indoor pool, which is lots of fun for the girls, especially in the middle of winter. The condo also has a full kitchen, so we packed up some food, grabbed our swimsuits, brought along some good books for reading, and drove up to Galena which is only about 2.5 hours away.

We basically stayed in our condo the whole time, but we did venture out once to eat dinner. If you haven't been to Galena, it is a historic mining town right on the Mississippi River. In it's heyday it was one of the biggest cities in Illinois and the port was bustling with riverboats. Now, Galena is a small resort town and a tourist destination for skiiers, golfers, antique buyers, and shoppers.

In downtown Galena, we stopped to eat at a place called "Durty Gurtz Burger Joynt" which served a variety of tasty burgers. The decor of the restaurant included toilet's used as planters and kitschy signs/sayings covering the walls. I only mention this because when you take a kindergartner, who is really starting to take off when it comes to reading, to a place like this be prepared. Paige had to read out-loud every single sign, some of which, although not R-rated, were definitely not common sayings around our house or anything you would want your 6 year-old repeating.

Of course, the most challenging part was the fact that her decoding skills are much higher than her comprehension skills. She could read the words but had to keep asking us what it means, the humor and sarcasm were a little above her head. Here are a few examples:

EXAMPLE #1: A sign playing off the name of the restaurant- She's not Durty, she's just Gurty. Paige kept asking as what "Gurty" means. She seemed skeptical when we told her it's just the name of the restaurant.

EXAMPLE #2: CAUTION, don't drink water, fish crap in it. After reading this sign, Paige was very suspicious of her glass of water sitting on the table.

EXAMPLE #3: There is a skinny girl inside of me trying to get out, but I can usually keep her quiet with cookies. This one just creeped Paige out.

Basically, to get a little peace, we ended up telling Paige to stop reading and we weren't going to talk about the signs and sayings anymore.

By the way, the burgers were delicious. They have to use a long bamboo skewer to hold the burgers together. Mine was so big I couldn't bite it; I had to use a knife and fork, but I got to use my hands for the sweet potato fries!

What did you do with the real Paige?

Yesterday for lunch Paige ate two hot dogs, handfuls of Goldfish Crackers, and three whole kiwis. Then 2.5 hours later she came home from school and ate another hot dog. Three hot dogs in one day? For her, that is almost a week's worth of food as she has been known to be a very finicky eater that will skip meals and hardly eat anything (unless it has chocolate in it.) It has been kind of scary how much food she has consumed in the last few days...must be a growth spurt.

Sledding

I am embarrased to admit that the first time I took the girls sledding in Illinois was 5 days ago. I know, sledding is a favorite winter pastime of all children and it's not like we don't get winter in Chicago. The problem is we just don't have decent hills around here. I mean, growing up in Utah, when we went sledding we did it on some serious hills. In Chicago, it is a challenge to first, find a hill to attempt sledding and then once you find a so-called "hill" it so pathetic it hardly seems worth the effort.

This year, however, I decided to quit depriving my children and promised to take them sledding. I made good on this promise last Friday and all I can say is that I am glad Paige is still with us. Okay, I'm exaggerating but she did have a close call with a tree. Our park district has a "man-made" sledding hill. When we got to the hill, there were a few people already sledding. And although the hill wasn't steep it was a pure ice track. Once we clawed our way to the top, Ashley gets a little wimpy, but Paige is all gung-ho and jumps on her sled and is down the hill. On Paige's second ride down, she somehow launches 50 feet farther than anyone else and goes flying into a grove of trees that no one else even gets near---I had visions of Ethan Frome. Fortunately, there was no injury, but after Ashley caught air on one of her rides down the girls were a little bit spooked, so we moved over to a tiny little hill where they girls enjoyed themselves with no worries. I guess pathetic hills are good enough for my girls.

Thanks for the Compliment?

The scene: at the dinner table, Paige is being picky about eating her dinner.

Ashley's pep talk: "Paige, I don't know why you won't eat your dinner. This dinner is way better than last night's dinner. If you ate last night's dinner, you should be able to eat tonight's easy."

Happy New Year

We rang in 2010 with friends



Some friends of ours hosted a New Year's Eve Party for about 50 people. It was a lot of fun! We talked, ate snacks, played Guitar Hero, played card games and board games, while the little kids disappeared into the basement to play with toys.

The girls had a blast and were wide-eyed and cheerful when the clock struck midnight.