Tu B'Shevat Seder

I volunteered in Benji's Sunday School class this week as they celebrated Tu B'Shevet, the new year of the trees.  They sampled different kinds of fruits and then had a special dance class:

Benji and Ethan partnered up

"unfurling" the tree of life

Benji pretending to be a palm tree

Cookie Booth 2016

We've done our last booth of the season and are happily winding up cookie sales for the year:

Snow Fort

We never did get back to sledding once it stopped snowing, but Kevin and Abby built a snow fort in the front yard:

Happy Groundhog Day!

Since Groundhog Day fell on a gray Tuesday, we decided to have a little fun with dinner (it was a last minute switch, so the kids did not know in advance):

Happy gasps when they saw their plates

Both kids opted to make their own groundhogs for second helpings

And a special surprise dessert

Double happy kids

Benji's Snow Globe

When the kids *finally* went back to school, I slipped away for lunch with Benji. Spotted on the wall outside his classroom was his snowglobe project:

Lego Train

This has been in Benji's closet for the last year or so, but last week he pulled it out on his own and putit back together all by himself.  Here he is, pretending Blue Henries are hostages on the track:

Snowzilla

We had a major snowstorm last weekend (nicknamed Snowzilla by the Washington Post) which kept all of us home for a long weekend and the kids and Kevin out of school for most of the week.  We had a blast.  We put together a bunch of jigsaw puzzles (a newfound passion of Abby's), played family games, sat by the fire, and, of course, played in the snow:

 

Working at their crystal mining kit