Buddies

Lazy Sunday hanging out with some friends.  Here is Benji and Patrick Daly working on some word puzzles together.

Top Secret Adventures

For Christmas, we subscribed to Highlight's Top Secret Adventures. Every month (this is month #2), they send us a mission - a packet of puzzles with a mystery to solve. The kids are completely enamored, and we have enjoyed several quiet (amazing!) afternoons working on this as a family. This month's adventure took us to Australia:

Snow Day

The kids had their first actual snow day last week.  The snow did not pick up until later in the afternoon, so the ground was only partially covered when we headed out for sledding, but the sleds still did really well on the hills:

Photo courtesy of Andy Jones. The WoCoJo clan met us out on Greenbrier Hill

After declaring that he positively would not go sledding this year, Benji succumbed to bribery to at least try the hill, which he then declared he loved:

After only a few runs, though, he decided running around and spying on other people was more fun:

Abby met up with some friends on the hill and was delighted:

Going triple

She did still make some time for Benji:

Friends on the hill:

Benji, offering advice to Andy and Jack

Jenine and Patrick Daly getting ready to sled after Kevin and Benji

Happy Birthday, Gammy!

Only a week late.  We celebrated with Mexican food and brownie sundaes.  And I didn't get any good pictures, so this one with no one facing the camera will have to do.

Happy MLK Day!

The kids celebrated the holiday at school with a special assembly on Friday, complete with a choral reading and songs. Abby's class responded to a writing prompt: "1963 was not an end but a beginning. What does that mean to you?," which the teachers combined into a single reading. Benji's class helped lead a special version of Happy Birthday. Both kids have been obsessed with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., all week and insisted on listening to his ENTIRE speech two more times over the weekend. The assembly was too crowded to take pictures, but here is Benji in his cute hat later in the day:

In My Boots

Abby got these right before Christmas as hand-me-downs from her cousin Leora. She LOVES them and finds every excuse to wear them.

Abby's Half-Birthday

She's been waiting 6 months for this...

Building the Lego Train

Benji's very cool gift from Santa:

And off it goes (he especially loves the remote)

Cookie Booth

This is Abby's favorite part of Girl Scouts, I think.  Here she is manning the first booth of the season with Claire:

And Benji, pretending to buy cookies in a slow moment:

Knit Fresh

Abby received several beautiful hand knit items from her great Aunt Barbara for Hanukkah. Since then, she has been using them to do fake commercials for "knit fresh," the knitting company. Here she is performing for us:

Budding Artist

Spotted on the wall at Greenbrier - Abby's apple pictures (the three panels at the top).  She is doing a great job with shading!

She also had artwork up in City hall this month:

Exercise Club

Kevin has been doing this with the kids, who both love to exercise (Benji calls it exercise club, like they had in Shemesh). This is the scene I walked in on last week:

The Maze Book

Benji got this for Hanukkah from his Maryland cousins and loves it

New Year's Eve 2013-14

We decided to turn New Year's Eve into a bit of a party for the kids, with family games, prizes and fun food.  It turned out to be a great day all around. 

A few pics from early in the day:

Benji and Sophia, trying to make a trap for the girls (out of pipe cleaners)

Sophia got a microphone for Christmas, which both little kids loved

Especially Benji

We started the games about 3pm. Steph made balloons printed with times every half an hour and a slip of paper with the activity inside, so that the kids had to pop the right balloon to find out what we were doing:

First activity: spoons

Next came the riddle hunt

Divvying up their riddle hunt prize: different spools of tape

Musical chairs

 

Zingo

Pin the hand on the clock

Unrolling the tape ball

 

 

Make your own sundaes

Win, lose or draw, which turned out to be the surprise favorite of the evening

Benji, insisting he wanted a turn, and drawing a surprisingly recognizable boat

The girls created their own riddle hunt and countdown

 

The girls were still awake talking at midnight, so we let them come down to watch the ball drop

 

Happy New Year!