Ice Ice Baby

We have been in the south now for five plus years and experienced our first ice storm. I have to say I have dreaded these because of the resulting power outages, super slick roads, and crazy falling tree branches. But this proved to be only mildly disturbing, with a few crashing tree branches and slick spots on the road. And despite the fact that my kids were disappointed that we didn't get any snow out of the mix, it was fun to see them enjoy the icicles and get a snow day out of it.

Maren's icicle stash (now in our freezer=)

The Ice sheets from off of Dave's car,
(don't you love the port a potty we get to look at next door=)

One of the many icicles Spencer enjoyed

It got pretty cold for here (20's with a pretty cold wind most of the week), and since my kids don't know what cold is and how to tolerate it we spent a lot of time inside this week. They played a lot on the Wii Santa brought them this year. Spencer loves playing (well mostly watching) his airplane game and the girls played a lot on Wii sports and Dance Revolution. I had to laugh as Amanda made a comment about Ice ice baby being my favorite song (it was easy to do good on, ie a C). I had to laugh at a few childhood flashbacks of songs from my preteen/teens days. Maren is very competitive and gets frustrated when she doesn't do as well, but she decided that E is for excellent and the more points you get in golf the better you do. I am not about to burst her bubble, at least not now, but we'll see how she handles it when she starts getting "better" scores.
So far Spencer has not had any other head splitting accidents, knock on wood. But he has been asking a lot lately to go to school. So I have been doing more preschool activities at home with him. It has been funny to watch the lights click on in his head. He knows the sounds that most of the alphabet make and some of their names, and most of his colors. We are working on counting but, as he has listened way to much with me working with Maren on her teens and counting by 2s, 5, and 10s, he get a bit confused. It is funny to listen to him count in his teens already. He was tired one afternoon and I had taken off his shirt, as it had gotten wet, Jacob was napping in their room, so I told him to lie down on our poof pillow and he said "Ok mom I am going to sleep with my belly."

Amanda swam in her first swim meet a few weeks ago and did great. She has really loved swim so far and it has been fun to watch her improve. I am not surprised as she has always loved the water so much. This has been an interesting age for Amanda as she is dealing with the not so nice comments other kids will sometimes make and even some outright bullying and threatening. I have dreaded the day my kids start to deal with these things (or even worse initiating them), and even more so with my girls and their emotions that seem to tag along. I am hopeful that she will come out of it a more assertive, but kind, and with a stronger self esteem than she started with. I am really proud of her for her willingness to share and try to help find a solution. As we talked about one incident and I tried to help her see why someone might say "something like that" to her. She said, "I never thought about how they might feel." Now I remember why they call it Growing Pains!
Jacob has gotten to the age that he wants to be doing everything that his older brother and sisters do. He gets really mad if I do these things for him. Last night he was crying when I putting him to bed and he kept pointing out of the room. So I followed his points to the bathroom, where apparently I had put his toothbrush away instead of letting him do it. After he did it on his own, he went to bed willingly. (It is just frustrating to figure out what he wants when it is all still points and grunts....time to step up on the sign language for my no talking little man! I have looked into speech therapy, but he either doesn't qualify or they can't get him in until late March, and we move in late May.)
Maren started spring soccer last week and is already picking up where she left off. It should be a fun season with her as she has the same coach and many of the same kids on her team from last fall. She has also had fun with this experiment kit she got for Christmas. She has loved making jiggly chrystals and this is her colorful volcano. She is definitely a math and science kind of kid.