Meredith's big day

So Meredith is in 1st grade. And of course she's been learning to read all year.

And she's been doing great at it.

About a month ago, Meredith's teacher started putting names up on the "Reading Wall" at Meredith's school. I don't know if it works the same for every class, but for 1st grade, you have a reading score that depends on how many books you read and how well you test on those books that you read.

So Meredith's goal has been to have her name put up on the reading wall. Every day she would come home from school and give us an update on how many more books she had to read before her name would be put up.

So it was huge news when she made her goal earlier this week and her name went up on the wall!

She came home and was so ecstatic, I couldn't keep her from running and dancing around the house.

Well. I guess I was able to stop her for a bit to take her picture!

We had told Meredith that when her name went up on the wall, we would take her out to supper wherever she chose. For any of you that know her well, you may know that her first choice is always the Orange Place...a.k.a El Ranchero. (The restaurant is painted bright orange...hence the name that she calls it.)

She surprised us this week when she requested IHOP for supper. (Yes, my kids are suckers for pancakes, especially if they have chocolate chips and a whip cream face painted on them!) Unfortunately this happened on Tuesday...which was National Pancake Day. Otherwise known as "National-don't-go-to-a-pancake-house-unless-you-want-to-wait-forever-for-your-food-because-everyone-else-wants-pancakes-Day."

In spite of the overcrowded restaurant, we still had a great supper (who doesn't like breakfast for supper?) and were able to fully celebrate the reading wall victory!

Pictures on the Refrigerator

So this morning Jesse colored a picture for me. I left it in the kitchen and went upstairs to change the laundry. He followed me up and asked if I had my picture. I told him that I left it in the kitchen because I'm going to hang it on the refrigerator. So he said he would hang it on the fridge for me.

Then he colored a picture for Meredith for the refrigerator.

And I was able to see how he "hung" it up on the fridge. He didn't. He put the pictures inside the fridge!

He was so proud that he did it all himself, the pictures are still chillin out in the fridge!

 

**Update: When Meredith got home from school, Jesse deemed the pictures cold enough so he took them out of the fridge...and now neither one is stuck on the fridge door.

 

Play Date

Who doesn't love a play date with good friends?

 

  

 

Fun in the Sun...I mean Snow.

At least my kids are enjoying the snow that keeps coming!

 

  

  

Jesse doesn't really understand what you aren't really able to do in the snow. Every time he plays in the snow the first thing he asks for is his bike. Which doesn't exactly work in the snow. And playing soccer didn't work so well either!

 

Meredith had fun shoveling the walks. For about 3 minutes. Then she was done.

 

 

King Queen of the mountain!

 

 

Our monster of a retaining wall doesn't look quite so monsterous when there is a huge snow drift by it!

What was I doing while the kids were playing? We wanted a cozy fire that night, so I trekked over to the garden and our wood pile to get some wood. (I'm not really a fan of having to walk through so much snow for wood, but that's better than the alternative of not knowing what creatures are living in a woodpile right by the house!) The snow was blowing so much that by the time I came back just a few minutes later, some of the wagon tire tracks were gone.

And there's more snow in the forecast for this afternoon through tomorrow morning. Hmmm.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing if it gives us an excuse to eat popcorn in front of a fire while watching Olympics. Sounds like a winner to me!

Spring...

...is in my heart.

 

 

Even if winter is in the air.

 

Snow day #7

Meredith has been doing really good lately at getting up when her alarm goes off. She loves it if she can get dressed and ready before we come into her room in the morning.

So the other day we had a snow day. I got the message around 5 or 6, and we thought we would all sleep in a bit because we could. Only Meredith didn't know. And she didn't wake us up so we could tell her. And I thought she was still sleeping. But no, she got ready for school, got herself some juice and a granola bar, and got ready for the bus. She even had boots, coat, hat, mittens and backpack on. Luckily Kent woke up (by then it was 7:30) and found her waiting for the bus. And he snapped a picture of her waiting. She said she checked on us a few times but she didn't want to wake us!