Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers, George Washington's Teeth, ...If You Grew Up With George Washington, Abraham Lincoln Will You Ever Give Up?, Lincoln and His Boys.
I need to look for some new president books, geared more towards Alyssa's reading level, she has probably read each of these except Lincoln and His Boys, hundreds of times, but they are so good and great for reading out loud as a family!!
We also made Cracker Bread from a recipe Emma brought home from school in an issue of Time for Kids. It is a recipe from George and Martha Washington's kitchen. The biscuits were a lot of fun to make!
And they turned out really, really yummy, fluffy and buttery. Before I even had a chance to suggest that we make this a President's Day breakfast tradition the girls said, "We have to do this next year too!"
Every February there is a fun lego day at Mount Mary College. What is really cool about it is that it was started several years ago by a foundation that wanted to show the need for women workers and their influence in the construction industry. They host a small contest each year that is open to both boys and girls in 1st through 6th grades. The children have about 40 minutes to build whatever they want out of 100 legos, and they also have additional building supplies like string and foil available for their use. The only requirement is that you cannot build a person or an animal, it has to be an invention, building or machine of some sort.
Alyssa designed a Go-Go Gadget shoe. And it won 2nd Place!! The shoe had built in air conditioners, air fresheners and inflatable sides for added comfort. Our girls have never approached this as an actual contest, probably because we don't own any legos and building stuff like this is so outside their natural skill set. Alyssa was so excited to be given one of the prizes, and the woman who nominated her design was excited to come up and tell us how intrigued she was with the explanation Alyssa provided about her shoe and how the other judges thought this was an invention that she needed to "make happen."
Little Emma and her zipline creation inspired by the one in G&G's backyard. Emma decided on our drive to Mount Mary that morning what she was going to build, and she was very secretive about it...she wouldn't tell us anything about her plans. She knew exactly what she wanted to build and was one of the first kids done. I thought her zipline was super cool!
A super silly little girl playing with Dad's sunglasses as she waited for her sisters. They serve the kids what are seriously the most delicious rice krispy treats while the judging is going on. We couldn't wait to get our hands on those!
We now own some legos because Emma won a hula hoop contest and came home with a set of zoo legos. I just saw a commercial on tv for some girly looking sets and think that at least one or two of the girls may get some in their Easter basket this year.
We also went hiking in a park near our house. It was a beautiful and chilly, but not too cold winter day.
We took this hike that brings you over seven small bridges on the way out to Lake Michigan. At the first bridge Emma had the idea to re-enact the story, The 3 Billy Goats Gruff as we went over the bridge. It funny and cute ~ on the first bridge. We had to do this on every single bridge, some of which we crossed more than the necessary once there and back, making for over 14 re-enactments of the story. She made Dave be the troll under the bridge, and Alyssa had to be the middle sized goat so that Emma herself could be the biggest, fiercest Billy Goat Gruff, and I ended up filling in for Rebekah as the baby goat once she got bored with the repeated story line.
The glittery, icy stream leading out to the lake. We crossed this on some dangerously slippery rocks.
All 3 Billy Goats Gruff did make it successfully to the lake with no falls or even wet feet.
Other than the bare tree branches, I thought this photo looked more like summery blues than the wintry gray we often see around here at this time of year. It was a very nice long weekend.
Alyssa also started a pinata project this weekend. As far as we can tell, this is going to take several layers of mess to complete, and lots of a homemade goo that Alyssa refers to as "camel snot." She's trying to turn this into a lion. I'll have to post a pic of the final project.
1 comment:
You guys have been BUSY! Lots of fun!
That Lego event seems so cool! Of course I had no idea it was going on and we live less than 5 miles from there. :-)
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