Ode to Joy

As an early birthday gift, my parents got us a stereo for the van that can play CDs and Steve expertly installed this over the weekend. I have been absolutely starving for classical music, in particular, so that the kids can listen to many great works and get familiar with them. On Monday, we started with Beethoven's 9th- the first two movements on the way in to school seemed to have them all calm and listening intently (happily they were really into it). Then, on the way back we listened to the next two movements including the famous last movement with the "Ode to Joy" theme. You would not believe how all four of them were singing at the top of their lungs (their unborn sister was either also excited, or terrified by this, b/c I could feel her thrashing around to the music also). They were truly beaming with happiness, all four of them! Tuesday we listened to Mozart in the morning and Prokofiev in the afternoon. I think Prokofiev was too much for them and gave them complete sensory overload and fighting ensued- but the same pieces worked very well to rev them up for the day this morning.

I was talking to Steve the other night about this great article in my favorite magazine, "The Week". The article was about the Dali Lama, and I was relaying the story to Steve. Valerie was there in the kitchen with us, listening. At the end of the story, a waitress asks the Dali Lama "What is the meaning of life?" and he quickly answers "Happiness!". And Valerie chimed in, "Of course it is!", as if that was a silly question. And I realized, our children truly do live like that- for pure happiness, in all that they do. It made me realize again how much we can learn from them.

Here is a video of Livy, talking about Tornados:

Livy and julia on cell phones

Seriously- who needs toys when you have smart phones!

Snowy South Carolina

This week has been really interesting. Friday of last week, I started seeing winter weather advisories on my phone for South Carolina. The panic continued until finally, school (and blessedly, work) was closed all day on Tuesday with not even a flake. Tuesday night around 9 p.m., some frozen precipitation begin to fall. Neighbors were happily walking the streets taking in the unusual weather. When we woke up on Wednesday we had a few inches of snow on the ground! For hours, Steve's were the only tire marks in the neighborhood, as EVERYTHING was shut down. The kiddos and I had a great time playing in the snow. Ethan was out there for hours. There was a snowman in front of many houses in the neighborhood, and people used their boogie boards for sledding. Thursday and Friday were two hour delays for fear of black ice.




The other pictures are of Emi and "GeDads" visit (sorry for the blurryness) this past weekend, and my lunch with Ethan and Valerie last week at their school. I had lunch with Julia too but forgot to take her picture. The other picture is of Livy enjoying her tea party. She just loves pouring water from one saucer to the next.

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve 2013

Julia the Pilgram

Julia had a Thanksgiving feast in her class at school and the parents were invited. They put on a play about the first thanksgiving and Julia did a fantastic job as a pilgrim. It was a lot of fun seeing her in her classroom playing with her friends after the feast.

Julia at her Thanksgiving Party at School

Cutting our 1st Carolina Christmas Tree

Each year we cut our own Christmas tree. The tree farms have some different offerings in South Carolina, and I believe we got some kind of Carolina pine-very different but very pretty. We ended up getting one that was close to 10 feet tall since our ceiling here is much higher, then realized our old stand was not up to the task. After the tree fell for the second or third time, we got a heavy duty one that did the trick. Steve said we could practically run and jump into the tree and it wouldn't budge.

Valerie Helping

Sometimes having a big family makes things easier rather than harder. We are finding that to be the case a lot lately, with Ethan and Valerie being especially helpful with LOTS of things. Here, Valerie is helping with the many pine needles that covered our back yard in the early winter (dressed appropriately as always!). Ethan and Valerie also help out with cleaning up and frequently read stories to Julia and Olivia at bedtime.

Ethan at Cubscouts

Ethan's cubscout pack made these reindeer pots and filled them with peppermints. Then we went to a local nursing home to sing carols and give these out. That night, we got there 10 minutes late and they were already finished with singing. I was really proud of EVJO though- each of them went around talking to folks, hugging, and sitting in laps. Ethan and Valerie also each played a Christmas song on the piano there. This was definitely a highlight of the Christmas season for us. Ethan and Valerie are both excited about going back some time soon to play some more piano for the residents there.

Julia the Angel

The different events at St. Peter's were another huge highlight over Christmas. The biggest was a choral concert given by the entire school, singing arrangements composed by the USC music composition students. Then, EV&J each had a Christmas party (at the same time) in their classes. Julia's class performed the nativity play and Julia was a perfect angel.

Valerie's Angel

Bath Time for the Girls

Ethan Playing His DS

Ethan and Valerie love their DS games.

Valerie Making Crafts

The kiddos got a lot of craft-like things for Christmas. These things were big hits, since it gave us great things to do in the week they were off.

Julia Practicing her Letters

This Melissa and Doug book where you trace the letters with a water filled brush/pen has gotten hours and hours of use by both Julia and Olivia. Julia is doing a great job with learning all of her letters and is now doing some very very early reading. She seems to get it, but hasn't developed a work ethic with this stuff yet. Still, she enjoys attention and time together, so she is totally game much of the time.

Olivia on New Year's Eve

To cap off our crazy year, we had the absolute best time with our wonderful friend's, The Sombats. We met up at Massanutten and so enjoyed chatting and catching up. We also enjoyed an indoor water park, and some of us did some skiing, ice skating and snow tubing. Meggan had planned out New Year's eve so nicely, with different activities for the kids meant to last until midnight. As you can see in this picture below taken at midnight, Ethan was the only child awake to bring in the new year, and not even all of the adults made it!

New Year's Eve with the Sombats

Birdhouse Bonanza

Some more crafts- the kids love building things with Daddy.

Ethan Before His Haircut

As you can see here, Ethan was not too happy about getting his hair cut.

Ethan After His Haircut

Will try to post more frequently!