Color

Today, after a week of blue skies and melting temps, the inevitable happened. It snowed. I admit; I liked it. It made me feel all warm, cozy, and crafty. Here are just a few of the things that we did with food color today to make the gray skies feel sunny again.

Homemade play-doh (this batch was a gift from a friend)

Brown eggs, some colored with crayon and all dyed

Snow "paint," just water and some drops of color

A sea

We also dropped water colors I made (in an ice cube tray) onto coffee filters and then cut them into colorful snowflakes. The kids have enjoyed mixing the colors also, for years, to see which new colors they can make. Just a few drops in water, plus your imagination and theirs, can create so much fun for a small child.

The Beginning of Year Four

We now have a six year old (dog), a four year old, and a two year old in the house. The boys spend all day, with minimal intervention by me, laughing, playing games, and discovering things. The imagination of the older one and the language skills of the younger one have really allowed for their relationship to form nicely. They are both so fortunate to have best friends and playmates from the time they awaken until the time they go to sleep.

We had about 40 adults and children attend our son's outdoor bonfire birthday party. The kids really had a great time playing in all of the snow, on the playground, with dump trucks, buckets, and especially with colored water in spray bottles. We played a couple of games where the kids raced to find pinwheels and snowflakes in the mazes (paths) but they were so busy playing together that participation was sporadic so I didn't even have to bother with tug of war or freeze tag. The adults entertained themselves by the bonfire ... for over four hours!

For me, this winter has gone by quickly. We recently were able to make our first snowman since snow first fell around Halloween, five months ago; Spring is here! Our son completed almost a year (8 months) of preschool two days a week. One of his last days of school was crazy hair day. And he completed a tot level ice skating class.

This summer, the boys will resume swimming lessons and in the fall our four and a half year old will take violin lessons from a local teacher and join the other Suzuki preschool children in town once a week to play as a group. We are going to register both boys for a preschool close to our home, but I am not sure yet if we will have them attend. Maybe we will join the ski team, go to MN more, or just let them stay home and play with each other. Being that they aren't yet in school, we have a lot of good options.

Ice Festival

Every year we have a couple of ice festivals in Interior Alaska. One is in around Christmas time and the other is in February and March. Ice festivals to me are like dog sled races. I could take them or leave them, which is why I've never bothered to write about our attending them before, even though we've brought our kids as young as infants. If the temp is above 20 and the sun is out, we'll go and enjoy a few hours outside, but below that they can be painful activities or all too short. Today, it was near 30 and sunny and the International Ice Festival, which has been going on for weeks, will end in a week. We had an excellent time walking through five-foot ice mazes, crawling through three-foot ones, spinning in ice bowls, and of course sliding down the large, dangerous slides of glare ice. The kids loved every second of this adventure.

Snowboys

Suite Dreams and Winter Themes

January and February are gone already and March is here. It has been an interesting winter across the globe. I read in the Daily News-Miner today that in Fairbanks, AK the first three weeks of December were the warmest ever on record, January was the fifth coldest ever, and February was the warmest in 10 years. Minnesota for the longest time had less snowfall this winter than Texas but on "leap day" was dumped on so badly that people had to stay home from work and school. Above you can see someone has made it out on skis 4 times now, which means he's becoming comfortable enough to lean, turn around, and even glide a little. I think I've made it out 8 times, excluding with him, so assuming March is nice I should meet my goal of 10 trips. Above right, the boys are waiting for their friends to arrive to take them to ice skating lessons. Twice a week for five weeks a kind friend has offered to bring our son and another woman's daughter with her own to take lessons. This has been nice because it was quite hard to bring him the six times we did since the little brother isn't quite ready to be on the ice with us yet. Our older son continues to attend preschool two afternoons a week and the teacher reports he is very well adapted and social.

Sometime in January, my husband and I took on a weekly commitment. He is teaching his 4th class (3rd different course in all) for the local university's Process Technology program. And I joined the Fairbanks Community Band. Finding the time for both leaves little time for other projects around home, but they are both very challenging and rewarding. It is always fun to meet new people, friends of friends, and just yesterday I without much effort recruited one of my favorite friends to join the band. The photo above is of us before the community service concert Suite Dreams and Winter Themes, which was held at the Pioneer Park Theatre.

These guys are the absolute best. This last week has been exhausting. My weeks normally go smoothly, without drama but each day I received a piece of news that was shocking to me ... a young friend with cancer, a leak and water damage at a friends home and rental property we watch, and several other horrible things that I won't get into. But, just as I started to get tears in my eyes at the end of the week, the little guy who is barely two says, "Mommy, don't cry anymore." His understanding of the world and language skills are about as good as the average kid twice his age. And then they both started saying, "Please take pictures of us." And I remembered I haven't been taking pictures lately. These boys are full of energy, giggles, "roars," "args," and punches. No week is too tough with their love and animation.