yet more snow

It snowed again in Portland on Monday - about 4 inches at our house, and more higher up the hills - and yet the school district only called for a late opening, and not a cancellation. Seb and Liesl were crushed with disappointment. But we made the best of it and at 7:30 am headed over to the school field for some sledding, snow ball fights, and snow creature creating.

Sebastian dispensed with the sled, choosing to run and then slide on his legs down the hill.

Stephen created some Calvin&Hobbes-esqe snow sculptures - a girl with an alien in her belly holding her own head, and a sliced up girl creature.

 

You can see the snowball that Sebastian threw at me in mid-air! I threw it right back, of course.

 

Sebastian hiding a tennis ball for Jasper to find in the snow.

These smaller snow events - mostly ice after a few hours - have been a little anticlimactic. We have been hoping for a serious snowfall that shuts down the city and traps us all in our neighborhood, free to sled the streets and tromp around in powder and enjoy the beauty. But still - it's always a treat to get snow here, and I'm thankful that we at least got some in town this winter.

GS cookie booths

Our GS troop is selling cookies this year - I have to say that I was somewhat reluctant at first, to participate in the whole rigmarole, to hustle the cookies (which I don't love), to navigate the byzantine rules - but our fearless friend Courtney convinced us all to try it out. And lo, the girls love it, and it's so good for them. We did not do door-to-door sales, just table booths set up outside local stores. The girls have to be brave and speak to people, they have to answer questions about the cookies, they have to add up the cost per box and make change, they have to keep track of the sales and take care of their display, they have to stay focused on their task and cheerful. Watching Liesl work through all of the necessary mechanics and multi-task has been so interesting and worthwhile. So far we have staffed three booths for two hours each, outside some local grocery stores (Safeway, Fred Meyer, QFC), each time with a friend. They've sold lots and lots of cookie boxes and Liesl has become much more confident each time. Best of all, we will keep some of the money for fun and donate the other half to a nonprofit group that supplies clothing and other necessaries to foster children in Portland.

Lunar New Year

Happy year of the pig! Oink oink! It's Sebastian's special year, as he'll be 12 this fall.
We went out for dumplings at XLB tonight, and the children got some lucky money, and we read (terrible) fortunes, and enjoyed our soup dumplings, tofu and eggplant, beef ho fun, and pork bao.

happy Valentine's Day!

The children made valentine's cards with candy for their classmates, and decorated shoeboxes to collect their loot. We had waffles - heart-shaped! for breakfast - along with bacon and berries - quite the spread for a weekday. Liesl made us each cute little valentine's cards - mine said "the queen!", Steve's said "the funny face!", and Seb's said "the cool guy".

And then we all went off to busy days at school and work, with cold rain throughout the day. But we had a lovely dinner together, truffles from L.A. Burdick, and some mini-cupcakes from Saint Cupcake, and our wedding photo album arrived in the mail. I know, I know, it's been a few years since the event and most people manage to make a wedding photo album in a relatively short amount of time. But I didn't, and then I finally did, and it arrived with perfect timing on Valentine's Day. It's sweet to see all of us in our youth, unlined faces and all. :)

breakfast in bed

For an early Valentine's Day present, Steve and Liesl made me breakfast in bed, delivered with a sweet handmade card. It was such a luxury to stay cozy under the covers, read a book, and have this delicious feast delivered. Such a good husband. :)

Sebastian had an enormous amount of homework this weekend for a new social studies project about colonial America. Every student in the class is assigned a character -- a real person who was onboard the Mayflower -- and they must learn about their person and write diary entries in the voice of their character. Sebastian is John Billington; he wrote two diary entries this week about deciding to travel to the new world and packing. And then there was an extra project this weekend, which was to select seven items that would make the voyage and then draw and color them. This took Sebastian hours, and a lot of internet how-to videos, but he was justly proud of his drawings and the result.

more snow play

The weather forecast on Thursday was for a Portland version of snowmageddon... two weeks of snow in the forecast, two or three separate storm events, 8-10 inches of snow. All of our weekend games, practices, parties, and tryouts were cancelled. On Friday after work, like all Portlanders, I went to the grocery store and stocked up. (It was a madhouse; lines everywhere, parking lots full, shelves emptied of bread and kale.) And then we woke up to a disappointing mere inch of icy snow on Saturday morning.

Of course, any amount of snow is better than nothing, so we duly spent a few hours playing in it -- sledding, building a tiny snowman, throwing snowballs, tromping through the lovely woods. It was a good day.

Jasper finds sledding very distressing and generally tries to save the person on the sled from their dangerous and confusing choices. Usually this consists of just running next to and occasionally in front of the sled, but on today's sledding hill, which ended by crossing a residential road, Jasper was particularly concerned. He actually grabbed both kids' jacket sleeves and gloves with his teeth and tried to physically prevent them from going across the road. It was sweet and very responsible and also kind of scary (for us).

In non-snow news, I came home after school on Thursday to find Sebastian and his friend Sam happily ensconced in our living room, playing chess. Seb has made some wonderful new friends this year that have really allowed him to expand his interests -- to enjoy more of his interests with his friends -- like board games!

They headed over to the field after a few games to play baseball, with Jasper as happy outfielder.

Steve was away all week for a business trip -- left Monday and returned late Thursday night -- he brought back these super cool M&Ms for the kids.