Wintertime....and the livin' is terrible

Well. This polar vortex or whatever it is is killing my spirit.  Every day, I check to see if there is a glimmer of hope on the 10 day forecast for zipcode 18848, and every day, I am greeted with temperatures 30 degrees or less for the next ten days. Oh Texas. I won't say I want to move back, but I sure could use a dose of 70 degree weather.  I miss being able to go outside so much.

Okay. Enough complaining. We had a part 2 of Cherry Berries.  Since I didn't get pictures the first time, here it is:

We went to a train museum in Scranton.  This is just one of the pictures.  The rest my mom put on FB. We are outside at the round house, where they would park all of the trains.

Dottie learned about The French and Indian War recently.  She made a model of the fort Washington set up, called Fort Pitt.  This later became Pittsburgh!

Then, we visited The Ithaca Sciencenter.  As usual at these kinds of places, Ruby went for the water.  Luckily, they drained this thing after a while.

Kids on the dinosaur.

Ruby pretending to be a turtle swimming.

Elliot and the turtle.  The stickers on his face are from a memory test he took from some Cornell students.  He got the stickers as  reward.

Seriously, Elliot could have squatted all day and watched this marble machine.

This was the infrared screen from the Sciencenter.  Notice the dark spots.  They show cold spots.  My nose was cold, so a little black, and Ruby was soaking wet from the water toys.  It kind of looks like she murdered someone or something.

Sorry this one is sideways. If someone went on the other side, your faces were mixed together.

My dad and Ruby making a carbon chain. Ruby just liked the foamy shapes.

Winter day playgroup. We made snowmen rice krispies.

Today, there was a Dr. Seuss event at Ben Franklin. I wish there were more stores like this.  It's like Hobby Lobby, but less busy and huge, and more charming.  Anyway, the kids made Cat in the Hat noses.

My kids always need to smell Yankee candles if they are available.

See the cuteness of this store? Child-sized shopping carts.  You know, so Ruby can make her own purchases.

Because it's Fast Sunday tomorrow, I made a huge meal today.  It took me two hours.  So I have to take a picture when I do hard things, right? Well, you know Ruby and helping. She was "cutting" the ham for the Potato, Ham, and Leek soup.

I'm terrible at taking nice pictures of food.  I remember as we are eating that I should maybe snap a photo.  I was trying to copy a dish my dad and I had at The Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca last weekend.  It had a quinoa salad, guacamole, and yummy chips.  This was the guacamole. It was really good.  I used a Barefoot Contessa recipe.

Ruby. I had to bribe her with pastries from the Flying Cow to eat her food. I' m an awesome mom.

This is the quinoa salad in this bowl, if you can see it.  It has quinoa, carrots, black beans, green onions, and a yummy lime dressing.

And finally, the Craig bread to go along with the Potato, Ham, and Leek soup. I guess I didn't get a good picture of that.  Well, maybe I'm obsessed with food since I can't go outdoors anymore. Maybe tomorrow will show a glimmer of hope for the 10 day forecast.

Valentine's Day Magic

 My kids love holidays. And crafts. My kids love holidays and crafts. So Valentine's Day, which has no real religious significance, is pretty much all about the cute things you can make. We already made Valentine's Day wands, as I previously posted, but since then, we've done many more Valentine's activities.

Exhibit one: Heart-shaped pizza, two days before Valentine's Day. This was Elliot's idea, in keeping with our Jack-o-Lantern pizza for Halloween.

Have I mentioned there has been a massive amount of snow here? We're starting to go stir-crazy. Some other homeschooling friends ventured out on a day when regular school was cancelled to decorate cookies and make crafts. We were busy the entire 3 hours they were over.

Ruby did ice her cookies, but then she realized the icing was delicious. She licked it all off of her cookies, then just ate it straight out of her icing cup.

My meticulous Elliot: he is great at perfection.

Dottie loved decorating with many kinds of sprinkles.

See? The insane amounts of snow.  We probably have more than 2 feet of snow on the ground. And it's still snowing.

I feel bad, being pregnant and unsteady, and therefore useless when it comes to shoveling. So I send out my two elder children and take pictures of them and my parents, hard at work.

We made Valentine candle jars.  Tissue paper, glue water, and glitter.  I regret the glitter. Such a mess.

Our Valentine's Day feast was French Onion Soup. Dottie's request. It was amazing. I strongly suggest homemade french onion soup.

This sweet salad was really yummy too: craisins, feta, mixed greens, and pears.

The best part? A hunk of toasted bread in the middle of the soup. And we had, of course, Cherry Berries on a Cloud, of which I took no picture . 

We did school on Saturday, today. I want to make sure we'll be done for the year in plenty of time for the baby to arrive, so we're doing a few Saturdays to ensure that will happen.

So my husband's in the Middle East...

 One of these days I'm going to get settled at my parents' house. It just hasn't happened yet. Well, my mom has posted many pictures on facebook.  Here's some she hasn't yet. Joe flew in to Pittsburgh on the 22nd of January and then left the 3rd of February.  He had to fly back to San Antonio after Christmas for his pre-deployment training.  We were grateful he had that small break between training and deployment. A lot of soldiers don't get that luxury. 

So, we went to Jared's and Tabitha's in Pittsburgh.  I have a lot of pictures, but they're all saved on my mom's computer, and I'm on my dad's:) I swiped a few from my mom's FB page. We went to a really fun science museum.  I counted it as a day of homeschooling! Then, Joe and I had a short getaway to Ithaca, NY, close by, but one of my all-time favorite places. We ate at the Moosewood...mmm.

Then, we celebrated Rube's birthday. She stuttered A LOT when she got an Anna doll from Frozen.  She also repeatedly used the word "awesome." I think she liked it.

Then, we visited our friends, the Curtises, in DC. They live right by Mt. Vernon, so we went there and toured around. It was fascinating to learn about George Washington.  I also counted that as a school day!

Finally, we said "au revoir" to Joe. I don't think it's really sunk in how long he's gone, or that I'm going to have a baby while he's away.  Well, not for me, Ruby, or Elliot. We had a pretty hysterical 8-year-old all day on Tuesday when Joe left. We videochat every day at 12.  He's 8 hours ahead of us, so it's tricky to time out. Today, for instance, the kids completely missed Daddy time because of church. 

We had A LOT of snow this week. This on top of Joe leaving meant I had to get creative with my parenting.  We made the most amazing cookies the day it snowed 10 inches, and I bought many crafting supplies.  I still have a few crafts reserved for a later day, but Dottie and Elliot made Valentine bead wands.  Also to have a distraction, Dottie auditioned for a Missoula Children's Theater play and made it!  She had practice every day for 4 hours for a week, and then performed twice on Saturday.  I was seriously impressed at what the group accomplished in such a short time!

At the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. Silly Jared. Joe is wearing a dress shirt and slacks because those were the only long-sleeved clothes he packed since he was soon leaving for a very hot climate.

This is the B&B Joe and I stayed at in Ithaca.  It's called The Henry Miller Inn, and it had THE BEST breakfast.  It was great. There was also a dessert buffet in the evening. We will definitely be going back there!

Happy birthday, Rubaloo!  Those balls on the cake are those giant gourtmet lollipops they sell at Kmart and Walmart.  It was the one thing Ruby wanted for her birthday.  So, we made a clown cake with the balls a balloons.

View of the Potomac from Mt. Vernon. Magical! The area on the other side was turned into a national park so the view from Mt. Vernon would remain unobstructed, just as Washington would have seen it in his day.

The kids. Sure, there was a little complaining about the cold, but they were surprisingly well-behaved on the tour itself.

Jessie, Dottie, and me. I love that girl.

We're hoping to be neighbors again soon.

Farewell to Joe: one last cuddle before he departed on Tuesday morning.

Making crafts on the snow day.

The scrumptious Andes mint cookies. I think I ate 6 in one day. It's okay, I'm pregnant.

Elliot's wand.

Dottie's wand. Ruby was sleeping, which in all honesty, was probably best.

The cast of the play! It was Hansel and Gretel, with a plot twist.

Dottie was a Rascal, one of the witch's minions.  They were very adorable.

My Rascal.