Snodgrass Fam: 2011

Spring Break Blues

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Last year on spring break we tried to brave the weather. If you want to take a trip down memory lane, check it out. This year, we have very much the same situation. Our backyard is full of toys that look like this

And the drops on these trees are not just early morning dew. In fact, I think they might be permanent.

Just incase any one is a statistics person (I am) the month of March saw 3, count them 3 days where it did not rain. The month of April is not looking much better.

So, I've started buying things when I'm out and about to save for a rainy day! The first day of spring break seemed the appropriate time and everyone was deeply engrossed for about thirty minutes!

Working together

A look of pure concentration. He was definitely focused.

We have affectionately named all the trains we see in Washington, Washy. All trains have to have a name you know. So, it only seemed appropriate to name our newest member of the family, none other than...

A New Hat to Wear

Friday, April 1, 2011

This week I have found myself in all new territory. It looks a lot like geography, grammar, spelling and bones.

After a lot of prayer, we have decided to homeschool for a little while. There are a lot of reasons behind it, but over all we feel that Karmen will benefit tremendously from it. Especially since these are standard conversation blips

"No Karmen, Japan is not a state."

"The head of a ship is called a captain, not a chief. "

"The Mayflower sailed to America"

Today ended our first week, and over-all it went well. She has been working hard, learning many new things, and having some fun too. I am exhausted! It will definitely take some getting used to but know in time that we will all get into the groove of it all.

mmm...bop.

Monday, March 7, 2011

I think Boyce has been sneaking behind our backs and listening to Hanson

Happy Birthday to me

I recently celebrated my birthday. It was a pretty uneventful day for the most part. A 2 hour meeting in the morning and a science fair in the evening pretty much took up the whole day. We did end up eating out after the Science fair. We went to a restaurant that overlooks the water for dinner, which is quite small and doesn't really host kids well. As I walked in by myself with all four kids (Jake was meeting us), there were many anxious looks coming our way. Gage, walked right up to the bartender and gave him knuckles, which he followed up with squids. (We'll have a video presentation up soon of all of Gage's knuckles) Anyways, it broke the tension of the entire place and they were quite happy to have us there. Sometimes it pays to have a crazy kid!

It was a great day that ended with cake, a new video camera (so be ready) and a lot of this...

It's Science

Oh yeah! We had our first science fair project here at the Snodgrass house. I know you are all just as thrilled as I was so I'll let you in on the experiment. Karmen's project actually advanced to the next level of the fair, so here she is showing it off. My, I mean her, project was to see if static electricity would make cereal jump. Thankfully we had a stash of unneeded record albums, an old wool sweater and plenty types of cereal lying around the house.

Rice Krispies were the most responsive.

Cheerios and cornflakes just kind of stood up on end, occasionally the cheerios would jump.

I know you are all just as thrilled as I am. Side note, at the science fair kids had done experiments with sodas affect on teeth. I want to know, where did they get the 12 teeth they used for their experiments. Is that something you can buy somewhere?

Man on a Mission

Friday, January 21, 2011

Over Christmas break we were able to stop by and visit another family of train enthusiasts. They had recently purchased some cars for their model railroad that Gage found quite impressive. He pleaded with the family to add it to his Christmas stash, but ended up with a far greater gift--for everyone involved. They gave Gage the catalog of trains that has every model train imaginable inside of it. He very quickly became obsessed with a blue train with three freight cars. We told him, if he wanted a train in his book he would have to do chores to earn money to buy it. He talked about this idea for the next two weeks and as soon as we got home to Washington he got busy. He often asks me once or twice a day if he can do some chores! Most of the time I give him a wet rag and give him an area to clean wipe off. He has also helped unload the dishwasher, wipe off the table, pick up toys etc. Lately if we go to the store and he sees a toy he would like we just tell him that he needs to keep doing chores, but then he reminds us he is doing chores to get the blue train! We are hoping this will last the 10 years it will take him to earn enough money to buy that blue train! Nickels and pennies take a long time to amount to anything! What are your favorite chores for your preschoolers?

Cleaning the outside of the oven

Cleaning out the refrigerator. Even Boyce wants in on it sometimes.

The luxurious bank! I have intentions of having a craft day to decorate them sometime.

Some Seattle Fun

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

One of my brave friends thought it would be a fun idea to take our kids down to ride the light rail in Seattle and ride the Christmas Carousel. So, we loaded in the car...Since both boys are now front facing they like to ride like this.

Checking out the streets of Seattle

A ride on the carousel

count, yes 7 preschoolers in downtown Seattle!

Gage and his friend, Jack saying bye

On our way home Gage got his shoelace stuck in the bottom of the escalator, but that's another story for another time. It's actually pretty funny to hear him tell it!

Trimming the Tree

We loved our Christmas tree. It was awesome. We cut it down on a tree farm about 15 minutes from our house. Our eyes were clearly bigger than our stomachs as we brought home a almost 10 foot, 200 lb tree!

Note how much taller the tree is than Jake!

Manuel and Jake doing the hard work

It was all four of our kids wide (and then some) at the bottom!

We had to come up with some creative ways to decorate the top.

Snow, Skating, and Santa

Jake had a retreat up in the mountains at Suncadia resort. We got to tag along and enjoy the snow, iceskating, and I even enjoyed sitting in a outside hot tub while enjoying 20 degree weather!