School's Out

Making playdough is great for occupying time.

Another Vanessa and Zane game, based on a game from Family Game Night. We put a number game board on the floor with contact paper. They made up number sequences and jumped on the numbers. A bell would ding if they jumped the sequence correctly. A buzzer would sound if they jumped the sequence incorrectly. They made tally marks for each bell that dinged. The game transformed to many variations including using a ball to determine the sequence, and then a sword to block where the ball would bounce. Poor Horton and Wonder Pet Tuck. . . they endured Zane's variation of jumping on stuffies. And then off to another game . . .  a version of Super Why, I think . . .

There was a two-hour delay on Monday and I picked up Vanessa early from school since she was feeling yucky. While she rested Monday into Tuesday, Zane did some school work. Poor little guy . . .

They didn't know they were doing science but we made sensory (density bottles) using clear plastic bottles and other various materials . . . again. First we squirted in corn syrup. Then we poured vegetable oil in to see the vegetable oil rise to the top. And then we poured in red water. The liquids separated into three layers with corn syrup on the bottom, water in the middle, and vegetable oil on top. We wondered what else we could do, so we put in puffy balls, pipe cleaners (yes, I used the un-PC reference), paperclips and safety pins. Then V&Z used magnets to fish the metal from the bottom layer to drag to the top.

I'm certain there were many times when Vanessa hopped on Zane's train to get to her violin performances. His engineering was superb and her performances were outstanding.

Holy Rollers

We lost control a bit when we saw snow rollers on our way to school on Monday.

The title of the post makes me think about the broad spectrum of worshipers and denominations (and spectra within each denomination) and how some generalize based on labels. Our family doesn't attempt to speak in tongues or roll all over the floor when worshiping God, but there are times we are pretty zealous when we witness His mercy and grace.

Selfie

Deemed the word of 2013, Vanessa has this mastered.

We've tried a couple selfies as a group, but I don't recall us ever demonstrating this approach for her. We were playing dress up in her room one evening. The kids have a ton of play phones. The one in Vanessa's hand is actually meant for an infant, but she still plays pretend with it. I asked her where she learned to take such glitzy selfies and she said, "I saw Candace do it on Phineas and Ferb." :-)

Recently I went through her camera she was gifted for Christmas 2012. There were a ton of selfies. Some were pretty. Some were cute. Some were silly. I'm thinking they might make a neat photo book titled "2013 Selfies".

Invigorating

Watching and Waiting

Vanessa will help steam broccoli in the microwave. A few months ago, after she closed the door and punched the numbers, she sat there on the stool just watching. After a few seconds she said, "You know Mom, a watched pot never boils. Do you know what that means? It means I need to stop watching so it will boil." :-)

She's right. Anxiety and impatience do not speed things up. Wait in faith. Based on an article from Relevant magazine, waiting reveals true motives, builds patience, transforms our character, and builds intimacy and dependency on God.

For the weather this week, I heard Vanessa repeat something I have said. As I asked the kids to bundle up really well, Vanessa asked, "Is it a kill-a-person kind of cold?" She went on to ask if it would once again be double digits below zero. The temps have been great for math lessons. :-)