Snow Party

My mom (aka Granny) read about this adorable "Snowman Party" and decided it would be a great thing for the kids. I agreed and we put our heads together to come up with some ideas. But life being the crazy thing that it is with work, three kids, illnesses, jury duty, aging parents to care for, and actual snow the party keep getting pushed aside.

After about a six week absence Granny made it to Tennessee for a visit. Turned out the weather was quite nice... not a snowflake in sight... at least not outside! We did a few "snowy" activities Saturday evening. The kids had a blast!

Decorating snowman t-shirts with Granny's help...



Emeline's beautiful paper snowflakes were perfect for this party too...




What party is complete without some delicious treats...



Emeline thought it was so silly when the icing dripped on her lip...



After all that paint Owen needed a bath. Bubbles are kind of like snow for a kid from Tennessee...



The finished products...

New Link

For quite some time, I have had e-peddler.com at the bottom of the blog so anyone could check out the best shopper paper around. OK... so I'm partial. Yes, it's the site for the paper I work for. Since newsprint is slowly on it's way out our company's website is super important and it is currently growing and undergoing some major changes. Hopefully, by April you'll be able to check in with it and see it in it's new and improved form.

Now I've added a new link to the kids' school. We were looking at it just the other day and noticed Emeline in the rotating photo on the home page. Well, it's not really her, but it is her likeness. The first at-home project the class did this school year was to decorate a paper cut-out as yourself. You can see Emeline in the photo with the sign across the top that says "Meet Ms. Osborne's Class". Emeline is the pretty in pink and purple girl on the far left.

Click on Faculty and Staff to see a list of teachers. Holden's teacher is Tamika Terry. Emeline's teacher is Stacy Osborne. I don't know how often they update their websites, but the kids love the idea of being connected to these people they see on the web and check them out every so often. Of course, they love being "famous" on this blog too.

And it's all just one more way of connecting you to our Parker Five.

Pick Up Sticks

When I was a kid I loved playing Pick Up Sticks. I guess because I could challenge myself not to move the sticks, but since I was playing by myself if I did move one I got an automatic do-over. It was one of the games that wasn't quite so pathetic to play alone unlike Hungry Hungry Hippos (yeah, I played that alone). It's kind of like solitaire with sticks. So I was happy to share my love of this simple childhood game with my kids.

Turns out that it is a major source of contention between Holden and Emeline. Any millimeter of movement and there's an outburst of "you moved it!" met by a resounding "no I didn't!". Holden inevitably gets the black stick that guarantees a win and Emeline complains about how unfair it is for the next 20 minutes. Owen doesn't really get it yet. For him, it's more like Dump Out Sticks. And who knew the colored sticks made perfect light sabers? Well, Owen did. Same with Tinker Toys. He even hands you the correct color for the character he wants you to be, but that's another story.

After Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we had another version of Pick Up Sticks to play. Our yard is full of twigs, sticks, and branches from the strong winds. Add to that the few broken sticks from our mini-ice storm a couple of weeks ago and we now have the makings of a bonfire. Owen and I spent about an hour picking up sticks from our backyard alone this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll tackle the front yard.

Ben did some picking up sticks of his own last Saturday when he traveled to Madisonville, Kentucky to help with the ice storm clean up. "Dumbfounded" was the word he used to describe the devastation the ice left in it's wake. The landscape is so changed that it doesn't look anything like any place on the planet. Trees are mere sticks poking out of the ground. All the branches from every tree left standing are now laying below the trees six feet deep.

I wonder where all the animals and birds that called those trees home are now. I wonder what kind of effect the hundreds of square miles left treeless will have on the environment. Questions that are beyond my ability to answer here. I am just grateful that we aren't dealing with them in our own backyard right now.

5th Grade Field Trip: Freedom Train

Holden went on a field trip yesterday. They drove to Nashville to see the play Freedom Train at the Grand Ole Opry House. It was the story of Harriet Tubman and I think it was a real eye-opener for him. Reading about history just doesn't have the same effect on you as reliving it especially for him.

Ben and I love history. In fact, the TV is often on the History Channel, but Holden usually leaves the room then. So I have been searching for historically based films to share with him that will entertain and maybe spark some intrest in history, but have been having a hard time finding ones that are age appropriate. In general, movies that are made about history are about horrible things and are rated R. Of course, slavery, war, concentration camps, and poverty are horrible. So far the closest I've been able to get to a historically accurate kids' film is Kit Kitteridge and that's a not an easy sell to an 11-year old boy.

I am sure there are some out there. Any suggestions?

Ice!

We had some ice here in Tennessee... thankfully, nothing like Kentucky's ice storm... just some sparkly trees and slick sidewalks.

These pictures are from Tuesday morning. The ice stuck around on the trees for most of the day, but the downpours of rain we got the rest of the day washed it away pretty quickly. What was left was covered in snow Wednesday morning.

It was gorgeous, but you'll have to take my word for it. The batteries in the camera died right after these pictures were taken. I didn't get any pictures of the house dusted with snow or the kids playing in it on Wednesday morning.

Hopefully, it will snow one more time this year so I can get some shots. Holden is keeping his fingers crossed that any more snow will come on a weekend though. The school district's built-in snow day allotment has been used up so any more snow days will be tacked onto the end of the year. Oh no!