Red Cabbage juice!

We didn't do much science (or art, or anything non-Christmas related) during December. The kids were so interested in Christmas, that they wanted to do Christmas craft projects, baking, holiday fairs, holiday adventures. Even their pretend play was heavily holiday related (wrapping gifts for each other). However, on one rather nice weekend afternoon, I made some red cabbage juice and set up a "kitchen" for the kids to play outside.

Red Cabbage juice is pretty easy to make. Boil red cabbage for 10 minutes or so, strain out cabbage and the liquid remaining is stinky, but fun!

Red cabbage juice acts as a litmus test. It starts off a grape purple color. Add baking soda, and it turns blue, add vinegar and it turns red. Mix the red and blue together, get purple fizz! If you add a drop or two of dish soap, you get purple foam instead (the soap helps trap the gas released from the reaction, so you get a better visual reaction).

 

I showed the girls the basics and explained briefly the how and why. Then, I let them play! They were both pretty fascinated with the experiment. Nora turned a bunch of juice varying shades of red, and then added baking soda to make fizz in reds and purples, depending on how acidic the juice was to start. Beth mostly just wanted to see the fizz, so she kept dumping vinegar straight onto baking soda and really didn't care as much about the juice.

Christmas in Maine!

We went up to Maine to celebrate Christmas with Andy's family on New Year's Eve. It was a special day as Nora and Beth got to celebrate with their Great Grammy Piper.We don't often get to see her, and it was a special treat because we got to visit with her twice in a month! The girls really enjoyed the visit and I am really hoping that since the girls travel better in the car, we will be able to visit more often.

 

 Beth got a fairy dress to match one that Nora got a year ago. She also got a small ribbon and a crown to go with it. 

Nora got a magicians cape, hat and wand. She loves that she had dress up clothing in her favorite color!

 Nora also got a blue monkey, which is fitting for our Curious George loving child!

 Beth received a beautiful handmade Raggedy Ann doll and got a hand made baby carrier like her sister. These two items are never far from Beth! Raggedy Ann has become a favorite nighttime lovey.

As always, we had a great time visiting with our family and were sad that we couldn't stay longer! Nora and Beth enjoyed opening gifts and making sure that everyone else had gifts to open as well!

There were many, many other photos from the holiday season which can be viewed here: Christmas photos on smugmug

Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas! It seems to just get better every year! On Christmas Eve, we had Danielle, Jeff and all 3 Grandparents over for a little get together. Nothing fancy. We made gingerbread houses (I found a recipe for gingerbread cookies that works great for houses and smells great, but tastes like cardboard! We had a lot of fun decorating the houses. Beth tried to make her roof a bit too heavy, so we ended up having to support it with toothpicks. Nora was really interested in it this year. She had more plans than just sticking candy onto the house. She wanted to make windows, doors and walkways.

Here is my gingerbread house. Since Andy was helping Nora and Danielle was helping Beth, I had the opportunity to take my time and have some fun! 

Once the houses were made, we started opening gifts. This was, of course, a favorite part of the kids day. As always, our family was very generous! The girls got some dress up clothes - a doctor set and a hairdresser set. it was pretty funny to watch them swap costumes over and over again and play!

 

 They also got an amazing wooden dollhouse. The kids love coming up with stories and playing with the dollhouse, and I'm sure it will get plenty of use over the years!

Once the kids were in bed, Andy and I brought all the gifts we got them upstairs! Then, it was off to bed for us to hopefully get some sleep before the kids woke in the morning!

 I ended up waking up before the kids, which was really nice and will likely be the last year for the "late" morning. I was able to drink a cup of tea and get some cinnamon rolls into the oven before the girls woke up. They were kinda groggy coming out, but it didn't take long for them to become more excited!

The big gift to the girls from us was a trampoline. We didn't want to bring it upstairs and potentially damage the floor, so we put a big bow on it and had the kids go downstairs to find it after they had opened the rest of their gifts. Both girls were excited to have a trampoline at home, showing off their bouncing skills immediately (and hanging upside down on it!).


 

We got the girls both a fairy dress. dress, wings and wand. They are really cute and the girls put them on and run around pretending they are superheros, fairies, butterflies, wizards or princesses.
 

Other December Fun!

In addition to all the crafting we did in December, we also did a lot of playing! Nora built a tent so that she could go camping in the living room.

  She even made a fire to sit by and roast marshmallows. She set up a camp chair for her sister, but I think Beth decided to go fishing instead!

Two headed monster! I haven't fully figured out this game. But they both lay down on the couch and ask me to put a blanket on them. then, one sits up shouts something, lays down, pulls blankets back up and the other kid then sits up and shouts something. Every time I think i have figured out what they are shouting about, the rules of the game seem to change!

 Getting ready to head up to Grandma's for the weekend. She was so incredibly excited to go!

 We had to stop to sharpen my skates before going to grandma's house. Nora found the kid sized hockey equipment and decided to try some on. She really wants to learn to play hockey, but is still a little timid about skating!

We also spent plenty of time outside! We went on a few hikes at Beaver Brook Assn. The kids almost always enjoy going to Beaver Brook for hikes, although sometimes getting them to actually walk on the trails can be a trick. They would often rather just play in the gardens!

 We spent some time at Roby Park. Both girls have gained so much confidence on the climbing equipment. Nora will finally step off the platform at the top of the corkscrew and climb to the corkscrew. She used to either make me spot her or she'd climb up and when she got as high as she was comfortable, she'd go back down. I'm so proud of her!

Beth enjoying the roller slide. It's a very bumpy ride, but the kids totally love it! Beth is finally tall enough to climb the rock wall without assistance, which is very nice!

At the New England Sports Center before one of my hockey games. We had gone to the Ecotarium before hand for their Christmas Journey program, which was lots of fun. We did the Christmas program last year, and it's a great holiday tradition while the kids are still young! In the photo below, Beth is showing Rage Barbie the ice rink.

We also made a trip down to the Stone Zoo this year for their Zoolights program. They light up the zoo and you can walk around and look at the lights. The otters were out playing, which Nora loved. They also had a giant train setup, which Nora really enjoyed watching!

Beth and Daddy at Zoolights. It was a chilly night, which was perhaps odd for this year, but we had fun anyway!

Busy December!

We had a whirlwind December. At the beginning of the month, I took the kids to the store and we picked out a basket (they picked out one that looked like a Santa suit and called it the "Santa Bucket"). Every day, I filled the basket with a small treat (a small piece of chocolate) and a craft or other activity to do for the day. I had come up with 25 activities, but because of weather, colds and the kids love of doing crafts, we went through my stash of ideas in about two weeks, so I had to scramble for the last 10 days! We made some epsom salt covered candle holders, many many ornaments, beeswax candles, cookies and assorted other decorations to hang on the wall! 

Here the kids are rolling their glue covered candle holders in epsom salt. It provided a nice craft and loads of sensory fun. When the kids were done with the candles, they played in the salt!

 Final product - holiday candle holders that the kids were very proud of!

 Mixing cookie dough!

 Smiling for the camera while big sister rolls out some dough!

 Making "reindeer poop" which are no bake cookies - chocolate, oats and coconut. Yum!

 Beth, painting her snowman circles with white homemade puffy paint (it puffs up in the microwave).

 Our finished snowmen. Nora's is on the right, Beth's on the left and mommy's is in the middle.

 We had a cookie baking day at Danielle's house. Beth LOVED that the snack table was a perfect height for her. She ate a lot of cheese and even more veggies!

 Dipping the Italian cookies in the glaze. When asked "how does it look," Beth answered "not very good!" Danielle got it on video and I'll have to see if I can link it to the blog. It was so funny!

Here's a photo with an assortment of the ornaments we made. Our tree was covered in home made ornaments this year! It was tough to narrow down the ornaments to keep a few and get rid of the rest!

November outdoor videos

Some videos from this fall. Two of Nora flipping on her swing, one of Beth giggling on the swing (it just makes me happy...her laugh is contagious!) and one of the scary transformer light show we had during the big October Snowstorm.

November updates

It has been a very interesting month! We built about 3 snowmen, and have Halloween photos of the kids standing next to a giant snowman Danielle and Jeff built! We also spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving outside in just shirts! Andy cleared out the gutters and put up the Christmas lights wearing a t-shirt!

Nora insisted on being a tree frog for Halloween. For those who don't know, it's very difficult to find a tree frog costume with red eyes, orange hands AND orange feet in a child size 5/6 without breaking the bank! After much searching, I finally found a hooded sweater and matching corduroy pants that were the 'right' color green (according to my 4 year old). I made Beth an owl costume and really liked the way it came out. Both girls wore their costumes quite a bit before Halloween and even on Halloween! However, come a week later, when it was time to trick or treat, Nora was tired of her frog costume! I was happy to let her pick out any costume she wanted - we have plenty of fairy/princess dresses, pirate gear, farmer costumes, but a friend had a blue sea dragon costume and she LOVED it. Beth honestly thought she would be able to fly when we put her in the Owl costume for trick or treating and the look on her face when she couldn't fly was simply heartbreaking. We only did a short trick or treating - just around the block. kids still got plenty of candy (much of which I sent to work with Andy!).

The weather went from snowy, to warm, to cold to warm again. Very hard to figure out how to dress the kids. Even more confusing for the kids, who get to go out with just a sweater one day but need their heavier coats the next. I can't complain too much, we have been able to get in a few extra fall hikes, more biking and more swing-set time although I'm pretty sure the kids will still be swinging in the snow!

Our Snowtober snowman!

 on Oct 30, we carved pumpkins with no electricity. Was a very good thing to do to pass the time!

 Some of the damage from the storm. We were very lucky - only a branch on our fence. other neighbors were not so lucky!

 Photo of the snowfall. This was taken after some compression and melting! We had MORE than this in our yard, despite the reports of nashua getting 5 inches!

 Halloween at "Occupy Bedford Street"

 Our carved pumpkins a week later. On our delayed trick or treating day. They got a little squishy, but still looked cute!

Halloween with the cutest kids!

 

I didn't take very many photos on Thanksgiving. We decided to just enjoy the day an the family and not worry about carting around the camera. Here is a photo of our kids watching the parade on TV. It didn't really hold their attention for very long (they really only enjoy watching animated programs).

 

  Nora with her Thanksgiving meal.

 Beth with her plate!

 Beth listening to Daddy read her a Thanksgiving story.