Sleepovers

Jia and her sweet new friend, Ava, have been spending a lot of time together...including two sleepovers (with more planned)! Here they are at their first one:

 

I had to laugh when Ava's mom sent me this picture because we were in the middle of doing this:

 

 

They don't look ready to sleep, do they?

 

 

Here they are at their second sleepover:

 

They have so much fun together. I'm glad they found each other!

Frozen fun

It has been chilly here, but we've been managing to have fun both inside and out.

We've had a few very cold days (as in fifteen below with thirty below windchill). Such cold days allow for terrific science experiments! We threw some batches of boiling water into the air, and most of it turned into a cloud! We filled a balloon with water, added red and purple food dye, and it turned into a beautiful turquoise (?) ice marble! We were confounded by the resulting color, but it was indeed pretty. We froze raw eggs and used them to hammer nails, too!

Willa also had the sledding hill and ice rink to herself one morning!

We joined Jia's girl scout troop for roller skating at Roller Garden. It was the girls' first time. They did so well. Jia just slowly shuffled around until she got the hang of it. Willa was a different story. I get such a kick out of her when she tries new things. I remember when she tried ice skating, she immediately tried to do figure eights. With roller skating, she was doing all these funky moves with her feet. I'm not sure what she was tried to accomplish, but I think she was trying to mimic the people who were lifting up their legs and crossing them over.  She fell down really hard a few times and even flipped over once, but it didn't seem to phase her!

 

Love the kooky dinosaur skater mural there!

 

Anyway, we had a great time and I think it may become a regular family thing!

Fire and Ice

It was not too cold, and quite snowy, during winter break, which meant it was perfect for being outside! We spent a lot of time playing in the snow, sledding and cross-country skiing!

The girls are terrific skiers now. We were so proud of how well they do. They laugh when they fall down, get up easily and just keep going. They have great attitudes. We usually do the half-mile loop a couple of times. One of the times we went, Jia did the half-mile loop three times to prepare herself for doing the mile-and-a-half loop. She's ready!

We also visited the Ice Castle at the Mall of America. We loved how it changed colors!

We spent New Year's Eve with our friends, Binh and John and their kids. We did our usual fun cheese fondue. Dippers this year included sweet potatoes, bread, pretzels, tomatoes, hot dogs, apples, grapes and broccoli. We then decided to attend a Candlelight and Ice Walk across the marsh at our nearby nature center. It was COLD, but toasted marshmallows and cocoa warmed us up. So did many giggles on the sleds!

 

 

 

 

A great start to the new year!

How swede it is!

Joe is of Swedish heritage and the American Swedish Institute is always beautiful at the holidays, so we make a point to visit every year. The girls loved watching the original Pippi Longstocking movie again, and we all laughed at her antics.

 

We always love walking around the beautiful castle-like building, and seeing all the Christmas displays.

 Writing a letter to Tomte.

Playing in the children's area!

We ate (after an hour and a half wait) at their fabulous new restaurant, Fika. The food was incredible! A yummy time was had by all.

Our elf

We got an Elf on the Shelf this year. I'd seen so many cute elf ideas on Pinterest, and thought it would be fun to have it be part of our Christmas tradition. We didn't follow the normal rules though. I knew that Jia would never believe that this floppy little toy comes alive and flies back to report to Santa every night. (Jia is already a Santa skeptic.) Also, for Willa, the idea of an elf creeping around our house every night was well, creepy. Plus, we don't do the naughty/nice list for Santa anyway. In our house, Santa is benevolent and does not judge. So, we all took turns hiding the elf and having him do silly things. Here are a few:

The girls loved this and we'll definitely do it again next year!

Christmas

Christmas in photos (and a few words):

I love that Jia was fully dressed in her Christmas outfit and ready to celebrate immediately when they came down the stairs.

The girls were very excited about their new dolls from Santa.

 

 They loved all their other toys as well.

 

Are we matching outfit people? I guess so! They looked so beautiful in these dresses.

We celebrated Christmas with the rest of the family too.

Mac was so cute!