January Favorites

Here are my favorite Project Life pictures for this month:

 

A few weeks ago Kyle and I went grocery shopping and he specifically asked for hot dogs, so I let him get some and he couldn't have been more pleased. He wanted to hold them the entire time, even on the car ride home. Guess what we had for lunch that day: Hot dogs!

Here Kyle is sliding down the staircase on his belly. I don't know. It doesn't seem like the most comfortable thing, but he was having the best time.

I'll tell you what's so funny...typing obnoxious or mildly inappropriate words onto Kyle's toy phone.

I did it! Kyle is climbing up into his high chair by himself now.

Tyler's new slippers. We had the hardest time finding anything in his size this year and when we found these dinosaur feet on clearance at Kohl's, they were the perfect thing.

I found myself at Tyler's school a lot this month for a variety of reasons, but while I was there I got to see the new star on his handprint. The handprint itself is for reaching 100 AR points and the star is for accumulating an additional 100 points. He's over 200 points now, which is more than he's ever had before in a single school year.

And finally, Kyle and I about to head into Starbucks. He goes with me so much that he knows exactly how I take my coffee: one yellow packet (Splenda) and milk (half and half). Such a helper!

Resolutions

The two resolutions I made this year were simply to read more and run more. It sounds kind of vague, but I do have actual numbers in mind. In terms of reading I want to read the six books I got for Christmas in 2012. I put them off for an entire year, but it's not like I wasn't reading at all...I just wasn't reading those books. Last year I read Les Miserables, which took a good chunk of time, but it was SO worth it. By far the best book I've ever read. Then I read three different parenting self-help books, Lumby on the Air (the last in a series of books I'd been reading) and Into the Beautiful North (the Big Read book for last year).

 

This year I want to make sure that I make time, hopefully every day, to read something for myself. I always read to Tyler and Kyle at night, but often skip over myself and go straight to bed. If I don't read at night, then I want to carve out some other time during the day to get it done. So far I've read four out of the six books: Gone Girl, The Light Between Oceans, Still Missing and Emily & Einstein.  Now I need to finish the other two and keep up the pace.

In terms of running, I want to run more miles than I did last year which was approximately 200 miles. I usually run 3 miles every Monday to start off the week, but this year I want start running on Fridays as well. It's not just about the numbers though, I do want to become a better runner. I want to be able to run faster and farther and gosh darn do better at See Spot Run in April.

Salmon Man

The entire 3rd grade at Tyler's school does a salmon unit every year as part of their life science curriculum. One of the classes is chosen to host the salmon tank and they monitor and record information as the eggs hatch and the fish grow and so on. The principal, who is new to the school this year, decided that Tyler's class would host the tank and that moreover, Tyler would be the main "Salmon Man". That meant that he had to research the life cycle of salmon and create a poster board that he would take around to the other 3rd grade classes and present the information and then he would also have to inventory the tank everyday and record how many eggs hatched and if any fish died and things like that.

 

It seemed like a big responsibility and I still can't figure out why the principal chose Tyler, except for the fact that he was probably sitting in his office (like he does every other day) when it came time to make the decision. The principal was probably thinking, "Hmmmm....who am I going to get to do this", looked up and saw Tyler sitting there and said, "Hey Tyler, you know what would be fun?". Otherwise it makes no sense. If we're all going to be honest, it's not like Tyler is highly motivated. He's not going to choose to do a research project when he could just sit on his rump playing video games. So then it became a family project. Rick researched the information, which I then took and helped Tyler place it on his poster board.

 

It came out looking really nice! I still hold a grudge though. No other 3rd grader in the school had to research salmon, just Tyler. How is that fair?

I had the opportunity to hang out in the classroom for several hours in the afternoon yesterday, partly to observe Tyler and partly to see what the PAL program is all about and what the kids really do in there all day as opposed to a regular classroom. While I was there I also got to check out the salmon tank.

Oh my gosh! Such cute little alevin!

 

These guys were kind of just laying there like they were dead, but the teacher said that they're just newly hatched and should be swimming around in a few days. Now that all the eggs have hatched, I'm sure it'll be fun for the kids to watch the fish grow. I think they keep the fish for several months, or maybe to the end of the school year and then release them.

First Snow

This week we finally got our first snow of the winter season. Usually it starts snowing somewhere between Thanksgiving and mid December and continues through January, but this is the first year since we've lived in Yakima that we didn't get any snow in November or December.

 

It started snowing Tuesday night, which was a surprise to me as I hadn't seen any reference to snow in the forecast. It didn't amount to much either, leaving less than 1/2 an inch.

It wasn't enough to cancel school on Wednesday, but they did have a 2 hour delay because of the icy roads.

After we dropped Tyler off at school, I let Kyle play in the backyard for a little while. He used one of his cups from his sand table, filled it up with snow and then dumped it out on the bench making snowmen, as he called them.

That was fun while it lasted, but all traces of snow are now long gone. It's been around 50 degrees the last few days, which is above normal for this time of year.