Wintertime's Fun!

 The girls got a giant Lego set of a police station and jail for Christmas. On New Year's Day, we all got our geeky Lego side on and spent the entire day building the set. Tom and I had to take turns building and making sure Caleb didn't eat any tiny pieces. In the late afternoon, with the girls still in jammies, we all completed the Legos. Celia also got a Lego Friends jungle scientist set and Sabrina got a Hello Kitty carnival set that are also pictured.

One of our favorite things about living in Alaska is seeing the Northern Lights. Though it's unpredictable and somewhat rare, we've caught a few good shows since living here. This winter was no exception. In early January we saw they were out on a Sunday morning when Tom got up to get ready for his morning meetings at church. We took a few shots from our front window, Tom ran out and took a selfie with the aurora, and I took turns waking the girls up and bringing them outside for just a moment to see them. They were especially bright this time because they were full and vibrant even right next to the full moon.

On our way to the museum one week, Sabrina and Caleb and I ran through town square to see all the ice sculptures. It was absolutely freezing, so it was a quick run through with a quick picture.

The girls took swimming lessons twice this winter and actually passed level 1 the second time! They finally got over a fear of putting their face in the water which made swimming in DisneyWorld way more fun. They can front float, back float, and Celia is great at getting things from the bottom of the pool. 

Sabrina and Caleb are always helpful with the laundry. Also, we clearly need a new laundry basket.

It only snowed in Alaska three or four times this winter, so our usual giant snow pile was quite small. Sabrina went out to sled on it, but was quite struggling. Tom went out to build her a ramp with the shovel and then she successfully sledded it several times. It was a sad winter for playing outside because it was bare most of the winter (curse you Boston... taking all of our snow!). She also did snow angels in our driveway this one time our driveway had snow.

As Sabrina says: "Family Skate Night!" Celia has really been taking off in her ability to skate thanks to her school ice skating rink. She got to skate every Thursday and Friday during the winter at recess. Her school hosted a family skate night, which Tom and the girls attended. They attempted "ice angels" but I would say they were not as successful as they hoped.

On February 20, just a month before turning 7, Celia finally lost her first tooth. She was ecstatic to say the least and she got a gold coin from the tooth fairy.

In order to raise funds for the ice skating rink maintenance, her school does an annual skate-a-thon. The University hockey players and mascot come out and skate, there's music, and it's pretty festive. I was really proud of Celia. She skated 41 laps around the rink.

This was another time we went skating as a family, but this time at one of the ice skating rinks in town. Sabrina learned to hold her own here and could skate around a bit without help.

This year was Celia's first science fair. She did all the work herself, coming up with the question "How do hot air balloons work?" We checked out some books from the library and a Bill Nye the Science Guy DVD and she learned all about hot air. She decided to do a demonstration from Bill Nye to show how hot air rises. She did great and loved doing it.