racing

It is a frequent request to 'race cars' with Lucas.  We've had an unusually warm and mild winter {knock on wood} and we took advantage of it to race outside. 

There were car races with mom.

Foot races.

I think Lucas and I raced up and down the drive way 30 or more times that day; great exercise!

Racing against the clock to beat Hannah from putting rocks, twigs, bugs, etc in her mouth. 

very rare weather phenomenon

A snow roller is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which large snowballs are formed naturally as chunks of snow are blown along the ground by wind, picking up material along the way, in much the same way that the large snowballs used in snowmen are made.

Unlike snowballs made by people, snow rollers are typically cylindrical in shape, and are often hollow since the inner layers, which are the first layers to form, are weak and thin compared to the outer layers and can easily be blown away. Snow rollers can grow as large as a foot in diameter.
The following conditions are needed for snow rollers to form:

• The ground must be covered by a layer of ice that snow will not stick to.
• The layer of ice must be covered by wet, loose snow with a temperature near the melting point of ice.
• The wind must be strong enough to move the snow rollers, but not strong enough to blow them too fast.
• The ground must have a slope, at least where the snow rollers start rolling.

Because of this last condition, snow rollers are more common in hilly areas. However, the precise nature of the conditions required makes them a very rare phenomenon.  This information came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 


Snow rollers might be rare, but we had 'em at our place.  Brent headed to his office Friday morning after a couple of inches of snow whitened the ground on Thursday night.  He called me and told me I had to come see "hundreds of snowballs" at his office.  I loaded up the kids, grabbed the camera and headed out the door so Lucas could see them before he went to preschool. 

I wish I would have used something to gauge the size of the snow rollers for the photo... The one above, in the lower right, was easily 12"in diameter.  You can see their unique, cylindrical shape.  

In the twenty or so minutes we looked at them and took pictures, I saw several roll away.  They looked so light.  Brent inspected one and said it was hollow, just as the NOAA information indicated.  

These pictures were taken at 8:30AM.  By 4:30PM, two thirds of the snow rollers had rolled away.  

blocks

Lucas builds.

Hannah tears down.

Then chews on the rubble.

preschool update

We had preschool parent/teacher conferences a while back.  I'm not going to lie - I was a little nervous.  It was our first child's first conference.  I didn't know what to expect and wondered if my sweet little boy was the same at school as he is at home?  Or did he have his mom wrapped around his finger? 

The good news is {while he might have me wrapped around his finger} he is doing really well at preschool.  He plays well with others, listens and respects his teachers, can recognize almost all of the letters, does well at writing his name (for a four year old) and can count to twenty.  Phew!   We, oops, I mean HE is doing great!  (Let's be honest, it does feel a bit like an evaluation for the parent, too.)

Brent and I must have told him twenty times that night how proud we are of him being a good friend and student.  I don't think you can tell a kid you are proud of them too much.  Like, how can you have too much love for your children?

In other preschool news there was double-header field trip a couple of weeks ago.  First stop was singing and delivering Valentine's to the nursing home. 

Second stop was the quarry.  We drove past Daddy's office to get to the quarry and Lucas was telling all of his buddies in our car about it.  The temperatures had been warm the day before and the day of the field trip.  While this was great weather for the kids to be outside, it made for a very muddy mess. 

The kids each got to pick two different rocks to take home.  They loved diving in to get one!

This was the picture of half the preschool class - Lucas and the girls!  The other boys were all in the other photo, but I just thought this was cute.  They are some sweet little girls in his class!

*For the record, I picked up Jonah and Charlie at daycare before we went on the field trip.  It was like having triplet four year old boys.  Whew!  That was a little more work than I bargained for, but a fun field trip.


The last part of the preschool update was the Valentine party. 

definitely his favorite 'center.'

singing a song about love and making a heart with his fingers.

carry the valentine relay.

playing drop the handkerchief. 

Jonah picked Lucas.

Lucas picked Charlie.

fun!

with his loot.

ISU basketball

We are so thankful to live close enough to take advantage of many Iowa State events.  We love it!  Being Cyclone fans is a big part of our life in this household.  A couple of weeks ago Brent called me about 4pm and said he'd been thinking about going to the basketball game that night against Kansas State.   I said sure, let's go, but what about the kids?   The game started at 8pm... {which is past Hannah's bed time}... we wouldn't be home until after 11pm {which is way past Lucas' bedtime}.  We decided to give Lucas the choice - knowing he would fall asleep on the way home and this was a special treat.  Hannah spent the evening with Papa Steve and Lucas didn't hesitate for a second - he chose the Cyclone game! 

warming up.

content.

Mom & Lucas.

Funny story about the Skittles box on my knee in that picture...

Not very long after tip off Lucas was asking for a snack.  :-)  He was excited for M&Ms but when we got to the concession stand they were sold out.  The concession worker talked Lucas into Skittles, even though I tried to talk him out of it {because I secretly wanted popcorn}.  So a package of Skittles, bottle of water and $7.50! later, we were back in our seats.  Lucas didn't want the green, yellow or orange skittles.  Only the red and purple.  I paid $3.50 for a normal, gas station sized package of Skittles and he only wanted two fifths of them!  Made us laugh. 

At on point in the game Iowa State was trailing by 14 points and with just seconds left on the clock it looked like we had the potential to win!   Have you ever heard of Hilton Magic?  It is real.  It is loud.  It gets your heart pumping.  Lucas was jumping UP and DOWN on the seat, cheering and clapping.  Royce White hit the game winning jumper with 1.8 seconds left in the game.  Hilton Magic is alive and well! 

Celebrating a Cyclone victory! 

snowman

Between loading corn trucks at the farm a few weeks ago Lucas, Daddy and Ethan built a snowman... and had a snowball fight.  It was a great snowman!  The arms are tree limbs, the hat came from Ethan's truck, the nose is a bottle cap and the eyes are shotgun shells.  A little bit redneck, huh?  I was impressed with their creativity.