The Little Nemeceks

We spent Christmas in WV this year as Josh is away, and I did not want to spend Christmas alone!  My parents have a new puppy Chihuahua that the kids just adored.  We spread out the gifts so that they got one each day, and that seemed to work very well as they got plenty of time to play with each one.  We were all happy to have the company.  The extended family Christmas was held at my parents' house as well, with the great-grandparents coming up for the afternoon as well as my dad's sister and her family.  David was the life of the party as the little pirate, and multiple swords were created out of cardboard to fight with him.

This month the kids got to see marble sculptures of animals and were able to make their own sculptures out of modeling clay.  Nathan designed a frog on a lily pad, and David did a caterpillar.

We headed up to MI to celebrate a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas over the Thanksgiving week holiday, since Josh was headed out the next week for another deployment.  The kids had a wonderful time playing with their cousins (David made an especially good friend in Maddie) and the adults got a chance to hang out and play games.  We are very thankful for this holiday time together since the drive to MI is so long that we are not able to visit very often.  Pictures are not in any particular order ;)

Watching tv with Grandma on the couch

David and Maddie play with his truck

It's lego time!

And still more legos...

It's a turkey!

Snow!  We don't get any of that here in GA...

Maddie opening her present

David receives the take apart truck seen earlier

Nathan helps Caiden open his lego box present

Nathan examines his new spirograph

Playing with puzzles

Our co-op took a field trip to the Bell School, a one room schoolhouse about 45 minutes south of here.  Nathan is right at the 1900's era in his history lessons, so a 1912 one room schoolhouse seemed like the perfect trip.  The day started out with a talk detailing some early 20th century practices by families and schoolchildren (this was the most difficult part of the day as the talk went on for an hour and a half - clearly geared toward older children.  Thankfully another mom had brought some toys and David was able to play mostly quietly).  When we went inside, Nathan practiced handwriting with a quill pen while David played outside with another toddler.  We had lunch outside, packed in tin pails, and David learned that he really likes eating whole apples!  For recess the kids shucked corn and sawed logs (neither one wanted to try the stilts).  After lunch there was a spelling bee.  Nathan was very excited about this and spelled his word correctly, but unfortunately was out because he forgot to say the word before and after he spelled it.  As we were leaving the kids were able to get a small souvenir from the store, Nathan picked marbles and David a toy car.  While certainly educational, this trip would have been much better with older kids, so we probably won't be back for a few years.

Am I behind on my blogging?  Of course I am!  So, on the eve of our December art museum trip, I finally manage to bring you the pictures from November's art museum trip, lol.  What did we learn about again?  (checks Morris website).  Oh, right. patterns.  They used stamps on fabric and looked at paintings with patterns.  This was right up David's alley, as he loves showing off how he can find patterns.  Enough rambling. More pictures :)

We once again had the pleasure of Aunt Becky and Uncle Greg's presence for Halloween (since their street has very few kids), plus the lovely ladybug that was baby Hannah.  Nathan and David decided to wear their superhero costumes from last year (which amazingly still fit ok) and were so excited to trick-or-treat you would have thought they had already ingested all their candy!  David was especially excited, and spent the hour after we were done handing out candy to everyone who came to our door. 

Aunt Becky with her ladybug

Someone got bored and decided to chew on Uncle Greg's pirate sword

Me with the ladybug!

My superheroes!

Science Education Enrichment Day (SEED) at USC Aiken was Nathan's favorite field trip last year, so we made it a big point to head out there again this year.  Nathan was disappointed that many of the exhibits were repeats, but he warmed up to it eventually, and David had a blast (especially meeting the Cat in the Hat)!

Electricity & Magnetism

David shows off the paper he made

Nathan builds a gumdrop dome

David loved meeting the Cat in the Hat!

Learning how to make glue

Nathan plays a video game by tapping electrode-loaded bananas

David pets a baby alligator

Searching for radioactive material