January 2014 (so far!)

On New Year's Day, we visited the extensive exhibit of miniature electric trains at the museum center. (Grandpa Bill would have loved it!) The kids also got to ride on a little train just their size.




(Photo from www.cityprofile.com) 
The museum center (housing the children's museum, museum of natural history, and Cincinnati history museum) is actually an enormous train station and an amazing structure! This is the majestic lobby. It only has a few freight trains coming and going now, but it used to be a huge, bustling center with hundreds of passengers passing through every day.

It's really cool; come visit and we'll take you there!







Luke liked this big "Santa" chair

Luke preparing for his (short) bike ride to the library in the subzero weather. Thank goodness for the Ukrainian shapka!

Staying warm and entertained during many cold days (school started two days late after the break because of the temperature).




The morning when our car was dead and abandoned at a park, so we got to wake the kids up early and take Luke to work. Fun times! (Luckily, the car was eventually revived . . . 17 years-old and still hanging on by a thread!)


In a rare, harmonious--and really cute--moment, Sarah dressed up as "The Queen of the Fairies" and Alex danced around the house with her as her dashingly handsome prince.


In another extremely rare moment, the house stayed clean for close to 10 minutes after the Christmas decorations were put away.  :)  It had to be documented.


Nap time . . .


Story time with Mom . . .


The tumbling city finals: Katie received 1st place in Novice 6 and under! After she performed, she leaned over and whispered, "I was the only peach-skinned person in my group!" So cute. (Yep, it's quite a diverse city when we venture out of our suburb!)


Both girls did really well! We were proud of them, especially Abby coming back after a wrist injury to reach 3rd place in her age group on Level 2.


Katie's Girl Scout troop (with Abby in tow) visited an art museum . . . and got to create still life paintings of their own.


Katie-Bug turned 7!! She decorated this horse cake all by herself--isn't it adorable?








We had a fun party with some of her friends . . .


 . . . which meant another cake!




What a sweet group of girls!
Trust me, Alex was thrilled to be in this picture. He really was! Actually, he had a lot of fun at the party. We played a game at the beginning where each person had a label on their back with the name of an animal, and they had to ask other people questions to figure out what their animal was. Alex's was a cow . . . and a few minutes later, when we did introductions, he brought down the house with: "I'm Alex . . . and I'm a cow."