Photo of the Day (A Fortnight Ago)

Kate sorting out the nuts in our nut bowl.

Winter Scenes

Some photos from our Christmas weekend up north.
In Thief River Falls (name of town) en route to
"the ranch" on Christmas morning:





Ice fishing on Thief River:


Snowflakes/frost on our windscreen/windshield:


"The ranch", as is fondly known to the girls:




Back in Moorhead with the sun finally out:



Believe it or not, we had even more more snow
down in the Twin Cities than they had up north!

Advent Calendars 2010

Merry belated Christmas, everyone! Forgot to post this earlier. We spent Christmas at The Ranch as we do every year - photos to come. The girls were very excited throughout and in the leadup to Christmas, the girls have enjoyed working on their advent calendars each day. Grandma Karen and Grandpa Arne gave these to the girls some years ago, but they were not quite ready to really appreciate them. This year, both Emily and Jenna were disciplined enough to count down the days to Christmas.

This was the one Emily worked on. Every day she took one little character out of its respective cubby hole, and hung it on a hook.



Jenna's was a magnetic Nativity scene. We'd used this on our fridge in previous years, with dismal results. Containing it on a board and keeping it out of smaller hands' reach was the key.



Kate got the handmade version. Each day she put her hand into a pocket and pulled out an edible treat and a slip of paper with a non-edible treat - sometimes a Christmas book, a Christmas DVD, a craft or a trip.

Photo of the Day

Kate in one of the outfits from her new dress-up chest - a present from Auntie Laura and Uncle Kum Kit - thank you!

Letters To Santa

Translation:
Dear Santa, I am very excited about Christmas.
Love, Emily
And please leave me a note.




Translation:
Dear Santa, I've been wondering:
do you stay alive all year?

Children's Art

We're documenting a lot of the kids' work on this blog because this is the blog their Singaporean grandparents read, and we know Grandma Mae and Grandpa Desmond enjoy keeping up with the girls' creative pursuits. Also the girls are churning out artwork at such a rapid rate nowadays that we can't save all of it, so we photodocument them instead, and we don't feel so bad when they inevitably get thrown away.


Kate made her first Christmas card this weekend:



and inside she signed her name. I helped with the "K"s and the bottom "A" but she wrote the other letters herself. She very proudly gave one of these to her Sunday School teacher, along with a bottle of Hershey's kisses.

Emily made a mailbox



with tiny envelopes and packages to slot into the mail compartments.



Some time ago, the girls had a soccer competition indoors. Emily was the umpire, and she judged the winner according to their style of kicking and how many penalties they collected. Jenna was declared the winner, and Emily made her a trophy, a ribbon and a medal, announcing the Greatness of Jenna.



Jenna made this beautiful bouquet of flowers, each painstakingly cut out and then stuck together.

Pop-Up Cards

We made some pop-up cards over the weekend, inspired by these here. The girls decorated the backdrops,




pushed out the stands, and stuck Christmas icons onto them.

Thanks for the inspiration, MaryAnne!