Fiesta, Missouri style

I recently had a music therapy conference in San Antonio and we got to spend time with some of Dave's college friends while we were there. Our friends Chris and Amy sent back two cartons of cascarones for the kids to enjoy.  Cascarones are real eggs drained, filled with confetti, and sealed back up with tissue paper. They're mainly used during San Antonio's annual two-week Fiesta, which was a few weeks away. You're supposed to throw them or crush them over someone's head. We skipped that last option when explaining them to the kids. Ben thought they were amazing. Elizabeth just seemed confused.

Wikipedia has this amusing trivia:
"They are rumored to have originated in China and brought to Europe by Marco Polo.^[1] In Italy they were first used as a courting ritual, filled with perfume and then capped with wax. Men would throw them at women they found attractive. "

(Because there's nothing sexier than a guy throwing an egg at you, especially with the subtext, "I thought that you could use some perfume to cover the fact that you need a bath.")

Ben asked the next day if he could open the second pack of cascarones (or as he calls them, "fiestas"). Since they're kind of messy, we told Ben that we'd wait for a nicer day and open the second pack outside. He did not like this and decided to write an angry response on his Magna Doodle. He says it reads:

"Bad Mom said do not let me do my fiestas."

At least he's practicing his writing skills.

Our cute munchkins

Cousin Joseph (6'10") has calmed a restless Elizabeth at our last two extended family breakfasts by helping her fly. She had the biggest smile on her face and then happily sat with him for a long time afterward, which is rare in her current clinging-to-parents phase.

One of Elizabeth's favorite things to do at school is to rock the baby dolls. She was cuddling one of her baby dolls this morning while Ben was watching "Veggie Tales"... at least until she unceremoniously dropped him on his head next to Dave.

 Ben was out sick for a day and a half with a stomach bug. On his second day home, he and Dave built towers our of Solo cups. We got him a pack of them for Christmas after he and his cousins spent almost an hour building with them over Thanksgiving. As you can see from the third photo, he was most enthusiastic about knocking it down!

Ben is rocking his way through the BOB book series and is in the final box set. We have him read one most nights as well as reading a regular book to him. Elizabeth wanted a front row seat on story time this night!

Even in his sleep, he doesn't stop talking about sports

Ben has been soundly sleeping for a few hours, but we just heard him say, "He just striked the Angels player out really hard with his hand. Isn't that awesome?" Must be dreaming about baseball!

Who needs fancy toys?

Elizabeth put herself in and took herself out (sometimes by tipping) of Ben's $2 Goodwill mixing bowl at least six times yesterday afternoon. I'm not quite sure why it was so fascinating or how it could be comfortable, but she thought it was pretty cool. She was rather upset when I put it out of her reach after she tipped over multiple times.

Snow Day

 

After receiving virtually no snow since February 2011, we got hit hard by a late-Winter storm yesterday.  At various times, snow was falling at a rate of 4 inches per hour, and in all we got 12 to 14 inches of it (it's tough to tell exactly how much, considering the drifts).  It shut the city down, and we all stayed home rather than chance the roads. Ben was quite excited by it all -- he spent a good portion of the day yelling, "Thundersnow!" (which was an accurate description of the storm), and asked repeatedly if he could go outside and play in it.  When the storm finally abated, we let him do just that.

He had a great time tromping around in the snow, throwing snowballs, and making snow angels (not the easiest task, as the snow was crusted with a thin layer of sleet).  Emily joined in to show him how it's done.

 

Elizabeth was much more interested in the snow than she was earlier in the winter; she most emphatically did not want to play in the dusting we received a couple months ago.  This time, she enjoyed patting it, making a small pile of it ... and crawling around after Ben, of course!

 Note the makeshift boots made of plastic grocery bags.  We're classy, sophisticated people.

 

 

Ben's valentines

After denying last week that his teachers had said anything about handing out valentines to his pre-K classmates, Ben changed his story and decided a) they were handing them out and b) he wanted to bring some. My requirements for the valentines were that they were simple, inexpensive, and didn't have candy or animated characters/superheros he talks about but really doesn't know anything about on them.  Pinterest saved the day and pointed me toward these cute magnifying glass valentine printables from Dandee. Ben loved the magnifying glasses they had in his last classroom and adores PBS' "Sid the Science Kid" who uses one frequently, so I thought it would be a hit. As a bonus, 12-packs of magnifying glasses were only $3 at the party supply store! Ben had fun either writing his name or using rubber stamps (or both) on the valentines and was excited to have his very own magnifying glass.

And here are a couple random pics from the last few weeks of us playing Ben's new favorite game, Crazy Eights, and the kids cracking each other up!

Little Wing Nut

Elizabeth was all decked out in appropriate gear to cheer our Detroit Red Wings onto victory against the St. Louis Blues, 5-3. We are still working on her octopus-throwing skills. Her current method involves a lot more drool and chewing than is typically recommended by expert octopus throwers.