It has been a *little* snowy lately

Last Friday, after a harrowing and terrifying drive in a snowstorm that began abruptly with an unrelenting ferocity that this northern girl has never before seen, we arrived at my parents' farm for a long weekend.  (Little did we know, we could have stayed at least 3 more days, as the snow has arrived in northern Virginia and we have not had school all week!) 

Although the temps were in the low teens with wind chills even lower, we had several 30-60 minute sled riding sessions on The Hill at the farm.  The Hill was fast, like skeleton-sled fast, with the added fun of frozen horse droppings that we would hit and make us fly off of our sled, into the air.  It was like hitting rocks. Larry broke a sled.  We all have bruises.  But it was fun.  

We have allowed Abigail to retain her only two vices from babyhood.  One is Blankie.  Sometimes, when stressed or tired, she just says "I need to sniff my Blankie" and within a few minutes, Happy Child returns.  Besides, 4 is not too old to have a Blankie.  But the other vice is her sippy cup.  Sure, she drinks water and juice and lemonade out of regular cups and glasses.  But when waking up, going to bed, or decompressing, she relies on hot milk in a sippy cup. Abigail loves hot milk, but she REFUSES to drink it out of anything except a sippy cup.  When presented with the choices (A) hot milk in another type of cup and (B) no milk at all, she always picks (B).  Since we forgot her sippy cup on this trip, Abigail didn't have any hot milk, but she did try something new:  hot chocolate (made from milk) in a mug!!  This is a HUGE step for her and a treat that she loved after sledding.  

My parents also took her to see Frozen for the second time.  She is OBSESSED with the movie, in a good way I guess, not in a Disney-princess way. She is singing (even more than usual), talking about eternal concepts like family, love, protecting people from getting hurt and friendship.  She is picking up and using new vocabulary, such as "isolation" and "sophisticated."  Abigail made my mother role play Elsa and Anna for hours.  During one break for dinner, my mom was relaxing with adults for a few minutes when Abigail (ready to return to playing) said "Grandma, you be Abigail and I'll be Grandma."  My mom said okay and said some vague thing.  Abigail corrected her, "No, you say 'Let's go play' and then I'll say 'yes' and we'll go do that right now!!"  We got a real kick out of how Abigail tricked my mom into playing more. 

Myth Busters: The Frozen Bubble

It is true.  When it is 7 degrees Fahrenheit, bubbles do freeze!!
Abigail also had fun throwing frozen things at the frozen pool.
Stay warm, everyone!

Snow Day

Christmas came and went so quickly this year.  And it didn't feel as Christmas-y as I had hoped.  As much as we don't over-plan our lives, we had very few free nights to hang out in the evening with our tree, a fire, and (after Abigail's bedtime, a glass of wine for Larry and me).  Out of the 22 nights before my parents arrived, Abigail had us busy on 4 nights and Larry was busy on 10 nights.  (Why can't chorus performers give a WINTER concert instead of a CHRISTMAS concert in an already over-packed, over-done month?  20 hours in the week before Christmas went into Larry's choral performance.  That is too much.) 

The absence of my mother-in-law was felt by me this year.  I enjoyed having her visit us last December.  She was a constant, calm, Christmas-y presence in front of a fire every evening for the latter half of the month, but she was unable to make the trip from Florida this year.  We were lucky enough, though, to have my parents for most of the entire week of Christmas.  They took Abigail out to breakfast on Christmas Eve and they entertained her for every waking minute of every day.  

(In retrospect, I have no idea how we could have survived Christmas break without their presence and help!)

After 12 days off, Abigail was ready to go back to school yesterday. She had a blast.  
Then the snow started.  But it was  beautiful snow.  Big, fat, wet, gentle, beautiful snowflakes began falling right after Abigail put on her pajamas.  She ran to the back door.  She ran to the front door.  She excitedly declared "It is snowing in all directions!!!!  It must be snowing at everyone's house!!!!  Can I call Grandma Judy and Yinski and tell them about this snow and see if they have it?!?!?!"  After an excited conversation, she hung up.  It was already past her bedtime, but the snow had covered the grass and, given the forecast of temps in the single digits for today, I knew that this would be her only chance to play in "packing snow."  So I put her coat over her pjs, slipped on boots, and we had a snowball fight.  We fought the back fence (a target she could hit with her mittens on).  

Today was a snow day, with with wind-chill in the negatives and the stickiness gone from the snow, we only went sled-riding, and not for very long.  But Abigail still LOVED it.

3 Years Ago...

3 Years Ago, Abigail had a very traumatic and difficult day.  
She mourned a great loss and Larry and I don't forget that or take that lightly.  
But today, she is a happy happy happy kiddo.
We know that there will be many more questions in the future, but we take it one day at a time.

Christmas Eve

Best Christmas Gift of the Year:  Abigail woke up and occupied herself by quietly making paper snowflakes with computer paper (yup, she used scissors while we were sleeping) until 6:30, when she crawled in bed with up (cold as an ice cube) and cuddled for 30 minutes before she rolled over and sighed happily "I have the best family."
No, Kiddo, we have the best daughter!!

Most kids get to open pajamas on Christmas eve.
Our little monster was delighted to open Wolverine Claws instead!

Christmas Eve 2013

Small Point of Frustration: This was the highlight of my day.  Apparently Larry doesn't share my family-centric sentiment because the only update he posted on FB was nonsense about football. 

Christmas Time is Here; Happiness and Cheer

I love Love LOVE the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I feel totally ripped-off that Thanksgiving was as late as possible and this time was short,  but we have crammed a lot of fun stuff into Christmas Time.

I hope to update more while on break, but for now, here are pics of Abigail discussing gift options with Santa and a picture of her at her holiday concert, where she sang 4 pieces.  Her BFF is on the left side of the pic wearing jeans.

Tiny Dancer, part 2

Abigail posed with her flowers after her performance.
Her Aunt Steph, a former dancer, came to see Abigail's
performance and brought her flowers with
super-hero flags stuck into the bouquet!

A pic from the show

Today was Abigail's first, and maybe last, dance recital.

This was her best move!

She kinda' liked dance.  On Tuesdays-Fridays, when we picked her up from Junior Kindergarten, she always eagerly asked if she got to go to dance class that day and when we said "no", she would get disappointed.  But on Mondays, when we picked her up and announced it was "dance night" she would pout and protest as we cajoled her into a leotard and ushered her out of the house.  And when class was over, she would bound happily through the door and tell us about her favorite parts of the class.

At the dress rehearsals this week (yes, plural, 2 dress rehearsals), she was bored at best, resigned at worst.  She grumbled and pouted about it, but when she was on stage, her face lit up.  She smiled and did a great job.  Once back off the stage, she turned it off and begged to take Karate lessons.

We want her to take some type of lesson.  We don't want her to have to have multiple-night commitments at this age, but we want some structured activity in her life.  She liked dance, but clearly didn't love it.  We will look into Karate next, and maybe someday (after seeing some Broadway shows) she may want to try dance again.  But if not, that is okay too.  We love our little tomboy for who she is and Larry said tonight "It is amazing that we have this little person living with us in our house."