February at Smoky Row

Well, now that India trip is behind us (boo hoo I say.  Take me back there.  My food is way too bland in Indiana!)  I can update you on what else has been happening around here.  In early February, we went to the school carnival.  There were all sorts of carnival games that earned the kids candy and trinkets.  In the gym, there was a place to jump rope and dance!  Evie takes a turn at the jump rope.

Her teacher, Mr. Schulenborg, takes some pies to the face.  Evie missed...

But her friend and classmate, Drew, didn't and hit old Mr. Schulenborg right in the kisser.

After that, there was some dance party action with the kids

Best part.  POPCORN.  we said it was ok, but not enough fake yellow and salt to make it the best popcorn.

Since I have returned from India, I feel like our house is too big and we have too much stuff.  I am working on cleaning things out and getting rid of stuff we don't use.  While cleaning out the bar area in the basement, I came across the roses I carried in our wedding...13 1/2 years ago.  They were in pretty good shape, but the plastic container I was keeping them was sticky gross.  I had to ask myself, why do I need these anymore?  So I took a picture of them and sent them to the compost bin.  Yes, I am that stone cold around here now.  If it isn't stapled down, it's out of here.

then I moved on to the bathrooms to purge all the expired medicines and 10 year old sunscreen.  Look what I found in one small drawer in the downstairs bathroom.  That is a lot of chap stick.  NO one in this house should have chapped lips.  Ever.  I also purged the arts and crafts areas.  We don't need markers, gel pens, crayons, work books or stickers until at least 2017.

Back at SRE, Evie gets to present her Independent Study Project.  This student driven project taught the kids how to do research, take notes, organize information, write a paper and present it with visual aids.  Can you believe that 8 year olds are doing this?  Her project was on solar panels.  She also had to create a game about solar panels that would help her to convey some of the information about solar panels.  In this picture, she is getting ready for her presentation.  Mr. Schulenborg is giving her the choice of the  pointers to use.

She did a nice job with her poster and telling the class about her project.  We are really proud of her.

And winter has been very mild around here. I have even put away all the snow pants, but not before the kids went outside and rolled up any snow that they could to make this snow hamster in our yard.