December Miscellany

I think it's safe to say that Luke is the only kid at his school who
sometimes wears an FSU baseball cap.

Liza's science project

Luke hasn't wanted to sleep in his room since July.
One of the reasons he hasn't wanted to be there is that he didn't
like his room. So, I finally started trying to implement his suggestions.
The first one? He wanted to get rid of the bed. So, Eliza's former loft bed,
which got chopped down to this height in the early days of Covid, has been
sold to a new family. Luke's room now just has two mattresses stacked
on top of each other. And he actually slept there a few times!

Knowing Luke would be getting a Kindle for Christmas,
I took him to the library to get his own library card (for digital checkouts).

He was pretty excited about it.

The drawback of Luke sleeping in his room by himself was that he didn't
sleep as well. Inevitably, when I got up for the morning, no matter how early,
this is what I saw. And he would always tell me he'd been awake for at
least an hour. (This picture was taken at about 6am.)

Liza has resisted getting a haircut for quite a while but finally agreed
to go under the shears in December. Our good friend Chelsey did the honors.

I love this ornament Luke brought home from school!
It turns out, he didn't actually make the ornament - he
only posed for the picture. But he DID decorate the bag.

Luke helped his buddy Flash (the sloth) practice piano.

Jack really stepped up and studied for his exams before Winter Break.

And his hard work definitely paid off!

Cat and Ben took a minute for a pic with the sunset before heading
to Thanksgiving Point to see Christmas lights.

I insisted on some snow play one day after school, hoping

we could make a snowman in the front yard. Unfortunately, the

snow was too powdery to build a snowman, but it was great for

snow angels, and snow fighting, and burying people alive.

Cat pushes Liza down.

Liza gets revenge.

Luke and Liza buried Cat.
(You can just make out the edge of Cat's hood in front of Luke.)

Luke usually just wants to eat the fresh snow.

Liza and Cat also helped with snow removal and putting down salt.

Check out those icicles!
Also, do you see all the birds in my neighbor's trees?

This was Robert's answer to Cat's invitation to the Snowball dance.
Yes, he wrapped her bed in black Santa wrapping paper
and topped it with a wooden carousel horse big enough for Luke to ride.

Grant was with Robert when he was setting up his answer.
Unfortunately for him, Luke and Liza had time on their hands.
So, Grant got a new hairstyle, while getting tied up with tape.

Luke was excited to bring home his group's gingerbread
house from the class party.

Packing Tape Power

Too intense to smile.

I bought some travel toiletry containers and put
Luke's spray-gel in one. He helped me create a label
for it. The label says "alien saliva sample."

I'd been craving homemade cinnamon rolls for weeks so I was excited
to have a lazy day after Puerto Rico to spend all morning making yumminess.

Luke and his friend set up this battle and asked me to take a picture of it.
They did not want to be in the picture.