We are in the middle of the Arctic blast that is going through the country.  Schools were closed today and are closed again tomorrow.  It has worked out well for us because today we were able to get back to our routine without having to leave the house for outside activities which made the transition easier.  Before I post pictures of today's activities, here are a few pictures of Christmas.  These were taken on Christmas Eve when we got home from church.

If you wonder why I always make the little ones sit on Gavin, that would be because it's the only way I can get all three to smile.  I try to take a normal picture of them together nicely, but it never works!

And here are a few pictures of Christmas morning.

Adelaide liked her new dress up clothes.

The boys got a CD player for their room.

Adelaide got a cradle for her dolls and had to try it out to make sure it was comfortable.

The boys both got toy pistols with holsters.  Adelaide thought they were part of her dress up clothes.

Austin was happy with his Peter Pan costume.

Today it was back to school.  You'll have to excuse the pictures.  For some reason no matter where I took a picture I got weird glares of light across it.  I kept moving around but it seemed to be following me.  Maybe the snow is glaring to brightly...I don't know!  Anyway, this week Austin is learning about the letter F so our theme is firemen.  I got a bunch of free fireman activities for him to do from this website: http://mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com/2011/09/firefighter-tot-pack.html.  First he did a maze to help a fireman get to the fire by following the alphabet in order (letters were along the correct path).  Then he found the object that was different.

Next I laid out some number cards 1 - 10.  He got cards with Dalmatians on them.  His job was to count the spots on the Dalmatian and match it to the correct number.

Next he picked out words than begin with the letter F and glued them under the fire truck.

In science we started a new unit on geology today.  I think this will be a fun one!  Austin joined us for our book and activities today.  First we read this introductory book about the Earth.

Then the boys used Play-Doh to make a model of the layers of the Earth.  First they picked their colors and molded them into circles, starting with the inner core and making bigger circles as they made their way to the crust.  Then they flattened the layers and wrapped them around the inner core, which was still a circle.  Here is Austin putting on the mantle.

Then Gavin put on the crust, which is brown for rock.

Then Gavin put the ocean around the mantle and Austin put green continents on parts of the water.  It was a team effort.

Here it is with just the ocean on it.  You can't tell from the picture, but we used two different blues because we needed a bigger circle and our ocean turned out to have very pretty swirls of bright blue and turquoise.

And here is with the continents. 

Then I cut open a section so they could see the layers and Gavin labelled it on the paper plate although you can't see his writing in this picture.

Then we talked about how not every layer is solid, some are liquid and some are a little of both.  We reviewed our states of matter and their characteristics and then, to illustrate further, we made goop and talked about how it has some properties of solid and some of liquid.

By lunchtime everyone was very hungry so Adelaide and Austin insisted on helping me cook lunch.  We had roast fingerling potatoes (luckily the salt in this doesn't come out very fast!),

salmon,

and a salad.

Putting on the croutons is the best part!

That was our day.  We had a great vacation and enjoyed our time off but it was nice to get back into a routine once we were started.  Getting started is always the hardest part :)