All Things Ard: How We Are Suriving the Longest Winter Ever (Yes, it is still going. It snowed this morning. I cried, I really did.)

Making long paper tongues.

My first crack at Valentine sugar cookies. They turned out delish. I won't disclose how many I ate.

I was impressed with how well Lily frosted the cookies. I am always impressed with what my girls do. It's inevitable.

Taking a little gymnastics class at the recreation center on Saturdays. Practicing her cartwheels.

Doing an obstacle course.

Practicing rolling.

On the high beam. I think that's what it's called.

Good balancing.

The biggest parachute I've seen. They let the girls sit in the middle and they'd wrap them up then spin them out.

"Popcorn, peanuts, apple pie, thank you everybody and goodbye!" Their weekly chant at the end of the class.

We took an art and music class on Mondays through the rec. center that basically got cancelled three Mondays in a row due to snow and another one or two times. It was ridiculous. The reason I signed up for the class was so I wouldn't be cooped up in the house and depressed. But everything shuts down in CT on snow days. It's fun the first couple times but then gets old fast. I came in after one of her classes to find her watching TV with this giraffe mask. She wore it almost all day and we made a tree that she could eat from. She usually gets very committed to whatever role she takes on.

A nanny friend from the art and music class let us know about this incredible find. An indoor trampoline park! The girls were in heaven. Running and jumping to their hearts' content.

Even jumping into a giant foam pit. So fun.

Lily kept bringing these foam blocks to one of the employees and he made this big castle for the kids. The employees are really darling there. The trampoline place is also right up the road from the newly built Chick-fil-a. Once we have the Hartford Temple, Connecticut will be complete.

The New Haven Symphony puts on some fun and this year FREE concerts for kids and lets them try out musical instruments. They also give out FREE children's books. Lily didn't even want to touch them but Grace was all over it. Violin!!!

Flute! I hate letting them play mine, so I let her enjoy putting her mouth all over it.

It was fun to see Lily interacting with older kids. She totally struck up a conversation with the older girl in the picture (she asked her what book she had picked and then the girl asked her which one she picked...I was again so impressed!) and then followed her around until the little girl went to sit with her parents.

Building a fort with our cute neighbor friends. Grace was naked. That was the day she started potty training herself! More on that probably in another post, if all goes well;)

More fort...please come spring. We want to build forts outside!

Jason is again studying so I am always looking for things on Saturdays to get us out of the house. They had this really neat Maple Sugar presentation right up the road so we learned how they get maple syrup and what the different grades mean. I really enjoyed it and the girls got ice cream with maple syrup at the end and several maple sugar suckers during the presentation. It was raining so there weren't a lot of people. That is something I am learning. Always go to things when it is raining. Less crowds.

Another thing we have been doing is going to a free science class my friend started at her local library. The girls recently learned about the layers of the earth and made their own with play dough!

Lily started cutting her crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core into quarters.

We babysat a friend's kids and Lily really warmed up to their oldes child. He kept calling our horse his donkey and was perfectly fine with Lily riding behind him.