She Likes to Read

This little lady is a SERIOUS reader.

She has to read 20 minutes a day for school, but I'm pretty sure she'd read all day long if I let her (and if she has a book she likes, it's hard to convince her to stop for ANYHTING).

She's only in first grade and she's seriously just plowing though chapter books.

What is she currently reading you ask?

Yep, you saw that right.  My first grader is currently reading the Hobbit! That book that I couldn't stand in 7th grade!  (Don't worry, I since have repented and mended my ways, but I still can't believe she hast the patience to read it...let alone likes it). 

Albeit, she has told me she like to skip through it and read the parts she likes.   Bart read it to her last year as a bedtime story, so she knows the story.  But still.  I'm impressed.  I hope her love of reading lasts forever.

Enjoying the Game

So this year my dad got the two older girls Cougar Club Memberships.  Which means, we get free tickets to a number of football, basketball, and other sports games on campus.  We wound up going to the Loyola game a couple Saturdays ago.

But before I go on, I must discuss what you all are most likely thinking:  What??? Bart has a beard???  When did that happen???

Well, over Christmas Break, we went to California.  On our first day there, Bart's razor broke.  He ordered another one online, but it didn't come for a few days, and he figured he had a while until school started so he'd just run with it.

Now, I have never really liked beards so I was surprised that, as the beard started filling in, I kind of liked it.  I thought about why for a long time and finally realized I no longer felt like I was married to a teenager!  Te he he.  The only thing I don't like about it is that it kind of hides his adorable dimples.  But eh, it's different, and that's kind of fun.  :)  So, for now at least, baby face Bart has a beard.  Every day he says it's coming off soon, but soon seems to keep getting delayed.  We'll see when he finally follows through.

Now, back to the game.  We arrived early and got to see the pre-game show which the girls liked.

We had every intention of leaving early (we didn't expect the girls to last very long...which they didn't) but it was really close for most of the game!  Bart and I were glued to our seats!  And to make matters worse, we were sitting next to a bunch of Loyola fans!

We did finally pull ahead in the end and left a few minutes early in an attempt to avoid traffic, but by then we were ahead by 20 points and thought it was a pretty safe bet that we would win.  

I'm not going to lie, it was a lot nicer sneaking out in front of those Loyola fans at that point than it would have been earlier in the game.  :)

Building Olaf

 

Over Christmas Break we took the girls to see Disney’s Frozen.  From then on the talk was all about Olaf.  Addison and her friends were quoting his song.  Hannah was giggling about Olaf-related things they had done at preschool.  And the twins were constantly making Olaf knock knock jokes that made no sense whatsoever.

So it didn’t surprise me that, when the kids woke up to a heavy snowfall yesterday morning, the first thing out of their mouths was, “We can build Olaf!”  And as soon as Addison’s homework and piano were done they bundled up and braved the cold to make good on their plans. 

Although, when it came to the building part, Addison and Hannah did most of the work.

The twins more...just played in the snow.

If you have to bear through a bitterly cold winter, I suppose this is a good way to spend it.

And I must admit, the resemblance is uncanny.

The Rose Parade

My parents live right by Pasadena, so when we found out Bart didn't have to go back to school until January 6th this year, my mom made arrangements for us to take the two older girls to the Rose Parade. 

We took all the girls to see La Canada's float the day before the parade, right before the judging, so they were testing it out to make sure everything worked properly.

Each of the girls wanted pictures in front of the float.  Hannah insisted I take a picture of her profile, and Addison wanted it to look like she was lifting the float...I'll have to work on that in the future.  :)

And this is how Hannah reacted when she realized she wasn't allowed to pick flowers off the float.

The next day it was just me, my mom and the girls off to the parade.

Police officers drive down the route to begin the parade.

I still can't believe that everything is made of flowers...well, flowers, grasses, leaves, bark, etc.  Pretty much any kind of plant life.  But still, it's really incredible, and fun to try and guess what the unusual colors/textures on the floats are made out of.

I think the Trader Joe's Float was my favorite (other than La Canada's of course).  It had a cheese man being orbited  by an olive helicopter, and a pickle-mobile driving back and forth around it. 

Poor Cal Poly's Float broke down right in front of us.

And while it was fascinating to watch the whole process of getting a float towed unfold right in front of us, after a while people got a little restless, and started wandering out onto the parade route to get a picture with the float.  

This little guy was one of the adventurers, but he had more than just pictures in mind.  He put on a little show for us swerving around on his razor, dancing, and interacting with the costumed paraders.  I'm pretty  sure he was drunk, but he was entertaining!  Although I don't think the crowd control officers agreed.

The bands were pretty entertaining too.  Stanford's band was quite colorful.

And these guys not only played, but danced Gangnam Style

A Harlem Globe Trotter spun a basketball on the finger of this adorable little kid sitting in front of us.

But I think of all the non-float entertainment, the guy below on the right was my favorite.  After every group of horses went by, a few people in charge of collecting horse manure would follow.  This guy got very into his job. It was AWESOME!

If you've never had a chance to go and see the Rose Parade, I suggest you put it on your bucket list.  It's pretty impressive.

Put Yourself in the Picture

This month's blog circle was "Put yourself in the Picture."  I took this before Christmas, but my brother got me an awesome remote timer for my camera, so in the future, I'm going to have to put that to some good use for things like this.  Now go check out how Bianca put herself in the picture.