Our Family of Six

January 19 - 31, 2025: Moments

January 20 - no school

We had a snowflake day. Sofie and Noah made these snowflakes out of Keva planks.

We watched Snowflake Bentley read aloud. We've listened to or have read this book a few years in a row. Then Sofie made paper snowflakes for her window in her room.

Isak and I played Dominion...I won. :)

I made cinnamon swirl bread.

It was a cozy day off.

I got my hair cut! This was my inspiration...

I straightened my hair...but it curls up nicely and looks similar to the inspiration photo.

Another birthday party, this time for Rosette...Kira's purple TY unicorn. We played Mantis, sang and gave gifts...yep, I gave my usual quarter.

Kira's tooth came in and her old tooth did not come out...it just moved to the side!

Another birthday party. This time for Sofie's panda key chain Chi.

We played Race to the Treasure. :)

I got to take Isak to an Archery competition. He's in the middle...some kids are in high school. The middle and high school compete together. He did pretty well and even got a bullseye or two.

Sickness hit our home...Kira started getting sick January 25 and it kept her out of school for almost two weeks!

When she was feeling ok, we did some origami. She taught me how to make this cute octopus. She's a patient teacher.

Kira found the first origami unicorn she made. Her origami skills have improved, but we wanted to take a picture of her first unicorn.

Isak and I played an epic game of Qwirkle. We ended up tying at 260 points!!

Noah was next to get sick. So Kira and Noah enjoyed a long game of Scrabble together.

Noah and I finished our space book. Yay!

Sofie was next to get sick. She had the throw up and fever sickness. Noah and Kira were coughs and fevers.

Then I got sick too. I took Kira and I to the doctor. We got steroids and cough medicine and inhalers.

And that's how our January ended...Isak got sick next. And well, it's February 11 today and Nels was just diagnosed with the flu yesterday. So for the last 17 days one or more of us has been sick! Yuck!

January 18, 2025: Isak's First Cubing Competition

January 18 - Isak's Cubing Competition in Nashville.

Early Saturday morning, Isak and I got ready and drove to Nashville for his first cubing competition. It was at Vanderbilt's Student Life Center. We got checked in and Isak did orientation for new cubers.

Here's the schedule of events.

We found a table and chairs to share with other cubers while we waited for Isak's turn to compete. It was pretty cool to see so many others with Isak's passion for cubing. We met some neat kids!

Isak competed in the Pyramix, 2x2 and 3x3.

Here's the set up. There were about 152 competitors.

Isak got a 21 second solve for his 3x3. That was his best time. Yay!

Isak also got to judge others when he wasn't competing.

For lunch, we walked to McAlister's and shared some food.

After lunch, Nels brought the rest of the crew to watch Isak.

There was a table with lots of cool and different cubes for the kids to play with and try out.

Sofie and Noah were content to play there.

All of the them tried out the different cubes and puzzles.

I loved my time with Isak and watching him do something he loves!

I loved how Isak went around asking other cubers questions and asked for tips too. This guy sat with Isak for a little while and cubed with him and gave him tips. Isak moved on to the second round of 3x3. He helped judge the last round of 3x3. We also watched blindfold 3x3, which was pretty amazing!

I was so proud of Isak and how he interacts so kindly with others.

We stayed for the whole thing. Nels took the other kids home after a couple of hours. Isak and I stayed from 7:40 am - 5:30 pm. Isak got his picture with Luke Greisser who won the 3x3 with a 4.95 second solve time.

Here's Isak's solve times:

Pyramix:

Best Time: 11.22

Average: 17.92

2x2:

Best Time: 6.10

Average: 7.99

3x3 Round 1:

Best Time: 21.52

Average: 26.86

3x3 Round 2:

Best Time: 23.80

Average: 26.88

I hope Isak continues to cube and enjoy this hobby. I sure am proud of him and all he has learned about cubing.

January 1 - 17, 2025: New Year's Party and Snow Days!

January 1 - 17: Moments

Since we were in Pennsylvania for New Year's Eve, we decided to celebrate on January 3 instead. So we cooked some Papa Murphy's pizza and played our last 3 rounds of our 13 games of Chicken Foot (that we had started a few weeks earlier). Nels won by 2 points!! Then I won next, then Isak, Kira, Noah and Sofie. They were all good sports and it was fun to play together.

Sofie's face! Haha...

Victorious Nels.

We had our traditional white donuts and photo...

Then we watched Wish Dragon. I stayed up until 11 pm or so and I think Isak made it to midnight. We had a good time and I'm glad we celebrated.

A different day in January:

We played our new game Qwirkle. Lots of fun.

Back to school on a cold day in January.

Isak cubing. He set up all of his cubes so nicely...

January 10 - Snow Day!

Lots of Snowballs, big and small. And lots of pictures.

We walked to our neighbors and played too.

I tried to make maple candy with the snow. It failed. I boiled maple syrup and then we poured it on the snow. It was supposed to freeze the syrup into candy. It just made a mess instead...

So I painted the snow instead.

Nels made yummy cream chip beef and eggs.

The next day the kids built a snowman and had more fun in the snow.

Snow angels.

Oh, Kira loved making snow cones with real snow. She put all sorts of things in the snow and gave them to the family. My favorite was her strawberry lime snow cone. :)

We played Qwirkle again. Guess who lost...

Sofie threw a birthday party for her cupcake squash mallow Diedre. She did a great job. We did a jump rope competition. Then we played pass the parcel with a gift that she had wrapped multiple times. A snack, sang happy birthday and gave gifts. I always give a quarter to the stuffed animal. :)