Control Tower at Blue Marsh Lake... and some of February

At the end of January we went on a field trip to Blue Marsh Lake near Reading.  It was a cold snowy day so we had gotten there a bit late but hadn't missed too much.  Our guide was very informative and thorough in his educating us about the lake and dam.

after he talked inside for a while we went out and walked on the dam and he talked some more...

"It's too cold to smile, Mom"

Thankfully we didn't have to stay outside for too long before going down into the dam's control tower. 

there were a lot of different levels of the control tower and our guide gave us A LOT of information on each level :P

Getting ready to go under the water:

I thought this was funny, we walked down onto this level and the kids stood in front of this big control panel with all the really interesting looking buttons which of course they were NOT supposed to touch... just staring at it for 10 minutes while the guy talked... boy that was some temptation!

The last level we went down too:

It was a cold day but still fun and interesting :)

January and the beginning on February we don't have co-op so we got to hang out with each other more and do crafts and school at home :)  Of course gym class is very important around here:

Joanna started sewing her own blanket and did a fantastic job!  She wasn't able to sew the long strips together but sewed all the squares into strips and then I sewed the strips together for her.

Chase grew some pretty wild hockey hair over the winter....

I made Katy this adorable skirt:

I had a craft show.  Joanna loves helping me with these and stays the whole day with me :)

Random picture of daddy snuggles:

We also decided to try and hatch our own eggs this year.

I finished that tapestry crochet scarf I  was working on and was super proud of myself.  I really need to remake it, it's such a pretty pattern.

We took Peaches shed hunting once.  There ended up being a lot more snow where we went than at our house so we didn't find anything but she had so much fun running around the snow and woods like a crazy dog.  It made me laugh so hard watching her, and she was so happy :)

I also got the chance to organize my yarn closet.  Before:

and After:

I need to try and organize it again now, or get rid of some things, ha!
As we entered into February my friend Sue and I started finalizing our ideas for our next Textile Arts class at co-op. We usually try to do the projects we want to do with the kids ahead of time at home so we can make sure it will work to do it with them and know how long it will take.  We wanted to try to make these heart shaped wreaths out of coffee filters for the first day back.  I dyed the filters and it took them several days to dry!

I ended up making a pretty big heart and my hands were sore from twisting up all those filters but I loved the end result!

So we decided to do that project with the kids, just make smaller hearts.  I dyed all the filters and Sue got all the cardboard ready.  We had nowhere to eat dinner for a couple days... hey, everyone has to make sacrifices! :P

They did a good job on this and I think they all enjoyed it too :)

This is such a fun class to teach! I always love seeing what everyone comes up with!