We had bubble and squeak for supper and the cabbage looked so pretty that out came the paint and Spark was making vegetable prints with the cabbage core. 
Dad got out the potatoes and started carving letters on them and Spark stamped his name. Here he is just doing the T while waiting for the rest of them to be carved.
I got this fabulous group of shells and the two bonus fish from a friend who was getting rid of them. I have quite a few shells that my parents picked up on their honeymoon in the Florida Keys over 50 years ago. A few of those I keep on the bathroom counter as a reminder of my parents so I won't add any of these to that grouping. I am sure though that we will find something to do with them, a craft, a 4-H project, or just set them out - maybe in a plant. 
The shells were glued on this board along with the two fish and lavender aquarium gravel. They were glued on there with an obscene amount of hot glue. The Dad was able to take a towel and break them loose quite easily. He needed the towel because although beautiful, they can be quite sharp.
Dancer has made it her quest to get the glue off of all the shells. She is using a little screw driver and prying it off. She has only stabbed herself once ........ so far. It is making me nervous but I am trying to take a hands off approach and let her do it.
One thing interesting we noticed about the the ones that look like this is that no matter what size they are, they all have the same number of swirls. They also don't all swirl the same direction but structurally look like a mirror image of each other.
Spark got this new helmet yesterday and wore it most of the day today. Here he and Grandma were making snickerdoodle cookies. Nothing happened during the baking that would warrant a helmet, the cookies were baked without incident. However, a few hours later he was running up the stairs, without his helmet on, tripped and hit his teeth on the top step which is wood. He had three that were bleeding but not loose. We thought perhaps he should start wearing a football helmet with a mouth guard!
Dancer's team took first place at the basketball tournament today. They won all three of their games. 23 -10, 14 - 8, 25 -18. Very exciting for them, it was their home tournament and their last day of the season. 
We made a stop at the library for the kids to use the computers. At home we have dial up internet from the dark ages. It is hard to play games, we don't even try to see anything that has a video with it and many pages either don't load or take too long to load. They like to play Webkinz and go to each others virtual houses. In an hour at the library, they can do what takes about three hours on our home computer.
Grocery shopping was another errand. I hate shopping and only do with it is absolutely necessary. It is so depressing shopping when you come out with over $100 of groceries and you have about four bags. With coupons we saved about $22 and got a $6 off coupon for next time! Doesn't take much to get us excited! 
Dancer got in a little reading. She reads in almost every spare minute she has, usually reading about 3 - 4 books a week outside of what she reads for school. She brings books with when we go in the car unless we are listening to one on tape. She watches t.v. and reads at the same time. Sometimes I will find her at night with a book under the covers long after I thought she was asleep. Pretty much any time she can fit in reading a page or two she has a book in her hand.
Grandma is staying with us for the weekend and she brought a couple pair of sunglasses. Here is Spark being goofy in one of the pair.
We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house today and got back home late. For supper we made this soup which doesn't take any longer to make than it takes to open a few cans, dump them in a pot and slice up a sausage. Start with two quarts of chicken broth in a big pot. I made this from the soup base that comes in a jar. 
It is sometimes said "the box is more fun than the toy that came in it". That may have been the case with some wrapping paper from one of the gifts. Spark wore the paper as a hat for a portion of the birthday celebration. It was a unique look, sort of festive chef meets Egyptian priest meets Kwanza headgear. 
Spark is putting the sauce on the pizza.
Spark, with his fine young elephant Jeffery watching, finished up the year end review in his math book. Monday he will start the new grade level!
The mailman rang the doorbell with a nice surprise - a box of Valentine gifts from Grandma. What a better way to start the day than to get mail that isn't a bill and then it be a gift as well. She sent jammies, shirts and sweatpants. Thanks Grandma! 
Dancer made Valentine's for her team on Saturday. She cut hearts out of orange paper, drew lines on them to make them look like basketballs and the taped them to a pencil. She was a bit disappointed in the pencils. Last week we bought pens for Spark to make valentines with (he cut out hearts, put a sticker on the heart and taped them to pens) for 4-H and a few other friends. This week we went to the same display, saw the pattern on the pencils, thought they were pens and didn't look any further at the package. Teach us not to assume things always stay the same. 
Dancer had an extra basketball practice today so Spark and I took her up the school and then went back and got her. It doesn't seem like such a big chore anymore when it is still light out at 5:30. Some how when we had to go out in the dark it seemed a much more daunting and cold task. Two trips to town is over 30 miles so we are only home about an hour in between but there isn't even a grocery store in the town the school is in so we have no where to go but home. In the summer we could go on the bike trail, but in the winter it is a snowmobile trail and not conducive to anything else.
While Dancer was at basketball practice, Spark and I got a few chores done. We collected eggs, filled rabbit water bottles, gave hay to everyone and water to the chickens. 
On the way into the house the cat, Kacheekers, was winding around us and telling us he was out of food. He was happy to have his dish refilled. Yes, it is a sand toy. We have found them to be the sturdiest in our cold weather. A lot of plastic dishes just crack if they get bumped around a bit in the cold. If you are old enough, remember the plastic vinyl book bags before backpacks became popular for school. Every year I think I broke at least three of them because they were cold and I knocked them on something.
Took the never ending pile of laundry down a few inches today by doing a couple of loads. I try to do one load a day but it still seems to get away from me if I don't have a couple of days a week when I do more than one. Who is wearing all these clothes when it seems the kids are in lounge pants and t-shirts most of the time? This is just part of one of the loads.
Then draw a design out on your cardboard. Mine is the one of the car on the road and Spark's is a giant fish swimming in the ocean. Next put lots of glue where you are going to start putting on your mosaic supplies. Put on the beans and everything. 
And then voila! you have a mosaic design like the Romans.
Add garlic powder to softened butter and mix well.
Made Valentine bags 
Filled them with treats!
This is my favorite pattern to knit. It gives the cloth a bit of a design and the pattern is so easy you don't have to pay close attention to what you are doing - which is great for a really intense movie or t.v. show. 
To make this zigzag pattern in the cloth, start casting on right where the color changes in the yarn. 
This one is quite a bit larger than the others but uses almost the entire ball of yarn so you don't have the left over yard to hang on to and keep thinking that you will do something with it some day. I know I am never going to use some of those little balls of yarn in my knitting basket but I can't bring myself to just throw them away. 
If the keys are taken out of the ignition of our truck they don't go back in without a lot of manipulation. Because of this we don't take the keys out but leave them in and just lock the door. Dad goes to work and grabs his keys, the ones with one of these oh so attractive key tags. Those dirty, gray plastic things are the tags they put your keys on when you bring it into the repair shop. The ones most people would take off, throw away and put their keys on a cute key chain when they get the car back. Not frugal Dad, he just uses those plastic tags. But notice how both sets look alike. Dad goes to work and grabs what he thinks are his truck keys but instead he grabs the van keys. He gets in the truck, drives to work, locks the truck with the ignition keys in it and goes into the hospital. I get ready for bed that night and find a set of keys on the bed and wonder what they for because Dad has his with him. Next morning the phone rings and Dad says "send Spark out to open the front door". He had no house keys either, explains the keys I found the night before. Luck was with him though, three people he worked with live out our way so he are was able to get a ride home. But now his truck is at the hospital that is 30 minutes away. So we have to run in there to pick up the truck which equals an extra trip to town, 2 gallons of gas (about $4 dollars). Since we are in town let's go out to eat ($22). Now the fugal, dirty, plastic, unattractive, repair shop key tag cost us $26! You can bet we will be taking those tags off as soon as we get home from having the vehicle fixed from now on!
I guess it didn't make the chicken feel very good either.
We had some company stop by. The ducks came charging up to the door and we half expect them to ring the doorbell. 
Played with the goats. This how big our baby goat Desdemona has gotten in the last week.
Trekked out to the garden. In some spots the snow is about three feet deep. Not problem if it is hard enough to walk on top but when your foot plunges through the hard crust it is cold in your boot, which hopefully stays on your foot when it is pulled out. 
Dug for snow peas. Actually, they are digging a cave in one of the big drifts in the garden.
Found some garden tools that got left out last fall. We have some work to do on those. 
Bored the cat. He was following us around and then we must have not been exciting enough for him because he meowed and left. 
Sat on the deck and soaked up some sun. 
Drew some pictures and savored chocolate ice cream. 
Worked the calories from the ice cream off on the treadmill 
and the trampoline. 
