Audrey Skating Update

Audrey has been taking figure skating lessons for a year now with only a one-month break in the summer. She's been doing a great job listening to her instructors and learning new skills. In the spring we bought her some higher quality skates.

The US Figure Skating Association has badge levels that skaters pass through as they are learning. When she is tested again in early January Audrey will probably earn her Basic Level 5 badge. Once she completes her basic levels Audrey can move on to free skating, dance or even speed skating.

The "main" skating lesson season just started again in November. In March Audrey will star in her second big ice show. She's already excited.

Heading Off to Elf School

Two elves heading off to school this morning.

Architect Charlotte

Charlotte made this model last night. We're not sure what inspired her. It has a projector, a sofa, a rug and a wide screen. She had just a little help from Mom.

Charlotte Turns Seven

Charlotte Turns Seven Photos | Video

The age old parental lament: how time flies. Our youngest just turned 7.

This year Charlotte requested that she receive breakfast in bed just like Mom gets on her birthday. So I brought her oatmeal, jelly toast and milk on a tray.

As usual, we had two celebrations: a family celebration on Charlotte's actual birthday and a party with friends on the weekend. It was a pajama party this year. Charlotte also happened to be in her pajamas during the family celebration.

Instead of a gift bag for each party guest, Carol sewed a cozy flannel pillowcase for each guest and one of the activities at the party was for each girl to use fabric markers to decorate her pillowcase. That was a hit (as are all of Carol's creative ideas!).

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

You can see video of the two versions of "Happy Birthday" here.

Squishy Circuits

Squishy Circuits 2012

The second annual Melrose STEM Expo was held on November 17. STEM, if you're not aware, stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. It's an area gaining a lot of attention and emphasis in schools due to the perception that the United States is losing the technological edge it has held for decades.

Our family has hosted a booth at the expo both years. We present Squishy Circuits, which teaches kids about electricity and circuits using homemade play-doh that is made either conductive (containing salt) or insulating (containing sugar).

Audrey and Charlotte really love working in the booth - being "behind the table." And they are pretty good at teaching. The expo lasts three hours and that challenges the girls' attention span but they switch back and forth between teaching and playing themselves.

We estimate that more than 120 kids stopped by the booth! It's rewarding to watch them build a circuit - when they succeed in lighting up an LED you can see their mind light up a half second later.

Our neighbor Jen is one of the organizers of the event. She took a great photo of Audrey and me working in the booth and that photo made the local newspaper!

We'll be back next year.

Fall Photos

Fall Photos

This is a mishmash of photos from the past few months. In chronological order:

• In mid-September we had a fun day apple picking at Russell Orchards in Ipswich. The weather was such this year that the apples ripened 2-3 weeks earlier than usual. So even though we went a week or two earlier than we usually do the apples were already beyond peak. We managed to pick enough for a delicious pie, though. After we had secured our apples we drove to nearby Rockport and had lunch on Bearskin Neck.
• At the end of September Tess brought us a live chipmunk again. Twice. Carol read somewhere that when your cat brings you a dead animal she is paying rent. When she brings you a live animal she is trying to teach you how to hunt. We keep capturing them and letting them go. Tess must think we are very stupid.
• At Roosevelt School third graders can opt to take musical instrument lessons all year long. Audrey chose cello. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing her practice lately - I need a refresher to see what she's learned!
• We visited the Topsfield Fair in October. The fair hosts a contest for largest pumpkin every year and often sees world records set. Last year the winner was about 1600 pounds. This year the record was blown away with a pumpkin coming in a few pounds over a ton!
• We had two batches of leaf raking this year: one after Hurricane Sandy brought down about half the leaves and another the weekend before Thanksgiving when most of the leaves have fallen. Both times I made a big pile for the girls. They spent hours jumping into it and burying themselves. Usually a few neighbor kids join in.
• Charlotte finally lost her first tooth after it was loose forever. Then not long after, she lost the other lower front tooth. It's hard to get a photo of the gap!
• In early November we visited the Ipswich River Audubon Sanctuary. As you know it's our favorite place. It's especially fun in the fall and winter when the birds are eager to eat our of your hand. We keep the car stocked with bird seed now. We visited on a Saturday and stayed for a few hours.

  The girls wanted to return the next day so I took them while Carol did a project at home. I had no agenda and just let the girls lead me. We spent five hours there! We fed birds, of course, and we also wandered the trails and we spent almost an hour just sitting on a bridge playing with sticks in the mud on the pond bottom.

  We had so much fun that weekend that the girls begged us to go back again the next weekend! We spent several hours there again and even branched out to some new trails.

• Friday of Thanksgiving weekend was forecast to be unseasonably warm so we headed to the beach. With a steady wind it wasn't as warm as we hoped but we still had a picnic and flew kites and enjoyed the sunshine and the atmosphere.

iPhone Macro Photography

iPhone Macro Photography

We went to a mini Maker Faire in nearby Somerville. It was run by Artisan's Asylum, a very cool hackerspace where I've taken classes (metal machining, printed circuit board design) and regularly attend a robotics meetup. While there I bought an Easy-Macro lens for cell phone cameras. It's an ingenius little device that is really easy to carry with you and to install and uninstall. The girls love finding stuff to photograph up close.

Halloween

Halloween

We all had fun around Halloween this year. Both girls liked their costumes so much last year they decided to repeat them this year: Charlotte as a vampire and Audrey as a devil.

As usual we went to the Halloween party at the girls' school a few days before the actual day. It's a cacophonous madhouse with millions of kids running around a crowded gym, occasionally crashing into each other. Both girls are always excited to go but Audrey gets surprisingly shy once she gets there.

I was happy that my porch haunting project came together at the end. I need to start planning next year's display a little earlier. Well, I planned this one early enough but I didn't start building it early enough. In case you missed it in an earlier post, here's video of the Halloween porch display.