The 3.5-year-old preschool brain:

"Mama, I'm workin' HARD!" 

Yes, sweet girl, you certainly are doing the hard work of childhood  :)

Some of the beads were easier than others....

Final product:  two complete necklaces.

12 inches

We got 12 inches of snow on Monday, so the kids had a fantastic time on Tuesday being MN kids and sledding down our little front hill.  Thankfully the large amount of snow made it less dangerous because they'd have to work REALLY hard to get the sled up and over the pile of snow on the other side of the sidewalk.  :)

Best big sister out there, for sure.

The stairs are pretty convenient for reducing "going up" fatigue...
Unfortunately they don't do anything to minimize the inevitable drama about wet gloves.

Kid video updates from lately:

This first video was taken while Jonas and Layla were out skating last Sunday.  Cora played with her toys, at my feet, for about 2 hours.  There were princesses, Octonaut toys, and a sucker (Lollypop, to her).  These all played INTENSE emotional battles during her time at my feet...haha.  Of all the kids, her toys have the most drama whenever they are interacting...

Finn is REALLY into Mo Willems books lately.  He has most of them memorized, even though he's almost able to read them straight out (reading progress coming along nicely).  Here he is "reading" part of a book to Cora, who is pretending to be a baby who keeps dropping her nuk, evidently...

The most recent verse the kids have memorized during our morning time for homeschool is Isaiah 58:9-12.  For some reason, the video I took of Layla won't download, so I'll see if I can upload that later...but for now, here is Finn "reciting/performing" it, and imagine Layla doing it equally as well, but slightly less dramatic.  ;)

Isaiah 58:9-12New International Version (NIV)

9 

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;

    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

    and your night will become like the noonday.

11 

The Lord will guide you always;

    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

    and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

    like a spring whose waters never fail.

12 

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

    and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

During homeschool the kids have also memorized their first passage of Shakespeare.  We'll start out next one soon, but for now, here are both Layla and Finn performing Act 2, scene 1, verses 60-66 of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Oberon:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, 
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.

And there the snake throws her enameled skin,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes

And make her full of hateful fantasies

Ice Skating for Layla

Jonas took Layla ice skating this past Sunday afternoon, and she came home OUT OF HER MIND excited.  :)  Evidently things went well!  Haha.

She has asked to go for the last 3 winters, but the previous 2 were...ah...a bit painful.  Finding her balance was an issue, so Jonas got her roller blades last winter, and she's been using those for a year now.  Cue this time...voila!  She could balance, so she could move away from the wall on her own.  She was beyond thrilled and proud of herself.  She wants to go again soon...too bad ice skating is for rich kids who can afford rink time, haha!  Sigh.  :)

She also QUICKLY made a friend, as she does, and spent the rest of her time holding hands and skating with this very sweet, very patient hockey player.  :)

St. Lucia Day 2018

Yeah, we know...St. Lucia Day is in December, but we're always so busy in December that we do it "Berube-style" and wait until it fits in our schedules.  January is almost always the month chosen.  :)

Finn wanted to be included in the action last year, and again this year.  He was VERY into the crown of lights, and a white dress shirt covered the white dress problem...haha.

We do the traditional "breakfast for dinner" menu for all the bacon you can eat (also why this day has become known as bacon day by some...), cardamum bread from mom, and some sort of egg dish from me (this year a basic frittata), along with great juice.  Not to be missed, folks!

Layla wearing her fancy new Christmas dress from Grammy.  :)
Cora's sash was tied by Papa...don't look at me for that one...

This year we had a bit of an issue, because our dinner was scheduled for the SAME TIME as the Vikings football game.  Normally this means nothing, but this year the Vikings were 2 games away from going to a Super Bowl hosted in their OWN city, something I guess has never been done before.  What do I care?  Can you feel me trying to care about this at all?  I'm trying.

So, dinner happened during most of the 3rd quarter of the game, and when we came back the Vikings had blown their lead, as they reliably do, and we watched a most of the quarter in resigned eye-roll land at the Vikings until this happened in the last 10 seconds of the game, as we were down by 1 point:

The men in my family were FREAKING OUT and LOSING THEIR MINDS.  :)   I smiled.  Mostly I'm thinking in my head "Great, just one more ounce of hope for you to hang on until they break your heart next game, that much closer to the Super Bowl...haha."  Ah, football fans.  Or, you know, sports fans in general.  You amaze me.  :)

All of Minnesota LOST THEIR MINDS last Sunday night!  This is my favorite version of the video...

Old photos: Berube family Christmas and fondu dinner

Let me tell you, man.  Some family traditions are worth keeping at any cost.
This is one of them.
Chicken, beef and shrimp...as much as you can eat.  With 3 amazing dipping sauces.
And good bread and salad.
Heaven.

Best big sister EVER.
Sorry Renee.  :)

It was later this night that I ended up taking Cora to the E.R. for croup, so she was already starting to not feel well here...poor kiddo.  She's sucking on a cough drop in this photo...what 3-year-old wants a menthol cough drop?

A winter Thursday:

Today is a day of sheer exhaustion for me, for no good reason...so it's even more lame than it sounds.  :)

But, on the happy side, I had an afternoon meeting and an evening event that have both been canceled due to heavy snow and bad roads.  Things being canceled is maybe my most favorite thing ever.  Even if I LIKE both of those events, when they get canceled by things outside of my control...when my time is freed up unexpectedly?  Bliss.  Sheer bliss.

This also means I can put off washing my hair one more day:  bonus.

We got home from D.C. on December 28th, and I have not gone grocery shopping since then.  I'm...sort of proud of this fact, and sort of very ashamed of this fact.  Before we left I gave a bag of produce to Mom so it wouldn't spoil in our fridge, so for the last 2 weeks we have been living mostly off of things from our pantry and freezer...and while I'm proud of some of my creative meals, let's just say they weren't heavy on the "health" factor.  I have been CRAVING normal, fresh fruits and veggies for ages now...but gosh it's just so much easier and cheaper to not shop, haha.  Sigh.  So, finally the kids made me promise...PROMISE...that we would go grocery shopping today (after many things prevented it recently, like our van not working for 5 days, insane cold weather, etc.).  They wouldn't let me get out of it today, at all.  SO, we went.  It was cold and snowy, but at least we went at 10:00 a.m. and not after all hell seemed to break loose on the streets around here.  The kids are SO relieved that we have more food now...haha.

After grocery shopping the kids did some painting while listening to "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" on Audible.  Now me, personally, I despise water color painting...for many reasons.  So I have to suck it up as a Mom when my kids want to do it and just let them, despite the mess, because they love it, and they do get pretty creative with it.

The start of Layla's family portrait.  Now hanging in our living room.

Final version

Cora always does "tornadoes."

Finn did a tree with lots of sky designs, stars, and swirls.  

After painting we did 10 minutes of reading out loud for both Layla and Finn, who are participating in the Read Aloud Revivial 31 day reading challenge.  They are pretty excited to cross of their calendar boxes each day in the hopes of prizes at the end, despite the fact that there are only like 50 prizes for the 20,000 families that are participating...haha.  We'll see!  Mama wants a new book bag for library books.  

Then Layla did her violin practice for me, and now they're all watching "Sing" while I wish I were better at napping during the day.

Also, check out these "snowflakes" Finn made for our front window.  Most of them remind me of scary monster masks, haha...we haven't quite worked out the "delicate lace" kinks yet.  But he loves making them, so I'm mostly glad...mostly. 

Sledding

It has been SO COLD here (like -15 actual temps, with wind chill well below -25), and it's set to get really cold again tomorrow, so the kids and I took advantage of the balmy 30 degrees today and went sledding on the parkway a block from our house.  They like sledding on our front yard hill just as much, but they have no way of stopping easily before sliding into the street, so my heart just can't handle that (considering it's a well-used road that people SPEED down because it's 2 blocks long)...off to the parkway we go!

This hill is maybe the smallest hill in the world, but it's perfect because the kids can get their OWN SELVES and their OWN SLEDS up and down it just fine.  And there is clearly no traffic on it, so no sledding collisions...haha. 

Layla is maybe the sweetest little mother-in-training-child ever...you can see in half the photos she is helping Cora up the hill (Cora abused this to NO END), helping her get ready at the top, giving her pushes down, etc.  Meanwhile Cora is totally capable of doing all of this herself.  What a moocher!  :)  I will say my pregnant body was oh-so-thankful for Layla's help today, even though Cora didn't deserve it at all, and spent a good 85% of the time sledding crying about something.  Ah, well.  2 out of 3 kids with great sledding attitudes isn't bad, right??

Have I mentioned I like where we live?
Gosh I like where we live.  

Notice Cora crying in the background...haha.  It was just one of those days for her.