Fall

The past several weeks have been filled with cooler temps and shorter days.  Sophia continues her piano lessons and gymnastics every week.  Sebastian started basketball a few weeks ago and had his first tournament this past weekend.  Mike took a work trip to Santa Clara, California.  My photography has been neglected due to busy weekends and the lack of daylight when I finally leave work for the day.  Here are the few photos that I’ve taken since late October.

Snow Covered Pumpkins
Sprinkled With Snow
Fuchsia
Gray & White
Brown & White
Feeding Time
More Hungry Geese
Feeding Time Is Over
Gaggle Of Geese

Halloween…

Jack-O-Lantern Carving
Frankenstein
Halloween Parade – Fortune Teller

Basketball Tournament…

Go Red #3!
Sunset
Colorful Skies

An End To “Spring”, CleanWare, Basketball & An Angry Bird

With highs near 50 yesterday, today’s weather was a bit of a shock to us all.  I think we were hoping to ease back into winter slowly, but instead we have snow, wind gusts over 30 mph and wind chills in the negative digits.  Hard to believe I took Daphne out for a walk last night in capri length athletic pants and a light jacket.  The beautiful sunrises also came to an end this morning when the cloudy skies took over.  I did catch these photos before work yesterday morning.  It was calm on Lake Superior which led to some great reflections on the water.

Reflection
Mirror Image
Calm Waters
Blue Sky
Along The Boardwalk

 

The kids have been busy with a number of things in recent weeks including Sebastian’s invention project.  He was given materials before Christmas break to document and create an invention to display at his school.  He had to keep track of his time, the process, trial and error, cost along with documenting the problem and solution that his invention was designed for.  Sebastian’s idea was to create a product that could keep meal time tidier.  Silverware creates a mess if you lay it on the table.  If you put it on your plate, it can slide off and make messes on the table, floor or your clothes.  Sebastian designed two utensil holders that clip onto either side of your plate to hold your messy silverware.  He used small Tupperware containers, magnets and clips and came up with a very cool product.  He displayed his “CleanWare” invention and a poster board at school yesterday.  Here’s a snapshot of his display.

CleanWare

 

When he wasn’t busy with his invention, Sebastian has been busy with basketball.  He plays for an area youth rec basketball  league.  His division is made up of 5th and 6th graders, although his team has only 5th graders.  The height advantage of the other teams makes it a bit challenging – as shown in the picture below.

Tip Off

He has a great coach and an awesome group of kids on his team.  It’s been fun to see the progress they have made since the season began in the fall.

Shooting For The Basket

 

Sophia finished up her last swimming lesson before Christmas and has now jumped into gymnastics.  She would have liked to do both gymnastics and swimming, but it would’ve been a bit crazy to have two sports and religion class during the week along with homework.  I don’t have any pictures to share of her gymnastics class, but did snap a few pictures of her new hat last night.  We found the hat during a quick trip to Walgreen’s during the holiday break.  A big display of several of these plush hats were positioned right inside the door.  Of course once Sophia had it on her head, it was hard to say no.  I did actually say no..at first.  By the end of our mini shopping spree, Sebastian had found a cool sock monkey and Sophia had an adorable Angry Bird hat.

Happy Angry Bird
Sad Angry Bird
"You Lookin' At Me" Angry Bird