Winter Celebration

Today I went into Sofia's class for her classroom winter celebration.  Gone are the days of junk food at parties.  In fact, there was no food at all!  I was not surprised though as the school policy is to not bring sweets to school.  While I think that saying no sweets because there is an epidemic of childhood obesity is ridiculous since it is not the 13 cupcakes throughout a year that make a child obese.  However, having no food at the party makes it more of a parent/child interactive time which is definitely nice to have.  Today Sofia's teacher had us work on making a polygon snowman since the kids are just starting to work on polygons.  Sofia and I had fun making our snowman and made him quite snazzy with a vest!

Swimming Test

Yesterday the girls had their swimming tests.  They both are doing well.  It is nice to have a formal evaluation to know how they are doing. 

Sofia's evaluation shows the following:

1.  She can dive off block in streamline position although she needs to focus more on getting her head between her arms
2.  Freestyle - 50 yards with streamline off the wall, bilateral breathing with flip turns but she has to focus on not breathing from the flags to the finish. - She said she tried this but felt she was going to explode.  I'm not surprised becuase it is probably 7 strokes long so she will just have to get used to the feeling and/or swim that part faster.
3.  Backstroke - 50 yards with streamline off the wall on back to the flags then release one arm then stroke, her head is back and she has a continuous flutter kick (needs to focus on always keeping her feet up).  She also now counts her stroke from the flags to the finish so she can swim hard right to the wall.  She needs to work on her flip turn to make sure she always pushes off the wall on her back and make sure when she starts her back stroke off the wall that her head is back.
4.  Breaststroke - 25 yards with pull out/streamline, proper kick, proper pull onlyto chest with continuous motion to stream line.
5.  Butterfly - This is where Sofia needs work.  She can do 25 yards  with dolphin kick in streamline with correct timing and breaathing but needs to focus on keeping her knees and feet together and getting her elbows clear of the water.

So, she is doing great.  She will stay with another session of the prep team through March and then we will see where the coaches think she should go.  There is another girl in her class, Chloe, who she is friends with and I am friends with her mom who also needs work on her butterfly so we will get together and have Sofia and Chloe have 2-3 private lessons to get their butterfly stroke up to snuff.

Alessandra's evaluation showed the following:

1. Freestyle - This needs work.  Her instructor said that he knows she can do it but yesterday on the test she went out to fast and had to stop half way so he couldn't pass her on it.  I am not surprised that she rushed this on the test day since she was already exhausted before we even got to swimming. She has made big strides on her freestyle though and is no longer doggie paddling every third stroke.
2.  Backstroke - Complete with good body position, leaning back and relaxed.  She has a consistent flutter kick with proper arm pull, elbows straight and her pinky enters tha water first.
3. Elementary Backstroke - Complete with proper kick and arm pull in a glide position.
4. Breaststroke - This needs work.  She needs to coordinate the timing of her arm pull and kick.
5. Sidestroke Kick - This needs work.  She needs to improve her scissor kick and make sure she doesn't roll onto her stomach.
6. Butterfly - She needs to work on her breathing
7. Diving - Complete with a standing dive off the side of the pool.
8. Treading water - Completed with treading water for one minute.
9. Swim underwater - Completed streamline to flags
10. Open Turns - Completed.

So, Ali still has a lot of work to do in the next session of lessons but even though she has not completed all the items in the level four list she has made huge improvements in her swimming.  She has a different instructor on Thursday who will also be giving her a swimming test so we will see if there are any differences in the evaluations.  I'm hoping she will not be as tired on Thursday and will get the complete on the freestyle on Thursday. 

Crafts

Jason decided to do a craft with the kids over the weekend.  He found a craft that included shaving cream and glue to make a snowman.  This was a good craft for Jason to do since I would probably have skipped it due to the possible mess factor.  Adding to the fun is Jason mixed the glue and the shaving cream in red solo cups.  This adds to the fun because the girls have really been into the song "Red Colo Cup" lately and have been singing it around the house..  Here is a quick video of the kids at the start of the craft.  Sorry for the poor video quality.

Happy Birthday Pat!

Last Thursday was my brother Pat's birthday.  We headed down to his house on Friday to celebrate with him.  It was nice to have time with my brother with only our family (my parents, brothers, nephews) around.  Usually when we go to my brother's house for a party it is filled with his friends and we do not get any time to really see or talk with Pat so this was a nice change.  The kids all played together and had a great time and the adults got to sit around and talk.  At the end of my brother's road is a house that puts on a "Festival of Lights" every year.  The light display is amazing.  The man must spend hours putting up all the lights.  He even has little houses for the kids to look in to see toys making candy or Santa and Mrs. Claus's bedroom.  There is popcorn and cookies and even Santa was there.  It is definitely a lot of work for the owners of the house and they give the money they receive to charity.  So, after having some pizza we all headed across the cul de sac to see the lights.  It was a nice night and the kids left there exhausted!

Gingerbread House

The girls and I put together a ingerbread house this year.  Of course the kids just wanted to eat all the candy but they managed to contain themselves and did a nice job decorating the house.  My icing work was not of the best quality but the kids did not care.  it has been nice to see it on the counter every day.  The decorating quality is going down by the day as we continue to pick all the candy off the house to eat it!

Finally a night out!!

Jason and I have become accustomed to going out together every Friday night since living in Prague but since we have moved back to the States we have only managed to go out to dinner alone twice.  We sent the kids down to my parent's house for the weekend.  Friday night we just relaxed and Jason worked on Saturday but Saturday night we went out to dinner.  We headed into Boston's North End for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Giacomo's.  It was so wonderful to be in the city again.  While living in Hopkinton is nice and scenic there is just something about city life that is special as well.  We walked to the restaurant and enjoyed being in the city.  We had a fabulous meal of lobster ravioli for me and homemade fusilli with lobster and shrimp for Jason.  We love Giacomo's food and the hustle of the restaurant.  It is definitely not a relaxing restaurant but the hustle/bustle and small space make you feel like you are in an Italian kitchen.

We followed dinner  up with cappuccino and cannoli at Mike's Pastry.  I don't know if we have just been away from Mike's for too long but it seemed like the cannolis were much bigger than we remembered.  We could have just split one they were so big.  No matter how long it has been though since going to Mike's the cannoli was just as good as I remember them!  It was so nice to have time alone to just talk about life.  We are so busy here that life seems to fly by and we haven't had time to catch up with each other.  It was definitely a much needed break from the speed of life.  Thanks to mom and dad for taking care of the kids!

Sofia's first bank account

Sofia's school has a program with a bank in the center of town for kids to open up passbook savings accounts.  They sent the paperwork home a while ago and we went back and forth about whether or not do have Sofia participate in the program.  In the end we decided it would be good for her to learn about saving money and she would also be doing math without even realizing it.  We completed the form and sent it in to the school with Sofia's $6 that she had already saved.  On the first Tuesday of the month the passbooks and deposits get collected at school and brought to the bank.  They get brought back to the school on Thursday and the children can take them home.  Today was the first month the Sofia participated in the program and came home today with her very first passbook savings book.  It is so cute and she is very excited about it.  We will have to work with her every month to make sure she completes the deposits slips correctly.  It may be about the right time to start a chores list that she can earn an allowance for so that she can add money regularly to her account.