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Today was a snow day! No school, and the snow just kept falling. It wasn’t too cold out, the sun was out from time to time, and we got 6-8 inches of snow (I didn’t measure, that’s just from the news). The girls had lots of fun outside in the snow sledding, throwing snowballs, and more. Molly spent most of the day at the twins house, while their little sister Madison spent much of the day at our house with Leah. This afternoon, they decided to build a snowman in the back yard.

After a while, they asked me to give them a hand. This giant snowball was for the snowman’s middle section. It took both of them to carry it over to the base but they couldn’t lift it on top. I helped them lift it on to the base before starting on the head.

Here’s the snowman in progress. This was the best snow for snowman building I think we’ve ever had - very heavy and sticky.

The girls did the face and arms. I tied the tie.

Here are their snowman. As Leah and I finished the big one, Madison decided it needed a small companion. So the big snowman (named Simon by Leah) got a baby.

Aunt EA went with Jen to Bingo when Uncle Scott was out of town, so Molly, Leah, and I babysat Charlie at our house. It went great, and I took lots of pictures. Here are a bunch of them.

This almost-middle-schooler had fun with the toddler toys we got out for Charlie.

Doctor Leah needs to hear your heart, Charlie.

I don’t know what evil doctor Leah is injecting into Charlie.

These old matchbox cars captivated Charlie for much of his visit. Leah did a great job playing with him. Molly… nice face.

I’m taking a picture from one side, while Molly takes a picture from the other.

Charlie enjoyed watching Molly play a game on her phone.

Molly decided she could entertain Charlie with some viola music. He paid attention to her for a few seconds, then went back to the cars.

The girls were invited to an ice skating birthday party, and had a great time. It was during free skate at the rink nearby, which we get into free as part of our Columbia Association gym/tennis membership. So, I decided to go as well since we don’t go ice skating that much. A fun time was had by all.

The girls had a Time Travel Day at school, and decided to go with 80s looks again (they seem to love 80s looks).

This month, the girls’ school has encouraged the kids to be more active with a “Movement Calendar” of daily activities. If completed, the kids get a little prize. So, we’ve had daily activities (often, but not always, exercises). Every Wednesday is family fitness day, Jen and I join in as well then. Here’s Leah showing off some mountain climbers.

The girls’ choir sang again in mid-December.

The girls’ school had Family Lego Night again, (renamed from Legos with Dad to be more inclusive). As always, the girls had a great time building.

Our church held a Family Fun Fair, with lots of fair games and food. We ate dinner there, saw lots of friends, and the kids really enjoyed the fair games. Here’s Leah on the cupcake walk.

Jen had made cupcakes for the cupcake walk, but Leah opted for the emoji cupcake instead.

Many of the games let you win tickets which could be exchanged for prizes. Our kids ended up with way too many prizes, but our neighbors (who have 3 kids) ended up with even more. Bob was excited to carry them all home (though he doesn’t have the giant beachball yet in this picture).

This was the church’s first year doing it, but I really hope the organizers keep it going every year. It was lots of fun.

Most of the time, the girls are in two different choirs at church due to their age difference. But there’s an occasional year where they overlap, and this year is one of those years. Leah is now old enough to join Joyful Noise, and Molly won’t move up to middle school till next year. So, they get to sing together. Here’s there first performance in October.

In November, they sang again. I even got to accompany them on the second song.

For Halloween this year, we all went with Harry Potter costumes (which I am very excited about). I am Remus Lupin (possibly my favorite character), Molly is Luna Lovegood, Leah is Hermione Granger, and Jen is a Quidditch fan.

The girls really got into character. They even had a wizard duel.

And they cast their spells. I don’t think they’re trying to hurt each other, given the smiles on their faces.

On Halloween day, the girls had a Halloween parade at school as usual.

Then they had their class parties. And perhaps even took some time to learn something afterward.

As evening approached, it was time for some serious trick-or-treating. This year, Molly’s friend Grace joined our crew of trick-or-treaters.

We trick-or-treated for about an hour.

Jen handed out candy this year while I walked around with the girls. We didn’t have very many trick-or-treaters visit us early on, so we thought it might be a light Halloween. But eventually they showed up, totaling 139 trick-or-treaters this year.

After returning home, Grace really wanted to keep going. Leah was done, but Molly agreed to go back out after thirty minutes of warming up and eating candy. So, Grace, Molly, and I headed back out to a street further than we've been before. This was later than we’ve trick-or-treated before, and Molly learned that late-night trick-or-treating can be awesome as folks are trying to unload candy. Every time someone said “just take a couple handfuls” she was very happy. She ended up filling up her pumpkin twice by the end of the night.