up to (in pictures)

splinter removal (obviously not dishes)

fort building

President's Day flag waving at the symphony

running, always running

links i love

Small School in Albuquerque: Arming Teachers, Training Students
Does teaching active self-defense have a place in schools these days?

Eight Most Overlooked Foodie Towns in the South
Or another reason I love my town

What State Do You Actually Belong In
I got Georgia which is not far off.

Cool Harry Potter Short: The Greater Good - Dumbledore and Grindelwald
A prequel to The Sorcerer's Stone. Say what?!

And just because I have to put this out there because I have Spring fever and because well, who doesn't love the beach?
Our Personal Myrtle Beach Condominium For Rent

by the numbers

Today, by the numbers:

70 number of school days we are supposed to have left this year
74 number of school days we will actually have thanks to all of the snow make-up days
18 number of miles I'm running tomorrow
40 number of pounds my son now weighs at 4 years old
70 number of pounds my daughter now weighs at almost 8
8 and 80 number of years old and number of pounds she has to be to ride in the car without a car seat
2 number of fights at my school today
2 number of babies that will be born into our family this weekend (my sister-in-law is in labor!)
8 number of points UNC beat Duke by in men's basketball last night
15 number of medals my country (France) has in our family Olympics game
6 number of long runs left until my marathon
4 number of gymnastics classes I've sat through this week

ten ways to beat cabin fever

If you're still cooped up with kids for Snomageddon 2014 and school's out for the third day in a row, you might enjoy some of these ideas that we've had fun with this week in efforts to beat cabin fever. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments and please pin this post if you found it useful. Thanks for your support, friends!

Some ideas for beating cabin fever:

1. Write thank you notes to the mailman.

2. Dig through your closets until you find something your kids haven't seen in a while (or ever! like old pom poms from high school) and let them be entertained for hours.

3. Sort some toys and make a bar graph with Legos.  Here's the file I made if you want to use it. Free and printable. Plus, you'll be teaching your child valuable sorting, counting, and graphing math skills in the process.

4. Get in the kitchen and cook something!

5. Have each child cut out pictures from a magazine of small things they might see around your house. Don't tell them what it is for. Have them glue five or six pictures to a sheet of paper and then switch. Tell them their mission is to go as quickly as possible through the house and gather all of their items. Whoever is first wins!

6. Put 'em in the tub with a can of shaving cream. When they're done playing you can turn the water on and give them a bath and you've got a jump start on the bedtime routine for this evening!

7. Have your children make a power point presentation about themselves.

8. It's Old School, but it works! Play musical chairs.

9. Play moon and Earth. Turn out the lights and lie on your backs with 2 flashlights (or ideally a flashlight and a laser pointer). One person shines the larger light slowly around the ceiling in large circles and the other person can rotate the little light in smaller circles around the larger light. It is the moon orbiting the Earth.

10. See how many M&Ms you can pick up with a straw in one minute. Make it even more fun by racing a family member.

Have fun indoors and enjoy the extra time with your kids!

Snowmageddon 2014

The schools closed Wednesday in anticipation of Snowmageddon 2014.  It started snowing Wednesday at 12:30 and didn't stop until Thursday at 3:30 pm.  We got about six inches by bedtime Wednesday night and then we heard sleet pounding the windows almost all night. It packed the snow down and then snowed some more today bringing a grand total of about 7.5 or 8 inches.

So on Wednesday the kids got to try snow cream for the first time and I don't think either of them much cared for it.

The kids and I played outside briefly.

But this was my favorite part of Wednesday:

It took him 1:05 to get home since the cars were going so slowly on the highways. It's normally a 20 minute drive.

Jonathan fortunately didn't have to go in to work today so before we went outside to play in the snow we sent the kids upstairs to get dressed. Apparently this is Joshua's idea of getting layered up for snow because this is what he came downstairs wearing.

I'm all ready, Mom!

After a few hours outside, sledding, snowman building, and a nice lunch we watched a whole lot of television and generally acted lazy.

We made Valentine's cookies for the mailman. We wrote thank yous and took them to the mailbox.

We put together puzzles and made pizza for dinner.

Now the kids are in bed and school is canceled tomorrow for the third day in a row. We'll be going until June 13th but I suppose that's fine with me. At least it didn't mess up any of my 20-mile runs.

Stay safe, y'all!

on instagram lately

It's been a long time since I've posted some of my instagram photos here so I thought  today would be a good time to fix that! If you're on Instagram I'd love for you to follow me at @aisforbeautiful.

Josh hiding in the lockers at the Y

excited to see this movie when it comes out

January has a lot of perfect fort-making weather

one of the pieces of art on display at the central library

learning to swallow pills with bananas and mini m&ms

first taste of homemade waffles made with my Christmas present

sweet little neice

lost a tooth!

Twerk Day (aka Teacher Work Day)

7 is old enough to enjoy playing cards

first real snow this year

excited kids

hot fudge sundaes make everything better

ice skating with a friend for a perfect report card

two cold cats