We don’t usually do much for this particular holiday as a family, and as usual the boys had their school celebration.  We bought Valentine’s cards over the weekend for the boys to prepare for their classmates, and Logan also had to make a mailbox.  On Tuesday morning, we were surprised to find out that Connor was up from 6:30am to 7:05am making a card for his teacher.  The amazing part was all the nice words he put down on the card.  I am “clearly” jealous that I did not receive a nice card like that from Connor too.

    We want to update our house a little at a time, and next was the colorless dining room.  I ordered some wall art and replaced the chair seats with some new fabric.  I am not sure if I am totally happy with it, but we now have some colors in the room at least.

    I had coordinated to have both children’s lessons on Friday and took a day off for them.  Connor’s class was first right after drop off.  Since the other mom is a veteran volunteer for Art Vistas, I often feel quite relaxed knowing that she will have our backs.  The topic for this lesson was Vincent Van Gogh.  We shared a few of his famous paintings to discuss some art terms, ie. foreground, middleground, background, emphasis and contrast along with some previously learned elements.  Next we worked on the hands-on project, a clay flower. Rolling out the clay and free cutting out a shape of flower was actually quite challenging especially with the small amount of clay given.  Many of the kids had to repeat the steps a few times over and over. Fortunately at the end everyone made a nice piece, and no one got frustrated at all.  What a relief! The kids also added a little decorative design on their flowers.  The clay will be fired and they could be colored later.

    After cleaning up the clays and putting everything away, I went home for a break, had lunch and then back to school to prepare for Logan’s class.  I usually get more nervous for this class as I am leading the other mom and she often does not have time to prepare until just right before the class.  However for this lesson, I was excited to discuss the topic, abstract art, with the children.  I shared several famous art paintings to show and discuss the difference between realism vs abstract, and the children seemed quite intrigued and were able to recognize the different art expressions at the end.  Next the other mom showed the class the hands on project, using shapes cut out to put together a flying creatures and making a crayon rubbing afterward.  As usual, some kids worked quickly and put together interesting creatures while others took their time carefully designed and glued together their nice creations.

    By the time we cleaned up after the lesson, it was almost time for pick up.  Connor was telling that he saw me four times at school that day, and I certainly felt that I spent a lot of time there.

    The only thing we had on the calendar last weekend was Logan’s tennis lesson, but it was cancelled again due to the rain.  Since I was slightly under the weather, it was good to take the weekend easy.  On Saturday, we went to pick up Logan’s new pair of bifocals, but it was not made correctly, so the measurements were retaken and the glasses have to be remade.  In the afternoon when the rain stopped, we decided to take a walk.  We ended up walking on the trail and all the way to a local park.  The kids had a chance to play for awhile, then we had to take the return trek.  This impromptu walk turned out to give us a lot of steps, and some of us barely made it walking home. 

    It was actually sunny on Sunday morning, so we decided to go play some tennis.  But as soon as we were out there, it turned cloudy and chilly.  We managed to warm up and the boys did well hitting.  In the afternoon, we looked forward to watching the Superbowl.  The boys were content watching the game and learning how football plays.  They especially enjoyed the commercials, and later they looked forward to the Halftime show with Lady Gaga.  We stared at TV the entire time, and we truly enjoyed the show.

    After the halftime, since Stuart and I thought that it would be a blowout game, we agreed to go finish up the game of Monopoly with the boys.  When the dinner was ready, we returned to watching the game while we ate.  This was an incredible game and what an unexpected outcome.  The boys seemed to like watching part of it with us too.

   I forgot to mention that we had signed Logan up for chess lessons after the holiday break.  Logan was interested in it when he saw the flyer, and he has been looking forward to each Thursday class.  At the first session, he discovered that he has a couple of friends there and so now he even has more fun.  On Thursdays Stuart’s new routine is picking up Connor from class, dropping off the chess clock and workbooks to Logan, and seeing Logan off to the class. 

   One time Stuart and Connor observed the end of a class, the teacher was pretty serious while talking to the kids and all the kids were paying close attention.  This week, Logan said aloud, “Tomorrow is an important day because it is chess day!”.  We are happy that Logan is enjoying it.  The kids started on the handout work this week, and Logan is quite into it.  When he has a moment in the evening, he would pick up the book to solve a few of the chess puzzles.