Our January, in a blur

January’s been an interesting month.  On January 3rd, Sydney harvested this from his garden:

And yet this past week Katherine didn’t have a single full day of school, thanks to low temperatures (Kentucky standards here: 6 degrees at night) and roughly 10 inches of snow.  It’s looking like things will warm up and our snow will be gone by the end of the week, but, still, it’s quite a shift.

Sydney has been gathering his seed orders for this year, and I can tell he’s no longer quite got his head in the academic world.  In an effort to help the kids see what a yard is for (the first one they’ve ever had, so they’re still new at this), we seized on the chance to bring home a used playground from up the street.  I was sent to scout it out and talk with the previous owners, and I apparently failed to mention to Sydney that this playground was not the garden-variety kit kind that comes from Lowe’s.  Instead, this was made from scratch, and it weighs roughly 9000 pounds (just kidding, but it certainly felt like it).  So the Penner men (all three were here over Christmas) hauled it down the street, and Sydney’s spent a few weeks reinforcing and putting in new pieces.  Now we’ll be quite annoyed if the kids still tell us they don’t know what to do while we weed or mow or plant.

And now, gratuitous pictures of the kids:

Cute, right?  But lately this is all we’ve been seeing of Katherine:

Erin