SNOW

Princess Inge

In order to get her to stop biting her lower lip we had her say "Thank you Namma." This is what that looked like.

Here is the princess dress and "Tahara" which Namma made Inge for her Birthday.

5th Anniversary

The 25th was our 5th wedding anniversary. It was grand, and Claire and I are happier than ever to be stuck with each other.

Thanksgiving and Post-Thanksgiving

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving and one from the morning after. I think you can see that we had a fun time-- with much to be thankful for.

Michelle and John are now friends. Ironically, and seriously, she seemed to relate to him better when he was making scary faces than when he was trying to be charming-- we dont' quite know what this means yet.

Jamey thought the fire would be a good place to nap and stay warm. I'm not exactly clear on whether Hunny didn't want him there, or whether she just wanted him to pull up his pants (which are perpetually falling down). Whatever the case, this was photo op not to be missed.

Pre-Thanksgiving Update

Here is beautiful Mt. Hood. The weather has been great for seeing the mountains this week.

Here we are with Claire's good friend Montimarie and her boyfriend Ray. We met for coffee today.

This is Scott (center), and Bob (left) and Jim (right)who with any luck are (with the help of some people not shown) going to turn the datamining world upside down. This upstart Business Intelligence company has our attention, anyhow.

This is Uncle John's self-portrait. We all wonder why Michelle is still kind of afraid of him.

This is the picture that Rose likes. I have a much nicer picture of both, but I guess this one is rather charming in its own way.

Joe and Hunny-- Tosti to Tosti conversation about how to create Italian cuisine.

Here's Inge trying on a dress Hunny made for her--a Norman Rockwell moment.

Kids

Here are the kids from last Sunday. This is a Grandma fix.

Apparently I can now blog pictures with Mozilla Firefox again. I've been having problems getting pictures to load with it... that is why the chicken picture is there.

Testing

Random

We rejoice to find that, as our kids get older, they develop social skills. Such as, the art of listening to local conversations and joining in at appropriate moments. (These sorts of things, we have found, are not sorts of things that come naturally to one and two and three-year-olds.)

At dinner: Peter and I were reminiscing about some of the day's missteps, surprises, and disasters and Peter commented how it's interesting that the assorted desperations of the past 24 hours become sort of charming in retrospect. Lewis suddenly perked up. "Oh," he remarked. "Like a vaccuum cleaner?"

*** ***

At Wal-mart: Lewis experienced the urge to pick his nose, and was exhorted by his father to resist temptation. "Where would we put the booger?" queried Peter, very reasonably, "if you picked your nose." A moment's deliberation yielded the following suggestion. "Ummmm," said Lewis, "put it in the cartoon."

*** ***

Inge's naming abilities have far surpassed her one-year-old tendencies. "Binge" and such inventions have now been outclassed. Her three latest, applied to three tub toys, are these: Shinar, Bilious, and Anemana.

Michelley-Bean has a Tooth

Here she is, and if you look closely at the lower gum you can see it coming in.

Kids

Here's the three-ring circus installment for this week. I guess you can tell who the ringmaster is. ;)

Homestead Storage Shed

This is the first building I've ever constructed start to finish. Many thanks to Nate Douglas, Daniel Alders, and Jamison Evans for their help. Note: although the picture was taken before the shed was finished it is now finished and full of stuff.

What happens when you read the Bible to your kids

Lewis says, and I quote: "We went to the co-op and bought Abrahams."

He was pretty darn sure about that, too, although he began to look uncomfortable as we questioned him further.

All before 10:00

Well, I am now a real Mom. I just hit a milestone. First time ever: I shouted, "Inge! Lewis!! Tuppence!" before arriving at the correct candidate: Michelle, who was high-speed crawling into the bathroom while I tried to wash her brother's hands.

We had just returned from the co-op, where (to the musical noise of Michelle wishing out loud that she could be somewhere else and taking a nap) we had bought honey, sesame oil, dried apricots, dried nectarines, vinegar, and brand new multi-vitamins). Nearly ever since we got home, Michelle had been screaming in the playroom while I washed out her bottle and tried to administer Lewis's multi--which, since he especially wanted to administer it himself, I postponed until after he had gone potty and washed his hands. (Picture me faking right and left with the vitamin, and Lewis ducking and dodging, while trying to eke a particularly complicated sentence about a vitamin out of a limited vocabulary.) Turned out, Michelle was screaming because the cat was using her as a chew-n-bat toy. Understandable. I looked deep inside myself at that point, and discovered a real Mother Bear component; the cat's ensuing sideways progress didn't stop until she had briskly encountered the vacuum cleaner on the other side of the hallway. A quick peek at Lewis in the bathroom revealed that he was putting on his underwear inside out, backwards, and upside down. I don't know how he manages such consistency, but it's got to say something about his character (future corporate manager, perhaps?) Grabbed the all-terrain Michelle out of the bathroom, washed her hands, and began to apply the bottle. Meanwhile, Inge comes out and, standing sociably on the handle of my recliner, converses with me about putting her dolly's shoes on. The handle falls off. Out comes Lewis from the bathroom; he has his jeans on backwards, too.

Right now, Inge and Lewis are belting out the doxology with all their might and main. They're "having school."

L'chaim, eh?

Lewis and Inge

These two move so fast these days that I can hardly even photograph them. Lewis is potty training (as you could tell from previous posts) and Inge is learning all kinds of thing. A few days ago as we were waking up in the morning I heard her practicing her sums, "one and one is two, two and two is... one, two, three, four... two and two is four, three and two is.... one, two, three, four, five.... three and two is five." And she went on to three and three and perhaps reviewed some of the others as well.

Michelle

She's growing fast. Michelle has been officially crawling all week.

The cat is facinated by the bath.

Michelle has just recently started holding her own bottle. In this case she fell asleep because she was so tired.

Prayer Before Mealtime

"Heavenly Father, thank you that we can be home from the beach, and thank you for this food, and please forgive Lewis for wetting my pants...(thinking)...for wetting his pants, and please help Lewis not to wet his pants, in Jesus' Name, Amen. (hastily) And please...please....please...do very please help me not to go poop in my pants, in Jesus' Name, Amen."