Post Christmas Fun

My handsome brother-in-law, James

Lewis and his frenulum

Our life is like this.
New Christmas dresses on Sunday morning

A friend of our reading to our kids and his grandkid--Claire has a story she can tell about this... I don't have the details so I won't try. 

Not of Special Grace

Nelly, commentating on life:  

Everyone has armpits, even BAD GUYS.

The One Thing Missing

Lewis, getting up from the dinner table and wandering restively around the room: "I wish we had a dog, or a cat, or a bear in a cage.  We really need--or maybe not a bear in a cage, but a rabbit or something--but I wish there was a pet down here at the beach."

Christmas

Mona and her Dolly

White Christmas in Camas

We really got snow here this year. These are from today.

Best Bedtime Excuse of the Week

Lewis, at the end of a long stalling period, with marked thoughtfulness:  You know, I can't really lie down in my bed.

Us: Why not?

Lewis: Because I have a feeling that makes me sit up.  

And Our Surprise Contestant Is...

I was bragging a little incessantly to Peter today about how wonderful the kids were during chore-time: 

"...And Inge scrubbed all the doors," I concluded my panegyric,  "and Lewis washed windows and, and..." 

"And I," Nelly concluded, beaming proudly, "I did the toilet." 

Incongruities

A few days ago I did what every parent does at one time or another--stepped on a toy so pointed I was pretty sure I now had a perforated foot.  I was doing the hopping routine, and I must have been hopping high, because I got Lewis's attention.  "What's the matter, Mom?" he asked.  I explained.  "Oh," he said.  And then as an afterthought he inquired, solicitously, "Is the toy okay?"

***

Our nephew Jak has a deep little, cute little, nasally, gravelly voice. The more matter-of-fact he is being, the longer a word may stretch.  The more protracted the word, the deeper it sinks toward the end.  One early morning in Minnesota I was cycling kids through their pottytimes--plucking one off with one hand, setting the next-most-urgent one on with the other, and so on--and a knock came at the door.  Jak was outside, gazing at the ground.  He wandered in, scrubbing his eyes.  "Do you need to use the bathroom, Jak?" I asked.  "Yeeeeeah," he replied in that voice of his.  And then glancing up he added pointedly, "You know, there's a bathroom upstaaairs."  

Thanksgiving: A Family Walk in the Woods

Thanksgiving: Working with Grandpa at Roisehaven