It's really about time for a Nelly post, because Nelly now talks. Nelly talks a lot. Of course, her enunciation is peculiar to her. She articulates really quite well when she has a bad cold, but unless her nose is plugged, she does not say the sounds "b", "d", "c", or "s", replacing them them more or less respectively with "m", "n", "t", and a sort of malleable and explosive "h". This means that if you're not listening, you're missing stuff. Stop to listen, and you hear a little person who verbalizes, comments, converses, monologues, (dialogues), and chats. Frequently pithy and always entertaining, here it is: Most Quotable Bits from Nelly's Lexicon.
I Yike: The new favorite preface to almost everything. Things she likes? Oh, well, for instance, of the cereals we keep around, she yikes Hyex and Hyeerios. She yikes ma-ha-woni and hyeese quite a lot. She
weeeawwy yikes hyeese, especially cheddar. She yikes yhocolate yhips, which she gets anytime she goes poop on toit. "I-yike" is her classic wind-up. "Mommy, I yike, I yike, I yike mahawoni and HYEESE! wif hot-nogs." After she had her first episode of the stomach flu, "I yike" took on a very pathetic tone. You'll remember how you felt the morning after your last bout with the flu, no doubt. How empty, how hopeless of ever finding nourishment both palatable and able to fill you up. But if you were a sad little one-time butterball, now skinny and light and disillusioned, sitting in the tub first thing in the morning, and you said through tears, "Mommy, I yike, I yike, I yike noonles (noodles), I yike Hyeerios, I yike noonles, I yike, I yike yoosey (juice), I yike noonles," over and over again--well, then, you would have got sympathy. You would also have got a bowl of beef noodles in the tub, but that's another story.
I no yike-it: the converse of "I yike." As in, "I no yike-it mite (bite)."
Need no-poop: as in, "Need no-poop-on-toit.
Weeeeawwwy madwy." Usually a trustworthy saying, unless it occurs during dinner--a meal from which Nelly likes to escape, if possible. While I'm at it, I may as well mention that while on the toit, Nelly has certain favorite catalogues. She particularly enjoys Pottery Barn Kids and Boden Kids; and she has been known, having disembarked, to request a second session because she had discovered the lost Boden under the bathroom step-stool.
Yooey: Lewey.
Toasty: toast.
Yoosey: juice.
Peanut-mutter-on-it: how all toasty should come.
Yees-are-Ney: The cryptic name for all three of her favorite song cds, deriving from the phrase "these are they" out of one of the songs. Always cited with lots of bounce and hopefulness, as: "Mommy, tan we yisten Yees-are-Ney, Yees-are-Ney, Yees-are-Ney?!" The three cds are distinguished one from another by means of a series of superlatives: We have the old Yees-are-Ney, the new Yees-are-Ney, and the new-new-new Yees-are-Ney. Inge and Lewis have accepted this method of identification without question, as, I may add, have I.
For interested parties, I may as well put a plug in here: you won't find a better bunch of kids' music anywhere, and (as CSL once said something like of books), it's no good for a kid unless it can be enjoyed by adults as well. Check it out:
www.solmusic.ca. Our personal favorite title is the "Memorials" album.
I now have a bike that can handle some gravel so I can ride out of town and get shots like this. 
Nelly was bracing for the flash, I believe. 
Notice how Lewis manages his pants while running. This is typical.
I took this picture while driving.
I'm a little short on Nelly pictures this week, so nothing too special here, just a picture of Nelly.
We've had a lot of this kind of snow-sleet-rain stuff. I've heard it said that Moscow has two seasons--Summer and Mud.
Inge pontificating--also fairly typical.
Inge and Nelly doing tricks. 
Inge smiling. :)
Louie smiling in a Gap cap.
Don't forget to notice the fellow with the camera and the tuxedo in the back seat.
