Kenney doing dishes

Norah in the bath

Isn't she a cutie. I love her sooo much! I have to remind myself of that quite often lately.

Norah loves bananas

Snow in March ....

by Kenney

Norah in her pink skeleton jammies.

by Kenney

The snow man we built as seen from mom's and dad's bedroom window...

Sledding adventures

A few videos of a fun sledding day we had in February. Hopefully you won't think it's too cruel that we forced Norah into the sled. Mike and I had a great time and I think the kids did too, though these videos don't really convince you of that. We walked down the road to the Cornell Orchards. We met a family with a fancy toboggan type sled who convinced Kenney to go on a run with them. We couldn't force him like we did Norah, but he had a fun time the few times he went down in the toboggan.

Winter here in Ithaca

was hard this year. I tried to stay positive and get out and enjoy the snow when we could. It helped that we had a sled so we could use that for some fun. It also helped to have friends that enjoy playing in the snow. We visited Margaret, Jenny and Daniel a couple of times a week during snowy weeks for outside play. Here are some pictures of the field behind our house during a particular snowy but SUNNY week. The fresh snow looked so desolate and alien planet like. While Norah slept one afternoon Kenney and I invented a few new games out in the snow. We did snow angels in the crunchy snow, stepped out a message for dad to see when he came home later that day and scooted chunks of snow across the icy covered snow until they broke. We had a good time and it was so nice to see the sun.

by Kenney

Kenney recently took over taking pictures with our old point and shoot. It still works pretty well but Mike and I rarely take a picture with it anymore so I thought it would be ok for him to have some fun with it. I recently downloaded the images (sometimes 30 from one day). Mike and I laughed together last night when we went through them together and decided it would be fun to share some of them here.

Here's his little bed all made and everything. It's good for me to reflect right now on the struggle we had to get him to stay in that bad a couple of years ago. I have been struggling with Norah at bed time recently so it helps to remember that we'll get through it just like we did with Kenney.

When Dad's away

we have pita pizza for dinner. We had a lot of pizza in January. This meal was at least a little more balanced than usual and I even got Kenney to eat salad.

Utah

Norah on the plane to Utah with her peanuts.

cardboard kitchen

The kids got veggies and sandwich making stuff for Christmas and I wanted to make a kitchen to go with them. I saw a design idea in the Family Fun magazine but I just never got around to following through with it. One day I just put all the boxes from our Christmas spoiling together. The result, fantastic imaginative play.

Margaret

If you ask Kenney who his best friend is he will without hesitation tell you it is Margaret. Margaret is a great friend to have, she is smart, funny, pretty and a great example. I'm not sure why these two formed the friendship they have (other then their mom's are pretty good friends too) but I'm always happy to have Margaret come over. Their bond ranges from sheer toleration to kissing fancy's. It's heartening to see them play together and I hope they will always remember their first favorite playmate.

Happy New Year!

Everyone having a "nap" on New Year's Day.

The first of many sled rides

I did a lot of sled pulling this winter. We went every time it snowed because the roads had snow on them. The park owner's where we live are not the best at plowing the roads. They refuse to put snow melt down for fear that it will ruin the road, so even if the plow has come there is still a thick layer of snow on the road for a few days after a storm. Norah had a fun time once we got going I think. I guess I should have tried having them pull me...

Christmas dinner

two days later. We had planned to have a fancy Christmas dinner on Christmas of course. But when that day came we really just wanted to sit and relax. So we had Christmas dinner two days later. My first time making a complete dinner.Here it is after we had eaten. I was proud of myself because it was the first time I had fixed a Turkey dinner without assistance from Mike. He was very busy at this time busting out some dissertation. Not very pretty, but I do remember it tasted good!

Pajama hat...

As I was organizing pictures tonight to finally start blogging again I found this gem of Kenney in one of his infamous "Pajama Hat's". I'm not sure where or why he came up with his own version of a night cap (really just pajama bottoms), but he wore one for most of the winter. I looked online and while shopping for Christmas to find a real one but had no success. I loved going in at night to check on him. Usually the "hat" had come off, or was hanging precariously in some disarray. On this night he asked me to take a picture of the tree lollipop he had gotten that night in his Santa Advent calendar. I'm so glad I have this picture to document such a funny phase.

O Christmas Tree

Proof that Norah was happier once we got home and warmed back up. We decorated the tree that evening and enjoyed the fresh pine scent. We had held onto our tree stand from back in Salt Lake and this was the first time we had used it here. It was fun to have a tree up and enjoy Christmas at home, but it was also hard to be away from our families. Who knows what next year will bring!

Christmas tree farm

This picture is a pretty good summary of our trip to the Christmas Tree farm. There were a ton of trees! We walked through the fields in search of the perfect tree, of course. I think we ended up in the farthest field possible and Mike finally gave up the search and just started sawing. Not really but we all had had about enough by them so in desperation we decided between a couple in close proximity. Those we had tagged as possibility's were quickly forgotten as some of us (Norah) realized how cold it really was. (She refused to wear her gloves). And we still had to drag the tree back to the car...
I'm glad we did this trip, it was a fun time, but mostly I remember Norah being very unhappy about the cold.