A Walk Through the Snowy Woods

Joanie, Wayne, and I went for a nice little snowshoe yesterday afternoon - my first of the season.
This is a picture that Wayne took of one of the scenes along the way.
Somehow, photos cannot really capture what a winter wonderland it was out there.

Wayne and I are at "the fort."

We snowshoe up, up, up to "the pinnacle" and enjoy the view. Here's another picture Wayne took with his little ebay digital camera. A different view of Brian's barn that we've always enjoyed visiting.

We take a different route home through Marvin's sugarwoods.

Wayne was quite interested in the piping. He inspected it all and figured out how it all works.

No school for Wayne and Cole today in honor of MLK. Wes has inservice.

Music

Wayne took his very first piano lesson yesterday afternoon after school. His teacher is Alice Perron in Greensboro, formerly of the fruitcake business. When I first called her to find out about the lessons and gave her Wayne's name, she said, "Hmm. Wayne Alexander. That's interesting. Is he related to the other Wayne Alexander - the one who wrote the Perron book?"

She is very nice, very patient, very positive, and very gently put up with Wayne's wiggliness at the piano. Luckily the lessons are only half an hour, because I don't think Wayne would be able to take more than that. She taught him some finger exercises, and some little rhymey songs to help him learn the keys, and taught him about the 5 lines and 4 spaces on the music paper. This week his home work is to keep practicing finding the notes D, A ,and G on the keyboard and to keep doing his finger exercises. We liked her a lot.

That's a full size grand piano, by the way.
This week at Cole's preschool, a guy named Gary Dulabaum has been working with Cole's class, and last night gave a little concert at the preschool. He's actually some kind of preschool music expert based out of Burlington. He's very funny and entertaining, and great at keeping those little kids engaged. I wish I could upload a video because pictures don't quite do the job for this type of entertainment. He sang many of the traditional kid songs, but gave them a very goofy twist and added some silly moves for the dancing kids.

That's Cole's teacher, Miss Denise, behind the camera. All day Cole had been saying that he wanted to go, but then at the last minute, after Wayne and I had rushed home from piano lessons, he got pouty and changed his mind. I forced him to go anyway, and he sort of half enjoyed it. Wes and Heather stayed home.
And just for fun, seeing Cole learn to skate, made me look back at some pictures of Wayne when he was 4 years old and learning to skate. Here his is with Julie and Thomas on the Pond a few years ago. I believe Julie is about 5 months along with Estelle here. Stay warm everyone. It's gonna be cold. It's -15 here right now.

A Princess Gone Bad

The Terrible Twos have arrived right on schedule.

Heather and I have had our ups and downs. From the time she was born until she was about 15 months old, Heather hardly slept a wink. Which means I hardly slept a wink, as well. Then, at around that time, her sleeping patterns began to regulate, and so did mine, and I was able to appreciate my little sweetheart so much more.

It was a nice few months, but the honeymoon is over.Ever since turning two, she has become a feisty, angry, tantrum-throwing little devil. I love her to pieces, but these days, when evening rolls around, I can't wait to put her to bed and be done for the day. Bedtime is a hard won battle on my part. Getting pajamas on her is a wrestling match. She screams and cries the whole time, "No Mommy! No Mommy! DOWNSTAIRS!" and if we had neighbors, they'd probably call the police.

Her favorite thing to say to her brothers is "Gimme."

She loves to say, "Poopy diaper," even when there isn't one. When she tells it to Wes, he says, "Go tell Mommy." He doesn't think I know about that.

Ever since Estelle was here she likes to sit on the potty all the time but has no idea what to do about it.

She insists on brushing her own teeth, but mostly just eats the toothpaste and chews on the bristles.

She won't let me help wash her hands but the slippery bar of soap keeps leaping out of her fingers. I showed her how to use the pump soap, which became an amusement to her and a disaster for me.

This morning, getting ready to take Wayne to school, I put her neck-warmer on her and she immediately took it off and threw it across the room. Then she began to cry and reach for it as if she wanted it. I picked it up and started to put in back on her, but she grabbed it from me saying, "No. Me." Apparently she wanted to put it on herself so I watched her struggle to get it down over her head for several minutes before pulling it down over myself, which caused her to refuse to let me put on her jacket, hat, and mittens. Cole was even ready before she and I were.

I do take a tiny bit of comfort in knowing that this independent and frustrating stage is a sign of her exploding mental capacity. She's been talking more and more everyday. This morning she got up at 6:00 and decided to draw a picture. She got a piece of paper out of the computer printer and then was looking in the pantry drawer for a pencil. I helped her find one, and she said, clear as a bell, "Thank you for that pencil."

Skating

Even though the frogs are long into hibernation, the pond continues to be a source of entertainment.

Cole dons skates for the first time in his life. He was so nervous about it that he had to be bribed with the incentive of a popcorn and movie night - a movie of his choice, and yes, you guessed it, his choice was Titanic. (although only carefully selected scenes, of course.)

But once he actually got the skates on, there was no stopping him. He ventured away from the safety of the chair and scuffled all around the ice. So cute!

Wayne, who has also been skating since age 4, was a whirlwind. He's so fast I could not get a good close-up shot.

In spite of the bitter cold, I even donned my skates which had been hanging in the garage of our old house, untouched, for many years. The blades were so dull and rusty that I couldn't really do much better than Cole. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) They went skating on the pond 2 or 3 days and then yesterday (Fri) Wes took them to the indoor rink in Lyndonville, where they enjoyed an afternoon of skating on smooth, Zamboni enhanced ice.

During one of the warmer afternoons - and by warmer, I mean about 10 degrees above 0 - Heather came out and enjoyed playing in the snowbanks by the pond.

The kids have really been enjoying their vacation. They've been playing with Christmas toys; Wayne had some friends over; they've been sliding, skiing, skating. I'll have to go to the library someday and upload a video. It's like we live on a little winter resort here at Elijah's Place.

Hope you are all enjoying the post holiday quiet.

The Pictures I Missed

Chris and Dan were kind enough to send some pictures of the people I missed, so here I'll share with you.

Connor and Maura,

Laura, playing Jeopardy game show host. What's Bing doing back there?

Jaonie was the Jeopardy judge. I think Heather was just a distraction.

Jesse watching Cole with Elijah. Cole just loves babies.

Lauren, Grammie, and Heather

Grammie and Rachel at the dessert table. There were two pumpkin pies, one made by Grammie, one made by Cedric. Cedric also made a black berry pie, and Grammie had also made an apple pie. Martha and Lisa had each made several kinds of yummie cookies. Aunt Elaine had sent over a chocolate cake. I had made a cheesecake with cranberry orange topping. And there was ice cream to go along with it all.

Here I am doing my Angelina Jolie impression. I don't know what's wrong with my lips here, but no, I have not been getting collagen injections.

Thanks Chris and Dan for sending these pictures. It's fun to see what I missed.

Merry Christmas, again

Saturday, Dec. 27th was the day of the Alexander family Christmas celebration. In the morning, before everyone arrived, Wes spread a thick layer of sand over the skating rink of a driveway. When I say skating rink, I mean it literally. The day before, Wayne had been skating (yes, with ice skate, not just sliding around on his boots) in the driveway. We'd had some rain, which had iced over the snow.

Joanie, Sarah, Emily, and Anna arrived in the morning to help set things up and then there was some time, before everyone else came, to go sliding with the kids. Just as we were all done and coming in, it started to rain like crazy.

Here's Heather looking like a child runway model in her Christmas dress.

People began to arrive and sort of hang out, waiting for everyone else to come, when we got a call that Chris and Martha, who were also driving Grammie, could not make it up the icy Perron Hill. Wes and I think Cedric, went with their 4 wheel drive trucks to the rescue.

Lots of seating in the basement. Everyone enjoying lots of food. I do mean LOTS of food.

Elijah enjoying a horsey ride.

Sara and Jesse...

Amy and Tyler...

The outlaws held a meeting...

There were Christmas carols...

Cousins galore... looks like Heather is giving them the two thumbs up.

And my favorite picture of the day, Heather taking her nap in Katie's lap. Have you ever seen anything sweeter?

At some point we received another call that Maura and Connor were having trouble on the icy Perron Hill, so the 4 wheel drive brothers went to the rescue again.

I'm sorry to say that some people escaped my camera - the very important Grammie, the ever elusive Jacob, the delayed Maura and Connor, and their gracious mother Laura, the busy and helpful Lisa, the camera defiant Jeanne, and probably several more, I'm sure. Maybe Sandy got some people that I missed.

We had the pleasure of having Laura, Paul, Connor, and Maura stay with us for the night, which was great because they are the ones we see less often.

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Wes has taken Wayne and Cole to the 11:00 a.m. Mass, so I thought I would take advantage of the relative quiet and upload a few pictures so you could all share a little in our Christmas morning.

As of now, we haven't opened any of our gifts under the tree, but first thing this morning, Wayne, Cole, and Heather dove into their stockings. See those giant stockings? It takes a lot of gifts from Santa to fill those babies. I think we need to downsize a little.

When I was a kid, Santa never wrapped my stocking presents. Now I can see why. It's a maddening job to wrap all those things.

Heather tries to figure out how to unwrap.

Wayne is an expert.

Heather models her crown and accessories.

This scene shows the extent of the devastation.

And here she is again in a pretty little dress from Gramma and Grampa, still wearing her glamorous earrings.

Peter, Jeanne and the girls may or may not come over this afternoon. Jeanne called this morning and said that they are pretty iced in over there, so we'll see what happens.

We had a happy visit to Maine last weekend with my side of the family and we look forward to celebrating an Alexander Christmas this coming weekend.

Merry Christmas, one and all!

Happy Birthday Heather!

The Princess turns 2 today!

Two years ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, Heather Renee arrived.

Gifts a day early from Aunt Joanie.

Happy Birthday Heather!

And this birthday originally belonged to Heather's cousin Jacob, who is 11 today.Happy Birthday Jacob!

We're headed to Maine today for Christmas with Gramma and Grampa.