Cross Country Skiing

We borrowed skis from the school for vacation.

 This afternoon we tried them out.  It was Heather's first time on skis.  She did a great job, as long as I kept her in the flat driveway.  When we tried to head up the trackster tracks into the field, she would fall and become a tangle of skis, poles, arms, and legs.

 She really enjoyed it though and never got frustrated. She just wanted to keep trying.

There's Cole heading up into the field.  He learned to ski last year.

 Wayne has been skiing for several years and does a really good job. He likes to go fast.

Back inside, Heather and Patches fell asleep on the warm sunny couch.

 I took this picture (below) earlier in the day.  For a stray cat, Patches has turned out to be the best pet ever. She takes many rides in this baby carriage and seems perfectly content about it, even slightly amused by it. That is, until Spike comes charging into the room.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Found this beauty on the Eric Carle website and couldn't resist.

Happy Valentine's Day.

We ARE Still Here!

It's been so long, I figured I'd better let you know that we are all still alive and well in the NEK.  Internet problems get worse and worse making it impossible to get anything done and we just haven't had much blogworthy events lately anyway. So, here are just a few random but recent photos of us having way too much snow.

Wayne and Cole both got completely excellent report cards a while ago. Wayne's teacher wrote some rather bland statements about how he's a great thinker and all around excellent student, but Cole's teacher wrote with a bit more detail.

I have to laugh at the statement about how he loves to write stories and has a creative thought process. If she only knew ...

Cole's First Piano Lesson

Yesterday, Cole had his first piano lesson.  Here, he is showing his teacher that he already knows how to play "Carol of the Bells" and the theme to the horror flick, "Halloween."  (Wes's influence, not mine)

After his lesson, he said, "I liked it." And today when I picked him up from school, he said, "I want to go to piano lessons everyday."  We'll see how long that lasts! Hopefully a long time.

This Party Is For The Birds!

We made treats for the birds.They add a little color and whimsy to our January yard. It looks like a party.

The birdseed cones were made by Cole and Heather. We had a few sugar cones leftover from Heather's gingerbread castle. They mixed shortening and birdseed, shaped the mixture into balls and gently pushed  the balls onto cones, with yarn embedded for hanging.  When we ran out of cones, we just made balls. We set them out in the cold on the porch to harden and then hung them up.

                          

We've had bird feeders in the crabapple tree, so the chickadees are well acquainted with us. It' didn't take them long to discover their new party snacks.

This one is keeping a close eye on Spike.

Heather under the crabapple tree, aflutter with birds.

Patches (can you see her?) can only watch from the window.

Happy New Year

On New Years Day the Alexander Clan assembled for the annual Christmas/New years Party. The house was bussling with activity and food - soups, sandwiches, and what is now know as Chris's crack-pot chili. Outlaw Chris brought chili in a crockpot, but was having trouble getting it heated up, so he took the ceramic insert out of the crockpot and placed it on the stove burner to heat up a little faster. At some point, I noticed that Lisa, Laura, and Martha were creating quite a fuss around the stove, and kind of whispering to each other like they didn't want to draw attention to whatever was happening over there. I thought that some chili had bubbled over onto the burner, which to me seems like no big deal, but to the Alexander set, it's major cause for alarm. Turns out that what really happened was that the bottom of the ceramic pot had broken and the chili had expelled itself all over the burner and top of the stove. I took this photo after most of it had been cleaned up. Of course, the cleaned it up so well, the stovetop looks better than it has in two years.

 Luckily, we weren't about to go hungry.

 The Star Wars conversation table.

The hunting conversation table.

The girl talk table.

 Lounging in the livingroom.

Patches enjoyed lots of attention.

Time for dessert.

 Then a Star Wars Christmas play, written by Jacob. Jacob is Luke Skywalker and Cole is Obi Wan.

 Heather as Princess Leia. Jacob was also the voice of Yoda.

 A clone trooper and Darth Vader.

More Clone troopers move in to attack. In the end, Darth Vader is lured from the Dark Side when h e learns the tru meaning of Christmas from his son, Luke.

A song to the Star Wars theme.

 The audience, clearly enjoying the show.

When Elijah first arrived at the house, he hid behind Sandy's legs and didn't want anyone to look at him, but once he discovered the spotlight, there was no getting him off the stage.

 Happy New Year!