Two Girls

It's fun having two little girls around.

Yesterday began with a tea party.

 Later, Heather and Estelle had a great time in the snow.  First, shoveling off the picnic table seemed like a good idea.

Then, swinging seemed like it would be fun.

 Jacob, Wayne and Cole were having a rough and tumble time of some fast paced sledding.

 Julie with Heather and Mary with Estelle hit the slopes.

A trackster ride.

 I think Estelle is enjoying all this Vermont snow.



All Dressed Up With Somewhere to Go

A couple of weeks ago, Gramma and Grampa sent a package of fun things and goodies for W, C, and H. One of the things for Heather was this pretty dress with a matching doll dress.  When our local library held an American Girl Doll Tea Party, we knew just what to wear.  (American Girl dolls were not required, just a theme, so we brought this curly haired doll that cousins Katie and Lizzy had outgrown and gave to Heather)

 The first activity of the tea party was making beaded necklaces.

 Then the girls made yarn dolls.

Next it was time to sit down to tea.  Raspberry tea was served, or if you preferred, you could have fruit punch.  Heather tried the tea, rejected it and drank the punch.

 There were tiny little sandwiches (cucumber and pb&j), cookies, and little brownies.

 After the tea, there was a game called "pass the ring" or "hide the ring" or "who has the ring" or something to that effect.  The girls sat in a circle with their hands behind their back, passing a ring around the circle while a girl sitting in the middle tried to guess where the ring had stopped.  Heather was cranky that she didn't have a chance to sit in the center, but there were just too many girls there for everyone to have a turn.  That's Jessica the Childrens Librarian who organized the party.  After the game every girl got a ring to take home, along with their yarn doll and bead necklace.

Today we took the kids to an indoor pool.  Thomas and Estelle came with us and Estelle had her first visit to McDonalds. I don't know who was more excited, her or Cole. On the way to Mcdonalds Cole was telling her all about the Happy Meals that come with a little toy, and how you get to get your own drink, and ketchup and that there's an indoor playground. It was a funny conversation.  Sorry, no pictures on my end, but I think Thomas took a few so at some point Julie will post them to her blog.

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.