We went to a birthday party at the bowling alley today. It was fun, as usual. Kids running around, pizza, cake, video games, cheap candy, noise… good times! On the way out the door to the party I grabbed the mail and found two more party invitations! One to another party at the bowling alley next weekend. Apparently my kids are popular. At the party I heard that there was a party at the bowling alley last weekend that Lex hadn’t been invited too and although I probably should be been put-out my first thought was “thank goodness we don’t have to go to the bowling alley three weekends in a row!” I think they are just the right amount of popular! :)

This is Eve's favorite "game" at the bowling alley arcade.

Group shot, minus one little boy. They tried to convince him with the promise of pizza, little did they know he would be skipping that part of the party as well!

He happily joined in the ice cream cake eating part of the party, including sitting still and quiet during the birthday song. Now he smiles for the camera and Eve plays at being shy :)

We got home at 3pm, all hepped up and ready for a break. After checking out the candy filled goody bags we all retired to separate areas. Eve put herself in her room for some quiet time, I plopped down at the computer to check out for awhile, and Lex is on the floor behind me playing with Lego. Even Alan joined in on the inaction, watching hours of TV in the living room. :) It’s nearly 5pm now though, so I think I need to check back in and get started with dinner. I don’t think it’s going to make itself tonight.

Happy Saturday!

Fire safety is something that’s discussed a lot with kids these days. We talk about it at home, they hear about it in school, on TV, and pretty much everywhere else. The kids each have a firefighter assigned to their school so they get to know him year after year. They have fire drills at school, of course, and we have a fire escape plan at home as well. The kids can both recite our home plan and one Sunday morning Eve and Alan even practiced it. The whole thing made Lex too nervous so he didn’t want to participate and I was reading the paper (and sharing in Lex’s nervousness!) so Eve and Alan were on their own. Overall I think they are well educated in fire safety and, although I hope the situation never EVER arises, I think they would know what to do.

Now I have a new fear.

Eve came into my room at 4am today saying she couldn’t sleep. I cuddled her in my arms and brought her back to bed. While we snuggled in bed she said to me, quite calmly, “Mommy, as I was heading to your room I checked downstairs for smoke. But there was none so I went to your room.” I said, “You went downstairs?!?” She said, “No, I just looked. If there was smoke I would have gone outside.” I wanted to scream NEVER, NEVER, NEVER go outside without me in the middle of the night!!! But I didn’t, because it was 4am and because that’s exactly what our fire plan says to do. I told her that if there was a fire the smoke alarms would be going off. She countered with, “What if the batteries died?” I explained that they beep when the battery is low and then we put new batteries in them so they will always work. She seemed doubtful. Not fearful, just doubtful. I’ve always imagined a serious fire, alarms going off, smoke so think you’re choking on it, flames licking at your heals… but apparently the slightest hint of smoke might be enough to send her out! A smoky wisp in a little girl’s imagination could leave her out in her pjs on a cold night, sitting alone on the neighbor’s front porch. Would she wonder why no one else was coming out? Would she worry we were all burning in the imaginary fire? Would she eventually figure it out and come back inside? Crawling back into her bed, leaving me none the wiser?! Needless to say, I did not sleep well the rest of the night.

I think we need very loud bells on the doors.

Barney made it to Illinois today. If you want to see his pictures along the way check out his new blog at thekidscollection.tumblr.com. Safe travels little brother!

Once again time has slipped by without a blog post. I feel like we are super bus, but at the same time there’s not much going on. The life of a parent, I suppose. We had a GREAT visit with Barney this week. Sadly probably the last one for awhile. We took him to the science museum and the swimming pool. He missed out on story time at the library, but I think he’ll get over it soon enough. I suspect CA has some mighty fine libraries too. :) Otherwise we have just been doing our thing. It snowed, finally, and the kids are still swimming. I went to a meeting tonight about the possibility of becoming a teacher. My brain is always churning about what I want to be “when I grow up.” Or, more accurately, when my babies grow up. Sob. Anyway, here are a few pics from the camera…

Eve made a little snowman one morning. Actually it's a snowman version of me as a baby. She is very creative. She also wanted to make snowman version of my parents with me, but it started sleeting and I convinced her to delay that project.

Eve and her snow-baby-Tessa

We have lots of naked barbies around these days. The kids love playing with them but see no real use for their clothes. Eve says, "I just pretend they are in their clothes." I think the clothes are still a little too difficult for their young fingers to manage.

All bundled up!

Over the summer we had a tree crew do some work, including "cleanign up" the dead lower branches on the pines in the back yard. Now, every time there's a strong breeze we get branches falling down! At first I thought they did a lousy job, but now I think those dead branches below were supporting the higher branches, which are now unsupported and falling down.

Climbing, always climbing.

Shoveling the road on our way to check out the fire hydrant. Very helpful children.

Goodbye hugs for Uncle Barney!

Everyone wants in on the hugs! (Karma was licking Lex's face here.)

Here's one for the Internet!!

We had our first snow day of the year today, the school year and the calendar year. The forecast was predicting sleet and freezing rain, but it ended up being just a lovely snowfall. Several feet, I think, but who’s counting. It ended around lunch time and Alan said the roads were fine on the way home.

This afternoon Lex and I undertook the task of cleaning out Alan’s unused desk (with his permission, of course!) and turning it into a Lego center. We have talked about it for a few days and today, Lex decided, was the day.

Guess who gets to deal with this mess?

Eve came down from quiet time just in time to help with the cleaning. It was pretty dusty in there.

Happy boy!

I know you are all waiting with baited breath to hear how my children reacted to the massive book purge I did the other night. Did they wake up in a panic, sensing their books were missing? Did they beg and cry and plead for their old books back? NOPE! Their shelves are still plenty full and both kids are happily rediscovering books that have been “lost for ever and ever!” Eve has been doing more “reading” to herself and her animals lately. On one shelf I grouped Lex’s series books together. The next day I started to tell him about it but before I could get it out he said, “I know, just like at the library,” and he put the book he was done reading BACK IN ORDER! Alan later joked that if we got him a labeler the books would all get Dewey decimal system stickers on them! :) Neither of them has even commented on the missing books. I’m not sure if that means they haven’t noticed or just don’t care. They’re both enjoying the “breathing space” surrounding their books now. I’m so happy I did it!

Eve and I went a little crazy at the grocery store yesterday and came home with way too many bananas!  “They are so little and cute!” she said. “They are only $.49/lb,” I said. So there you have it.

This morning we decided to cut them up and freeze them, dipping some in a chocolatey peanut butter mixture first.  Pop them all in the freezer and a few hours later you have a delicious sweet treat.  Yum!!

To balance that, we also cut up a bunch of kale and made kale chips.  Eve says they are just ok but I suspect the entire bunch of kale will be in my stomach by the end of today! Could be worse. :-)