Eve has put herself in charge of keeping
track of everything and every one in our life. She frequently
asks where people are, including Aunt Joyce and “uncle bama!”
Her preferred question is “Where is daddy be?” (you can replace
daddy with just about anything because she tries to keep track
of everything!) We’ve stared talking about Daddy Bee and Doggie
Bee and Lex Bee and Mommy Bee. :) She laughs and we laugh and
all is good. Buzz buzz.

Here is a little video from today. I
wanted Lex to go down the slide in the front, but instead he
sent the shovel down that way and he went down the other slide.
Eve loved the slides but couldn’t figure out how to get herself
to the top, so she could only play when I picked her up and put
her at the top. The snow is so deep I don’t think she could
climb up there anyway.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3QQsYydFWI]

We had a very, very snowy day today. It
came down in big flakes all day! We were cozy warm inside and
everyone was happy. Good times. The most noteworthy thing for
today though, is that Eve said “I love you” to me!! :) She’s
said it to Aunt Joyce and says it all the time to Alan
(“Where’s daddy? Love daddy”) but so far has never said it to
me. Today I said, “I love you, Eve” and she said “I love you”
with a big grin! Good enough for me! It made me happy all day.
Silly little things, but important nonetheless.

This is
from a few days ago when we went out to play on a sunny
day.

We went
out in the big falling snow today to shovel the driveway. Every
time I shovel the driveway (for the past 3 winters!) I have a
secret fantasy that one of my neighbors with a snowblower will
offer to help. They’re always out there with their snowblowers
and I’m shoveling snow as fast as I can in a desperate effort
to get the driveway clear before one of the kids ends up in
tears. Well today my neighbor across the street offered to
help!! I was thrilled! I had most of the driveway done when he
came out, but he did the end of the driveway where I didn’t get
to last time and where the snowplow creates mountains of dirty
snow…. basically the hardest part. He also did some around
the mailbox and up one side so we could get the other car out.
Very cool!! With his help I even had time to shovel off the
porch and take a walk with the kids up the street to “check on
the fire hydrant.” And we made it back inside with NO TEARS!
Good times!

This is
from today. Not so sunny, but still lots of
fun.

I like
that they are little enough to appreciate a snowbank slide. We
don’t even own sleds and they don’t even know it. Lex made this
slide (and another on the other side of the garbage can and a
third on the other side of the driveway) and they both had a
blast with them.

PS. I have to say that I really don’t mind
shoveling the driveway. I like to complain about it, but I also
like doing it :) Good calorie burn! The snowblowers are loud
and stink like gasoline, so even if we could afford one we
probably wouldn’t buy one. I told Alan my story today and he
said someday we will have a quiet, non-stinky electric one.
I’ll be shoveling until then :)

PSS. I’m
currently using 99% of my available photo space for blogger.
I’m gonna have to figure something else out pretty quick or no
more photos!

Still here, super tired, will post lots of
fun and exciting stuff and amazing pics… someday… when I
find out where I left all my energy! We had a nice visit from
Alan’s family for his birthday yesterday and Joyce was here for
lots of days. Yay! I promise to post more, just a little
overwhelmed with life lately and the blog (among other things)
seems to be suffering for it. G’night for now.

words and music by Malvina
Reynolds

Little boxes on
the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky
tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one
and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow
one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the
university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s
doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And
they all look just the same.

And they
all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis
dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children
go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out
all the same.

And the boys go into
business
And marry and raise a family
In
boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the
same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re
all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just
the same.

http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/MALVINA/mr094.htm
A footnote at the bottom says, “The term “ticky tacky” is
now included in the Oxford English Dictionary, and credited to
Malvina.”

Watch Pete Seeger perform
“Little Boxes” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw

One of the best parts of parenting is
listening to the kids sing. It’s sweet and funny all at once. I
was laughing to myself the other day as both kids were singing
(to themselves, not together) the theme song to the show Weeds.
Anyone ever watch that? We saw it on Netflix and I don’t know
how old it is, but it’s a show about a pot-dealing housewife.
It has a great theme song and Alan discovered that it settles
Eve right down. Now both of the kids know it by heart and I
sometimes wonder what people are thinking when the kids burst
into song (that song anyway) in public. Lex has also taken a
liking to a song from his new Thomas the Train DVD. He sings
the sone (a lot!) and speaks the words (“I’m saying a poem!”)
and even and spent a fair amount of time yesterday teaching me
the words. Eve will randomly burst into “I am the dairy-O!”
(hi-ho the dairy-o) but she doesn’t know all the words so it’s
usually just that line over and over. She’s pretty good at the
alphabet song these days. As part of our new, mostly successful
bedtime routine, Eve and I snuggle in the big brown chair in
her room and I sing her a few songs before putting her in bed.
Today I brought her up for a nap and found all of the beds
stripped (Alan was cleaning!!), so I put her down and started
making the beds. She climbed up into the chair and said “do
self, sing self!”, then started singing the Weeds song (“little
boxes”) and the alphabet, the two songs we typically sing. She
sat there happily singing herself bedtime songs until I got
done with the sheets and cuddled with her. I love their
singing! Can you tell? :)

Lex’s first few days with his train set
were interesting. He was adamant about building it like the
instructions say (and the picture on the box) and he refused to
mix together the KidKraft set and the Thomas set. Poor Thomas
couldn’t even drive on the bigger KidKraft set. I was slightly
worried about his lack of creativity and whether or not having
a complete set instead of just pieces was stifiling his
imagination (my neighbor insists it does). But after a few days
he started to loosen up on the rules and let Thomas drive on
the bigger tracks, and started mixing up the tracks, and now
look what he’s doing.

I love it! See the trees and road signs along
the way? I think he just needs to have a good grasp of the
intention of things before he’s willing to deviate from it. Or
something like that. Anyway, several weeks post Christmas and
he is stilling loving the trains. We put them away each night
and each morning brings a new and creative layout. Such
fun!

I know it’s been awhile. Life goes on.
Just wanted to make a note about the new personalities my kids
are growing in to. It’s pretty amazing to watch. Lex is growing
in to a calm (usually), responsible, helpful kid. He dresses
himself, feeds himself (obviously) and will even make his own
meals if I let him. He plays happily by himself and with Eve
(usually) and with others. He builds long tracks with the
train, colors, reads, clears his place after dinner (still
doesn’t eat dinner) and helps clean up at the end of the day.
He’s polite and potty-trained and generally a real pleasure to
be around. Eve, on the other hand, while still a perfect little
girl, is entering her toddler years and becoming much more of a
handful than she used to be. She’s very social and therefore
always under foot. Wherever I am, she is, and talking to me!
(my mom is thinking “payback!” right about now) She fights
about getting dressed, refuses diapers, kicks me on the
changing table, won’t wear a bib, and is generally much more
difficult to deal with. What happened to my sweet baby girl??
Oh yes, she comes out at night when we sit in the chair to sing
songs and Eve snuggles into me and falls asleep. Then she’s a
sweet baby girl again. Like I said, she’s still perfect. She is
super funny and social. She likes to wear silly hats (monkey
hat the grocery store) and play hide-n-seek (usually hiding at
my feet) and tackle Lex to the floor (oh, yes, she takes him
down!) She’s very into the idea of potty training and spends
lots of time with no diaper on, however she doesn’t really know
when she has to go, so we spend lots of time sitting in the
bathroom with her and we do lots of laundry these days! She
loves reading (“self! read self!”) and having tea parties with
baby in the high chair.

It feels like
they have recently both entered new phases of their childhood
development and it’s neat to see Eve going through the same
stages that Lex went through, and seeing Lex gives me hope that
Eve too will make it through the stubborn phase. I have to say
I did not missing the “kicking on the changing table” phase. I
would have been happy if Eve skipped that one, but alas, she
has not. Maybe we’ll just potty train her now and be done with
the changing table altogether!

(I tried to add a few photos,
but Blogger is giving me errors, so I’ll try again some other
time. And
Lex is on my lap now so I’m not even going to proof-read. :)
For now,
happy reading!)

One of Eve’s new favorite sayings is “pee
poop potty!” It usually comes after I take off her diaper for a
change, but she usually gets some pee out. She gets pretty
excited and looks in the potty and says “good job!” I like a
self-congratulating kid :)

Today Bone
pooped in his box (where he’s supposed to) and we all got
excited and Rosy gave him a treat. Eve started demanding a
treat too, then ran to the bathroom saying “pee poop potty!” I
took off her diaper and she sat right down and peed :) Then got
her treat too. She was pretty happy. Whatever motivation it
takes, right?

They are having fun with
Aunt Rosy these past few days. Rose has a camera on her
computer and they spend lots of time taking pictures and movies
of themselves. Here is a picture of them taking pictures of
themselves.