Friedrichs farm animals...and girls

Sunday was the big slaughter of all but two of our turkeys.  When Bernadette saw the feathers that had ended up strewn across the driveway, she said, "Oh, it's nice that they left their feathers here to decorate for Thanksgiving!"

Kateri calls all spiders and insects Spiderman.  The other night, when she spotted a piece of black lint on the living room floor, she got the fly swatter and whacked it repeatedly, shouting, "Go away, Spiderman!"

Door to nowhere

Outside in

Inside out

Old and new

Dream a little dream

Tweety

Comic Conversations

Bernadette to Isaiah: "Batman, wanna have a tea party with us? ... and we're having dessert, too."

Matt: Little miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a (pause to let Kateri finish the line) ...
Kateri: Spiderman

Isaiah's super hero fascination is rubbing off.



Accomplishment of the day: getting all 10 of a 2-year-old's fingers into the correct part of her gloves.

Excessive cuteness

What is Kateri doing up there?

Ahhh!

Rock on

Dancing around the living room last night, Kateri announced, "Dis my favowite song, Mama!  Dis my favowite song!" The title: "We Built This City on Rock n' Roll."

Sledding

Jokes

Isaiah and Bernadette are fascinated by jokes right now. If you know a good one, tell them next time. They may not get it, but they'll laugh, or fake laugh. Among the setups with which they're familiar: knock-knock and cross the road.

One day Bernadette was feeding Isaiah lines when Isaiah unknowingly hit a good punchline: B: Why did the water cross the road? I: To get drunk.

Notes

Adult, name redacted, to child, name redacted preparing for bed: "I said pick up the pirate puppet and you ran away screaming."

Bernadette clocks Isaiah with her small cloth bag and he starts crying. Overblown, right? Then I found the chunk of sculpted marble in the offending purse. Ouch.

You wonder why they sell so many sizes of hammers and then you're on a ladder hitting a nail and you think, "I could really use a smaller hammer here."

Isaiah:"Let's pretend we're boxes of Legos on a train."

Digging potatoes is a treasure hunt.

Quotes

Bernadette: "Aunt Marty says there are people on the living room ceiling, and you can see them better when you're sick."  (We're pretty sure this means Aunt Marty remembers lying sick in the living room and finding faces in the knots on the wood ceiling.  But we'll have to ask her.)


I handed Isaiah his math worksheet.  "I think I have to go to the bathroom," he said.

"You think you have to go to the bathroom?"

"Well, I can't be quite sure."

I handed him his pencil.  "Yes, I definitely have to go to the bathroom."  And he was off.


At library story time, the librarian held up a picture book called Pete the Cat.  "This is a story about Pete the Cat," she said.  "And he loves his shoes."

"Well, Pete Not the Cat," called out Bernadette, "loves to eat children soup!"

Modeling

...a personalized onesie from Grandma Anne; shadows cast by morning light and fire glow; a smile that could only have been crafted in heaven.

Another use for stickers

First snowy day

Fairy godmother

Cinderella

At Fairbury High School

Geothermal system

Not every day you get to peek into an eight-foot deep trench in you back yard. Some people suggested we should have kept it as a moat.

Sister act

Carr cousins

Mara's baptism

Pondering

Bernadette: "Why does that spider keep climbing up the water spout?"

Mama: "I don't know.  Why do you think?"

B: "Because it's a spider.  Spiders climb up spouts."

Kateri

The other day Kateri invented an apparently hilarious new game: take her mother by the hand and lead her all around the yard.  Toward the end of the adventure, she began announcing changes in direction by saying, "Dis way, bawd eagle!"  Yes, young sparrow.

She loves Beatrix Potter's collections of nursery rhymes and has most of them memorized.  Many a time I have read this one:

"I think if she lived in a little shoe house, that little old woman was surely a..."

I pause there, and Kateri chimes in with "mouse!" to complete the rhyme.  Well, the other night, for reasons of which no one is quite sure, when I came to the familiar line and paused in the usual spot, she piped up with, "spider monkey!"

Hmm...

Kateri stuck her hand between two couch cushions and then appeared to put something into her mouth.

Mama: "What are you eating?"

K: "Owange juice.  You want some?"