Reading inside the box

Sky

Matt: Can you see the stars?
Bernadette: I hear them stars.
Matt: you can hear them?
Isaiah: Daddy, of course stars can sing.

The hunt

 Uncle Pete helped hide the eggs.

 The kids found them.

Decorating eggs

Aunt Magda

Family pic

Easter 2013

Alleluia!

Kateri can't decide if she's more excited that The Lord is risen or that Mama has taken that darned Eater dress off of her.

Moving picture

As good as a movie.

Notes

Bernadette recently demonstrated her counting by noting there were two elephants in the display at the Natural History Museum. Kateri has two teeth. Coincidence? (Bernadette also rattled off her numbers through diez in Spanish this evening.)

Kateri has a clear understanding of books: they're for chewing.

 

Kateri also has a surprisingly pointy tongue, and boy does she like to use it to sample the air and anything she can grab and lift to her mouth. She's holding things and passing them between hands and grabbing at everything. Food is especially fascinating, even though we won't let her have it.

 

Isaiah on the dinner table discussion about palm leaves and what he was thinking and saying: "daddy my head is so full of the talk that I can't eat."

 

Remember when you were so excited about new socks you insisted on wearing them to sleep? Me neither, but I have two kids who are now bedecked in fresh footwear.

 

ice fingers in the stream
An old stone wall standing guard
Winter washing
Murmurs of spring

 

   

Exploring

Mystic Aquarium

Outside the penguin exhibit.

Painting

"The country with a river flowing through it."

Under her wing

                                               

Sweet dreams

Baby girl

Sombreros!

Call it odd, call it cultural eclecticism.  Our task in Spanish class two weeks ago was to read Madeline in Spanish and make our own sombreros amarillos.  Isaiah was most enthralled by the making, Bernadette by the wearing.  (Beside her is our friend Lucia.)

What is she thinking?

The world may never know...until she gets her own blog.

Friends

Over lunch today, Isaiah described to Grandma certain situations and conditions that may lead to his biting or hitting his sister (the bigger one).

Grandma: And then, do you make up and become friends again?

Isaiah: We're always friends.

p.s. When such a situation arose yesterday, I told the two combatants (loudly) that I get very upset when I see my children being hit.

Isaiah: You should stay in the other room.

Miscast

Bernadette camps in the lane (to use a basketball announcing cliche).

The sisters, the siblings

Moments after these photos were taken, Isaiah announced, "Kateri is beginning to get a human's laugh!"

Sitting up?

Sure!

Playing restaurant

Mama: Do you put milk and sugar in your coffee, or do you drink it black like Daddy?

Isaiah: I drink it decaf with sugar.


Mama: What kind of sandwich did you order, Bernadette?

Bernadette: Purple.

Chubby baby

Rehearsal dinner

The Friedrichses (and Mortons and Remsens)

Mom and Dad with the full clan. Almost everybody is looking at the camera.

Cousins

In Colorado.

For comparison

Paul and Matt, summer of 1975.

Colorado

Bernadette, Daniel and Isaiah eating breakfast with Poppa and Grandma at Lisa and Mort's house in Colorado.

Wedding attire

Breckenridge for Ragnar and Brittney's festivities.

Check the title

How to ...

... Listen to the Beatles. He's drumming along with his hands.

Stickers

Fake mustaches also make great unibrows.

Singing

Isaiah
(Sung while decorating Uncle Jim's birthday card with dinosaur stamps.  The first two lines are sung to the tune of "This Land is Your Land."  The third line is more like a rapid chant.)
Never hurry
And never worry
And never go messing about in my stamps.

Bernadette
(Sung while lying in bed during nap time, waiting for sleep to come.)
I got peers lie gorilla
I got peers lie gorilla
I got peers lie gorilla
In my soul.

Notes

Bernadette really likes purple. And pink, too. But especially purple. She's still chatty in her own language, but she's also repeating sentences back to us. And she can replicate rhythms and melodies and songs after hearing them once or twice. Often she does this with her own words or shorthand.


At dinner, a fussy Kateri refuses to be calmed. Finally, she nurses. And then Bernadette becomes upset because something is wrong with her drink or her food. Kateri pops up, now happy and looks over. "Feeling some schadenfreude, Kateri," I say. She smiles broadly.


Sometimes when you are 4 months old a lamp catches your attention and you talk to it with all your pre-verbal abilities.


On a day of snow
As ice builds on rocks in streams
Store sign: summer hours


You've heard of rage against the machine? This morning Bernadette is rage to her mother's machine.


The whisper of tiny snow pellets hitting paper-dry leaves clinging to a tree in January: the continuous sound of thousands of unsynchronized tiny snare drums, audible no more than five feet away.


 Just a note about the house rules: the two older Friedrichs children are now banned from playing with forks.


Isaiah: Please write a note to Peter and Magda and tell them I want pirates next Christmas.    


The most amusing thing a 3-month-old has ever seen: Her older sister jumping on the bed and singing.


Sung loudly with a growl: "we are pirates sailing on a silver sea (treacherous pirates)"


Isaiah's career plans: be a quilt maker and when he's too old for that he'll be a race car driver.


How you know the conditions are perfect: The sled wants to go before you even sit down.    

Negotiations

Isaiah: Can we watch a movie tomorrow night?

Mama [puzzled]: You mean tonight?

I: No, tomorrow night.

M [still puzzled]: Well, maybe, but why not tonight?

I: Oh, all right. I suppose that will do.

The other side

Tunnel

One of two we dug all the way through the pile. There is a girl in front of Isaiah.

Snow

Bernadette took her enforced 5 minutes of fresh air and went inside. Isaiah is still building.

Noses

Breakfast club

Or coffee and cuteness

Glamor

The glamor girl ready for a Friday night on the town.

A story

Bouncy

Been awhile since I edited any video. I can assure you this one is worth it.

Dangling modifiers

Isaiah shares a moment with Kateri. He's become sweetly interested in her of late, especially in the mornings while we hang out on the couch.