Dance class

Sunday project with Grandma

Penguin cupcakes!

Bernadette's inspection of her mother's face

"Your eyes are happy, like brown sugar."

Cousins

Bronxville bath

Vietnamese restaurant

Hot chocolate in the city

Waiting

Fleetwood

Magic touch

Gingerbread house

With great aunt Mary

Sisters read

Good morning!

Blustery day

Isaiah feels a need for speed.

Isaiah plans to buy a sports car when he grows up.  "And if you didn't know it was a car," he says, "you'd think it was a lemon-colored streak of lightning!"

He does plan to slow down whenever he passes a police station.

Jet-setter

Snow family

Tuesday's Close Shave

Isaiah has been asking for slippers.  Last night he repeated the request to his grandmother and explained that he likes the fuzzy kind lined with fur.  "It may require," he said, "taking some hair from Tuesday." Today after church we stopped at Walmart and bought him a pair of plush dinosaur slippers.  "Phew," said Tuesday.  Unless she said, "Mew."  Reports differ.

(Bernadette also got a pair.  She wanted glittery pink ones with Disney princesses; her mother favored the purple fleece with cute little owls and no brand placement.  We found a compromise in Hello Kitty.)

Tent

Christmas leftover

Dancing girl

Kateri has invented a new genre of dance called sumo dancing. It looks exactly how it sounds.

Pile-up!

Cuddles

Not much, just chillin' by the fire. What are you doin'?

Bundle

Hat by Lisa.

Glee

Reading

Christmas again

Thanks, Pete and Magda.

Family secrets

Bernadette: "Mama, I have to tell you something. Daddy peed on the snow."

Cement mixer

Presents!

Christmas Eve

Drama

We're six books into L. Frank Baum's "Oz" series, and yesterday afternoon we took the kids to see "The Wiz" at the Coterie Theatre in Kansas City.  Last night Bernadette stood on the kitty perch behind Liz and Paul's couch and announced that a play of "The Wizard of Oz" was about to begin.  The bookshelf beside her was the door to Oz's throne room, and none of us were allowed to enter.  She stepped down onto the floor, and one of us called her Dorothy.  "No, I am not Dorothy!" she proclaimed empathically.  "I am the director!"  Then she turned on her heels and marched back to the stage behind the couch.  "I must go speak to Dorothy," she said.

I had no idea my three-year-old even knew what a director was, but if I were a performer under Bernadette's direction, I'd keep in line.  (Kateri may be in that position one day, as her main goal during the play--between clapping and bouncing gleefully up and down--was to get up onto the stage somehow.  She almost made it a few times.)

Face time

Grape cheek

Straw II

Straw!

Presents!

Thanks, Marilyn.

Writing perch

Couch boat

Tired of playing car, where I lay on the floor and the kids sit on me pretending to drive, and tired of playing "climb on me," where the kids do exactly that, I sprawl on the couch. Entreated to roughhouse more I decline but invite the to crawl up. Soon we're sailing toward an island, but not too close because Isaiah says the dragons, dinosaurs and monsters will get us. We raise the sail and a flag -- pirate. The next island has good dinosaurs, dragons and monsters. We dock. Then off again, Isaiah singing pirate songs of his own composition as we head back toward the dangerous island. We pull out swords to fight off the unfriendly beasts. Next we chart course toward an island of unicorns accompanied by more singing. After that an island of scary ghosts and gargoyles that won't go onto the sand (so we can go ashore) because they're afraid of the sharks that circle these waters and can come onto the beach for as long as they like without breathing issues. Our stay is short because -- you didn't see this coming, did you? -- the sharks spot us.

After watching "Snow White" on Saturday, Bernadette wanders the house with a red apple, seeking a princess. She later eats said apple right before bedtime despite instructions from her mother not to because she had brushed her teeth. She sleeps soundly. Interpretations?

The tree

Snowman crew

Story time

Afternoon Spanish video

Snow

The outdoors child.

More quotables from Bernadette

"Isaiah is my brother, so I'm gonna keep him.  He doesn't slip in the bathtub because I keep him safe."

Upon being asked if she liked the movie we had just seen, Frozen: "Yes!  What was it about?"

After being changed into dry clothes following a rare bathroom accident: "I didn't have a accident."  If not an accident, what would she call it?  "I would call it…a pee party!"

After being told that Jesus was born in Bethlehem: "Oh!  Oz the Great and Terrible went there!"

"Mama, if you get married, Daddy will be your broom."

Upon finding an old, laminated photo ID of Matt's: "Oh, Daddy is a saint!"

Milestone

Bernadette and Aurora model the matching ponchos that were Bernadette's weaning gift.

A little party with a few friends and chocolate cupcakes marked the occasion. (Mama got just a little teary-eyed during the final nursing that morning.)

Onward and upward!

Paleontologist

Isaiah digs for bones at Elephant Hall in Lincoln.

Games

Isaiah: In winter I'm planning to throw snowballs at her.
Me: At who?
Isaiah: Bernadette.
Bernadette, interjecting emphatically: I Don't Want That!

Bernadette's very quotable day

"Look, a water castle," Bernadette says upon spotting the rural water district water tower north of Hanover from the backseat of the car.


"I'm going to be a ballerina for Christmas." 

Bernadette hands me the "Wheels on the Bus" board book to read. "Now," she says, "Schoolbus on the Railroad Tracks." Not sure what's going on in this child's fantasy life, but sounds like a title for our new youth horror series. 

Barneston tavern

Paul reacts to a bad play by Nebraska.

Can someone explain this girl?