Slide girls

Free range

Circles in the sand

When not yelling

Bernadette really is beautiful.

Outside

Ready to roam far and wide, led byBernadette and curiosity about cats.

Lent

I dyed 40 beans purple, and every night we move one from one cup to the other to help keep track of the days until Easter. (The kids take turns moving them. On one of Bernadette's first turns, she pulled out the bean and excitedly cried, "I got a purple one!")

The crown of thorns is a grapevine wreath with toothpicks in it. We pull out a "thorn" every time we do something loving for someone. When all the thorns are gone, we will replace them with white flowers to make Jesus a "resurrection crown." (Bernadette is excited about that; when the crown is full of flowers instead of thorns, she says, "Jesus will be happy, and the hunters will not put him on the cross." I think she is fusing the Easter story with "Little Red Riding Hood.")

Reflections

Teach Isaiah what symmetry is: Check.

A conversation

Sylvia and Kateri engage.

Morning snooze

On Paul and Liz's couch.

Warming up

A dozen

Farm-fresh eggs.

Fun

State Line pancake feed

Representative of what you'll be served around here. They used the big round rotating griddle.

Wearing grandpa's hat

The first egg

Novelty look

Noshing

Boots and puddles

Primping

Puddle stomping

Fun

Singin' on the train

Defining our terms

Bernadette this morning: "Where's Isaiah?"

Mama: "He is with Grandma and Grandpa on his way to Colorado."

Slight pause.

B: "Can I watch Cinderella?"

M: "Well, not now.  We don't watch movies in the morning."

B: "Cinderella is not a movie!"

M: "It isn't?  What is it, then?"

B: "It's a video you watch while people are gone."

Kateri at the dinner table last night

She reached for the bowl of apple slices and said, "App-oo!"

She helped herself to a napkin and pressed it to her mouth between bites.

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