Photoshoot

I asked Jeff to take a few photos of me so that I could update my profile picture. Most of the pictures of me are either terrible or are so old they don't look much like me anymore (sadly). Here is my attempt to find a picture that just plain looks like the me of today. He took 30 or more, and here are my favorite few. I got one up on the profile, so now I'm officially updated. Thanks Jeff!

The plight of a younger brother

Poor Andrew gets dressed up in more dresses, fairy outfits, and high heeled shoes than any boy should. Then again, probably no more than the average little brother. I've got plenty of pictures to embarrass him in later life, that's for sure! Here he is after Julia dressed him in one of her new dresses. I really need to cut his hair again, he looks way too convincing in this picture!

A gardening weekend

We spent some time out in the garden today, putting in more plants and sowing more seeds. To help the kids understand the process I purchased some little seed starter cells and planted the seeds there so that we could watch them and see the seedling start, then transplant together in a few weeks. Hopefully it will work, even though we are a bit late in the season to be starting seeds.

Silver Tongue Tied (a poem by Jeff)

SILVER TONGUE TIED

A poet at heart
But too head-smart
To paint a picture in words
Not forced or trite or cliché

Mired in meter and rhythm and rhyme
And public displays of alliteration
Tripping over my own prosodic feet
Neglecting what I thought I had to say

Silver tongue tied
Reaping bland husks of verse
Empty of emotion

Straining
To let feeling flow
In unstructured form
And to trust the inherent beauty and sufficiency of the substance

I put my pen down long ago
These days I write with light

More than the sun is warm

When I tell Julia I love her, sometimes she asks "how much?" I typically answer "all the way to the moon and back." Recently, to mix it up, I've started saying "I love you more than the sun is warm." (that's a lot!) Tonight she told me that she loved me "as dark as it is outside in the middle of the night." (that's a lot!) : )

Zoom

Easter morning candy glee

You can't beat this level of excitement. And over a few chocolate eggs, no less!



Happy Easter!

Happy Easter

Easter is tomorrow, and we have fun, though simple, plans. The easter basket excitement in the morning should be great fun, followed by an easter egg hunt with the eggs we dyed today. In the afternoon we head to Andrea and Craig's for Easter Dinner. Mom and Dad are off on vacation this week, so unfortunately they won't be joining us.

Here is a picture of Julia from a few weeks ago, when she was trying on her Easter dress, given to her by Benne. Lets hope we can get her into it tomorrow! (She is so picky about what she wears!)


Today we had a lovely day outside, enjoying the warm sunshine. We took a morning trip to the nursery to get some flowers. I went with the kids while Jeff stayed home to get some work done. I was so pleased with how well the kids cooperated. As you can imagine, two little ones at the nursery could have been a major challenge, but they did really well. They were great helpers, and helped me get some of the plants into the ground once we got home as well. There is more to do tomorrow. We are planting a cutting garden (I hope... I'm new at this, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing....) I'll post pictures of our progress soon. It's going to be very kid-friendly, with snap peas, sunflowers, sweet peas, and assorted other easy growing bloomers (again, I hope!)

Happy Easter, everybody!

Hooked on Hardball

I'm hooked on Hardball with Chris Mattews. Thanks to the writer's strike perhaps, or perhaps the sheer amazingness of the political drama unfolding this season, I've been religiously tuning into the nightly political news on MSNBC. It's way better than a soap opera, or even Survivor. Reality TV of a new flavor, for me at least. I love watching the pundits sort through every little detail looking for significance and meaning. The discussions on TV and in the newspaper editorials about Obama's speech yesterday have been particularly fascinating. I haven't had the opportunity to see the whole speech yet, but wow do I intend to based on what I've heard. Obama never ceases to impress.

And because no blog post would be complete without pictures of my kids, here they are at the beach, from a weekend outing we made on an unseasonably warm day in February.

Special visit from Nana and Grumps!

We had a wonderful visit with Nana and Grumps this weekend! It was so nice to spend some concentrated time with them. Julia and Andrew were in seventh heaven. After WEEKS of counting down, the weekend was finally here!

Grumps and Andrew got in some great bonding time. Here they are enjoying a book together:

This next picture shows Andrew wearing a very special, very old pair of Liderhosen (spelling??) that Jeff wore when he was the same age. There is a darling picture of Jeff in his baby book wearing this outfit. It was so much fun to try it on Andrew and compare pictures. Andrew looks a lot like Jeff did at that age.

This one turned out sideways (I still have that inexplicable problem every so often), but you can hopefully see Susan and Andrew in the life sized maze at Happy Hollow. We had a great time exploring Happy Hollow which is just perfect for the 2-4 year old set.

Here we are on the dragon train ride at Happy Hollow:

Julia is peeking out of a window in a giant shoe, straight out of a fairy tale.

Me and Andrew:

The net result of Nana and Grumps' visit. Unadultrated, 100% happy, exhausted wear out.

Nana and Grumps, thank you for a lovely visit! Come again soon!

Hello again. I've been so busy lately that blogging has completely fallen off of my list. I'm hoping to start it back up again. To get me going, here is a cute picture of the kids with their nanny Wendy. They are wearing new hats and gloves, a Valentine's Day gift from Wendy last month.