I've been wanting to do family silhouettes for a long time, and finally decided to tackle the project after the kids went to bed. Don't you love how Blake bears a striking resemblance to Winston Churchill?

Also, the Easter Bunny has arrived--this year bringing MUCH less candy. (Like, 99% less). I'm glad we get to benefit from the E.B.'s new waist-watching program. =) I'm not sure Ian has really experienced the Easter Bunny before, but we're always up for an excuse for little presies, right?

A couple of items of cuteness:

Item the first:

This is Spencer. Spencer is full of all kinds of awesome and win. Ian absolutely idolizes Spencer (as well as his four brothers, for that matter), and Spencer comes over once a week to play with Ian while I try and do something...well...productive. (Like, oh, cleaning something. Or cooking something.) For the past two weeks, Ian and Spencer have been making a bird's nest, and this was the final product. Truth be told, I think Spencer carried the lion's share of the execution of the project, but Ian is so proud of their hard work! Thank you, Spencer!

Item the second:

I made some gnocchi tonight and realized that Ian's fingers were just the perfect size to make the little gnocchi dimples. Turns out he really caught the vision of the gnocchi making and took a great amount of pride in the effort. (Slight disappointment was experienced when he realized that I was uncool enough to prevent him from tossing the gnocchi into the boiling water.)

^photo by ian

The thaw has begun!

Here are a few snapshots from the last couple of weeks.

We celebrated my sister's 16th birthday a little bit early this year...my parents and siblings were on their way out of town....wayyyyyyy out of town. By Train. To Oklahoma.

Happy birthday, Miss Hannah. Love you!

Ian looked particularly cute watching Shaun the Sheep the other day...

Preschool butterflies. Tracing, coloring, cutting.

Fine motor skills at their best.

And they play together! This afternoon, I found Ian teaching Blake how to have castle battles...there are blue knights and red knights....and a herd of triceratops. (I'm not making that up. All three groups live in the castle.) Later on, however, I found Ian using his buddies (perched atop the castle) to play "The Amazing Race." It went something like this:

Ian: "Duckie, you are the first to arrive."

Ian (as Duckie): "Yayyyyyyyy!"

...and he continued this with all of his buddies, until he got to the last one.

Ian: "Woolly Mammoth, I'm sorry, you're the last one. You're out of the race."

Ian (as Woolly Mammoth): "Awwwww. I'm sad."

Joe is spending the evening taking apart our netbook. I find something profoundly fantastic about this. He's all kinds of awesome.

According to the calendar, it's Spring.

According to the thermometer, it's Winter.

According to Joe and Ian, it's time to start camping.

So camping, they did. In the back yard.

(Blake joined while I took a shower this morning.

Fun times were had by all.)

Wood, Dirt, Spring.

To catch up a little, here is Ian and my "OPEN CLASS" pinewood derby car this year. We met the weigh in criteria, but weren't within spec on a few other rules. :) It's got the same paint design as it did 20 years ago when it ran is previous set of races, but Ian and I freshened up the colors of the old flags just so they'd run bright. We won second place in all our races, so that basically put us in contention for Most Patriotic. No shame in that one!

Here we have mister sly getting a second chance at Birthday cake. Still pretty clean. That's his daddy's boy!



Our snowpile is getting smaller. Only a couple of days left my friends. Here's the horizon: Jennifer April 15, Molly April 17, Fromagette April 18, Jen E April 20, Linda April 21, Brianne April 22. Is it going to be Molly again?

The boys are getting clever. Ian is capable of helping with just about anything, and Blake is moving around so much that you can't just put out a picnic blanket and expect him to stay on it. I set him down, and turned 'round a minute later and found him scooted off 10 feet into the back yard hunting down this ball. I brought it to him, which kept him fairly close to the cars while I did my little project.


And here we see that boys really do have some strange affinity to eating dirt. I thought about frantically cleaning him up, but then realized that the poor boy hasn't seen much of the outdoors in a very long time, so I should just let him enjoy it! And enjoy it he did!

So here's what we've been up to lately...

The boys are really starting to enjoy playing together. It's delightful for me to watch--their current favorite thing is the ever-popular stack-the-blocks-and-knock-them-down. On a related note, Blake is quickly mastering the word "uh-oh."

It being Friday and all, we headed downtown to visit the Museum of Science. Ian's favorite part is the build-your-own-fish area. And really, it's very cool. You can name it and watch it swim around...and sometimes you watch it get eaten by a predator. They're not messin' around at the Museum of Science. Not even a little bit.

Don't you like his look of concentration?? I do. I like it very much.

Blake is finally old enough to enjoy the Museum instead of just riding-in-the-stroller-while-everyone-else-enjoys-the-Museum. He probably could have stared at these fish all day long.

Annnnnnnnnnnd here's the newest member of the family. Joe calls her Gracie. We bought her today and We Love Her. Oh...and that white stuff on the ground, that's snow, people. That's apparently Mother Nature's favorite April Fool's joke around these parts. I was not amused. And that's a big deal for me. I grew up in Maine, I spent 7 winters in Utah, and I moved to Massachusetts on my own volition. So for me to say, "STOP WITH THE SNOW ALREADY!!!!" is really something.

The boys are thrilled. Ian is thrilled because there's a "hallway" between the middle seats and "magic doors"...and also because there is a remote control for backseat passengers to control the sound. He keeps it in the cup holder of his car seat...which I find absolutely charming. I think the change Blake likes most is that his car seat is high enough that he's no longer subjected to being plopped into place via the joint effort of his mother and gravity.

My mother in-law, Linda, has a saying hung in her kitchen:

"A will finds a way."

And when it comes to baking bread, I think my will has finally found its way. After several years of bake-fail-bake-undercook-bake-underrisen-bake-burn-bake-{insert tears here}-bake-overknead-bake-underknead-etc., I think I finally have it. Many thanks to my friend, Kelly, for her superior, Jen-proof recipe. I was a completely satisfied customer when my loaves came out 1.) edible, and 2.) fully-cooked. Major bonus points to Kelly, however, because the bread is 3.) amazingly delicious. Give it a try!

p.s. we're totally buying a van today.

Look who's 1!

It's been sort of a rough-and-tumble week for us...two ER visits, two pneumonia diagnoses...antibiotics...high fevers...LOTS of staying indoors....BUT....It was birthday week at our house! So however feebly it was celebrated, we like to do birthdays big. And my baby turned 1. Much revelry was had. Many noses were wiped.

We thought that Blake was on the up-and-up, so we were happy to get him all gussied up for his birthday dinner. We made him a cake (well, we made us a cake, too...but you know...he needed his own), we lit the candle, we sang the song....and Blake didn't want anything to do with it.

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere it comes!

Taking stock.

Stuck my finger in the cream...

The cream only made it to his face because I put it there.

I thought maybe a spoon would help him...I poked around a little to get it started.

...but he only wanted to feed me. And to be honest, I was happy to oblige.

I make a pretty darn fantastic chocolate cake.

The epilogue, though, is that he was diagnosed with croup the very next day at his well-visit. That would explain a lot about his attitude toward my cake. I'm glad I didn't have to take it personally.

ALSO:

Ian has filled out NCAA brackets since he was less than 1 month old*. This year, he wanted to make some of his own....he sat busily for quite a while...we talked about teams (he seems to have a preference for Wisconsin, Tennessee, Bucknell, Marquette, and BYU), we talked about what the word 'abbreviation' means....and then he proceeded to score his brackets. IT WAS AWESOME.

We've been trying to give Ian some more responsibilities around the house--including making his bed. He told me this morning, though, that he needed a little reminder. I suggested making and decorating a sign...and he was all over that.

*

(March 17, 2006)

In case your calendar isn't marked, 'round these parts the syrup is running. And while the syrup season in recent years has been less than stellar, we hear that this year is awesome.

A family in our stake has a sugar house, and we've gone up there nearly every year we've lived here. This year's visit was especially fun--the sap was on at a full boil and the combination of the smell/warmth/sounds and company were phenomenal. It was an exceptional way to celebrate Blake's 1st birthday!

(We're having his birthday celebration today when Joe gets home from church--don't think we're ignoring our boy. Oh, no. You just wait. Chocolate will. be. everywhere.)

It was quite warm in the sugar house...the blanket and the hat didn't last long.

(And we took home nearly a half-gallon of the good stuff.)

The syrup in the window is a sure sign of spring. (THANK GOODNESS).

The steam. OH, THE STEAM! It smelled SO delicious.

I had to remind myself that Joe was being extra careful with my baby around the boiling hot sugar.

Once the sap-turned-syrup reaches the right temperature and color, it gets drained into a 5-gallon bucket via a thick (THICK!) felt filter.

Here in New England, Spring is referred to by her better-known name of "Mud Season."

This weekend delivered. Big time.

Raise your hand if you want to come visit!

They used to have the old-fashioned metal buckets on this tree....The plastic might not be as pretty, but it still does the job. (Note: This is not how sap is collected these days. There are some pictures of the "new school" way here.)

Proper footwear required.

Joe needs some wellies.

And this is just to prove that I was there.

Blake had a birthday munchkin...we'll see how he takes to cake tonight.

Annnnnnnnd

what do you have when the real syrup comes to town?

(...and you don't have any vanilla ice cream on-hand...)

Pancakes, of course!

As my gift to you:

Sometime soon, scoop yourself some good vanilla ice cream

(The good stuff, people. Promise me it'll be the good stuff.)

Pour some warmed real maple syrup on top.

You're welcome.