hi

David fixed my computer so I will be back in the business of uploading E pictures soon, I hope.

He's back from his theatre job. We had a great visit with my grandma and extended family on her 90th birthday on Saturday. David took E to "old macdonalds" for ice cream and she brought back a happy meal toy for Grandma as a birthday present. Grandma was tickled with that.

ABC song

E has been practicing the alphabet song constantly, and perfectly every time until I made her self conscious with the camera last night. When she finishes, I'm supposed to say "yay!" or "hooray!" and then, in the same tone, "Barack Obama!" I don't know how she put that together, but I certainly don't mind following those instructions.

playing in the snow

Just a little snippet from our fun this morning. Her daycare opened a couple hours late.

first dance class

Here's a snippet from E's first dance class, "Creative Movement" for 3-5 year olds. She absolutely LOVED everything about it except being given an orange hula hoop instead of a pink one. She sulked quietly about that for quite a while, but overcame it eventually as the teacher ignored her. The moms had to sit outside the studio and look through a smudged glass wall. We couldn't hear anything. E cried when it was time to leave.

not a big girl

Adults always think they're praising E when they say she's a big girl, but actually she doesn't want to be one. She responds that she's "just a little bit big girl". She told me that her teacher Kelsey told her she's "a lot of big girl" and implied that she had to set Kelsey straight. The next day, I guess, E told me out of the blue that she's a lot of big girl. She had a sort of shyly proud look on her face so I said "Congratulations!"

Her face changed and she scolded me. "Don't say [a butchered version of 'congratulations']!"

I said, "What should I say?"

She said, "Say kangaroos!"

"Okay, kangaroos then!"

And she changed the subject.

crowns

Aunt Lynn brought E a present, two sparkly tiaras. E was so pleased, over and over she said in a dreamy kind of voice, "I'm so glad I have crowns!"

I am often invited to wear the gold one, which apparently is Snow White's. Here's a picture of us at the park.

brick making

David emailed me a picture of what he's doing at the theatre for the next 2 weeks, making bricks out of shredded newspaper insulation and glue. It's for the set of West Side Story.

explanation

Computer problems are keeping me from posting photos, and sometimes my text that I write gets lost, so hang in there and I'll get back to this soon as I can!

figuring out how night-time works

When we drive home in the evenings E has been paying attention to the growing darkness. A while back she cried out excitedly from her car seat that it was awake-time on one side of us and night-time on the other. I looked and indeed it was a dramatic contrast as we drove South. This week she said, "That dark stuff must be night-time," and "Awake-time is back at Erma's house." Yesterday she started looking for "dark stuff" and exclaimed when she found some. She commented on the progress of the darkness in great detail. I taught her the word "dusk" and she thought it was hilarious.

When the days were first getting that short, she used to be upset that it was dark, because of course that's associated with bedtime. Now she usually makes sure to point out that even though it's dark when we get home, it's not bedtime yet.

more of my husband's work

David's latest painting, which he gave as a gift to someone.

He's gone out of town to paint at the theatre again, I think it was West Side Story?

our Christmas tree

I didn't have the patience to get a really good shot of the tree, but this gives you an idea of it.


E believes that the ornaments should be with their friends instead of scattered all over. She actually said that.


This blue ornament is friendly with the "cycles".