February

A little known fact about me... I love Black History Month. Before I had children to lug around, I would look up all the events going on around town, mark them on my calender, and try to find friends to accompany me to all the events. Lectures, debates, tributes, films, musical performances, you name it. What can I say? I love black history.

Anyway, it's been a few years since I've been able to make February the learning experience I'd like to. To be honest, I haven't even thought about it much.

Saturday morning I came down stairs to Abram reading library books to the kids (I picked most of them out and then the kids handed me a few I didn't pay much attention to). I picked up one of the books and it's title was, "Furaha Means Happy: A Book of Swahili Words." I laughed out loud and the following conversation ensued:

Abram: You didn't pick that out?

Kristin: Seriously? Why would I pick this out?

Abram: I don't know, I just figured it's Black History Month...

I really wished my roommates were there in that moment.

Raaaaargh

Snow Days

It has been snowing like crazy here. These pictures are from earlier this week, but this weekend we got 28 inches of snow. We stocked up on food, library books and DVDs, and Keva planks (At one point Max was building a floor and told me to put my house on his floor so it would "be stable. Like the wise man who built his house upon a rock)." Miraculously, we made it it through without anyone wanting to kill anyone else. In fact, I would even say there was some positive family bonding.

Here is Max with his friends Abi and Anna. Their mom just let us know that Abi told her Max is her best friend, but she is going to marry Noah. Ouch. Abram is trying to figure out how to tell Max not to worry, it runs in the family. It will work out eventually.

Aviva wanted to get herself ready to go play in the snow. I guess she didn't trust me to make sure she didn't get a sunburn.

Daddy's Notes

1. "But funny." This morning, Max and I were playing with some building blocks. After I had built a relatively impressive structure, Aviva knocked it over. I was frustrated. I said, "Aviva, that's not very nice." She said, with a wicked smile, "... but funny."

2. Hockey Talkies. We were getting ready for snowmageddon 2010 here in Washington, and I wanted to get Max and Aviva some toys for the weekend. Max picked "Hockey" talkies. They are horribly cheap, but he still loves them. We play hide-and-seek with them; the person hiding is supposed to give the person looking clues via the "hockey" talkies. The problem is, they're so loud -- even without any speaking -- that all you have to do is listen for the white noise. And poor Max always wonders how I found him.

3. Leo smiles. Finally, Leo smiled at me yesterday. He's been cooing and smiling at Kristin for a while now. But he just did not like me. Even a little while ago when I got him in the middle of the night for his feeding, he scowled at me. Well, yesterday, he finally warmed up to me and smiled back. It's a lot easier to serve someone who smiles back, that's for sure.