Nabby invited me to play bingo. She decided it needed to be “black out” so we spent a good 45 minutes spinning that little toy story spinner waiting for the last three pictures to come up.

It took some patience.

Oliver just happened to have his plastic sword when he walked down the hall and spotted Nabby’s carrot on the floor. He attacked, accusing the carrot of being very very bad. Nabby walked past and into the kitchen saying “Yes, he is a very bad carrot. Chop him up.” Then she left. However, if her stuffed carrot or strawberry or broccoli are missing from her bed (or even set up out of order) when we tuck her in at night, she complains till they’re all set up right.

Oliver’s attention has been consumed lately with a cartoon ghostbusters game on the ipad.  These are ghost puppets he made for a puppet show he performed the other night for us. A demonstration of his new love and awe I guess.

Nabby wanted a better view of the puppet show. She climbed onto Jason’s shoulders to get it.

Oliver will ask us now and then to turn on the Cello Wars piano guys video. This is the “cello” he plays while watching it. He dances and makes ninja kicks too.

Nabby is telling me here about her plan to bury a small plastic tunnel under the street in front of our house. One end will start in the neighbor’s yard and the other will go in a “u” shape back into the same yard. That way, the cats that live there will try to come to our yard (to poop) by going through the tunnel, but will end up back where they started and stay in their own yard…. she also thinks a tall wall around our yard, with a roof, would be helpful.

Oliver lost his first tooth!! He didn’t even pull or twist it for a week, it just came out on it’s own at school and he brought it home in a bag very proud of himself.

I’ve been cleaning out closets in the basement and going through baby clothes. This butterfly tank top was down there because I didn’t want Nabby to wear it in the winter. She dresses herself (whole outfit) 98% of the time, so if I don’t want her to wear something I just hide it. She spotted while I was sorting and insisted she could wear it inside the house. She asked me to take this photo after she changed. We are ready for spring around here!

Oliver’s missing tooth space.

Monday night last week we made some valentines for each other from a robot/alien kit. Oliver picked them out at the store and I thought they were really cute.

Thursday both kids came home well supplied with candy and cards from their friends. I made a simple, but cute dinner with heart shaped p.b. sandwiches, cantalope, carrots, and cheese. I was proud of my carrots. Jas and I had enchiladas (not as heart healthy, but super yummy.)

We joined some friends at the icecube to see a free skating show a while ago. It was excellent. As we came in Nabby picked out the skater in purple as her favorite. She and her partner turned out to be the most skilled and fun to watch too.

We’ve been busy with games and snow and castle blocks and snow and a broken clothes dryer and cinnamon buns and snow. I would still take a broken dryer waiting to be fixed over a coin op one in the basement of our last apartment. But the dryer was fixed this afternoon anyway. Jason made pancakes last Wednesday. We stay up watching Dr Who dvds from the library and then he lets me sleep in while he feeds the kids. I am very grateful. 8AM feels a lot better then 6:30. We had our first “snow day” last Monday. Public schools don’t close for snow around here and this wasn’t the exception. The roads were actually covered with frozen slush and light snow (couple inches) on top. That adds up to a lot of crawling traffic and jams and school was out Tuesday anyway. Nabby and I loved having Oliver home for another day. U of M doesn’t close, or hasn’t for 35 yrs or something, so Jason had to get out there.

Oliver’s speed boat to go under the castle bridge.

Play dough cakes.

That isn’t a pile of butter, it’s yogurt on my pancakes. Nabby likes to put it on her lips.

Oliver asked us to take him bowling early in December and then got Nabby to start asking us to take her for her birthday- so I’m not sure why it took us till the week after Christmas to finally do it (monster colds attacking, etc). But when we did it was awesome! Lots of space to ourselves and the kids enjoyed the entire game (I LOVE how their attention spans are stretching).

Nabby carried her ball all by herself to the ramp every time.

So that’s the last of my Christmas photos. Jas and I saw the Hobbit too (thanks Emmy and Kyle) over the break and this Thursday (tomorrow) I’ll get to use my christmas gift from Jason: tickets to see Wynton Marsalis!!! and let me tell you I’ve been wanting to hear him in person since history of Jazz class my 2nd year of college. I can’t wait.

A few weeks later Oliver got to go back for a birthday party for a boy in his class. Some boys were using the ramp, but Oliver wanted to try bowling without it and scored even better than he did with the ramp bowling with us. How bout that? Every boy in his class was invited. Jas went with him and came home telling me how there was disco bowling, pizza, fruit, soda, cake, gift bags and balloons to take home. It sounded pretty nice for a kindergarten party. I’m so glad Oliver got to go.

We made a trip to extreme bounce and discovered all BRAND-spanking NEW bouncy inflatable things. What are those called? This was over Christmas break so Jason came and followed the kids around on everything and put up with his glasses falling off a lot (they must be getting loose because they fell in the toilet while he was helping Nabby wipe the other day…not a great day). It’s a great winter playground. The kids are free as birds here and just love it.

I enjoyed sitting and trying to sketch with my finger on the ipad. Our stylus disappeared with Jason’s backpack last fall at the marching band rehearsal. It’s fun though, really. I start over a lot, but it’s getting easier.

This year the kids powered themselves up the hill every time. Nabby was dancing (on the sled, off the sled) and grinning the whole time. Oliver went tummy side down a lot and for the first time head first. He also couldn’t stop eating snow and sucking on his mittens. Way more tempting than my boring water bottle.

The kids love shoveling snow. Nabby was upset before I found her a car brush that we didn’t have three shovels. Quoting Jason “Oliver was really pretty good.” How about that!

Jason and I were both given a collection of Christmas ornaments from our parent’s collection when we married. Lots are ones we made as children with our families. This is my favorite one from Jason’s childhood. I love the giant yarn loop that made it easy for him to hang as a toddler.

It snowed right before Christmas. Our snowman had a grass toupee.

Christmas eve we acted out the nativity story and ate ham, potatoes, rolls, and sparkling grape juice.

Oliver opened his stocking at 6:45 and woke Nabby up at 7. I put a breakfast casserole in the oven and sat on the couch to eat harry and david carmel popcorn. They were very pleased (and very cute in their new pjs!)

We ate orange rolls and breakfast and broke out the playdough.

She celebrated by dancing to a dvd of the Nutcracker ballet at a party with her friends. I made a tutu for each of them, it was pretty cute watching them spin and jump. They ate pizza and cupcakes and then colored pictures of ballerinas and snowflakes.

Nabby’s favorite pizza topping is mushrooms.