With her tooth fairy money and some savings, Emma purchased a pair of dress-up shoes and a jumprope from the dollar store (and a wand for Carter, unselfish girl!)  Who knew you could use both at once? 

 "Dear tooth fairy, I am only 4, but I still lost my tooth.  Love, Emma." Who knew she had been telling the truth all this time when she said her tooth was loose… I just figured she wanted to be like Zach.  So by the time I first saw it wiggle, it was on it's…

  Some random happy things from my day today… Emma has been SO nice to Carter.  Sharing with him, reading to him, playing with him… if you haven't been around us you have no idea what a change of heart this is.  It is wonderful. I vacuumed today and there was lots of sand (from…

I have made an unfortunate discovery… it is that moderation is not my thing.  (This is something I should have known already.)  I realized it this past week as I finally started Jane Eyre (after checking it out from the library and renewing it without ever reading it in the past) and consequently stopped doing…

 So I believed him when he didn't want to take his nap, but I stopped buying it when he fell asleep at the table during his afternoon snack… 

The tree in our front yard covered with "hoar frost" – isn't it beautiful!  I wish it weren't so cold and I would have gotten a close-up picture – it is like tons and tons of feathery ice crystals all over everything exposed…. turning the world white.  And when the wind blows later in the…

  It was a BEAUTIFUL, warmer (by MN standards – 19* when we set out) MLK day, Zach had no school, and we thought it would be fun to hike on some of our favorite winter trails.  It was… for Zach, Emma, me, and our friends.  I'll  let Carter's face speak for his opinion of…

 When I was cleaning up the lightsabres after the party (and after I had posted all the other pictures), I couldn't help but laugh at the state they were in.  They sustained a lot of damage (even after the blue-tape repair jobs), good thing Darth Vader is mostly machine.  Oh, and Carter had a tiny…

 And all of a sudden we are celebrating the 7th birthday of Jedi Master Zach!  Somehow we ended up having a jedi training birthday party; somehow we ended up with 8 kids (plus Carter); somehow the R2D2 cake looked a little like R2 (I wasn't really that hopeful!); somehow Nate ended up dressing up as…

While I was a little nervous, my kids were nothing but excited for the "big sleepover"  with Grandma and Grandpa B while Nate and I went out of town.  And who wouldn't be – they ate pizza, oreos, popcorn, ice cream, and cinnamon crunch bagels; and they played Wii, more games than you can count,…