On the subject of Snuggies - Bad word alert!!

Quote courtesy of M4

(Y'know how when you're laying down watching the idiot box, and the cat walks up on your chest and his less appealing regions are unfortunately pointed toward your face??)

To Rumpus: It's not appropriate to show your privates.

Fresh snow + sun + nature hike = Saturday!!

Queen Anne's LaceM3 being sassy
The lonely path
I have a picture of these two in summer at the same place (CERA) holding hands, but much younger...
Andy Goldsworthy's cairn

Whew!!

Well, both kids are back to school today, thank goodness!! My patience was starting to wear thin with the whining and sniveling... (I'm such a nice mom). So M3 was diagnosed with strep on her birthday, although it manifested more as scarlet fever with a horrible, itchy rash. Twenty four hours on antibiotics and she's as good as new. M4 had a mystery illness. He's been harboring a cold for a while, but he claimed to feel "horrible" yesterday morning. No fever, but we let him stay home although we were convinced he really just wanted to stay home like his sister. But at 10:30am, he fell asleep for more than two hours which is weird for him. After he woke up, he was basically back to normal. Ah, the mystery of the human body!

Winter storm watch here this evening...

Birthday!!

We had fun bowling for M3's birthday. She invited several buddies from her grade. It was a beautiful day, so the kids walked home from the bowling alley (we live two blocks away!) for pizza and cake. There were only a few instances of ear-splitting screaming. Action shot

The side-granny shot

Only slightly cuckoo

Make a wish!

The crew and the damage

I can't help wondering if we'll have similar pictures of these kids in the years to come. It will be cool to see how they grow and change.

Inventions

M3 had to come up with an invention for a program she's doing at school. To me, an invention isn't something you can just come up with when someone tells you to. But I think she came up with something good: heated monkey bars! She is a monkey bar enthusiast, but they get way too cold to touch in winter. And mittens don't provide much traction. She will take this to an "Invention Convention" in March. Of course, Daddy helped her bring the idea to life:
They will have warm water pumping through them. Pretty cool!

Cat games

This has become Rumpus' gorilla. He carries it around and meows very loudly, usually at 2 a.m., then brings it to us wherever we are. So Mark has taken to hiding it all over the house to see if the Rump can find it. He has found it everywhere so far. This is today's hiding place...he hasn't found it yet.