Card sharks

The boys are on a card kick right now. Nick wants to play go-fish, Tim wants to play war and they'll both tolerate the odd game of crazy eights thrown in...

it always comes back to this

The boys and I were out in the yard the other day enjoying a little bit of lovely weather.


Playing in the snow


Spearing things with the driveway stakes (you know, normal outside activities)


It doesn't matter where we are, things inevitably turn back to star wars.


Light saber battles with dried goldenrod stalks

A first grade report

Our trip to Massachusetts

There is a lot of emphasis on reading and writing in Nick's first grade class.  Here's one of his stories from earlier this fall...





The bottom of this one says, "We did all that stuff on picture"

a story from September

Ok, so I'm a little behind....

I love these

And this was back in November...

And we're still wondering....

But at least we can remember last year:

My Dog by Nick

May the Force Be With You!

We're a little Star Wars obsessed in our household right now. It doesn't stop with Nick either. Tim brought this home from school last week:

That is Count Dooku at the top (he's a bad guy, as evident by his red light saber), Darth Vader in the middle (can't you tell by the grumpy face and lit up control panel?) and then Boba Fett (holding a light saber given to him by Emperor Palpatine)

Gingerbread men

We had a snow day last week so the kids and I made cookies. They decided it would be gingerbread men so off they went...


Somewhere along the way, the men turned into pirates....


complete with pirate hats


hooks for hands


eye patches and peg legs


and British soldiers (a la Lego)


Some even had dynamite explode on them


Why does it surprise me that two little boys can turn something as sweet and innocuous as cookie-making into a flurry of death and destruction?

meanwhile I had fun with my new pine-tree state themed cookie cutters :)

Artists

The boys have revisted their artistic sides lately and have been asking to paint again...


And of course it's done without shirts....


and in some cases, pants...of course.


Some masterpieces by Tim

Before the snow

This was January 10th in Maine...


We didn't have much snow left (here is Nick playing on our snow pile)


and the boys were out riding bikes (/dune buggies) in the driveway


Poor Jake had thrown out his back, which his vet likely attributed to running around on the unforgiving frozen ground. He mentioned that it was the 3rd young healthy dog he'd seen that week with weird muscle ailments due to rough play outside.


Thankfully, his vet is also a chiropractor and Jake felt a lot better (although still needed a few more days of rest) after his adjustment.... Yes, my dog has a chiropractor (and thankfully, I don't)


A lovely fall...I mean, winter day!