pics

Between the rush of J's book-finishing craziness, and then as of mid-January my teaching 3 courses at once, I don't have time to update very often these days. But here are some pics from the past couple of months, with notable holes in the record.

Two from Hanukah gift-opening here at home, with new hats on both.

New k'nex:


and a new-to-Frida doll bed (Craig's Listed, repainted and covered with a flannel swaddling blanket that had been hers, and before that Sam's, and before that Uncle Markus' and maybe even mine). Also new tights and legwarmers:



We spent a nice week (sans J.) in Minnesota with Omi and Opa. No pics (I have some somewhere, but like I said, no time these days).

Grandma and Grandpa gave the kids a membership to the Children's Museum, and we went there one weekend in late January, meeting Frida's classmate Sam there.





Cool tank at which you can see the underside of turtles:



We enjoyed cookies at Flour afterward:






Frida and I have matching toenails:



She loves this outfit:



I spent a lot of time trying to capture her in it, and Sam got jealous and wanted me to take a picture of him. He rarely expresses jealousy of her, though he (understandably, I think) gets very frustrated when she breaks stuff that he has worked hard on. For the most part they get along very well and are affectionate with each other more than not, and Sam asks for-- and surprisingly, often gets-- space when he needs it. Sometimes he really looks older than 6, no?



Sam is really into k'nex. This is a motorcycle. It's sturdy enough that it has held up through multiple stunt runs down the ladder to the kids' new bunkbed:





Frida likes to build with magnatiles:



And here's a funny story that I posted on FB. Frida has been potty training (fairly successfully). For a while she got a Swedish fish each time she pooped in the potty. It didn't take long for her to start gaming the system: One night she pooped 5 times-- and this was *after* a full day of daycare with associated mid-day poop. I couldn't figure out a way to require a minimum size. We recently ran out of Swedish fish, though, (not surprisingly, with that many rewards/evening) and now she just poops a couple of times a day. In the potty.

Aaaaaand that's all folks. More at some unspecified point in the future!