and singing. We discovered PhotoBooth and its video capacity, and now the fact that we never have the videocamera charged up or accessible when we want to record stuff is not such a problem!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
how my parents...
One of Frida's favorite bedtime books is How my parents learned to eat. But one of her favorite things to do is to be silly by making absurd switches. Tonight she requested to read "How my parents learned to swim."
I need 3
Me: Frida, do you need attention? (it was pretty obvious she did; she was provocatively dumping things out, and J and I were sitting on the couch shopping online together while Sam read a book next to us)
Frida: No, I need THREE tentions.
Frida: No, I need THREE tentions.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
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!
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!
Monday, October 31, 2011
halloween
Sam was fire (his idea). It doesn't show up well in the pictures, but inside some of those clusters of flames are little battery-powered flickering tea-lights.
Frida had said she wanted to be a gorilla, and I had a great idea for a costume, but we ran out of time in making it and fortunately she was totally happy to be a witch again.
Frida had said she wanted to be a gorilla, and I had a great idea for a costume, but we ran out of time in making it and fortunately she was totally happy to be a witch again.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
pics from MN, and making one's own destiny
... courtesy of Omi.
Enjoying ride-on toys in the yard shortly after we arrived:
Omi had acquired and set up kid furniture, toys, and other great stuff to make a very well-stocked playroom. The girls one morning, still in pajamas:
Emma was very happy when Omi made Japanese food:
One morning while Emma and her parents were shopping (for a stroller for Emma's soon-to-arrive baby brother), Omi, Opa, Sam, Frida, and I went to the beach by the lake near their house. It was too cold to swim, but there was a cool digger toy:
Girls wearing matching t-shirts from Omi:
___
Recent kid quotes:
Both kids have strong opinions about the music we put on in the car. It's usually some kid-friendly (if not specifically kid-centric) CD, but even so, there are songs that each kid requests to skip. Frida calls out, "I want bippet doodit!" (I want different music).
The other day she was drawing, and first drew an "ah-dader". After that was done, she announced that she was drawing a "tott-diwul". The latter took me a while-- any guesses?
And then apropos nothing the other evening, Sam mused, "I really need to figure out what I am and what I'm supposed to be like." (me: ???) "What my life is for. Like in the Billy Jonas song, Happy Accidents."
Me: "Do you think every person's life is for one thing?" Sam: "No, I think my life has a reason." Me: "What kind of reason?" Sam: "A reason to live. Like a special reason, it could be hidden anywhere. Like in a cave."
(We talked for a little bit about how a person's life can have many reasons, how each one of us can do many different important things, and how many of those are things we don't realize are important until after we have begun or even finished them. Sam also mentioned that he meant the part of the song in addition to who you're supposed to marry, because he already knew that part, but he refused to elaborate on that.)
Sam: "I feel like there's something going to happen to me that tells me what my life is for."
(More conversation in which I let him explore this idea while trying subtly to reassure him that most of us don't have some stroke-of-insight about our vocation/avocation.)
Sam: "Or maybe you make your own destiny."
Enjoying ride-on toys in the yard shortly after we arrived:
Omi had acquired and set up kid furniture, toys, and other great stuff to make a very well-stocked playroom. The girls one morning, still in pajamas:
Emma was very happy when Omi made Japanese food:
One morning while Emma and her parents were shopping (for a stroller for Emma's soon-to-arrive baby brother), Omi, Opa, Sam, Frida, and I went to the beach by the lake near their house. It was too cold to swim, but there was a cool digger toy:
Girls wearing matching t-shirts from Omi:
___
Recent kid quotes:
Both kids have strong opinions about the music we put on in the car. It's usually some kid-friendly (if not specifically kid-centric) CD, but even so, there are songs that each kid requests to skip. Frida calls out, "I want bippet doodit!" (I want different music).
The other day she was drawing, and first drew an "ah-dader". After that was done, she announced that she was drawing a "tott-diwul". The latter took me a while-- any guesses?
And then apropos nothing the other evening, Sam mused, "I really need to figure out what I am and what I'm supposed to be like." (me: ???) "What my life is for. Like in the Billy Jonas song, Happy Accidents."
Me: "Do you think every person's life is for one thing?" Sam: "No, I think my life has a reason." Me: "What kind of reason?" Sam: "A reason to live. Like a special reason, it could be hidden anywhere. Like in a cave."
(We talked for a little bit about how a person's life can have many reasons, how each one of us can do many different important things, and how many of those are things we don't realize are important until after we have begun or even finished them. Sam also mentioned that he meant the part of the song in addition to who you're supposed to marry, because he already knew that part, but he refused to elaborate on that.)
Sam: "I feel like there's something going to happen to me that tells me what my life is for."
(More conversation in which I let him explore this idea while trying subtly to reassure him that most of us don't have some stroke-of-insight about our vocation/avocation.)
Sam: "Or maybe you make your own destiny."
Sunday, October 16, 2011
pics from September + early October
Life is busy. The new job is great, but there's not a lot of time left, between an extra hour/day spent commuting and 4 classes to be prepped each week, and somehow the energy I used to spend blogging is taken up with things like prepping lecture and/or doing stuff w/the kids. This should improve in... another year or so, when I've prepped most of my classes at least once. It would help if Frida regularly fell asleep before 10, but that happens rarely these days. I'm not sure what will happen once she and Sam start sharing a room (in December); he is nearly always asleep by 9 these days, though at 2 he was a night owl as well.
There's a bunch of August that I missed: Grandma and Grandpa's visits (for cousin Ezra's first birthday and for Frida's second); J's cousin Matt's visit; and then at the end of the month our (kids + me) trip to MN to see Omi and Opa and Uncle Markus, Aunt Rei, and Emma, who were visiting there for a few days. The meeting of the cousins was very sweet, but I got very little of it on camera. Pictures exist (I have prints but not digital copies) and I'll post some at some point.
For now, some pics with captions, instead of a real post:
Sam's first day of first grade, first trying to look cool and then having been told to just look normal:
He has homework now. Three days/week he has to do various things with spelling words, like write a sentence using one or two of them. The first week of homework (beginning of October), one of the words was *sat*. Here's the sentence Sam came up with:
(My fish sat down and wrote a constitution of their own.)
Sam and his friend Alex made cookies:
Daddy does goofy stuff w/F's hair when he gives her a bath:
We picked apples:
Frida eats apples kind of like her Opa, i.e., "core? what core?" (she doesn't eat the seeds, though)
On weekend mornings, Sam wakes up earlier and amuses himself watching cartoons or playing in his room, but at the first sign that Frida is awake he bounds in and invites her to do something with him, and 3 minutes later they will be snuggled on the couch watching PBS Kids, or else in his bed reading (just before this was taken, he was reading her the text, and asking her to find various animals in the pictures. It was amazingly cute):
Last weekend was very warm, and we joined friends at the beach on Sunday. Crane's Beach has a depression in the middle that forms a long, shallow pool at low tide. It was perfect for the kids (ages 14 months through 6.5 years) to splash in:
Sam discovered new vantages on the classic Mr Potato Head:
(upside down-- whole new expression. "Doesn't he look like he's about to slap you?" Sam asks.)
And today the kids and I met Uncle Dan, Aunt Sara, and cousin Ezra at the same pumpkin patch we went to the past two years. I love pics of kids with pumpkins...
There's a bunch of August that I missed: Grandma and Grandpa's visits (for cousin Ezra's first birthday and for Frida's second); J's cousin Matt's visit; and then at the end of the month our (kids + me) trip to MN to see Omi and Opa and Uncle Markus, Aunt Rei, and Emma, who were visiting there for a few days. The meeting of the cousins was very sweet, but I got very little of it on camera. Pictures exist (I have prints but not digital copies) and I'll post some at some point.
For now, some pics with captions, instead of a real post:
Sam's first day of first grade, first trying to look cool and then having been told to just look normal:
He has homework now. Three days/week he has to do various things with spelling words, like write a sentence using one or two of them. The first week of homework (beginning of October), one of the words was *sat*. Here's the sentence Sam came up with:
(My fish sat down and wrote a constitution of their own.)
Sam and his friend Alex made cookies:
Daddy does goofy stuff w/F's hair when he gives her a bath:
We picked apples:
Frida eats apples kind of like her Opa, i.e., "core? what core?" (she doesn't eat the seeds, though)
On weekend mornings, Sam wakes up earlier and amuses himself watching cartoons or playing in his room, but at the first sign that Frida is awake he bounds in and invites her to do something with him, and 3 minutes later they will be snuggled on the couch watching PBS Kids, or else in his bed reading (just before this was taken, he was reading her the text, and asking her to find various animals in the pictures. It was amazingly cute):
Last weekend was very warm, and we joined friends at the beach on Sunday. Crane's Beach has a depression in the middle that forms a long, shallow pool at low tide. It was perfect for the kids (ages 14 months through 6.5 years) to splash in:
Sam discovered new vantages on the classic Mr Potato Head:
(upside down-- whole new expression. "Doesn't he look like he's about to slap you?" Sam asks.)
And today the kids and I met Uncle Dan, Aunt Sara, and cousin Ezra at the same pumpkin patch we went to the past two years. I love pics of kids with pumpkins...
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