Week 4: Crabby baby

We are slowly recovering from a week of me sitting around with a sick girl on my lap. She felt miserable and it made for some rough nights. Frank and I are feeling a little under the weather, but overall we are starting to get things back in order. I have about eight loads of laundry to fold today, pork to throw into the crock pot, a photo book to work on before my discount code expires this weekend, and Zach goes up to the bus stop in a little while after his two-hour delay for snow. But Charlotte is happily watching Curious George, so hopefully today will be easier than the last week has been.

This is what last week was all about.

"Hey, you're taking a picture of me!"

"Hi, Me!"

Week 3: Walking with Charlotte

It was an uneventful week around here, and almost all the photos I took are of Charlotte. For the last few weeks she'd only been walking while holding onto someone or a piece of furniture, but now she is starting to walk by herself more. She is also smiling more for the camera, but that's because I realized she wants to see the pictures on the back of the camera. So I snap, show her really quickly, she smiles or laughs, then I try to take another one immediately. Her favorite toy right now is the little blue tupperware cake server from a play set she got; I think it's her favorite thing for teething, though she likes to mix up her cheerios with it too. Since we took the Christmas tree down the living room has turned back into a baby cage, with lots of space for all the toys.

Gabe came home sick with a cold and fever on Thursday (and had the worst runny nose ever for the whole weekend). At bedtime I asked Zach to take care of his little brother by making sure they both stay in bed and no one turns the light back on because Gabe needed rest. So, in true Zach fashion he went above and beyond, offering him water and tissues and made this tray for him from his popcorn tin lid. But Gabe kept refusing help, and Zach was making even more noise than usual, so he got in trouble. It was hard to be totally mad about the whole thing though because it was just so funny and sweet.

Gabe stayed home Friday too, and took an even longer nap than Charlotte did.

Now Gabe is back to school, but he passed his cold onto Charlotte...gotta go wipe a nose!

Week 2: The one where I'm reminded of last winter

Just like last year, school was back in session for exactly one day before the snow came. Tuesday it was cancelled for the 6-8 inches we got, then Wednesday and Thursday I think some of the roads still weren't cleared and we had a wind chill advisory. At one point on Thursday it was -17! Then Friday and Monday we've had two hour delays for cold and freezing rain. We were hoping for a milder winter but so far January is not cooperating.

Zach's activity of choice, when he's not watching Jessie or Johnny Test on Netflix: computer games.

Gabe's activity: drawing, cutting, and taping stuff.

Charlotte's activity: getting into Mommy's scrapbooking supplies, over and over again.

Frank and Zach built the KNEX roller coaster that the boys got for Christmas. Very cool!

And the cooking experiment for this week was stuffed peppers. They turned out well.

Week 1: Miscellaneous

* Charlotte started climbing
* we finished another Captain Underpants book
* Gabe made more drawings
* Frank and I started watching Forever
* we cut out paper robots
* we had friends over for a play date
* we organized stuff (mainly me)
* we took down the Christmas tree and outdoor lights
* the kids tried yoga (Charlotte was really funny)
* we made cauliflower with cheese for the first time
* we took family photos, laughed at the outtakes and found a good one

Gabe's Pre-K photo