Wow.

It's been a long time with no posting...I think Facebook has officially sucked me in. Most of my photos, etc. are there, but here are a few....

Sascha is officially done with kindergarten and we're moving on to first grade. We did a teacher eval, which took about an hour and a half and was pretty straightforward. She just had her half-birthday party and got a Razor scooter, which she's been asking for for months. (It's really cool....and goes fast!)

S and I joined a jr/adult bowling league this summer - we go every Sunday night and are teamed up with another mother/daughter pair.

Zoe is signed up for two dance camps this summer (one is princess themed...shhh, she doesn't know about that one yet; we thought the suspense might be painful for her). Other summer plans include kayaking, hiking, a trip to Indiana for Natasha's wedding, and weekends to NH and Canada.



This tooth was loose for months!

Don't Forget the Forest

Every once in awhile I get a big-picture view of parenting. It's always instructive, and refreshing. Like adults, kids can't do the same thing day after day without getting stir crazy and bored. Even watching TV, which our kids do (gasp!), and so far their brains haven't fallen out of their heads.

Today was Imagination Day. At various times today, the kids were:

Skiing (they had to wear footed sleepers for this portion)
Pretending that Sascha was the mom and Zoe was the kid
Going to outer space, complete with helmets, goggles and space suits (also the aforementioned footed sleepers - they are quite versatile)

This morning, they decorated Christmas cookies. No, I'm not months behind in my updates. We made them last night and whipped up a few different colors of frosting this morning. A few years ago I would have been aghast at making and decorating Christmas cookies in February. But you know, why not? Is there really a rule against it?

Don't tell me if there is, okay. Because they had a really good time.

Our Next Field Trip

I know, long time no post. This is partly due to a lost USB cord (why does the cord for every digital camera need to be different?) and partly due to lameness on my part. We've been busy, for sure. Lots of skiing (Sascha rocks the mountain - she's ready for intermediate slopes, I think), skating, science experiments, reading, creating, pretending, and the like.

Lately the kids have been into the Statue of Liberty. I can't remember where they first saw her, but they now pick her out all over the place (Schoolhouse Rock, for example) and Zoe keeps asking when we will get to go see the "Tattoo of Widderby." Which I think is so incredibly cute that I bring up the subject as often as possible so she'll talk about it.

On Inauguration Day, she also learned the new President's name -- and whenever she sees him on TV or in the newspaper, she shouts it out. "Rockobama!" ;)

Best wishes, Rocko and everyone, for a safe and productive February.

Here are some Photo Booth creations to tide you over until the USB cord surfaces....

Now She Is Six!

Sascha's sixth birthday was Thanksgiving Day. We had THREE cakes (one pre-dinner, for family; the other two at dinner, with friends) and the fourth one will be served up this Saturday at her kids' party (11 kids, 2 hours, and a partridge in a pear tree).

She loved all of her presents. The space science kit from Grandma and Grandpa Volkers launched us into hours of learning about the planets, eclipses (she is bound and determined to see a full solar eclipse during her lifetime now), why a year on earth is 365 (plus 1/4) days long, and how many people have been to the moon (14) and have any of them been women (no). She was fascinated by the idea that a year on Pluto (which the kit still counted as a planet, and I didn't get into the controversy) is 247 years long, so if we lived on Pluto, no one would ever have a first birthday!

We may have a budding astronaut on our hands.

I will post photos soon!

Blog Keywords

Wordle is a fun diversion that will figure out the key words in your blog or other website. (But it appears to have pulled only the past three months or so of entries.) It makes pretty colors, too. Click on the graphic to make it full size.

Shhh....Duncan Is Sleeping

Happy Anniversary, Calvin & Hobbes!

The first Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published on this day in 1985.

Below is Sascha's tribute to the daring duo, which she used to call "Jackson and Bob":





Hug your favorite tiger today!

Proposition Hate

This is a soapbox entry, so if you'd rather just look at photos of the kids, skip it.

Proposition 8 passed in California, banning gay marriage. As if that weren't abhorrent enough, gays had been allowed to get married in that state, thanks to a court decision in the spring. And now it's been taken away.

I could go on for pages about how sad this makes me and how I do not understand how gay people getting married affects my relationship with my husband AT all (all that "sanctity of marriage" nonsense that gets tossed around -- is a 50% divorce rate really what makes marriage so sanctified? Come on)....but Keith Olbermann says everything I want to say. Here's his commentary, on MSNBC.

You know, the Beatles had it right. All you need is love - so I wish people would quit trying to mess with it.