That One Time when it Snowed

Ivy-dontics

Ivy visited the dentist for her first time today. Tonight at dinner, following her raucous rendition of Frosty the Snowman, she shared her dental experience with us:

Ivy was surprisingly compliant and chipper in the dentist's chair. But as we were leaving the dentist's office, she looked at me with wide eyes and said, "It's pretty dangerous in there!"

Microfun

In the vein of giving gifts to others that you secretly want yourself, I gave my kids a microscope for Christmas. We broke it out tonight.

After disappointing glances at the prepared slides that came with the microscope (apple, onion, and leaves of various sorts), we forayed into the fun zone and collected hair, eyelashes, dust-bunnies, fabric, and a sequin to examine.

Calvin spotted a wee spider in the corner, which I caught (sorry spider- but this is for science), and slapped onto the stage. Then I called Bryn over, who is quite "cautious" around bugs and such, so I was nervous about her reaction.

Bryn said, "Wait, let me get this straight. You caught a live spider, smashed it onto a slide, and now we're going to look at it at 400 times it's usual size???" I nodded. She smiled and said, "Best Mom ever!"

Now I just have to figure how to get melted heart onto a slide.

p.s. the spider was awesome- think Shelob from Lord of the Rings

Give me a [winter] Break

Riding the mechanical horse at the Stone Zoo- I only had enough quarters for one ride, so they all had to squish onto the one-seater pony.
Reading, reading, reading


Bowling- Ivy had perfected the happy dance by her second frame.

We Fish you a Hairy Chris-Moose

And a hippo moo deer.

Christmas Eve

This was our first Christmas Eve entirely on our own as a family (no friends, no extended family, etc.). We missed our loved ones, but besides that the day was wonderful.

We went to the Museum of Science, and it was surprisingly uncrowded for a Saturday and a holiday. We meandered through exhibits, and ended at the gift shop where the kids used some money from their grandparents to buy gifts.

We ate a candle-lit dinner, watched a movie of Luke II, watched a slideshow of Christmases past, sang songs around the piano, read a Christmas story, opened sibling gifts, and ate holiday cookies. It was a textbook recipe for magic, and it worked.

We put them to bed with sugar plums in their heads, and after an hour Calvin came in and asked, "Is it Christmas??? How much longer, now?" I can tell it's going to be a long night and an early morning.

Massacre of the Trees

The Lorax would be sad with us today. After the last hurricane and then the awful blizzard, we decided with our neighbors that eight of our giant oaks had to go.

They (the trees, not our neighbors) had grown very large, were not healthy due to overcrowding, had lost many major limbs during the storms, and, most importantly, were leaning ominously over one or the other of our three houses.

Before:

After:

Before:


After:

And here on the left is the crane they brought in- BIG:

It was amazing to watch the entire process. The woodchipper they brought along could swallow entire trees whole (although not these trees- it ate only the top 60 feet or so). For example, can you spot the whole branch being chipped in this photo?

Here is most of it, highlighted in blue:

This guy was pretty amazing. This is a hard enough job:

But he had to do it perched like this:

When he was finished, the crane hauled the section away (it floated eerily to it's chippy doom).

And he then caught a ride to the next tree top. Sometimes he was perched over 100 feet above the ground in the tops of these diseased leaning trees.

As with most good shows, this one had gleeful spectators:

But alas, at the end of the day, it is gut-wrenching to look at a pile of murdered tree carcasses.

Song for the Fallen
Sentinels of the woods
Proud and serene
Highways of small things
Storing away goods.

Shelter and shade
Providers of homes
But you leaned toward ours
So plans were laid.

In silence you sprouted
Soaking up light
But then harboring blight
We wanted you outed.

whzzzzzz, grhghghghgh, whzzzzzzz
With careful tools
Man wreaked out a vengeance
Limbs dismembered
Hard wood like snowflakes
Corpses stacked
Giants destroyed
So that we can sleep at night.
ZZZZzzzzzzz

And we're sorry.

Here She Comes to Save the Day

Christmas Brunch

Dueling Nativities

I put Bryn in charge of arranging the Nativity sets this year. It seems the "fakes" and the "reals" have developed quite a feud. In Bryn's words, "they're enemies."

The turf war this morning involved a nasty game of Memory, in which the fakes schooled the reals. This could get ugly.