February

February, 2016

 Anna's first finger-painting. Why did I wait so long??

 This stuff is pretty great...

And this is my sweet happy little arteeest. Can anyone find some cuteness anywhere under that paint?

On facebook, I posted this:

Paleo chocolate donuts. With paleo chocolate icing. Classic Tom Martin. 

‪#‎justdontaskaboutthesprinkles‬

Here is Anna, poring over Da in Da's new bed, and sneaking back into her own. 

No, she can't (or doesn't) climb out yet. It's a snag she hits. 

 Peter and some of his motor skills toys; little girl blue with her smoothie

On a very welcome warm winter day. 

 What else did we do during the long cold days? We sorted beans...

 ...took goofy selfies on the kitchen floor

 Anna and her "Hedge-Hug" quilt that just came in the mail from Grandma. I think she likes it. 

Anna is my faithful kitchen assistant. Here she is putting cut kale into the salad spinner. She did her best to cut with the table knife she's allowed. She loves to "Watch! Do Cooking!" and desperately drags her kitchen chair over if she suspects I might be trying to do something culinary without her. She stirs, dumps measuring cups, chops (with a table knife) and sorts my clean silverware.
And once in a while Peter tries to get in on the action, though she's not a fan of sharing her cooking chair. 

Here's a thing: Peter painstakingly pushing slightly-too-big crayons down through the bottom of a funnel, shaving each one as it goes. Few things ever hold his attention as long as this one did. 

Rice play.     And a poor girl who just wants a ride. 

A rare shot of my sleeping angel

The clementine veil

So I'm doing laundry or whatever, and become aware of something refreshingly peaceful happening in the other room. 

(Anna "beep, beep, beep!"-ing like the horn on the bus)

Apparently the good folks at Eastern Kabob use ultra black ink in their icing. 

Hard at work in the local train museum caboose on a rainy day with our buddies the Changs

Anna Frances (extra lean from being sick?) and spunkycute as ever. 

Peter's emphatic non-participation in singing day at pre-school. 

Peter and I have both grown over the last few months in understanding how best to handle his utter aversion to performance in a setting like this, and still come out with an affirmed (vs. unraveled) little boy. Besides, there are worse character traits than a preference to avoid the spotlight!

Back in the comfort zone:

Don't be too impressed. I think he was punitively cleaning off some spit. 

We'll end with this classic morning snapshot as Peter and I answer Anna's morning call. 

I love them so. 

And that was February!

The Rest of January, and Snow

First off, an apology:

I left this gem out of the Trabandt Christmas post. My bad.  

The post has been duly updated, along wth a couple other good ones missed in the first edition.

Now, here we are trying on our new hats.

Anna and her friends, Da, Bear, and Potbelly Bear

For memory's sake, though, I'll note that thus far Anna has never been as sentimental or attached to her "friends" as Peter is his. Anna almost never sleeps embracing a stuffed animal, and is rather inconstant about who, if anyone, she wants in her crib. Da is the only one she actually plays with, along with another doll, given her obsession with babies. Peter, on the other hand, has a deep relationship with HopHop, RahRah, McDuff, FishFish, and Mickey, listed in order of devotion I think, with a strong emphasis on HopHop in first place. I'll do a little post about them one day while they're still in one piece.

A warm(ish) day in January: One of our hobbies, "Fishing at the Lake"

Fun day out: What goes better together than sushi buffet and the aquarium store? 

The kids didn't do a ton of the raw stuff, which I'm sure was just fine with the restaurant owners who admitted them very cheaply. Still, lots to try. 

On to the aquarium store. I guess I didn't get a ton of pics of the fish and the giant eel 

(he was pretty great), but here were some reptile favorites:

Very exciting gifts from Grandma. 

Anna and Anvika

Our big snow: 

A) The evening it started. Peter and I set off on a walk in the blizzard. 

B) The next day, helping Daddy shovel mid-snowfall

C) After the rest of the snowfall, he looked like this:

Tom was so eager to take the kids on the toboggan, but it was so deep that the only place it worked was our short little driveway after shoveling. 

Anna, completely dwarfed by the snow, was not a big fan. 

This one ventured out a little bit:

Eventually, though, a rescue was necessary.

We interrupt this post for a shoutout to the NBC Sochi Hat, everybody's favorite hat this winter. Thanks to the Trabandts for the gift! Peter wore it outside all winter, and Anna wore it inside whenever she could get her hands on it! 

Meanwhile, safe inside with hot cocoa.  

Returning from a trip out for lunch and groceries. Not that we desperately needed either, but this Mama did desperately need to get out and see the world!

My cuties. Anna will usually appropriate any article of clothing lying around. 

What else did we do?...We dyed pasta for beads. 

This next one's about the shadows 

 

 Day 4? of the snow...Tom's first day back, I think. We made the back yard, almost as deep in snow as it is wide, into snow forts. Here we go...

This happened a lot.  

So did this...

Lost boot, left. Girl more interested in snow eating, right. 

 For the life of me, I can't remember this gentleman's name. But Anna wasn't sure how long she should let him wear her scarf.