Bird Refuge

You know when you think it should be spring so you do something that seems "springy" but then decide that it isn't nearly as springy as you thought it was going to be?

It was really, really cold at the bird refuge. The only birds that wanted to pose were seagulls.

 and these guys

New Hats

Mimi has received some very generous gifts in the past few days - some very fancy hats to add to her collection. As her hair is pretty sparse, we think she looks quite lovely in these.

Star Wars Lunchbox

Sometimes we buy silly things.

We like to pretend that we are frugal and live within our means. Sometimes something catches our eye that justifies stretching our budget just a bit. At the beginning of the school year, Mary purchased *boring* lunch totes for all the kids. Tommy, wanting to be like the school-aged kids, carried his lunch around with him all morning until he couldn't wait anymore. He has been eating lunch at around 9:30 most days.

A little while ago, Tommy lost his lunch tote. We can't find the dang thing anywhere. Tommy has been demoted to just a brown paper bag.

All of that changed when Mary spied the following item:

The Star Wars lunchbox!

We were so happy. 

Oh but wait - there's more. It came with sandwich cutouts . . . 

the tie fighter

and the Millennium Falcon

It's pretty much the awesomest thing ever. 

The Mild Winter of 2012

This is a dangerous blog post title. Tempting mother nature seems silly. If we end up with three feet of snow next week, you can blame me.

The winter of 2011-2012 has been delightfully mild. Many of the days have hit highs in the 40s, and snow has been the exception rather than the rule. It seems like I only scrape the ice on my windshield about half the time.

On one of these mild days, Mary thought it would be fun to try Mimi in the backyard swing. When Thomas was in the "month" ages, he was pretty cautious. He eventually came to enjoy the swing, but it took a little while. Mimi was more like our other kids. Pretty fun until it gets a little too high, and then it takes her breath away.