"Cheeeeeese!"

Aani cracks us up. When a camera is pointed at her she squints and smiles and says "Cheeee!" She also discovered sour cream tonight and consumed enough to make anyone sick. Let's hope I'm wrong about that.

Chocolate Milk and Reindeer

Chocolate milk spilled all over the place at lunchtime. It spilled on the counter and dripped into drawers and splattered all over the floor, and I wanted to sit in a corner and rock back and forth for awhile. Because you can't just wipe up chocolate milk. It makes the whole floor sticky and I hate sticky floors. I watched it drip, drip, drip...and knew I'd have to mop. But I just mopped a couple of days ago. The injustice of it was a bit discouraging.

So I mopped. The floor was clean for about 15 minutes. It was nice.

I just tucked Anders in, and he asked me to stay with him for awhile. I laid down with him and we talked for a half-hour about school and reindeer. I realized I don't get to just talk with him during the day because of everything else there is to do. Like keeping the little whipper-snappers fed, watered and loved and then cleaning up after them. It takes those one-on-one moments to remind me that my kids are awesome, and they're growing up. And when it's all said and done, I'm not going to care if my kitchen floor was sticky, am I?

I just like it so much when it's clean.

Address, Please!

Hey everyone,

We're going to be grown-ups this year and send out Christmas cards. I think we've done it a couple of times, but only to like 5 people because we didn't know more people than that. Heh, heh...heh. And we bought cards and on the inside pasted a picture of us that we printed on the computer. That was back in the day before Costco had their easy-as-pie Christmas card maker.

The reason I'm over-sharing about this is because last year we got lots and lots and lots of Christmas cards from people just like you, and it was just plain delightful. Since we sincerely enjoyed getting cards from friends and family, we decided to spread the love and hop on the bandwagon.

So I need addresses, STAT!

Please send them to: nilsandkatrina@gmail.com

Thankya!

Before and After

I was looking through old photo folders and I'm amazed at what a difference a couple of years makes.

Dec. 2006- such a cute little round face

Dec. 2008- still a cute face, just not as round

Dec. 2006- her hair would not growDec. 2008- long, thick piggy tails

This was a year ago, since 2 years ago she was but a wee embryo

Dec. 2008- still cute as heck, but she is a total maniac

Sometimes the days seem endless- usually around 3:30 for some reason. Looking at pictures from just a couple of years ago makes me realize the days actually whiz past, and if I'm not looking I'll miss it all.

Thank goodness the world has gone digital- it's so much easier to capture life.

The Saratoga Springs Sunset

We were putting up our pathetic strings of Christmas lights outside tonight (definitely not worth posting a picture) as the sun was setting. For the bottom shot I got on top of our roof. It's amazing how much nicer the view is ten or fifteen feet higher.

For Love of the Haiku

I have a new past time- composing haikus. You should try it. Pick a subject, and come up with a haiku using this criteria:

3 unrhymed lines of verse using five, seven and five syllables. Traditional Japanese haikus are about nature.

I like to pick other topics cuz it's funner. That's right- I said funner.
And I'm not Japanese, far as I know. Although my brother was born in Okinawa.

For your reading pleasure:

My children stalk me
They follow me all around
Solitude is grand

How I love my bed
It's oh-so warm and snuggly
Sleeping is such fun

I pity da foo
Who messes wit Mister T
Gold chains and mohawks

Nils wrote the last one. He's a haiku master.

FHE

For tonight's FHE, we:
decorated gingerbread cookies

and ate them.

We decorated the Christmas tree

and stared in awe.