Shakespeare

in the making: Hannah often likes to invent her own words. A few months ago, she explained to friends of ours how she was sitting and looking "starelessly" across the room. Today she wrote in a letter to her pen pal about how we have to have the house "spacelessly" clean before we leave, since it's on the market. She seems to prefer the "-lessly" words.

How cute can she get?

Naomi is standing here, doing a shape sorting game, and singing, "I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me." Over and over and over.

Naomi just turned 2

but that's not what she's claiming:

Michael: How old are you, Naomi?
Naomi: 6 months old.

Anyone at her party: How old are you, Naomi?
Naomi: Six.
AAHP: Are you two?
Naomi: Yes.

2 days later: How old are you Naomi?
Naomi: Six.
2DL: Are you two?
Naomi: No.

Valentine's Day...a bit late

I had every intention of posting these darling pictures on Valentine's Day. However, I have had every intention of doing lots of things lately that don't actually get done. So, while I will not even pretend that it's Valentine's Day, I am still going to post the pictures, because they're cute and I think you'll like them.

The girls got new Valentine's Day outfits from Grandma Ellie, and they're sporting them in the pictures. The hairbows were both worn by Hannah, since we can't even pretend that Naomi has enough hair for one to stay on her head for more than 3 seconds.

Tree kangaroos. Note the traditional Valentine's Day wear of the Pacific NW tree kangaroo.

Valentine's Day is a good day to snuggle with your sister.

Especially if you happen to be wearing a faux-fur-lined hooded fleece

that matches your outfit perfectly.

Of course, matching doesn't bother you...

you wear that fleece with whatever you have on when you find where Mom put it.

Siblings

often disagree and fight for various reasons. Today's, though, was the most bizarre I've yet come across: Naomi threw herself on the floor in the hallway, weeping copiously, because Hannah was leading the *pretend* cow into the room and she wanted to. There was absolutely no substance whatsoever to the cow -- no lead rope, no cow, nothing -- and yet when Hannah generously offered to let Naomi lead the cow in (transferring the pretend lead into Naomi's hand), Naomi stopped crying, said, "Thank you, Hannah," and led the fake cow in.

Because they learn so much from their parents

it's often interesting to listen to kids' conversations.

The other day, Hannah said jubilantly: "Now we're the proud owners of TWO houses!" It was a bit more ironic when Michael said it first.

A cousin, when asked today what he thought of the new house: "It's a nice house, but I'll tell you, it's a lot more trafficky than your old house." It's hard to be not-quite-6 and already that concerned about traffic!

An exploration

of men's versus women's brains. Very amusing. Michael and I have actually seen the whole talk on DVD and he's got some great points and the talk is funny all the way through.