February 4-11

Matthias must have been listening to Dorothea last week, because suddenly he's decided that he has important things to say.  They mostly consist of ba ba ba, but every now and again he slips a da in there.

Ricky stopped by for a visit on his way from thither to yon, and while he was here he set a new wheat grinding record (12 minutes and 15 seconds!) and left us some fresh California oranges.  He and Bryan played Twixt on Saturday night and we all went to Catholic mass on Sunday morning before parting ways for everyone's second church service of the day.

We got a fair amount of snow this week, so I went outside with the girls and helped them build a tiny snow lady.  I said that wrong.  I went outside with the girls and built a tiny snow lady while they watched.  They were really excited about it, though, and helped find pebbles for her face.  Matthias got all bundled up and came outside for a little while, too.

For Christmas, Zach made me a magnetic chess board to hang on the wall next to our magnetic scrabble board.  It looks lovely, but I am awful at chess.  Bryan and I are experimenting with different handicap options so that he has to work a little bit to win.

In dance class this week, Miss Lyn apparently had Gretchen's class plant imaginary flowers.  Using only their imaginations, they planted the seeds and then, according to Gretchen, they grew REAL flowers.  But Miss Lyn got to keep those flowers, and Gretchen wanted to have some of her very own, so I played along and told Gretchen that I had some spare imaginary seeds in my pocket and she could plant those at our house.  Of course then she planted her "imagination seeds" all over the living room and was very upset when I wouldn't let her water them.  That night on the way home from orchestra, I stopped at the store and bought several bouquets of fake flowers and a few bricks of flower foam.  Bryan and I cut the flowers and bricks apart and planed a little imagination garden in the living room.  We also left some flowers in the bathroom, because she'd planted seeds there, too.  Gretchen was beside herself in the morning, and told me, "Mom, my imagination seeds grew!  They grew into real flowers!  You did not think they would, but you were wrong, they did!"

Pictures:

Oranges are good toys:

Playing in the snow:

Gretchen's imagination flowers:

Reading on the heating vent: