Snow Days

We have finally gotten a big snowfall. Living 14 miles outside of Salem we usually miss all the snow that Rolla gets. I love snow and don't feel like I have had a proper winter if I don't get a couple of good snowfalls. (Consequently, I never had a real winter while living in Virginia.) We got a few inches of snow right after Thanksgiving, but have only had lots of flurries with no significant accumulation since then.


Until this week...Monday afternoon it started to ice. Basically, little balls of ice, instead of snow fell from the sky, would that be sleet? It continued to ice for the next 24 hours. Then it snowed. We now have about 2 inches of snow over about 2 inches of ice balls. It is deliciously white outside!

Here are a bunch of pictures to commemorate the event:Here is Edmund getting his bundles on. Amazingly enough he didn't ask to go to the bathroom once the whole time we were playing outside. I had thought it one of the laws of nature that as soon as a child had all his bundles on he had to use the bathroom.

This is Jaired and Nathaniel. Nathaniel is under the blanket.

Here we are walking through the woods to my in-laws' house to go sledding. That is Justice walking behind me with his surcoat on. (I'll blog about his surcoat some time.) Notice how you can still see the grass and stuff through the snow.

Here is my wonderful and beautiful mother-in-law, Mary.

This is where we went sledding. This is the family's pond. In the background is the dike, which is what we sledded down. On the Flexible Flyers we took turns sledding to see who could go the furthest across the pond. Ellie won, she made it about halfway across!

Here I am with Edmund. He was very apprehensive at first about sledding and wouldn't go down with anyone except me. He did let Jaired take him once.

After sledding, Edmund stayed inside with his Oma. He ate clementines and popcorn.

He also thought it necessary to have a picture taken of his foot to go along with the other sledding day pictures.

When we got back to our house Jaired built a fire which we enjoyed for the rest of the evening.

This morning it looked like this outside.

The ground is completely covered.

Nathaniel -- 4 Months

Nathaniel is 4 months old, today. He is healthy, happy, and fat! I have, however, discovered that milk bothers his little tummy. :( No fun, because I love milk and cheese!

Here are some pictures:

Both the boys were sick at the same time. Edmund loves his baby brother and tries to play with him, hug and kiss him, snuggle with him, and in general it is so much fun to watch them together. Nathaniel follows him with his eyes and smiles.

This is during a changing session on the changing table. If Nathaniel is crying it is an almost guaranteed cure to put him on the changing table and fiddle with his clothes or diaper. He smiles so big and wriggles and chuckles while being changed. The more things he needs changed, the better!

Dombey and Son

"Jo, I won't be taking all of Dickens with me to college."

For those of you who have watched Little Women, with Winona Ryder as Jo and Kristen Dunst as the young Amy, you will recognise this line. You may also have caught Jo mentioning Dombey and Son as one of Dicken's novels. The movie was for a long time the only place I had ever heard of this particular novel.

A few years back Jaired and I found The Complete Works of Dickens in Twenty Volumes at a library book sale. We got it for $20. This set was from a private library so does not have any library stickers, and though I did not see any publication date, the name plates inside have dates on them going back to 1938. The set naturally includes Dombey and Son. After looking at these books on my shelf for several months I finally decided it was time to read another Dickens and picked up Dombey and Son, simply because it was mentioned in Little Women. It has become a new favorite. Dickens tends to be dark; he writes about a lot of ugly characters, and though this book has it share of interesting characters: repulsive, silly, hangers-on, and the like, the main story line is about a sweet, innocent girl who wants nothing more than to be loved by her father. Try it and you might find that you like Dickens after all.

Here, on the right, is Dombey and Son; its neighbor is Bleak House, another wonderful story, which Jaired just finished reading. (I have not read this one, only watched the BBC production.)

Nathaniel

You are all perhaps wondering, "doesn't Tracy have two babies, why have we only heard of one?"

Well, at 3 and a half months old Nathaniel is not doing a whole lot worth blogging about. He still sleeps a lot, but besides that does mostly the usual baby things.

That said, there are some things to tell about him regardless. He has rolled over once or twice on several different occasions. It has gone from Accidental Roll Overs While In Dire Distress to Purposeful Roll Overs. He is only able to do it from tummy to front and only two or three at a time. But it is an exciting step in his development. Here he is getting ready to go over.
It is often amazing how, even at this young age, one is able to see marked differences in character/personality between children. For example, Edmund did not begin using a pacifier until he was about maybe 5 months old, I can't remember for sure, but he definitely was not using it at three months. Nathaniel on the other hand is quite attached to his pacifier and we are in big trouble if we don't have one with us where ever we go. Nathaniel came down with a cold on Tuesday. Poor little guy, his nose is runny/stuffy and his eyes are red and watery. Yesterday was the worst, so I hope that means he is on the mend. You could just look at him and tell that he was feeling miserable! What a trooper, he is. So it is plenty of sleep and a liquid diet for my little sick boy! ;)

Edmund's piano

This year Edmund got a piano for Christmas from his grandparents. It is really a very nice little instrument. It is a "real piano," not anything electronic. It is chromatically tuned, the chime-like notes being produced by hammers striking steel rods as apposed to taut wires as in full-sized pianos. The keys are the same width as full-sized pianos, to help the child's hands learn proper "finger stretch" from the very beginning. Edmund loves it and once he gets a little older we plan to teach him to play it using the song book and key guide that came with the piano.