Snow time

Jonathan wanted to go outside yesterday and wanted me to join him. So I bundled up Annisia, set her in the stroller, and went out. I shoveled the walks while Jonathan helped with his hoe. He likes to help, can you tell?

Annisia just had a good time. She wasn't concerned at all with the chilly wind or the snow blowing in her face when I shoveled into the wind.

And then it was time for Jonathan to give Annisia a ride on the deck. A good time was had by all...

Annisia's crawling!

Well, Annisia is officially crawling.

She seems to enjoy getting around. Do I? Hmmm...it certainly makes life interesting. Jonathan thinks it's cool sometimes, but not if it means he has to defend his toys more often!

So, do you see the little tongue thing she's doing about 5 seconds into the video and again at about 22 seconds? Looks like a little lizard, doesn't she? I wonder what that's all about... It makes me laugh every time I watch the video.

Fixing, Hiding, Chewing, and Riding

Jonathan is hard at work fixing our deck table. He's quite serious about all of this "carpentering". Notice his tongue is out (evidence of a concentrating carpenter), he's wearing his hard hat (evidence of a safe carpenter), and he's using a wrench (evidence of a carpenter who is willing to try anything to fix what's broken!) Pay no attention to the hammer on the floor (evidence of a carpenter who really doesn't take very good care of his tools) and his Pooh truck parked very close (evidence of a carpenter who has a very short attention span and may need a quick getaway!)

Sunday morning, Jonathan decided it would be fun to hide in Daddy's bathrooom cabinet while wearing Daddy's robe tie around his neck. I think this is the first time he has actually accomodated me when I said, "Smile!" It's such a cute grin, don't you think? Oh, and never mind the tools strewn carelessly on the bathroom floor (evidence of a typical 2 1/2 year old flitting from activity to activity.)

Annisia looks so sweet in the cordouroy dress and matching tights from my dear friend, Debbie. She thought the horses were pretty neat, but the Legos were better to chew on.

"Mommy, I want to ride on you!" Jonathan loves to jump on us and get rides. It's a good thing he only weighs about 26#! Here's one of those rare photos of Mommy. Ladies, remember to have your husbands get pics of you with the kids sometimes!

Motorcycle, Loader Tractor, and Go-Go Car

Look what Daddy found buried in the snow! Jonathan was SO excited...if you click on the pic to enlarge it, you can sort of see his big eyes and oooh mouth. It was so fun to see his reaction...just pure joy that his toy was under all that snow.

Daddy got part of the deck cleared then needed to leave for work. Jonathan had about a 2 foot corridor the length of the deck to play on. That's one way to keep him where I can see him! He came to the living room door and said, "I want my loader tractor, Mommy! Then I can scoop snow." So I dressed for shoveling and got to work. I knew right where his loader tractor was, but had to dig it out from under 4 feet of snow. His thrill was worth it!

That afternoon, Daddy cleared the rest of the deck off. Look what else he found. A go-go car! That's what Jonathan calls it. Here he's trying to pull it out...lots of effort and grunting, but Daddy had to help in the end.

Let it Snow!

Here's the results of the latest snowstorm. This is the south side of our home. You can't really tell, but there is a 3-4 foot drift all along the decks. The windows were covered in snow for 2 days as it was blowing so hard. It took most of the day these pics were taken for the snow to fall off the windows.

This is the north side of the house. We usually get some fairly large drifting here as our prevailing wind is from the north. But these are the largest I have seen since living here.

This is our south deck by the back door. You can see where the railing is supposed to be on the left side of the picture. There's a chair, a kids car, a wagon and a grill covered, part of the reason the drifting was so high.

One small step for Jonathan, one large step for kidkind. Sorry, my first impression when I saw this pic was that Jonathan looked like an astronaut! Anyways, the purpose of the pic is to show the snowdrift (to the right). Michael had to work pretty hard to clear the sidewalk. The snow was actually about another foot above Jonathan's head here where he's standing.

Scary!

We had a scary incident on Monday eve. Jonathan had been running a fever all day, around 101 degrees. He was to Gramma's for the day, but not really himself she said. We got home and were getting dinner ready. He was whiney and I knew he wasn't feeling well, so I went over to him and hugged him. His cheeks were very red and he was HOT, much hotter than he had been when we had gotten home 10 minutes earlier. So we took his temp...104.8! Michael said we should get him to the hospital, and sat down with him. Within a minute, a tremor went through Jonathan's body, then he got kind of blank, his eyes rolled back and he went limp. To make a long story short, he had a febrile seizure. A trip to ER and overnight in the hospital with an IV started our week. Keep on top of those fevers, moms! It's very scary.
And, on a lighter note, this is why Annisia's hair is always in a clip!

Kids and their toys

Here is Jonathan with his loader tractor he got from Aunty Janice and Uncle Paul. He loves it! He is so proud of Uno (the monkey...story in a minute), because he is able to sit on the loader. He says, "Good boy, Uno! You're sitting on the loader. Good job!"

OK, Uno is a character in a Graeme Base book called "Uno's Garden". Uno is a little man who goes to a rain forest and decides to live there and the result of that. Lame description, very neat book full of things like sneaky snagglebites, lumpybums, and snortlepigs. Graeme Base is a great author...any of his books are a must. Anyways, it's actually amazing the resemblance between this monkey and GB Uno character...Jonathan amazes me sometimes with his comparisons.

Annisia enjoying the Wall Street Journal personal journal. Ah yes, I do remember this stage with Jonathan. Finally mobile and into everything...

Jonathan with his "pull". A pretty neat horse trailer, if you know what I mean!

Here he has his manure spreader hooked up too. What an imagination! Can you tell he loves to be out to Gramma and Papa's?!

One day, he was playing on the deck. Daddy moved one of Jonathan's many vehicles so Jonathan could "maneuver better". I said, "Whoa! New word, Jonathan. Can you say "maneuver"?" He was quiet for a minute then said, "Mom! Teo pooped. And Thunder pooped too!" These are two of Gramma & Papa's horses. We laughed so hard, then had to tell him "maneuver", not "manure"!