Snow.

Just what I wanted.  Not really, but it is pretty, and the kids had a great time with it.  And now, Enough Already with the Snow!

Today was One of Those Days When You Wear Banana Skins.  What, you don't have days like that?  Well, actually, this was for a project in Katie's R.E.A.L. Science: Life (level one).  We are studying echinoderms, and the banana skin was to illustrate the way echinoderm bodies divide into five parts in various sorts of ways.  I can't say it was one of the most educational labs we've done, but the banana was good.

And here Travis is reading Katie my Least Favorite Book We Own.  Scooby Doo and the Disappearing Doughnuts.  We've had it since Travis was quite little -- I don't know how it snuck into the house -- and the kids love it.  Ideally I guess he'd be reading her Dickens or something else really good, but I'll take what I can get.

The top picture shows that the squirrel who used to wait humbly on the ground for the birds to drop seeds has decided that they are not dropping seeds fast enough and has changed to a more proactive approach.  The bottom shows a pair of cardinals.  It didn't come out very well, but I love cardinals in the snow in an evergreen.

The kids went out to play this afternoon, and after we hadn't heard from them for a while Ed asked me to see what they were up to....

Katie thought getting buried was great fun, but she needed help getting unburied and then a warm bath to defrost.

Poor Travis.  He wishes he had a brother who would bury him in the snow.

He spent the rest of the evening, until it was pitch dark, making a Pac Man out of snow.

Travis wanted to know, "Mom, why do you keep taking pictures of the trees?"  The reason is that I love the way they look with ice all over their branches, when the ice catches the light and they just look magical.  Only it turns out that that isn't such an easy thing to take a picture of.

And here is the finished Snow Pac Man, complete with a line of snow dots to gobble.  If only he would tackle his Latin with such enthusiasm!