Ed. His Day. It is ALL about him. Well, almost.

Katie was eager to do All the decorating of Ed's cake. I mixed and baked and cut the layers apart, but she mixed up the grape jam with the raspberry liqueur, spread it between the layers, and did all the frosting and decorating. And I think she did very well.

It says "Happy B-day Dad" because I thought she might not be able to fit in all of "birthday" on one line. She liked the idea of using abbreviations (we've been studying them in grammar) and thought about going with "D" instead of "Daddy." But that made us think of "Big D" (as in, Dudley Dursley), so she decided to compromise with "Dad."
Travis got Ed a Bon Jovi cd. Katie was just so excited to see her daddy open this present.
And Ed was very happy to get it. In fact, he was so eager to listen to it that he drove to the Walmart in the afternoon to buy us coffee and dishwasher soap, both of which we were completely out of. (In case it isn't obvious, he likes to listen to his music while driving the car, by himself, so that he can turn the volume way up.) So the cd turned out to be a gift to the whole family, because the roads are too slushy for me to drive on, but no one around here would have been happy tomorrow if I woke up to no coffee.
And here is Ed opening his gift from Katie. She had the bear, but made it "new" by giving it a very lovely blue bead necklace. Ed is a lucky fellow.



It rained all morning (and the basement is still dry!), and then started snowing around one. It was a nice heavy snow, and it went on for a couple hours, and finally it looked like there was enough for the kids to use their snow boards. But I needed a shower and to put away some laundry, and by the time I was ready to take the kids across the street the rain had started falling again. Between all the water that was already on the ground and the rain that was falling, the new snow was quickly just slush.

Of course the kids didn't believe me when I told them that they'd quickly be soaked and frozen (and I felt like a total rat for not having taken them when the snow was still falling), so we went across to the park anyway. They did each have one really good slide down the hill. But then they were wet and frozen and wanted to come home, so we did. Then Katie thought that her feet were frozen into her boots because they were so cold and she couldn't get them off, and she wailed until I got the boots off and shook out all the snow to show why her feet had been cold. Then they both wanted hot showers at the same time and the hot water ran out. Then we all sat down and had some more cake and felt better.So here it is, March 1, and still looking like winter to me. But we have coffee and left-over cake (though not as much as you would expect), and book group is postponed from tomorrow 'til Friday because of the weather, so let is snow!