We woke up to a blanket of thick wet snow. Art and Lewis were thrilled. Jessica heard Art wake up early and walk to the window. Then, “Lewis….LEWIS!”
“What, Art?” said a sleepy, now awake Lewis.
“Look, Lewis, SNOW!”

Jessica has been going to sleep early lately. Earlier anyway. Her normal routine (when I’m at work) is to put Art and Lew to bed, feed the girls, then head to sleep by nine or nine thirty. No TV, no facebooking or emailing, just sleeping. and no blogging either. Which is why you may have noticed less posts by her as of late. I have time at work and at home late after folks are in bed to post stuff.

Anyway, back to the snow. They kids got up, dressed, and played in the snow for a half hour before oatmeal was ready. We usually go to ECFE class saturday mornings but Art refused, instead wanting to play in the snow and go sledding. So I went on my first solo outing with the girls to ECFE and jess went sledding with the boys.

And, as a tired Jessica just told me over the phone, Lewis had trouble falling asleep and cried quite a bit cause he was worried the snow would melt.

Uncle Dick’s pix.

Dick just posted some photos on facebook from the brunch we had last week in celebration of Bubbe’s retirement. I ripped them off facebook to post here. thanks, Dick!

Bubbe and a baby.

Lots of girls on a couch.

Aunt Jessie holds her niece.

Alert! Alert!

Left to right: Bailey, Netta. Right to left: Netta, Baily.

Lewis loves his Mama.

A few days ago Lewis and I were walking into the house together and he
said, "I love you, Mama." I said, "I love you, too, Lewis." He said,
"'Kay." The next day he said, "Kiss me, Mama, uh-I love you." Then
we hugged. I got another "I love you" last night. It's really nice.

Napper snapper.

Another nature day, another deer.

On Monday I took the boys to Woodlake Nature Center in Richfield. It such a wonderful spot in the middle of the city. Art and Lew love it. At one point we sat on a bench for 20 minutes eating snacks and breaking sticks by sticking them into the slats of the bench and pulling. It was a stick breaking machine.

And, as advised by a volunteer teenager there, we walked towards the southeast area where he was certain we’d see some deer. And we did. Art and Lew also stopped to methodically peel the entire bark off a fallen tree. It was so satisfying to see huge chunks of rotting bark fall from the tree like meat off the bone. Ahhh.