We have a knock-knock joke around here that I made up last year for Art's benefit.  The person at the door is Dr. Who.  Dr. Who, who?  "You sound like an owl!" is the punch line and Art loved to tell that joke.  

This is a lovely photo my father took when he was in town a month or so ago.

We are disassembling the boxes in the basement and Art and Lewis have been helping. Well, Lewis actually just climbs in and out of them as the structure gets smaller, but Art has been using his lowest voice and most serious expression to help take the boxes apart. He gets his toolbox, chain saw and construction hat (that was my idea) and helps pull the boxes off. Or he pretends to saw them off. Or he hammers them. He’s been working hard. If only all his pretending made the process easier for me. Ah, well. It’s the thought that counts.

Art made a friend the other day while shopping at Cub. As Jessica noticed, neither spoke a word of English, instead resorting to excited yelps and sounds as they hid behind a pallet of Ramen noodles, butter pasta, and Cherrios.

I had a mini-revelation this afternoon. After the kids woke up from their naps around 3 we thought, what can we do with them? Go on a walk, to IKEA, sledding, go out and do something. But what we ended up doing was a whole lot of nothing. Just hanging around the house, cleaning and playing and bumbling and listening to music. It was totally lovely and wonderful to realize that the best and mostest funnest thing of all was to just stay home and spend time together.

Art’s “herd” walking through the desert.

After reading a book about dinosaur extinction that mentioned tigers being
threatened by deforestation (phrased in the most child-friendly way,
of course) Art was apparently quite concerned. He called me upstairs
half an hour after we’d said goodnight to ask,”How do we save the tigers from getting smaller?”I assured him it wasn’t the tigers that are getting smaller, it’s
their forest. “The tigers stay the same size,” I said.”For the whole day?””Yes. The whole day.”He smiled, yelped a little sound and snuggled in. “Goodnight, Mama.”

We’re hoping to enlist the kids, especially Arthur, into helping out with “chores”. Today Art set out napkins on the table (he often does this pretending to be a robot that Jess has to wind up) and Lewis helped put the forks out.

Art and I were pretending to be two wolves having a territorial dispute (according to Arthur).