The Salad Days

When Grampy was here to watch Sean a couple of days ago, they made up a game called "Mr. Blur". Here's how it worked: Sean would run by as fast as he could, and Grampy would take his picture with his cell phone. Sean thought it was so cool, because he was a half-invisible blur in all the photos. He has always said that he can run so fast that no one can see him - now he's got the photographic proof!

During our Christmas break, we all headed out to a park in Amesbury to go sledding. This was Carter's first real time sledding - before this, all she'd done was the snowbank next to the drivewat that the plow guy makes. She was a little nervous and whiny, but it broke the ice, and she did MUCH better when we went sledding again a week or two later.

This happened almost two weeks ago, but I've only now been able to really talk about it. Our dog, Paige, passed away just after midnight on January 9th, 2011. On January 8th, she wouldn't eat and just laid around all day. That night, Lori took her to the vet just to make sure everything was ok. When they examined her, they found that she was anemic and bleeding internally. Just one day prior, she had been fine, and playing outside in the snow with us. But the vet said that the kind of tumor she had can grow and grow undetected, and cause her no symptoms, and then suddenly cross a threshold where it starts to bleed. This has been very hard for all of us, because it was so sudden. I always thought that she would get old and sick before the end, and we'd have time to prepare for her passing. She's been a part of our family for so long, I am still not used to the idea that she is gone. We adopted Paige when we moved to Texas - until the kids were born, Paige WAS our family. She will be greatly missed.

Santa got Sean a cheapo video camera as one of his Christmas gifts. I was unsure of whether or not he would enjoy it, but so far it's been a big hit. He loves making movies with it, especially since I got him a much bigger memory card for it. I'll look through it this weekend for some better stuff, but here is one of the first videos he made right after I opened it and showed him how to use it. It's pretty hard to watch visually, because he hadn't learned yet that you need to hold it still while recording. But the audio is pretty funny. He's just showing us, the audience, a bunch of what he and his sister got for Christmas.

A week or so ago, we had our first snow of the season. It was probably less than a inch total, but it was really sticky and the kids somehow managed to make a pair of snowmen anyway.

This is the best example of a snow angel I've ever seen one of our kids make. Apparently, having a half inch of snow and doing it on the driveway is the trick.

Sean asked if he could try the camera the other day, after watching me take some pictures for a while. Out of the dozens of random photos he took, I really like this one. Carter was bouncing on one of those balls that you sit on and hold the handle. He caught her mid-bounce.

Maybe it's just because it has been getting cold these days, but the girls have been extra cuddly with each other lately.