January 3

Tonight kind Mrs. Berryhill sent a trio of things home to my kids and every one was a huge hit. There was a giant roll of kraft paper, a roll of masking tape, and this keyboard. The kids went from drawing pictures to tapping out "songs" on the keyboard and back again. Even Will wanted in on the action.

Unrelated thing overheard from the other room today:

Claudia: "Emily, guess what."

Emily: "What?"

Claudia: "I love you no matter what."
Emily: "Huh?"

Claudia: "I love you no matter what."
Emily: "Oh. Me too."

Claudia: "Uh."

This was all done in a completely matter-of-fact way.

January 2

Here are the bathroom drawers that Eric just finished rebuilding and making the fronts for. Next up laying tile!




Also, here was the random thing that we put in our notebook today. I think it is a pretty good example of the kind of thing that amuses us around here.

What's Your Favorite Word? (borrowed from Word Girl on PBS)
Emily, age 6: "Love, because I love everybody."
Claudia, age 3: "Elephant, because they're big."
William, age 11 months: "Uh!" No reason given.
Kate, age 35: Memorandum, just because I like the way it sounds. Memorandum."
Eric, age 42: "Strange, because my family is strange."

January 1

Here are our posts for day 1. Clearly I am having trouble keeping with the one photo a day part, and maybe that's not a big part anyway.

These are mail cones that Emily made for the entire family. I think that she explains it best. "I make mail for everyone everyday and everyone has their own cone." These are the kinds of things that are taped up all over the house.

Here are the letters that each person received:

"Dear Eric, I love you. You will always be my dad. Love, your Emily"

"Dear Kate, I love you. You will always be my mom. Love, your Emily"

"Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Claudia. Happy birthdayto you. Love, your family" Her birthday is in April.

"Dear Will. I wish you a happy birthday. How was your party? Love, your family" His birthday in January 14. There haven't been any parties yet.

Project 365

So it seems that this is the big thing these days: to take a photo a day for a year and see what your life looks like in between the birthdays and the holidays. I already take a lot of photos but I figured that it might be fun anyway. In addition to the photos we are starting a notebook where we (I) can jot down funny things the kids say or interesting (or uninteresting) things that we do on any given day. Place your bets now! I don't see myself making it until the second week of January.

Emily reads...

...everywhere!

Halloween!

We are all still alive although the absence of any posts here may suggest otherwise. Big changes have taken place around here: Will is cruising, Emily is reading, and Claudia is working on a career in stand up. All in all we are well.

Here are photos from this years trick-or-treat fest. I should note that when I just typed that I first typed trick-or-teat fest which, in all honesty, is what it was for Will.

Here is Will as Charlie Brown. Clearly it was homemade... hopefully is is less clear that it was made just an hour of so before we set out.

Here is Emily as Cinderella. I think her pose tells you pretty much what Emily is into in a nutshell. She is a very girly girl.

Claudia, on the other hand, is not all pink frills and that is a nice difference between them. She went as a dinosaur.

Here are all three on the front steps in our annual photo. We have yet to carve a pumpkin in any of their lifetimes. I'm not sure why that is. We collected a lot of pumpkins this year and not a one was gutted. New this year was the lask of random stuff leaning against the stairs in the picture.

After we went out begging we were treated to a tractor ride by or dear friend Ashlyn (and her mom.) Ashlyn was kind enough to trick-or-treat with us and we were thrilled to have her along.

The girls loved the tractor ride in a "I GOT TO DRIVE THE TRACTOR!" (Claudia) and "I GOT TO SIT ON THE FLOOR!" (Emily) way. Really? I'm not sure that I would think that the floor was as great as driving but I am glad for them that they did.

Loading up.

Emily, Claudia, and Ashlyn in the cab.

Claudia and Emily in the cab.

For Dean

For Janie I changed the answering machine message to include Will and now for Dean, since he called me to complain (and also to offer kids clothes) I have changed the description of the blog. In the interest of keeping things simple I will leave the address as simonsongirls (sorry, Will).

I am sure that this is just the first of many injustices Will will have to bear as the only boy in a family of girls.