A monkey. A squirrel. One happy family.

I know. It's February and we haven't posted Christmas pictures yet. We celebrated once in Florida and twice in Missouri and then it was Ella's birthday and then Valentine's Day and we're already talking about spring break and somebody make time slow down already. Whew. My kids don't even look like this anymore! Everyone got their hair whacked off. Annie got a Peter Pan-inspired pixie cut and Ella didn't want to be left out. I'm just super happy not to be fighting with anyone over tangles anymore.  Annie lost her first tooth on Ella's 11th birthday. Big stuff happening. I can hear middle school galloping towards us with astonishing speed. Here is Annie just after she and Spencer finished making the batter for a blueberry bundt cake. (Note the awesome bed head.)  And a Valentine's Day picture! (Again: bed head.) We seem to respond to cold weather with baked goods. Hugs and smooches (and cake!) to you all.

From our family to yours. 

We made our annual trek to Starr Pines Christmas Tree Farm last weekend and found a little beauty in record time. After 60-degree weather and sunshine the previous day, the quickly plummeting temperatures on this particular morning came as a shock. We found our sweet tree quickly so we could get back to the hot apple cider as soon as possible. Happy holidays!

"Let's try a new philosophy this Halloween," suggested Spencer. In the past we've allowed the girls to eat a couple of pieces while out trick-or-treating, and then they can have a piece every night or so after dinner if they eat well. This means that by the time Valentines Day and Easter roll around, they still have Halloween candy, and this new candy gets mixed in with the old. We can't sneakily throw it away bit by bit, because these kids notice. It will be April and Ella suddenly wants to know where that package of gummy candy shaped like body parts is. Um, in the landfill? Consequently, we have way too much candy around (half of it stale) all of the time. This year, a local supermarket was offering a trade - bring in your candy the Monday after Halloween, weigh it, and get that much in produce/bulk items for free. Spencer pitched it this way to the girls: you can eat whatever you want on Halloween, then set aside 10 special pieces to save, and trade the rest...

I'm supposed to be doing some homework for an upcoming workshop on preserving digital archives, but my head is fuzzy from reading all of those acronyms. (OAIS! METS! ISO! Ugh.) It's much more fun to share recent pictures of the kiddos. Photo booth props - best $12 I ever spent. Here are the girls with our former neighbors who came by for a visit this MU homecoming weekend! MU homecoming parade! Shryocks Corn Maze fun. Sweet sisters.

This week Ella started her final year at Russell Boulevard Elementary. And this morning Annie started her first year there, entering kindergarten.

Annie holding Baxter  (son of my childhood friend, Beth) We just returned home after a trip to Oregon, the first time we have been back as a family since we left Portland in 2005. One evening, we were watching the kids play in Mt. Tabor Park, which is practically in our friends Beth and Darrell's backyard. With evergreens towering over us and Mt. Hood plainly visible in the distance, Ella asked, "Tell me again why we moved away from here?" It took me a full 30 seconds to come up with a single reason, but of course I did. We needed to be closer to our families. We wanted our children to know their grandparents. We wanted to send our kids to better public schools. And personally, I was kind of over the rain and the traffic. But, man. The physical beauty of Oregon in the summer? You can't beat it. And during this trip I loved having long conversations with old friends, meeting their new little people, and hugging their necks. The food wasn't bad, either. Hi...