It's snowing! a lot!

We are having a major storm here in the mid-Atlantic states. It's so great to have some real accumulation especially right before Christmas. We went outside to play in it this morning. Here are some pictures. Pancake LOVED it. Doodle did too, but it wasn't such a novelty for our seasoned little boy.

little progress

The most simple of tasks seem to take forever with two kids to care for. Yesterday my only goal was to send two boxes of gifts to DC. One family's gifts were already wrapped and in the box. The others still had to be wrapped and packaged. Between Pancake's two morning naps (she's not feeling well AGAIN), breakfast for the three of us, Doodle's requests to play various games with him, my shower, lunch for we three, and Doodle's desire to "help" with the wrapping, it took me until 1:00 to get the boxes post office ready. Because the boxes were so big I drove down to the post office and filled up the gas tank on my way. Then we walked along Main Street and bought another Christmas gift. The gas station, post office and one store made up our big outing for the day.

Since Doodle started school I haven't seen that much of my friends and their kids. It's kind of depressing. I think it's a combination of everyone's kids in school now and occasional conflicting schedules and the non-stop illnesses that keep invading our household. We aren't going out much. It's going to be a long winter.

Day trip to Long Island

The kids and I took a day trip to Long Island today to see my aunt and cousin who haven't met Pancake or seen Doodle in a long time. We had a bit of traffic on the Belt Parkway (the worst road ever) on the way there but none coming home. We went to the library where my aunt works and met her friends. They were great entertaining Doodle and acting appropriately impressed by his ability to write all 26 of the letters. Then we went out to lunch where both kids were very well behaved (even more noteworthy is that they were great in the car too). We headed home soon after lunch and were home in plenty of time to eat dinner with Mr. D. I am grateful that my kids are so damn good.

Here is a great picture from the diner.

pictures of Pancake

My mother hasn't seen the kids in about a month and asked me to post pictures of Pancake. Here are a few from our photo shoot this morning.

Quote of the day

Courtesy of Doodle (we were not sitting in the car at the time of this conversation):

Doodle: "When I'm 34 can I ride in the front?"
Me: "The front of what? The car?"
Doodle: "Yes."
Me: "Yes, when you're 34 you'll be able to ride in the front of the car."
D: "With you and daddy? And Pancake can ride in the back."
M: "When you're 34 Pancake will be 31 so she can ride in the front too."
D: "Okay."

I love how he can't even imagine a life that Mr. D and I are not a part of every day, and how he thinks all four of us will ride in the front at the same time.