Proud big sister and a sleeping baby

quiet alert

Big eyes at home on day 3.

Spring has arrived

Aviva Angeline Rogel came on Saturday 1/31 at 9:40 am at a whopping 9.7 pounds and 22 1/4 inches. We're home and ok! Many more pics to come, I'm sure ...

snow angel

Yesterday it snowed and iced a bit, so we cleared off the car before more snow hit last night. It's crazy here and we are like the only people with power.

Couldn't sleep last night because tree limbs kept falling and waking me up and I thought we'd have to drive to the hospital in basically undriveable conditions. We didn't, though. And our pergola saved the fence from falling branches!

Even our cheap plastic patio table (mysteriously still on the patio) looks elegant.

As did Lilah in snowsuit and princess snowboots.

First snow angel of the season:

Happiness in the snow must have last a half-hour or so as we went to investigate the repair of downed power lines at a nearby intersection. Did I mention that we miraculously have power? We're going to make pita, then chocolate chip cookies.

Three days 'overdue'

At three days overdue we tried to encourage baby X to join us through some awkward downward dogs.

and squats.Before going outside in the snow and constructing Jabba the snowman (in foreground).

We had hopes of walking to campus, but didn't get far at all.

Super Kutz

There's a reason for this nervous look: I'm preparing to cut L's hair.

With giant kitchen scissors.

Country (on small rocking chair) is next.

Christmas trees, then and now

There is a very scary shoppe here in town that sells crap like Hummel figurines that we visited around L's first Christmas. In it was a beautiful fake palm tree with Christmas lights that I totally coveted, but it was unfortunately something like $120. M decided to make his own, and so did, for under $6 (or so he claimed). It stood proudly in our old home for baby's first Christmas. It's been on the fake fireplace in the basement since we moved into this house almost 3 years ago.

And usually that's where it remains, because we have gone to MD every Christmas. This year it came upstairs for a bit, but then was replaced by a REAL Christmas tree a few days before Christmas. The tree came from the Erickson home, as they left town for Christmas and didn't want to leave the tree in the house for a week (or, they took pity on our unpreparedness, or wanted to spread the Christmas spirit, or they are just really nice). So we got it, and bedecked it with homemade dough ornaments. This tree is the ultimate recycled Christmas tree. If I can get away with it, I'm planning to take the tree to be chipped into mulch downtown at some recycling event this weekend. Note the mismatched pajamas AND socks in this photo; the top is Spiderman, the pants Christmas lobsters.

On Christmas day the tree was definitely leaning but perhaps no one noticed because of the piles of presents around it.

Despite the smell of rot (that only seemed to bother me), it remained up all Christmas day and even a few days after, providing a seasonal backdrop for tea parties.

And new dollhouse moments.