the fort

here's nina's snow fort, as promised! turns out the camera cable was right next to me last night, not upstairs like i thought, but the camera was still in my coat pocket in the closet (you know, right next to the spoon and the candy), so it was just too much to organize last night. not that i have much more energy tonight, but i did drink some tea after dinner. crazy tuesday night!!

anyway, here it is:




she threw 6 snowballs at me, i threw some at her, and then she was done and it was destruction time.



there's one happy kid!

(unlike her sister, who has taken to calling me her enemy. i mean, emeny. and tonight, she put her hands on her hips, pouted, and told me "i'm so mad at you!" when i told her she couldn't go downstairs to get her book because i'd latched the gate).

the girls have a new favorite movie

on friday, i went to a friend's house for a moms' night out. nick stayed with the girls and they watched a movie--ace ventura, pet detective. or as the girls call it, ace the keeper. maggie actually fell asleep watching it, so i got to stay out late (9:45!!). when she woke up in the morning, she immediately asked why i'd left her, and then launched right into an explanation of ace the keeper. he makes his butt talk! he put on a tutu! he walked on bubble wrap! and he thought a shark was a dolphin and said, "do not go in there!" it was too funny.

we got a few inches of snow overnight and this afternoon, nina built a snow fort. she was so excited about it. i would attach pictures, but i'm too tired to get up and download them. tomorrow.

snow day!!

what fun, a snow day today!! well, it was kind of fun. we didn't get to be outside in it much, because it was snowing all day long. and windy. drive the snow into your eyes and neck snowy/windy. maggie hates this kind of weather, so she begrudgingly was out in it long enough to get to grandma's, but that's it. nina and i stayed out for a little while, but once she started to get snow in that gap between her boots and her snowpants, it was immediately over for her too. good thing grandma had some hot cocoa, potato chips, and cartoons ready! seriously, these girls live in little kid heaven.

after cartoons, they played upstairs for a while, and eventually found some old dresses of mine and vanessa's to dress up in. maggie wore vanessa's dark blue old prom dress, and nina was in the dress i wore as a bridesmaid in bethany's wedding. it was tea-length on me, but floor length for her, and strapless. nina loved it, and wants to wear it all the time.

mom thought it looked adorable too, but not for a real party. "you're too young still to wear a strapless dress," she said.

"grandma," said nina, "you're forgetting. i'm six and a half years old!"

haha! six and a half!

it was like the other day, when nina was hot and decided to wear her old swimsuit all day. "isn't that suit getting a little small nina?" said nick.
"no!" said nina, "it's not too small!"

"whoa!" i said, "that's a conversation i wasn't expecting to have for another 10 years!"

ba-dum-BA!

back to school!

well, i guess all good things must end. nina's back as school, and maggie and i had to deal with missing her all day. :-( worse, we had to deal with getting up at 6:30 in the morning again! i think all 3 of us were sleepy today. well, maggie fell asleep nice and early tonight, but nina had a headache and was still coughing, so it took her longer (about 8:00). hopefully that'll be enough for her to wake up refreshed tomorrow.

maggie and i had a mellow day. we made some yellow playdough, played with that, visited with her friend Hattie for a bit, picked up nina and the girl i tutor at school, came home, and i tutored while the girls played with the playdough. maggie was pretty calm and even-tempered, and nina was really quiet because she was so tired. oh, and maggie doesn't drop the f-bomb on us anymore. she says "fudge" and "fudging" instead. she came up with this substitution on her own. i'm so proud of her?

a birthday party today and family movie night

tonight's movie is maggie's pick. she picked a my little pony movie. nick elected to take a shower instead (say, that's been some long shower!). i think he just doesn't want to watch the movie! bad nick. he doesn't know what he's missing; i'm loving the bad queen's bronx accent. haha!

earlier today we were at a friend's son's second birthday party. the girls had a good time, but nina started to feel sick again at the end. her temp's been about 99.2 since this afternoon. hopefully she starts to turn the corner soon! poor kid.

not much else to report. tomorrow is the last day of vacation! oh my!!

still loving school vacation week!

it's so fun having nina home all day. look at the smiles on her and maggie's faces! i wish i could just keep her home all the time, but she doesn't want me to homeschool her. :-( she says she likes school too much! not fair!! nina is my sweet little girl, and i don't want to share her with her teacher! well, i'm glad she likes it there so much, and very glad she has such a wonderful teacher. maybe maggie will want to stay home with me... she hasn't made too much progress on separation (well, there's dance class, playing over at her friend hattie's house, the occasional activity with nick and nina, like swimming at the Y, and going to grandmas). actually, she has made a lot of progress, hasn't she?! i offered to leave her and nina home today while i went to the grocery store, but maggie was having none of that. nina jumped at the chance though, she hates the grocery store. well, anyway, we'll see what the future brings. sometimes it's easy to forget that maggie is only three and a half.

ah, be still my heart!

i've written about princess celestia, yes? the pony that maggie and nina wanted for months and months and finally got for christmas? when you push a button on her, her wings light up and she say one of maybe a dozen phrases. well, today nina wrote down everything she said, in order, so that she would be able to know what princess celestia was going to say next. my little scientist! i was so proud of her!
unfortunately, when we played through the phrases again, they were in a different order. nina was so disappointed! she really wanted to put a barrette in princess lestia's hair (as she is also known), and have her say "my barrettes are so pretty!" fortunately, it turns out that celestia just repeats two versions of the list, so nina only had to record the other version to figure out exactly what she will say. it was just too cute. when she was done, i saw nina sitting on the couch with princess celestia, brushing her hair, and then pushing the button so she would say "i love it when you comb my hair!" what a sweet, wonderful, fun child!

then, there was maggie, who told me at dinner that i'm "from the planet dumb." thanks girl, i'm going to remember that one when you're a teenager. well, i in fact am not going to remember it, but that's what i have this blog for. so sometime, maybe a dozen years from now, i will re-read this, remember that night at dinner, when you started off by being a cute robot from the planet snurf, and it devolved into me being from the planet dumb. good thing you're so darn cute!