There Were Four In The Bed, And The Little One Said....

The twins have ending up in my bed every night for the past eternity several days, and as much as I love snuggling with them, it's getting old. Even if they don't begin the night in our room, you can count on usually one, probably both of them thundering up the stairs in the wee hours, howling vociferously. It's come to the point where bedtime is so painful for me that I just let them begin the night in my bed and save us all a lot of trouble, especially when the other half is on night shift and it's just me, dealing with all of them.

But tonight I just didn't feel like it, so I sent them to their beds. They stumped to my room once to tell me they had to go pee, and were indignant when I told them they had to go back to their own room! But ousted they were, and I didn't hear another peep.

Naturally I assumed they had fallen asleep, but when I checked in later on, their beds were empty. And in the next room, this is what I found:


This is a single bed, by the way.

Cousins

Hmmm, in my memory we were the worst of nemeses...me, an only child, and her, an only girl in a family with 4 brothers, separated by 2 years and 2000 miles. During our semi-annual visits, I mainly remember jealousies and rivalries, but apparently it wasn't ALL bad!


Love you, Jen!

Snow Day

Seven inches of snow down on Saturday. Another seven expected on Tuesday night. Oh well...at least I don't live in D.C.

Headlines read: Washington shuts down, buried in record snowfall - Flights are grounded and power outages are widespread as the capital slumbers under more than 32 inches of snow.


Here, the roads were passable. The evening skies were breathtaking. And at least we had a little fun.


The kids did, anyway.

Backyard Visitors - Revised

Since most of my life is spent doing dishes, I might as well tie it in with something I enjoy! During these last few bitterly cold weeks, I placed two feeders in the tree just outside the window over my kitchen sink, a seed feeder and a suet cage. Then I set my camera up on the windowsill, and just . . . waited.

On sunny days, there is nonstop traffic at the feeders. In addition to the raucous blue jays, swarms of starlings, and flocks of grackles, there have been several delightful visitors. The Downy Woodpecker has been the rarest sighting so far.
The chicken is still hanging around. She loves cheerios.

The squirrels have been relentless in their attempts to empty the seed feeder. Sometimes I put out a pile of sunflower seeds, or mixed nuts (in shell), just to throw the pitiful losers a bone. I can't stand squirrels. Long story.




These are some of the best shots I've gotten so far. The picture should enlarge if you click on it.


Addendum: February 8, 2010

A GREAT day for backyard birdwatching! Three never-before-seen varieties made an appearance today: a female Downy Woodpecker, a Nuthatch, and an American Goldfinch! I thought the Goldfinches always migrated south for the winter! Anyway, I have no idea if this was a male or female, since their coloring is very similar in winter. The Nuthatch was a nice treat, as well. The picture in the center, without any notation, is of European Starlings who decided to maraud the feeders that day. And we've had several male house finches with their mating plumage.

The new pictures are a bit fuzzier than I'd like, but that's because my camera is on the missing list (Kids. Ruin. Everything.) and the one I used doesn't have the zoom capacity. Frownie face.

The Difference in Our Twins

Anybody with twins knows that there are a hundred little differences in appearance, personality, mannerisms, or temperament that allow you to tell your twins apart. I won't bother to list all of them here, but tonight, one of the differences became glaringly apparent.

I let the twins get into the magnetic alphabet letters, lucky kids. They usually aren't allowed to touch them, because then I spend the next week gathering them up from every corner of the house. They can learn their darn alphabet some other way, thank you very much.

Anyway, today I was glad that we have a double-sided magnetic easel and lots of letters. They really enjoyed themselves. Natalie carefully selected each letter and placed it, with precision, in neat rows. Alright, so her rows weren't very even. But she worked slowly and precisely and tried to keep them all facing in the right direction.


Now, go around to take a peek at Noelle's side.

WHAM! An explosion of alphabet soup! She beamed as she rearranged things to fit every last letter in there as tightly as she could. The entire board was filled with letters, facing every which way.


What does it MEAN?