Photo of the Week

Static Electricity

Luke and Cecilia Visit

Last Sunday, Luke and Cecilia came by for a visit with their dad. Cecilia is growing so fast, we can hardly believe it. She mostly sat on the floor and wached the big kids play. Elizabeth and Emily tried to get Luke to play with them, but for the most part, he was resistant to their pushiness and just played with their toys when they weren't really paying attention.

Emily tries to give Cecilia her teething keys.

Lee took the older kids for a ride on the toboggan in the backyard.

Dress Up

In further effort to keep the girls occupied last Saturday, I broke out some old-but-new-to-us dress up clothes, hand me downs from a friend at work. While I'm not overly thrilled with dress up stuff, Elizabeth and Emily LOVE it, so it was the perfect thing to surprise them with late Saturday afternoon, when they were just about to burst. Between the gowns, tutus and crowns, the girls were simply in heaven!

They were dancing and singing to some Beauty and the Best song by this point.

After you put on the gown and the princess slippers, a tutu on top makes the outfit complete.

And what's an afternoon of dress up unless you can get a little "air" - jumping off of a chair in the sun room...

Cupcakes are the Best

Last Saturday, Lee spent the day in New Hampshire visiting Memere and his parents. The frigid temperatures - below zero - limited my options for keeping Elizabeth and Emily entertained. So, I fell back on an oldie but goodie - baking. More specifically, baking cupcakes. Other than eating cupcakes, there is nothing the girls love more than baking cupcakes. AND this time, I got smart - when they started arguing about what color the frosting should be, I simply split the batch that I was making in half and gave them each their choice of food coloring. The end result - chocolate cupcakes, 1/2 with purple frosting, 1/2 with pink frosting - and all of them mmm, mmm good.

Notice the fine jewelry they wear for baking....

The mixer is a magnificent (and scary) thing.

Elizabeth mixes a ridiculous amount of pink food coloring into her frosting (above), while Emily keeps the purple more on the lilac side (below).

Photo of the Week

Sledding on Foss Hill

This morning, we went sledding on Foss Hill at Wesleyan with the new sled that Grammy and Grampy got the girls for Christmas. Lee hasn't even had the chance to wax it yet (he just brought it home last night), but it flies!!! It was so much fun and the girls, especially Elizabeth, loved it!

More of Elizabeth's Photographs

One of the things that we have really found interesting in looking at Elizabeth's photographs is how often she takes pictures of things, simply because they are important to her, or they represent something important that she is doing, or simply because they bother her. 

These two pictures are from an afternoon of baking muffins with Mommy.

She loves welcoming Lee home from work each morning.

She gets very annoyed at Ollie when he drinks from Rudy's water dish.

If you look closely, you can see the Beast (in his human form) kissing Belle - Beauty and the Beast is her all time favorite movie, it seems only normal that she would photograph the ending...

There are tons of pictures of these two neighbors' houses mixed in with her photos - we finally realized that she was trying to capture the sunset, her favorite part of the day.

A few of her many princess figurines.

Mommy, with her camera - go figure.

Adam, right before his wedding started.

She had a front row perch during the vows, but still managed to cut off Fabricia's head.  I guess it's all about the angle.

Groton Alumni Games

Last Sunday, we drove through the remnents of another snow storm (for those of you keeping count, we're 4 for 4) to watch Lee play in the annual Groton Alumni games. This is a great event fpr our family, as Lee gets the chance to catch up with some of his high school friends and the rest of us get the chance to see him play hockey (usually, his games are so late at night that we can't go). This year, there were more returning graduates than ever and we got to see a great game - made even greater by the fact that Lee scored two goals! The game was totally action packed, which not only kept the girls' interest, but gave me the chance to try my hand at a little action photography.

The beautiful and historic Groton School.

Lee is always easy to pick out in his green pants.

"Hi Daddy!" and "Go, Daddy, go" were the biggest chants from our section.

The aftermath of one of Lee's two goals - the other was a break-away and I was totally unprepared.

The annual after-the-game shot.

Skates

We got Elizabeth ice skates right after Christmas with the hope that she would take to skating and eventually hockey. When Lee took her to the free skate last week, she spent more time whining than she did skating. Not exactly what we were hoping for, especially as this is the prime age for teaching new skills.

Photo of the Week

He may have married Fabricia on Saturday night, but Adam is still Elizabeth's number one guy. For more wedding pictures, click here.

Invasion of the Furry Vests

During the first weekend in January, Fireman Dave and Miss Sara paid us a Christmas visit. Dave and Sara are good friends of ours with a reputation for spoiling the girls rotten (with affection and presents) and this visit was no different. Sara spent most of the visit playing with the girls (she even pretended to love the princess snow globes!) and even Dave got in on the action, after being coerced by Emily to read to the girls. Then came the presents - glamorous furry vets (with hoods), bracelets and princess purse/muffs (little purses that also muffs) - and they were a HUGE HIT. They immediately put their vests on and went outside to try them out; and those little purses are getting a lot of use. Thanks Dave and Sara! More pics here.

Miss Sara coloring with the girls.

Fireman Dave reading to Emily and Elizabeth.

Just in case you think that Emily is cute and innocent...

Opening presents from Fireman Dave and Miss Sara.

Emily with the entire ensemble (bracelet in hand, Dave is holding her purse).

Emily likes to claim that she is "cold" so that she can wear her furry vest - over her pajamas, while making dinner, you name it.