Animals

Animal Sounds
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

Just watch this!

Favorite stocking stuffer...toothbrushes!

Both brushing teeth
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

Both girls were very excited to get new toothbrushes in their stockings. It's funny to see what ends up being the favorite of the many little things that appear in the stockings.

Merry Christmas

Dancing and smiling
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

We had a very nice Christmas with Nana, Bob-Bob, Auntie Lolly, Uncle James, Auntie Kara, Uncle Kyle, Grammy and Grampy. It was good to see everyone.

Santa was very, very good to the girls. We put some pictures on Flikr and will post some more on the blog soon.

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

Happy Hanukkah! We had a really nice holiday this year with dinners with friends, latkes at home and lovely presents. Mommy and Sadie taught Sadie's class about Hanukkah and gave each child a dreidel to take home.

In honor of the last night of Hanukkah, we lit all of our menorahs. That is Mommy's menorah from when she was girl, Mommy and Daddy's menorah, Sadie's menorah and Helena's new menorah. Usually, we just light one or two each night. It was bright and hot, but very pretty, with all of them lit!

Happy Hanukkah to all!

Sadie's Birthday Party

This is a bit overdue, but I still wanted to share some pics from Sadie's birthday party. Thank you very much to Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Bob-Bob for coming up to help and share the fun with us!

Beautiful banner painted by Miss Liz, party leader at AVA Gallery in Lebanon:


Cutting out a butterfly with Miss Marley:


Painting with her friend Claire:


Helena enjoys the party from the sidelines:


Snacks while Miss Liz shared a story:


Blowing out the candles on her cake:


Mommy's triumph...the Barbie Cake!


Enjoying the cake:

"Electric Couch"

game
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

Sadie and Helena are playing a game invented by Sadie entitled "Electric Couch". The game is played by bringing electronic toys onto the couch and pounding on them simultaneously for several minutes, then switching toys and starting again. A variation is "Electric Game", in which an assortment of electronic toys are dragged into the computer room and all activated at once.

These games are pretty headache-inducing but both girls really have fun.

Snow Sisters

Snow Sisters
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

We're home today for a snow day and decided to go outside for a little while. Sadie's school was closed and after some of my students cancelled, I decided to cancel the rest. It's just too snowy to head out. Both girls had a great time playing outdoors, although Nellie was ready to go in a lot sooner than Sadie was!

Thanksgiving Cute

We're busily preparing for Sadie's birthday party, but wanted to share a cute picture of Helena from Thanksgiving.

She loved this little rocking chair at Grandma and Grandpa's house, which was mine when I wad a little girl.

Happy 5th Birthday, Sadie!

Sadie is five years old today. We can hardly believe that our little baby is such a big girl. We are so lucky to have such a smart, sweet, funny daughter. We love you Sadie!



We started the day with some birthday gifts. Today, Sadie will have her special day celebration at school and tonight we will have a birthday pizza dinner with Isaac and his family. We also had a birthday celebration when we were in NYC and Sadie is eagerly awaiting her party with friends this coming Saturday.

Happy Birthday Jenny!

jenny and sadie
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

We wish you a wonderful birthday! Have a great last year as an unmarried woman.

We had the best time with you over Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family. We are thankful to have all of you.

Some pictures from Sadie's super cute Thanksgiving Sing at school today:

Fall Festival

A few weeks ago, Nellie's daycare held a Fall Festival. Sadie and I went to celebrate with her and her classmates.

One of the activities was posing for photographs with fall props. The pictures came out cute, not fabulous, but still cute. It's nice to have pics of both girls together even if they aren't great. Helena's face is all red because they had just come in from the outdoor activities, once of which was eating donuts from a string. The combination of the cold air and having the powdered sugar wiped off her face...not the most flattering for pictures.

Thankful

Sadie is feeling much better today. She didn't have a fever overnight and is in good spirits and cheerful today. She's even starting to be hungry again! We're hoping she can go to school tomorrow...because she got sick in the evening of Veteran's Day, she hasn't been to school in a week.

Here are some pictures Sadie drew last week at school in anticipation of Thanksgiving:

A turkey with a big heart:


People gathered around a table to eat:

Helena's Favorite

Helena's favorite thing to play with is baby dolls. Happily, we have a good assortment of dolls, cradles, doll strollers, high chair, etc. She has been very focused on playing with "beybees" for several weeks now. Here she is earlier today, playing with a doll we re-discovered in the basement.



Sadie is still recovering from flu-like illness/H1N1. She's doing well and is in good spirits, but will be home from school again tomorrow.

We've Moved!

As you may have noticed, this blog is now located at http://www.mielcarz.net/ (due to the fact that netspace.org is shutting down next year). The transition should be seamless for most of you, and your old bookmarks and links will work until the end of next June.

However, to be safe, those of you who know how to change your bookmarks/links should use the new address as soon as you can. Those of you who don't know how to change your bookmarks (cough...Nana and Grandma....cough) can ask me to do it for you next time I see you.

And now a little headbanging Sadie from the archives:

Quotable Sadie, again

"I'm lucky...I got to get it up the nose!"

(Referring to her H1N1 nasal vaccine)

Sadie was delighted to avoid a shot. Helena did get an injection, but she didn't even cry that much. We're very pleased to have both girls vaccinated. Still no vaccines for the adults in the house, but I am happy to have the girls protected.

Quotable Sadie

While looking over her Halloween candy:
"I'm not going to eat this candy bar. It says 'butt'."

(Both Mom and Dad are happy to eat the unwanted Butterfinger!)

Trick or Treat

Sadie had a great time trick-or-treating with her old friend and new classmate Katie.



They were totally undaunted by the rain.

The little sisters were just fairly puzzled observers.

More Halloween

Happy Halloween!

DSC_0080
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

Happy Halloween from the Flower Fairy and the Bumble Bee! We had a great Halloween and hope you did too. Lots of trick or treating and lots of candy.

Sadie: "I CAN have this Kit-Kat in the morning, because it's mostly a cookie, not candy."

More pictures coming soon.

Pirate Girl

This past weekend, Sadie's friend had a pirate birthday party. Pirate costumes were optional (pirate gear would be provided at the party) and Sadie didn't express much interest in a pirate costume until the day of the party. However, with the party approaching rapidly, she decided she did want to wear pirate clothes.

Luckily, we have lots of dress-up gear and were able to rig together a Pirate Girl/Pirate Princess type outfit.



Outfit components:
black t-shirt and tights
2 tutus (I picked the ones that were ripped for a tattered pirate look)
sleeve puffs from Sleeping Beauty costume
lots of dress-up box necklaces
Mommy's brocade belt
Mommy's scarf as pirate headdress
Rainboots



Sadie was delighted, the costume got lots of attention at the party and the party was super fun!

Homecoming Fun

Bad weather didn't stop us from enjoying Dartmouth's Homecoming this past weekend.
Bonfire night:




The next day, Grandma and Grandpa came up to visit. The men went to the game and Dartmouth actually won! The ladies went to the birthday party of one of Sadie's friends.

Sunday was good weather and we said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa, ran into friends in Hanover and walked around Occum Pond with other friends. Sadie walked the whole way with very minimal complaints...1 mile!

It was a really nice weekend.

Hello again!

Sorry for the lack of posts! We have been busy here. Since the last post, we had a great visit from Liz and Mike from California. We had such a good time with them. We also all had Flu shots and Sadie went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch with her class. Her insight from the trip, "Next time, I will remember to hold my pumpkin from the bottom because I held it by the stem and the stem fell off, but don't worry, I still love my pumpkin with no stem."

Nellie continues to eagerly copy Sadie's every action. She is very, very interested in all of Sadie's art supplies, drawings and written work from school. So, we decided to let her try drawing with crayons. She had a lot of fun.


Then, she decided to climb onto the table:


So pleased with herself!

Science

Sadie and Helena check out the leafcutter ants at the Montshire.

The new dinosaur exhibit is up. Dan and I thought it was awesome, Sadie was a little freaked out and Nellie was not interested. We'll go back...I think Sadie will like it better the second time.

15 Months

Helena, Mt. Kearsarge
Originally uploaded by Dan and Ann

Helena is growing up. She had her 15 month check-up yesterday and was 50%ile for height, 30%ile for weight. Everything looks good and she is meeting all her milestones. Poor baby got 5 vaccinations and was very grouchy yesterday evening, but slept 12+ hours last night and woke up in a great mood.

Our favorite development lately is her language. It is so fun to watch her learn new words and also show that she understands us. If you ask her to get something and bring it to you, she will usually do it. Sadie especially loves this.

Field Trip

On Friday, Sadie's class took a field trip to Poverty Lane Orchard. We had a great time picking apples and seeing how cider is made.






Lots more pictures of our fun on Flickr.

First Conversation

This morning, in the car, as we're about to drop Helena off at daycare:

Sadie: Bye-bye my little cutie darling!
Helena: Bah, Ay-dee! (and waved)

Sadie was totally and completely thrilled.

Exciting Friday

It was a cool and windy day yesterday. Helena was napping and Sadie was relaxing on the couch with an after-lunch movie, when we heard a very loud sound and all the power went out. Our willow tree had blown over, hit the roof of the house and rolled down the roof, landing in front of/on the house.





Nellie slept right through most of the excitement, including the arrival of the firemen and police, with sirens. Sadie was startled by the loud noise from the tree falling and then quite worried when the firemen came into the house to check for damage and inspect the powerlines. Fireman Dan was extremely nice to her and soon put her at ease.

It was quite a scene for a while as we had police cars, firemen with their trucks, two trucks from the power company and a guy from the tree company all checking it out.

The sheriff came by later to make sure all was well. Luckily, everything is fine. Our insurance will cover all the tree removal costs and the pretty superficial scratch damage to my car.



A tree crew arrived within two hours of the fall and cut up and chipped the entire tree. It was pretty fun to watch them at work. They gave Sadie a branch of the tree and a slice of the trunk to bring it to school for Sharing Time.

Power was restored, as was cable. The phone is working, although the phone line is drooping down over the driveway and won't be fixed until early next week. The rest of the tree will need to come down within the next week or so.



And that was our exciting Friday.