i do not like green eggs and ham...

We were in full Irish mode for St. Patrick's Day since we both have relatives who hail from the Emerald Isle. (The story of Great-Grandpa Stewart is the most entertaining one - he actually managed to get kicked out of Ireland back at the turn of the 20th century!) I was thinking of my grandma (Anne Stewart, whom Annie is named after) who used to wear orange on this day to show her Irish protestant roots and to just be a little bit contrary.

Annie and Jonah both asked for green eggs and ham to celebrate so, being the kind mother I am, I indulged them only to be met with 15 minutes of complaining about how they didn't want to eat their breakfast. It wasn't until I threatened to never use food coloring in frosting again that they decided they were edible.


Now, who wouldn't want a green egg breakfast sandwich?


Since they ate their eggs, we had cake with green frosting (eaten on GG Anne's plates) after dinner.


No pinches for the baby.

sunny seattle sunday

Or, far too many pictures of the kids...

more snow!

We had more snow yesterday...not a lot but enough to drag the sled to Annie's school for a few runs down the hill.

and speaking of math

I find it amazing that my 6-year old is doing double digit addition and subtraction in school. I'd say she was a genius but all her classmates appear to be doing it as well. They are also doing word contractions. I swear I wasn't doing those in 1st grade.

Last week she started reading chapter books "in [her] head." She's quite proud of herself. I think she's on her second Magic Tree House book.

OK. Now I'm just blatantly bragging.

I do have to say that the whole learning to read thing amazes me. The bummer part about it is that Joel and I can no longer keep secrets from her by spelling out words in front of her. She's on to us.

chinese new year

One of our favorite things about living on the island are all the events that are celebrated throughout the year. There seems to be an endless amount of excuses to close off the main street to traffic and have a party. This, we love.

On Sunday we went downtown for the Chinese New Year lion dance and parade. We're hoping that Zeke doesn't have a hearing loss after all the firecrackers and Jonah came close to panicking when the lion dancers got too close, but otherwise it was a fabulous afternoon.


Waiting for the lion dance to start.


Pre-hearing-damage Zeke squished up in his favorite cozy spot. Well, his second favorite spot. I'll let you figure that one out.


Lantern + name written in Chinese characters.


Mask + name written in Chinese characters.


China Doll Annie.

open house

Annie had her open house at school last week...


Reading out of her reading book. (I really should have something sarcastic to say about that last sentence.)


They are learning about balance and motion in science and she showed us how to balance 9 nails on the head of another nail. It was quite impressive.

6.5

Always a cause for celebration, Annie officially had her half birthday on the 1st.


Sounds like a good excuse for cupcakes to me.


Auntie Mary, Annie's godmother, even celebrated with us.

work day

Check out the section of fence that the wind blew over a few weeks ago. Joel and the kids spent an afternoon fixing it.

park pics

Warm winter evening bike ride at the park.


The sun was a bit too much...


so sleeping proved to be a better option.

12 birds of christmas

And now we'd like to present Annie and her fellow 1st graders singing the 12 Birds of Christmas at her school's holiday program. Technically, it was her post-holiday holiday program since she had 2 snow days in December and they had to postpone it until last week. Annie is sitting in the front row in the short sleeve white shirt. I'll pay $100 to anyone who can actually figure out what they are singing.



(Just kidding about the $100, Jason.)

merry christmas (a few days late)

 
 

aha!

I have discovered the secret to being able to cook dinner with three kids in the house:

In case you are wondering where Jonah is, that's the second part of this epiphany. He's watching a movie.

teeth (tooths?) 4 and 5

This post could be alternately titled "why i'm glad i didn't go to safeway."

With a little "help" from her brother, Annie has now lost 5 teeth. She lost her first upper tooth a couple weeks ago while she was at Safeway with Joel and Jonah. Joel, apparently perusing his deli meat choices, was not watching when Jonah punched her in the mouth and knocked the tooth out. He turned around to blood, screams of "I swallowed my tooth!" and "It was just an accident!" She came home and wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining why she didn't have a tooth under her pillow, pointing all responsibility at her brother. The tooth fairy took pity upon her and left three gold coins.

She lost her 5th tooth (another upper one) the next night while doing somersaults in the living room with her brother. Unfortunately, the tooth fairy ran out of gold coins and had to leave a dollar bill and a promise that she would exchange it for coins the following night after banking hours ended. Not really grasping the idea that three gold dollar coins is actually worth more monetarily than a one dollar bill, she ran into our room screeching "I got a whole dollar!" with visions of a new Webkinz dancing in her eyes.

Soon to come...a video of Annie singing All I Want for Christmas in all her lisping glory.

photos, photos, photos

dance fever

Joel took Annie and Jonah to Annie's school dance last Friday night. Evidently, Annie spent the whole time dancing with her friends and chasing boys. Jonah wouldn't leave Joel's side and they danced the entire time. Meanwhile, Zeke and I had a very peaceful evening at home.

random pics

From the past week...


Saying goodbye to Grammy & Grampy.




We really need a bigger bed!


Just chillin'.


Story time.


Sleepy time.

and now for some random pictures...

Because it takes me months to upload pictures off my camera.

At the zoo with Dylan.

First day of 1st grade. It was a bad morning. Something about her shoelaces not looking pretty enough after being tied.

A week later. You can see we've switched to non-lacing shoes.

Blackberry picking.