Update

I know it's been exactly one month since I have posted. For a while I didn't write anything because nothing all that extraordinary was happening. . . school, cool kids, snow, walking on Wednesdays with a few of my friends, eating out every Wed. night, but cooking at home for the rest of the week, including weekends, and general busyness in taking care of life and teaching.

For a few weeks now I've known that I need to post, but I just have so much to say and a ton of pictures to upload from my camera, and the task is just too daunting. And I've had to actually work on teaching-related tasks during my spare time on the weekends.

Finally, the busyness seems to be dying down again, so I'm going to try to get caught up. The big news today is that I have booked a flight to Texas to see my friend Jennifer, and hopefully I will be able to see Tim's grandma and my brother's family while I'm there. Kate will travel with me, and I'm pretty excited to have some special time with her.

Ethan is growing, growing, growing. I looked at some pictures of him from six months ago and he's looking so much older now! He's really getting tall and can reach all sorts of things on the counter. One day over Christmas Break I made cookies with him. When I took them out of the oven, he wanted one right away, but I explained that they were too hot. Then the phone rang and I ran upstairs to get Kate while I talked. When I came downstairs, Ethan had moved his chair over to the stove so he could get his own darn cookie. I am impressed with his problem-solving skills, but it could have gotten dangerous.

Another day Ethan and I were enjoying a pear in the living room (by the way, Ethan can easily eat a whole piece of fruit on this own--a whole apple, a whole pear, a whole orange, etc. along with everything else he eats--his appetite grows daily, it seems) and when we were done I ran upstairs for something while Kate was in the jumper and Ethan just did whatever he does. Within seconds, Ethan came upstairs and urgently said something about the baby (he talks all the time, but I have to admit I can't understand al of what he's saying). I ran downstairs to find that she somehow had gotten the core of his pear and was gnawing on it. Maybe Ethan had offered it to her or maybe she just grabbed it from him as he walked by, but I was definitely impressed by his understanding that this could have been bad and that he came right away to tell me.

Tonight Tim is playing tennis for the first time since he won the C-Days tournament back in July 07. For the past two nights we've been battling it out playing Sequence.

Kate is still our smiley little girl. She sits up and loves to push up on her arms when I lay her on her tummy. She giggles and is growing, but I can't really think of anything amazing and outstanding that she's picked up in the past month. We just love her and are enjoying the honeymoon period of babyhood, when she can't move, she sleeps through the night, has a regular schedule, she smiles a lot and the best toys are spoons, measuring cups, and mama's face. I guess one interesting thing is that she has tried all sorts of baby food and tonight even Ethan got to help feed her.

Time for bed. Will post pictures later. . . there are some good ones! I've been enjoying facebook lately, as well as getting caught up on the lives of some old friends who now have blogs.

Oh, and I've been reading for my book club. Guess what someone picked for us to read. . . . an 800-page book by Leo Tolstoy. I've never read Anna Karenina and I'm not sure I want to start now. Actually, I have started it and it seems complicated. I'm all for trying new books, but I don't want it to seem like homework. Ugh.