It's not Nebraska.....

But we were very surprised to wake up and see the snow. Right after breakfast George set out on his customary rounds, whacking away all ice. (Why? Who knows.)





Here's Charlotte, bundled up and ready to join in the fun.



It was all gone by noon, but they sure made the most of it!

A visit to the toy museum; other odds & ends

During spring break we went to the Toy and Action Figure museum in Pauls Valley. It's small but the kids had a great time. The main exhibit depicts a bedroom that has been taken over by hundreds of action figures.



Charlotte was entranced by this grouping, and spent a long time lying on her stomach looking at it. She described the four figures in front as "baby, mama, boots, boots."







Isaac, George & Alex on a dinosaur. Although the museum provides lots of costumes for dressing up, George and Alex brought theirs from home. (George supplemented his firefighter's outfit with a knights' head covering -- he thought it made a great fire-resistant hood.)








Here we are building in the Lego room.











*********************** back home ***********************



Charlotte loves the frog pull toy.














You can't tell by looking, but I'm reading a book that George asked for!












Charlotte was taking her baby doll and Mama Ooof for a walk when she ran across the Teletubbies. As it turns out, the stroller accommodates Po and Tinky Winky as well!

Let us eat cake!

Dean and the children made me a German chocolate cake for my birthday. We bought the special "German chocolate" bars, only to discover that it's just chocolate with more sugar, and the cake recipe is any old chocolate cake recipe, with less sugar. Only the coconut filling/frosting is special.

George decided it should be in heart shaped cake pans, "for love." He also thought it should be decorated to look like yarn, because "Mama likes yarn." You got that right, kiddo!



Mmmm, coconut filling.

George and Charlotte put in the candles, too.


It looks like yarn (and love) to me!

Happy Birthday to me!

For my birthday, we went to the zoo.




Charlotte loved the zeebas.


This rhinoceros is about 7 weeks old.


I think they'd like to ride on the real baby rhino, too!

Meerkats!



I think these wild dogs are beautiful. They were very active, so we felt lucky. Often when we go their cage looks empty.

It was a wonderful day, and we all had a great time. But a trip to the zoo doesn't leave much time for baking a cake -- so they put it off until the next day ("Happy Frosting Day," according to George).

Blogger is not uploading my pictures right now -- who knows why -- so I'll put the cake pictures up later.

Sorry, Roy.

I promised Roy a pair of sleigh driver's shagged mittens for Christmas -- just the thing for snowblowing, he thought.

Well, that's a hyacinth pushing up in the background, and that's the first mitten in the foreground. It looks like these will be ready in time for NEXT winter.








Here's what the back of the mitten looks like, fully shagged. These will be really warm! But if I ever make a pair again, I won't make the base mitten black. It's really hard to see where to sew the shagging.

I've been following the weather in Ames, and I don't think there have been too many snowstorms. What else can I say, except, "Sorry, Roy."

We made a rug!

George and I wove a rag rug to put by the kitchen sink. Here it is draped over the bird tray -- it's just too dark in the kitchen to take a decent photo.

The rug is made of strips of blue jeans, sewn together. I got a couple of boxes of these strips when the Firehouse Art Center closed down their fiber program, so we got to try out the process without having to prepare the rags.

It was fun though a little stressful for both of us. George wanted to fool around with the loom and didn't care much about maintaining an even beat. And he didn't realize that it would only take a couple of hours to weave; he remembered the blanket we wove last winter that took months. So he was really disappointed when we were all done.

Next we are thinking about making dish towels.