Sarah and Adam: The Next Generation

Jasper quotes

"You're not a builder, you're a shape detective. Mommy's a builder.
She's my sidekick!"-- Jasper, as Bob the Builder, to Adam

"It'll be the best recipe of the whole night!"--Jasper, after
requesting yogurt, applesauce, bananas, and Cheerios for breakfast

Notes from the snow cave

We've been snowbound for most of a week in a freak series of Seattle snowstorms that have left more than a foot of snow on the ground. We and our children are stir crazy. Send help!

We got balloons with "Winnie the Poopie" on them to entertain the boys. We played in an igloo tent, where Jasper was an Arctic fox and Sarah was "Mommy fox." Gus enjoyed painting and Jasper enjoyed making us paint for him. Gus fell off the couch on his head and Jasper offered him a bowl and asked if he needed to spit up.

We also had Chinese food and their first movie for Christmas Eve. We carefully chose the movie "Cars" because it has no villains and no really scary parts. We figured Jasper, who has such a long attention span, would love it and Gus would watch for a few minutes and then wander off to play. Instead, Gus watched steadily for more than an hour, and Jasper was terrified but riveted beginning with the loud car race during the opening credits. Jasper repeatedly asked for us to turn on a different video, but never left the room and moved my hand when I covered his eyes. As a measure of the intensity of the experience for him, he took a frosted cookie at the start of the DVD and held it one inch from his mouth, uneaten, for a full hour. He says, "It was a little bit nervous and a little bit fun. The parts where fire came out of the cars tailpipes were nervous, and the parts where they were cheering were fun." Gus liked the fire truck in the movie.

Sledding

We've been snowbound with the kids for 4 days now. Fortunately, Jasper thinks the snow is great fun. Gus doesn't enjoy himself nearly so much--he's uncomfortable with sledding and gets cold easily. But here's a little low-quality phonecam sledding video (with Jasper & Adam).

Albuze

Jasper enjoys naming things right now. He just named his stuffed frog "Lukey." And he had an email exchange with Aunt Jo: After Jasper had remembered that Jo & Marc's car is called Skylene, Jo emailed him with a picture of Skylene. Jasper dictated this response: "Dear Aunt Jo, I have pictures of my car and I have eyes on it. I have pictures of my car, Albuze."

Today when Gus had just woken up and Kittyman had come to say good morning, then Kittyman walked out of the room and Gus said, "Kitty going. Kitty gone." Also, Gus can recognize several shapes including circle, square, and "starfish.

Recent quotes

"Ho-lee mock ah woah nee [holy macaroni]" -- Gus

"[a plane] takey off" and "[Jasper] wakey up" -- Gus

Soda from a shoelace

Today, out of nowhere, Jasper interrupts a conversation that Adam and I are having about our new nanny, and says, "Sometimes, I just pretend to drink soda from a shoelace."

Also, new photos are up online. Due to an outbreak of a dreaded parasite, we all have significantly less hair. Gus is especially adorable - he looks like the biggest bald baby ever now! (It's especially funny since he is really such a little boy now, talking in full sentences...)