C-c-c-c-atch up.

My sister asked why I haven’t blogged for a long time.  I’ll tell you.  Downton Abbey.  I just started and haven’t quite been able to spend my after-the-kids-are-in-bed time any other way.  But I don’t want to get too far behind, so here are some quick updates.

Before I had Wyatt, Talmage and Orrin did the fun pinterest idea of glow sticks in the bathtub.  Fun fun and a bucket of rum.

 

It was Fasnacht time again, and I went to our little village umzug (parade) because Ethne’s kindergarten class was in it.  Just like Hazel’s class three years ago when we first moved here, and I was totally weirded out by this strange Swiss tradition.  It’s still bizarre three years later.  :)

Anyway, I had lost the paper her teacher sent home, and so I couldn’t read what she was supposed to wear, but Ethne told me they were stars, so they were supposed to wear yellow.  Well, they were stars, but they were stars on a black background.  Oh well—can I help it if Ethne is a brighter star than everyone else?  ;)

I loved this guy’s mustache, and the little Swiss flag on his cheek (that you can hardly see).  

It started hailing on us near the end of the parade.  (Also, if you want more weird Fasnacht pictures, here you go.)

This is a picture I took from our window (third floor) last Saturday before Brett and the kids all went off sledding.

This is my very good-looking husband talking on the phone.  I think it was church stuff.  I had just given him that haircut earlier in the morning.  It’s kind of hit and miss with me, but this time it was a good one. 

So, Jethro’s completely obsessed with military things, like tanks and particularly jets.  He knows a LOT about them.  And now it has been passed down to Talmage, who no longer will color or draw anything but tanks or fighting planes.  He colors quite a lot and is really good at it.

 

This is when Hazel dressed Orrin up as a green… something.

 

Then he had to come attack the teddy bear and untie her and save her.

And then they dressed up as princesses.

Yes, that definitely deserves a close-up:

Ha ha hahaaaaaaaaaa!!!!  That kills me.  Hilarious. 

Jethro was bored one day and made an idea cloud of things he could do.  It’s funny to me that he includes pinterest.  :)

The other day the girls and I made ice mandalas / ice wreaths.  I thought they turned out so cool-looking.  We hung them on our deck, and the sun shone through them beautifully the next day.  (That was a pinterest idea too, incidentally.)

On Valentine’s Day, Brett cooked me brownies in the morning and gave me this orchid.  I was shocked- but really, it was still done in Brett-style.  The brownies were odd (very good, but odd) because Brett can never follow a recipe exactly, and he made icing to write B+K on the top, and he added flour because it was too thin, and he hates icing anyway, so that was funny.  And then later he was saying that he wasn’t even sure that I like orchids, and that he HAD been going to buy me just a regular bouquet of flowers but couldn’t bring himself to do it because it’s just SUCH A WASTE OF MONEY.  Yeah, I figured that was why I got an orchid.  :)  But it was totally sweet.

 

In other catch-ups, the kids are out of school this week for ski-holidays.  That is extremely awesome because it means I don’t have to get up early to get them off to school.  Also, we talked Brett into taking Friday off and going somewhere fun with us.

Jethro and Brett went skiing on Saturday, and went down a different way and got lost and could have made their way back, but it was far away across really deep snow, and Jethro was totally tired out, so when they got to a road, he waited there while Brett hitchhiked back to the ski place and got the van and picked him up. 

Talmage gets on his snowsuit and takes the sled out to the hill at least once a day, which I think is great. 

Orrin is cute and funny and can say so many words now.  Spiderman is ‘mon’ and he said a two-word sentence the other day when he was playing with legos.  He said, “Guy boat,” which I think meant something like “The bad guy’s on the boat.”  I was so impressed.  :)  He can also climb out of his pack-and-play now (his bed since the crib went to Wyatt) which is not so great.

Ethne was sick on Saturday and puked a lot.  She was better again by Sunday.  She also lost her second bottom tooth.  Her reading lessons are going really great and she can read things like “He said, ‘give me a rock or a sock.’ so she gave him a sock on his nose.”

Hazel is almost always playing with her friend Jamina it seems like.  But she is a good helper with Wyatt.

Wyatt is handsome and perfect and pukes quite a lot, and wonderful and sweet and we all love him.  I have this picture that I was hoping will work for a passport picture.  It’s kind of fuzzy, though.  It’s fairly difficult to get a picture of a baby with his eyes open to look right at you without flailing his limbs around or making funny faces.

And I’m so glad January is over and the world is getting brighter and warmer all the time.  The ONLY sad thing is that clementine season is about done.  But I’ll take it for sure.  It’s so nice to feel a little more normal and energetic.  Health and sunshine are wonderful.

And that is my catch-up (although I do have more pictures still to post, so I’m not actually caught up after that catch-up).