Valentine fun, plus photos from way before.

First, goregous girlcousin fun from January. We had lots of good games and smiles and thoughtful conversations and it was *such* a pleasure to meet Elise and to get to see how grown up and beautiful Lindsey is.

Further down, there's a close up of some scones (on a pretty Spode plate, that has some matching smaller plates, which are now (huzzah!) the Valentine's Day China.) The recipe is from Natural Home magazine and was both easy and really good. I might add more cherries, and tarter cherries, the next time I make it, but my scone-savvy children ate these right up and although the dough was a little sticky the finished product was perfectly scone-like.

http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/Holiday-Ideas/My-Healthy-Valentine-DIY-Project-Recipe.aspx

We had a Big, Bad Storm yesterday - public schools were closed, my school was closed after noon, there was a ton of snow and wind, and so today is calm and peaceful and beautiful. I took Grace snowshoeing (Peter lasted about five minutes) and we went up and down several blocks. She had a good time, I had a good time, and then for no particular reason I ran seven miles in the snow. It turns out that this revealed several things to me: 1. Powder is just awesome to run in. 2. You do lose the trail sometimes, though. 3. Ice cream headache? Happens in non-ice cream situations, where you don't even have the delicious ice cream to make you feel better. 4. Stashing your water on a snow-covered bench in 30 degree weather is a great way to get really, really cold water. 5. Sometimes, your hankie freezes up in your hands, which makes blowing your nose its own little adventure. 6. Fleece running tights are God's gift to Nebraska. 7. Despite what you'd think, your feet don't get all that cold. 8. It's ok to skip the last mile. Finally, 9. The people who do 5K snowshoe races are on to something brilliant. It's now on my list (although it's going to have to be next winter.)

This - is a man with a plan.

For a couple of weeks, Peter has been excited about a plan at his preschool to make cool helmets out of old milk containers. I have to say, I was not prepared for it to turn out quite so... awesome. And fierce. Peter is full of guy noises lately - lots of random pretend gunfire/karate moves/vehicle noises. It's like living with my brother again, which is both heartening (because I like him, and he turned out well!) and amusing, because it seems to be deeply embedded in the Y chromosome. I was still a little nonplussed until I chatted with a buddy of Peter's from school recently, who showed me his Lego ship really proudly, and noted that "this is the place for the pilot. And this is a gun. And this, and this, and this, and this [rotates ship] and this and this and this is a gun. Those are all guns." So it turns out that both the nigh-obsessive interest and the accompanying soundtrack is part of the little guy lingua franca, and as far as I can tell it's part of the adult guy lingua franca as well. I refuse to blog on anybody's bodily noises, but rest assured that Peter is also fluent in that area of communication (both the various acts and the meta-conversation on those acts.) It's all good.

Non-chronological fun!

So I'm skipping over Christmas pictures, although we'll do those too, right to Birthday of an Eight Year Old, the First (first birthday party, and first 8yo). She's so big and tall and capable and gorgeous I can hardly stand it. There were gifts, and grandparents, and good clean cake fun, about which I must say the following: I made one hell of a beautiful cake, for a change. Usually my layer cakes are not things of beauty, although they're way tasty. This one was way tasty, fun to make (buy good chocolate! chop it up! make it into frosting!) and, if I may, *gorgeous.* It was like the pretty pretty princess of cakes. It looked like a layer cake ought to. I was pleased.

Upcoming blog fun: gorgeous nieces! (Prettier than cake, even.) Birds of prey! Out-of-order Christmas pictures! More running highlights as Mama starts training for a half marathon in the spring! More kid pictures as they continue to be cute in front of the new camera! The possibility of entertaining pressure-cooker stories as we get more adept with the new/old kitchen gadget! In short, all sorts of domestic fun, mitigated by meandering pedantic musings about whatever. It's a blogger's life, and it's a good one.

Dala horse fun!

So, it turns out that the Cultural Identity of Lindsborg, Kansas is to be Like Sweden, Only With One Main Street. On said main street, there are about a dozen Dala horses (for the uninitiated, they're beloved Swedish cultural symbols, of which we have some in our house that are little and wooden and painted and some that are printed on pajamas from Swedish pajama maker Hanna Andersson). These Lindsborg Dala horses are all painted according to a different theme, and so we had good reason to take pictures with each and every horse. This collection is but a sampling of fun Dala horse posing (caution: do not sit on the Dala horses! They are fragile and expensive!), all of which took place during the lulls in organized Santa Lucia Festival Fun. We were lucky that the day was warmish and sunny, and not really freaking cold as the weather has been basically every day since. Clearly Jesus, via the weather, was tacitly endorsing our Lindsborg pilgrimmage. Or, something like that.

We Lucia!

Yesterday I made the Nth batch of lussekatter, and today we had our home Lucia celebration. Peter was suspicious of his Starboy hat and ditched it pretty early on, but was keen to carry his wand (battery size AAA, requiring special trip to the store) and Daddy's coffee cup. Grace had the lussekatter, and I trailed along carrying the coffee carafe and turning on the CD of the Lucia music.

When I wrapped up some lussekatter for Gracie's playdate friend to take home yesterday, she was enthused (the kids put away a goodly portion right out of the oven) and Peter leaned over to tell her mother in a confidential tone, "We're a lussekatter family."

Next up, some pictures of the kids at various Dala horse locations around Lindsborg, Kansas... they were funny and creative and made for a good little project as we walked around the tiny downtown.

Lucia interrupted; it's shepherd time.

Peter's school nativity play was yesterday, and he totally rocked the shepherd costume. There was the standard Mary/Joseph/innkeeper scenario, and *lots!* of angels and *lots!* of sheep, and Peter and the two other shepherds brought new baby lambs to Jesus as gifts. (Awwww....)

Peter is loving his school, and it was great fun to see him singing enthusiastically along with his classmates, doing the motions, and generally representing the Orange Stars well in his shepherd capacity.

Starboy hat...

Aww, here's our small starboy hat factory in full swing! Peter was delighted with said hat, and had fun doing Lucia with Grace at her school. Because we were in Kansas for the actual Lucia day, and it's been hellishly cold, we haven't yet done the home/neighbor version of Lucia, but now that I'm slightly more caught up on Christmas cards and package shipping maybe we'll do it tomorrow.