Hey look at me - It's March 17 and I'm outside with no coat! And I love to be outside, there is nothing I'd rather do. Don't tell anyone, but my Mom closes the garage door as soon as the car pulls in, so that when I get out of the car I don't run out into the driveway and then refuse to come in the house!Hey look at me, I'm riding my bike, with no coat, and no mittens! I am wearing boots, but only because we still have plenty of snow and I like to crunch through it and splash in the puddles
Hey look at me, I'm wearing a sweater my Mommy used to wear, and I look so grown up that my mom keeps telling me I have to stop growing!

It's St Patrick's Day and we have had a great day. We woke to find that the neighborhood cat had visited and left a surprise on our front porch. The cat goes between our house and our good friends next door. It's always fun to see what "Kitty" has been up to when she comes back. Inside the large beer mug was an empty bottle of Jameson - apparently Kitty started the party last night!

I spent the morning in 1st grade cooking potatoes with 2 other moms. It was actually pretty fun although we felt like we were on a Food Network show, trying to cook about 800 pounds of potatoes in a tiny faculty kitchen with limited utensils. We probably cheated by sending one mom home to get a mixer to mash the mashed potatoes, but heck, we got the job done. 8 pounds of hash browns, 2 huge stock pots of mashed potatoes, and 4 trays of baked potato pieces. The idea was the kids were going to taste each kind and then the afternoon math lesson would be tallying favorites and making graphs. Maggie reports that they never got to that lesson because of the Irish Dance assembly in the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow. I was just happy that of the three options, my hash browns were completely devoured.

We had naps this afternoon and then had an hour or so to play outside as it reached 68 degrees today - Heaven! It feels so good to be outside!

On Sunday we visited the Mitchell Domes for their annual Irish Festival. Traditionally, I have been at work and Chris has taken the girls to this event. But we raced from Church to get there so I'd be able to enjoy it before work. It was very fun and the girls were so taken by the dancers this year that they will probably take an introductory class with the Glencastle Dancers this summer.

The past few weeks have been quite busy. The construction project at our church, which Chris is managing, is almost complete. But there are hundreds (thousands?) of details that have to come together at the last minute, so he's been spending a lot of time there.

On top of that, his students had 2 concerts in the last 2 weeks. Concert season is a busy time, but it is very fun for the girls to see Daddy with his students. All three sat very well through the 2 concerts. And they were rewarded by having some free time with the instruments after each concert.

Chris also received the exciting news that he was chosen as a Kohl Foundation Fellow, which is a very prestigious teaching award. As his principal explained to his students, "It's like winning the Super Bowl for teachers" Perhaps not the Super Bowl, but it is always nice to be recognized for hard work, and I think we can all agree that Chris works very hard in everything he does, Hooray for Chris!

And finally, after my last blog about farts, how about some poop? This evening, Abby came over to me saying "STINKY STINKY"

I offered her the potty, and she agreed and had success! Hip Hip HOORAY! YAY!

Knowing that we were about to go up to bed, I let her run around for a few minutes without her diaper on.

Bad choice!

A few minutes later, Katherine exclaimed, "WHO POOPED ON THE FLOOR?"

A post about Katherine....

I wasn't sure if I should share a story about farting on my blog, but a much more experienced blogger advised that it's my blog, and I will want to remember this story in a few years. If farting offends you, skip down to the pictures.

So, every morning we pile into the car and drive to the end of the block to wait for the bus. We could walk, but usually we are on our way to our next destination (preschool, gymnastics, etc) so we drive. Maggie's bus is NOT consistent. Its arrival varies by as much as 10 minutes. Some days we're barely there in time, other days we sit and wait for far too long.

Thursday was a sit and wait day. Abby was squirmy, so I tossed her the ipod. Maggie and I chatted about her day, discussing things in her backpack, that I'd be at work after school, yadda yadda. After the first 2-3 minutes of waiting, Katherine started wiggling and whining a little. I ignored it. Then she did it some more, and I asked "What's the problem?" After a bit more wiggling and whining, she said "Someone farted and it was Maggie and it smells bad!"

Maggie denied it, and Katherine moaned that it smelled so bad she couldn't stand it. She was wiggling, as if trying to escape her car seat. She looked like a tortured prisoner. I will admit the smell was not pleasant, but in the grand scheme, I've smelled much worse. She continued her wiggling and moaning about the smell until the bus arrived. When I got back into the car after getting Maggie out, the smell had intensified, and I wondered aloud if Maggie had left us one giant fart when she got out of the car? Katherine said she thought so.

But then, as I was helping Katherine out of the car, she let out a loud fart.

Turns out, she'd been farting all along, and just couldn't stand her own stench. She tried to blame it on Maggie, and failed. I wish I could have taken a picture of her face as she realized she was busted, it was just too classic!

Now, lest you think that Katherine's only claim to fame this week was her bodily functions, I will share with you one of her other accomplishments. While I was doing laundry, she asked if she could go up to get some plain white paper from the printer. We've been trying to discourage this habit, asking the girls to use the back of other paper for their drawing. She insisted that she was going to write a whole book, and therefore, she needed plain white paper. A little while later, she came to me with the following story.

Here is a girl and her house is on fire and she is sad and the siren is purple and the sky is blue.

This is the firetruck, but the firefighter is sad because she is all alone and she lives so far away from the fire and she has no other helper firefighters and her truck has a ladder and wheels.

This is the firefighter using her hose to shoot the water on the fire and she is happy because she put out the fire and saved the girl.

I think we'll keep her, farts and all!

As I was moving laundry loads this morning, I heard the sound of the game "Sequence" crashing to the floor in the other room. It's nothing new, or tragic, it happens most days. What cracked me up about it today, was that almost immediately I heard the sounds of little tiny feet running toward me, and Abby shouting at me with great concern, a mess of syllables that meant nothing.

"Abby, use your words, what do you need?"

"abba bhabba abba habba ahhhh MESS abba habba bhabba ahhhh GAME ahhhhh Help me please!"

SUCCESS! She can communicate her needs! And, it reminded me of the famous story about Joe when he broke Meg's piggy bank, and shouted to my mom, "Mommy help me *snort snort*" (Snort, of course, is the universal sound a pig makes)

Abby's growing language skills are thrilling me every day. She is a girl who knows exactly what she wants. And now, instead of shouting, if we can calm her, and ask her to use words, we can understand what it is she wants. HOORAY!

Aside from decreasing the amount of shouting in our house, it's also interesting for me to see how her brain works. If I asked you to describe something using a color word, I'm guessing you'd say "The Green ball."

For Abby, it's "Ball green." Or more often, when she's shouting for "COOKIE COOKIE" and you calm her and ask what it is she's screaming about, she'll say "Cookie circle" or "Cookie pink" The same works for crackers. "Crackers Letter" (Cheez-its with scrabble letters on them) or my favorite, "Crackers" followed by fish lips, her universal sign for fish. (Of course, Goldfish crackers!)

What do you like to do on a sunny Saturday morning? Today, while Chris and I cleaned bathrooms, Maggie and Katherine created a much more exciting game.

They built nests near the heat vents, and then pretended that Abby's 'Weebles' were bird eggs. Maggie and Katherine were mommy birds, sitting on the 'eggs' waiting for them to hatch.

They had an elaborate story about the eggs, and there was much excitement when they hatched. Luckily, the game ended about then, because I don't want to know what would have happened if the mommy birds had to feed the baby birds!

In other news, after dinner, Abby announced "POTTY POTTY" and then proved that she did, indeed, need the potty. She repeated this act about 15 minutes later. Yay Abby!

Happy Valentine's Day! We started making valentines about 3 weeks ago. Katherine quickly decided it was too much work, and went the way of store-bought. But Maggie enjoyed the artistic expression of stickers and stamps. She made cards for the 25 kids in her class. I thought I was ahead of the game by making them early, but was surprised when they had to be at school last week. We used up all of our creativity making those cards, and, while cards for Grandparents and other important people were started, they were never finished. Maybe by St Patrick's Day?

I also offered to bring a snack to the preschool party, and planned to bring popcorn to balance the sugar rush I expected. However, I hadn't thought ahead about how odd it would be to pop popcorn at 0800, especially after a rather busy night at work. And I wasn't sure how much to pop, so I made twice as much as was needed. Oh well, the girls ate the leftovers all day - maybe they'll eat more tomorrow. After school I finally realized why Chris says Valentine's is worse that Halloween. Our house was a disaster of candy, little cards, and assorted other trinkets that came home with both girls today.

I tried to get the girls to take a nice picture before Church on Sunday. But Abby only wanted to hold the camera and take her own pictures. I finally bribed her with a cookie - but forgot that Maggie and Katherine had already put on their new coats. Well, sometimes you take what you can get.

(In the picture at the top of the post, I bribed Abby with the ipod. Yup. Sad but true.)

On Saturday, when the temperature hit a whopping 33 degrees, we went outside to play. Chris took Maggie to a big sledding hill nearby. When he took Katherine 2 weeks ago, it was incredibly busy, so we didn't think it was safe to bring the whole family. As it turns out, they had the hill to themselves and loved it. I took the little girls to a nearby park where we used swings and slides. It was somewhat of a challenge for me to plow through the (more than) knee high snow to get to the equipment, made much more challenging by having to carry one and sometimes 2 children with me. But it was great. I took this video of the swings, because I loved Abby's giggles so much. I hesitate to post it because it sounds like I'm hyperventilating in the background. Really it's the wind, trying not to laugh, and yes, a bit of catching my breath after running, climbing, pushing, dragging, lifting girls in the snow.

(and in case you missed it, here is snow removal, Franklin style, for my nephews, and a little glimpse at our fun times post-blizzard, 2/2/2001)

Last Friday night, Chris treated us to a lovely fire in the fireplace. Of course, that requires a big plastic gate, which kills a bit of the ambiance, but it was a treat nonetheless. The girls made the most of it by asking to camp overnight by the fire. That idea was nixed, but a compromise of a picnic dinner made everyone happy.

And this picture is Super Bowl Sunday. This is a glimpse at what Halftime looked like. The Black Eyed Peas might not have gotten rave reviews , but we thought their show was great. We had a fabulous dance party.

A few other random tidbits.....

I took the girls shopping on Saturday to find Chris a birthday present. The mall was insane, and we ended up walking through the lingerie department of Boston Store to make it to a less crowded elevator. As we walked though, I heard Katherine say to Maggie "Oh, look at those pretty nightgowns, I wish I could have a nightgown like those!" She was referring to all of the lacy "pretties" on display for Valentine's day. Classy!

Abby has become a more frequent visitor to the potty. If she asks, I'll let her sit for a bit to see if anything happens. The problem is, she wants to sit for SO LONG. She doesn't get bored. She just chatters on and on, even if you walk away for a minute. She never stops talking!

And as long as we're talking about talking, tonight at dinner, Abby used her own had as a pretend phone, and made several calls, saying "Hi, how are you, ah, good, love you, bye bye" over and over. Hilarious, but also disturbing to see myself reflected back to me so clearly.

It’s a well known fact that the more you do a certain thing, the more it becomes a habit, making it that much easier to do. The same can be said for NOT doing something, the ‘not-doing’ becomes the habit, and it becomes so easy to continue the ‘not do’-ing. Sadly, this blog has fallen into the ‘not-doing’ category. I noticed mid January that it had been more than 2 weeks. And I told myself I would take January off; take a break. But here it is, more than a week into February and I’m struggling to get back into my groove. There’s no shortage of stories to share, just a lack of the ‘oompf’ to sit and write them out.

Stories like Maggie’s first attempt at fundraising for school. When I asked how she planned to ask her grandparents to sponsor her for the school ‘Knowledge-a-thon’ she replied “I’ll just say, ‘I need money, please give me money.’” We worked on a few, more subtle approaches, but in the end, that’s about what it boiled down to. She’s got a lifetime of fundraising ahead of her. I guess we’ve got time to work on her finesse!

Or, how about Abby’s first potty success? Well, success is a relative term. After removing her diaper before her bath last night, she started to pee on the floor. I quickly plopped her on the potty, and she finished her business there. The look of realization on her face as she did so was priceless. It was a look of “So THAT’S what you’re supposed to do?” She was very proud of herself. And her sisters were proud of her too, there was much clapping and shrieking. Never a dull moment around here!

(note to concerned readers, I know she’s not even 2, and I realize that winter is NOT an opportune time for potty training. I do not intend to train her at this point, but I do appreciate that she is interested, and that once the weather is warmer, she might be willing to learn!)

So there you go. It's a start. And I clearly have plenty of material. I hope to be more disciplined about writing. I wanted this to be a record of all those funny stories and memories for the girls. It won't be successful unless I actually write them out. So no more pressure to be eloquent, or have perfect pictures. Just committing to writing more often.

Yesterday, we went ice skating at the Pettit National Ice Center. The girls had been asking all Winter to go ice skating. The 400 meter, Olympic oval track has seen such greats as Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen. Now it has seen Katherine and Maggie Sepersky (with Chris). When we arrived, the Zamboni was preparing the track for us and about 500 of our ice skating friends. While waiting for perfectly groomed ice, we watched the figure skaters practice:

Once the ice was groomed to our high expectations, we took to the track ... And quickly returned to the spectator area. One dad with 2 flailing children was not going to work. Now, Maggie and dad have been ice skating before, but you wouldn't know it. So rather than abandon hope, we opted for "practice" - one daughter would sit on the bench next to the track while dad and the other girl walked about 20 feet up-ice and skated back. Then we switched. Repeat for about 30 minutes. Finally, Maggie was convinced to keep going without help. The problem was ... once you start around the 400 meter oval, there's NO TURNING BACK!!!

Maggie performed many triple-salchow-double-axels, landing graciously every time on her bottom. After about 50 meters (did I mention the oval is 400 meters?), the girls wanted to turn around. Daddy informed them that the rules are that everyone keeps going one way.

Once you get around the first curve, there was a breakspot (Hallelujah). We pulled over and the girls wanted to walk back. Again, daddy told them the rules said you have to keep skating - no walking back. Katherine replied "Where is this rules person? You SAY you know all the rules, but I don't think you know all of them!" Here is a picture at the breakspot.

After returning to the ice, an employee took pity on us and gave the girls a 1-minute lesson. This may have given Katherine too much confidence because for the last 300 meters, she wanted to do most of it on her own. We competed bravely in the 400 meter, completing ONE LAP in about 45 minutes. I'm not sure what kind of medal that gets us, but there sure was a lot of celebrating at the end. The girls did not want to do another lap at that time, but do want to go back again.