Water Park Fun

We're off for February recess this week and went to the Great Wolf Lodge (hotel and indoor water park) in Niagara Falls, Ontario for a few days.
At first they were just big ole chickens - content to go down the little kiddie slides.
They became a bit more brave and tried the bigger kiddie slides. Then I had to bribe them with cash! $1 for each new slide they went on - the good little capitalists got some spending money for the arcade!
Then onto big kid slides - Lewis was by far the most adventurous. He went down the *really* big slides in a double tube with me. He was so bummed that he couldn't go down the Vortex, which Lewis refers to as "the toilet flush." When he's 6 inches taller, he's there!
Elizabeth was the biggest party-pooper. She prefers her feet firmly on solid ground.
We had a GREAT time!

Chickadees and Sledding

If you're very quiet, the chickadees will land on your hand and grab a seed (we found out they especially love peanuts, which another bird watcher gave to the children).
The girls were patient enough to get the birds to land on their gloves. Lewis just kept yelling "come here little woodpecker" and chasing them to offer a peanut!!
After an hour of feeding the chickadees, we went to another park to try some sledding. For the first time, the kids wanted to really sled down big hills - they were always too chicken to do it before! They LOVED it and stayed for a long time, even though it was SO cold. We had such a fun day.
Seeing little Analise flying down the hill on a sled was a riot! They slept well that night!

A great read

Memoir is probably my favorite genre to read. Jesus land is a powerful book about race, adoption, love, and religious fanaticism. I gave it a 5/5 on my book log!

Global warming is over

Elly could not stop laughing about this hat I put on her!

Elizabeth acts as sled dog for Lewis while Frances and Ana make snow angels.

Frances stops to vogue while acting as a sled dog for Ana.

Good excuse for cake

I was organizing some photo files the other day and saw this picture of Frances' HALF birthday. Yep, we celebrate anything that brings cake to the table! 8 1/2 - my baby!

But Lewie wants to be a monster truck driver

MARTIN: OK, why? What's the big deal with Chinese children? Enlighten me, please, help me out.

ZAHN: You understand this better than anybody. Why don't we see more Americans adopting black foster children?

MARTIN: That's my point. What's the big deal with Chinese children? Why the infatuation?

ZAHN: You think it's something with the color of their skin? Is that what you're driving at?

MARTIN: Maybe they think they can adopt a smart kid that is going to grow up to be a doctor? I don't know. They need to realize that's called training, not just inherent, it will happen when they're born.

Angel, help me out.

MALDONADO: Absolutely. This is something I've been looking into for a long time. Americans have this love affair with girls from China. There is this belief, this perception, irrational as it might be that if you adopt a little girl from China, she's going to be intelligent, she's going to be more lovable.

MARTIN: Like the porcelain doll.

MALDONADO: We definitely see that idea of the beautiful Chinese little girl, as compared to do, they really want to adopt a black boy.

Happy New Year!

We kicked 2006 out the door! Come on in 2007!