Wintry Mix

Chicago's Snow Dump 2011 makes our winter here look like child's play. We've just been getting an easygoing 10 or 19 inches of fresh accumulation every so often, enough to enjoy making snow angels and then deal with a few days of slip-sliding around on Brooklyn's icy sidewalks. (Manhattan, meanwhile, is pretty much like nothing happened. You dress for Brooklyn and then look like a sherpa with unwieldy shoeware when you emerge in Manhattan.)

Here's our back courtyard - this is from last Thursday.

Birthday festivities continued this past weekend with two fun evenings with all four grandparents. Leave it to me not to get a picture of anyone but Rosie.

Real birthday cakes are long gone but R's wooden cake continues to feed and entertain the hungry critters.

Strange winter olympic sport, the junk mail toss:

Excited to wear / use new rain gear even though it turned out not to be raining.

Since last week we have been watching Annie -- the first half only so far, but several times. She doesn't get the plotline at all; the first time she watched it she got freaky upset when Annie went to Daddy Warbucks's place and kept moaning, "When is she going to go home?" I guess not surprisingly she's distressed by the idea of Annie leaving home without what she thinks is her mom. I told her it was just a weeklong vacation and then she calmed down...hopefully by the time we actually get around to watching the second half of the movie she will decide Daddy Warbucks's mansion is better than Ms. Hannigan's orphanage. For now she keeps saying, "We loooove you, Ms. Hannigan," but like she truly means it, not sarcastically.

Better yet we should just stop watching it for now but of course she is obsessed with it. I have caught Rosemary a few times trying to instigate pillow fights with friends just like the orphans do. And cleaning the floor! I think I can use this for good.