Confused?

I live in a country where all the roads are twisty, but paths through the forest are perfectly straight and intersect at 90° angles.

Climbing trees

Alina has 2 weeks of vacation, we've had some nice days.  What better way to enjoy it than to climb trees?  Oh, riding bikes is nice, too.  Especially now that Tassia has figured out pedalling.

Soup

Recently, the girls and I have spent some time looking through a picture book that an elderly lady from our church made for me when I was little.  She must have spent hours cutting out pictures from magazines and ads, and pasting them into a book for me.  There's a page that's mostly dogs, a page that's mostly cats, a page that's mostly dolls, a page that's toys...  I loved it, and so do my girls. Looking at this book has probably boosted my girls' American cultural awareness as well.  They can now recite some advertisement jingles from when I was a kid, which explains why Tassia greeted me yesterday morning with, "Campbell's soup is Mm Mm good."  To which Alina responded, "Mama, what is cannibal soup?"  She later explained to me that she said "cannibal" because it comes in a can, but that did nothing to diminish the humor.

And so it begins....

Alina just got a phone call from one of her friends from school.  Should Thomas and I just get our own separate phone line now, or can we wait a few more years?

6 for Alina

Alina turned 6 yesterday.  We had 6 extra little girls over for a party.  There was lots of screaming and giggling, and a good time was had by all.  Alina apparently overdid it though, because when she came home for lunch she had a fever, so I sent her to bed.  Joy, joy.

Stamps

Just a reminder to those of you who know, and a heads up for those of you who don't: The girls and I have started a stamp collection.  So, if anyone out there happens to open their mailbox one day and find a real, live letter (I know, I know, who sends letters these days?) with a real, live stamp on it, and doesn't already have a stamp collector to save it for, would you think of us?  We'd appreciate it.

Whose woods these are

This last picture was composed and taken by Alina!