l"aaaaa"te spring snow and, yes, amalea is 5

(get it, b"aaaaa"...out like a big, puffy, white lamb, or something like that.) 

we had a super marvelous last day of spring break surprise today when we awoke to 6 inches or so of perfect packing snow. amalea and mom promptly headed outside to shovel out of the stuff and have a bunch of fun, namely chucking snow at one another. amalea created these snowsisters, her and isabel. "isabel is the big one," clarified amalea. 

amalea has been the big 5 for a short while now. on her birthday morn, she got the glorious mostly pink bouquet here. 

on the day after that, she celebrated with a sumptuous 6-layered chocolate delight with pink polka dots. she shared with her friends. we still have tons of cake in the freezer. do you want some?

class of 2022

UNBELIEVABLE! that is almost all there is to say. unbelievable.

amalea registered for kindergarten today. she is rapidly becoming rather old.

baldy beauty queen and bald eagles

isabel is lovingly referred to as the "baldy beauty queen" for rather obvious reasons. here she is after our rather futile effort to form something resembling pig-tails with what little wisps of hair she does have. most of her hair is situated there at the sides behind her ears and at the crown of her head and base of her neck.

amalea had flowing golden locks in comparison. here she is 3 years ago but at the same age of 20 months as isabel. a lot hairier.
yesterday, after the baldy photo shoot at home, we moved on to another baldy. we traveled to the mighty mississippi river in search of bald eagles. in fulton, il we located lock and dam #13 and were spellbound by the majestic flying beasts. there were hundreds of them hunting in the frothy water. this is the best shot you'll get of any flapping action, though, as our camera is not of the national geographic telephoto type.

the LOOOOONG week of christmas

this is the beginning of our long week of christmas. here we are visiting a nativity scene. we are all looking off-screen in hopes of serenity coming to us in some other way:

monica - loves doing these kinds of enriching seasonal things for her daughters and look at what ends up happening (just look at the forlorn look on her face) 

amalea - it is way too loud in here (volume setting cranked up high on the christmas music playing cd player behind that innocent looking golden winged angel)

isabel - stranger danger (this is an action shot, she is crying and struggling)

this is isabel rubbing her distended tummy after eating a TON of little smokies (itsy-bitsy hotdog things). we discovered she loved them earlier today on a trip to the local costco. she saw them being cooked up and retorted when we just passed them by. we had to return and get one for her. and then another. so we bought a package. at home we cooked up some more, and served them up with a toothpick as a utensil. the toothpick came in useful in more ways than one. isabel had been saying "boom-dee" lately about seemingly random things and we didn't know what she meant. after eating the little smokies isabel held up the toothpick and said "boom-dee". the toothpick had a bent tip (from her rapid rate of eating). mom asked if boom-dee meant broken and isabel said "boom-dee" in response. now we just need to find out what "tent" means (no, not a camping reference).

isabel threw up shortly after taking this photograph. she hasn't eaten a little smokie since.

isabel does love dress up after all. this is her dancing about on the night of our warr-waldron christmas. later this week she even dressed up with amalea in various princess dresses and then the ultimate, a fuzzy puppy dog costume.

christmas eve, amalea shrieked out, "i turned my tongue green!" indeed she did, and her cousin gabe decided to follow suit but in red instead. here are the two all decked out with their holiday tinted tongues.

now the real excitement begins. isabel has been saying "santa" all week. this year amalea snuck downstairs before all of us and scoped out the place. she zipped back up to announce what santa brought for her and for isabel.

jason predicted this. the photo explains it all.

life always turns out for the best and here is proof. 

amalea expressed deep gratitude for her tiny wiggle-heads (and continues to do so almost daily). she has a great appreciation for miniscule treasures. these things are tiny, and have already been lost repeatedly, requiring much searching on hands and knees in the deepest and darkest depths of our home by mom. 

isabel loves, loves, loves babies. she has been abducting amalea's bitty baby from its cradle right out of amalea's room. she's not very sneaky, though, and amalea ends up catching her and thrusting her quite roughly out, without the doll of course, and shutting the door, to add to isabel's complete devastation. so here she is nurturing her own bigger girl doll in its bathtub, with its own crib close by. 

ama takes on interior design

amalea proudly announced this morning that she has decorated her room. when questioned about what she had done, she simply stated "i decorated my lamp with spiders, a naked baby, a fairy, and baby Jesus." the combination was so unique...we decided to take pictures.

here's the lamp

and the naked baby...who knows where this came from

the "fairy" or angel...this one looks like it's part of the lampshade

and finally, baby Jesus...sitting atop a little tea cup.

the girls and the trees

here's the yearly under the tree shot taken today. yes, those wide-open mouths were emitting various high-pitched squeals.

here is the photo from last year (which was taken on the 30th as well, pretty nifty). both remarkably snugglyish. isabel was yikes big-eyed from the camera flash here though. 

this is amalea decorating the little tree on the day after thanksgiving. she's really wrapped up in the work as you can see. does the tree or amalea have more garland on it? speaking of trees, amalea saw a tree farm during our travels on thanksgiving where the trees were all within a fenced off area. her voice had a hint of sympathy in it as she said, "those trees are captured."

now, here is isabel and her famous "cheese" pose while lending a hand in the entire tree building process. she always says cheese when you pull out a camera. how appropriate that she has a slice of cheese in her hands. 

the fully decorated little tree. amalea wanted to see mom's doll collection, and then came across her own set of porcelain dolls for a themed christmas tree. so she immediately had to go about getting this tree to become a reality. dad took her out to pick out the perfect little tree (and the golden garland as seen above). here is amalea's masterpiece set up in her room. she ecstatically exclaimed, "now i don't need my night light!"

happy halloween (finally coming to you on veteran's day)

to celebrate halloween this year dad took the day off and spent it at home with the girls. we were all outside promptly at 4 o'clock to kick off the afternoon of trick-or-treating. the girls delayed the collection of candy for just a bit to pose next to our spider and tangled web.

since halloween was on friday, it was quite all right if the sugar, from the excessive amounts of candy both amalea and isabel consumed, continued coursing through their tiny little bodies and didn't wear off until the wee hours of the night. naturally, amalea was able to keep going strong. we tried to slow her down by diminishing her eyesight with these horrendous glasses.
our littlest morning person fell sooner than her big sister, so we had to wait until the next morning to slap the glasses onto her.

jason proudly boasted of his "this is what i do when i babysit the girls" trick. swaddle them tightly so that they are physically unable to move about and cause mischief. see, don't they look angelic, they are smiling and look quite content.

and then further incapacitate them by putting on those glasses. yet they're still all smiles!