Dinosaurs and other bones

Free Sunday morning at the Harvard Museum of Natural History prompted some interesting questions. Like, "does it hurt when it eats us?" (looking at whatever giant swimming thing that is back there). Also found a large sulfur rock that matched Zach's sweater, and a couple rocks from space. But really, it was all about those dinosaur bones. 

Friendship

Only mild encouragement was needed for this. 

Ryan's Band-aid

 

Drumlin Farms

 

(Rakes)

Last week included 2 spring-like days. Unfortunately they fell on Thursday and Friday. But I was determined to get outside on Saturday, even though we'd fallen squarely back into winter.

So, dragged my family out to Drumlin Farms in Lincoln, where the outdoor walking is punctuated by warmer indoor spots, like a greenhouse with sprouting stuff,

and a couple of animal barns.

 

Along the way also saw some nifty caged birds of prey, one of which was chowing on a dead mouse. Whiskers and all. Also got to check out some roadkill pelts, including Zach's favorite animal du jour, the skunk.

 

Self-dressing attempt

Fail.

 

Snow Hats

 

 

The Dishwasher

My husband is a genius. Not only does he double as a battery-free portable calculator, but he somehow managed to salvage the dishwasher (one we inherited from the prior owners of our new house) avoiding recurring kitchen flooding, despite the following hurdles:

a) having no prior experience with dishwasher repair (hence the laptop)
b) getting the wrong replacement gasket from LG
c) having spare parts after putting everything back together.

 

It's been about a month now, and has been completely functional since. Though, a word of general advice: don't buy an LG dishwasher if you can help it.

Zach helped too. (That is a plastic toy c-clamp he's using, not a real one.)

 

PJ morning with Sydney and Sarah

Zach recently had the pleasure of a visit from his cousins, Sydney and Sarah (and their mom and Josh's folks - who all now fit in our house at the same time, even - construction finished just barely in time). Always a pleasure for me as well, since they entertain, dress, and feed him.

After the snow

I'm starting to feel like I'm seeing nothing but white. Well, it's now turning gray but showing little sign of diminishing. A bit of blue sky is at least something, spotted out of the kitchen window while working from home at the tail end of on of our recent blizzards.

And some of the snowy stuff outside. 

Seasonal Catch-Up

Zach turned 3 today.

He's now in his bed, hopefully not getting ready to barf up the 4 cupcakes plus Friendly's quesadilla dinner now. Alas, I was sifting through piles of pictures that accumulated during our last few crazy months and realized I had missed posting a few milestones in my son's life.


Halloween:

Clearly, this was a dinosaur. Right? An off-the-shelf-from-Target costume, no less - I'm almost ashamed to admit. However, while trick-or-treating, Zach was repeatedly asked if he was a dragon, or, even better, Yoshi. He still asks on a near-daily basis when it will be Halloween again.


Lightnng McQueen "big kid" bed:



This was the carrot we dangled during the long and painful process of packing up all our stuff. Various loved objects disappeared, and Zach had to spend his weekends hanging out with a guy named Adam (our realtor) instead of at the playground, so we needed something. In reality, the bed is plain wood (it was handed down from his cousin, Sarah). We just tossed on a Cars bedspread. But as far as Zach was concerned, it was the perfect Lightning McQueen bed. (For those not around toddler boys much, that movie is like crack for them.)

And as an added bonus, he was given the freedom to wander out of it in the wee hours of the night to find mom. (Which actually isn't so bad, now that we also have upgraded, to an enormous king size bed.)


Chanuka:



We had a bevy of menorahs, but no pictures. Just this stellar snapshot showing a bunch of presents, and the awesome combo of striped sweater and track pants in  matching baby blue. Probably one of those days when potty training didn't go so well.


Christmas:



Seeing as we're Jewish, we had no tree or official festivities. However, we did have a ham and a duck and a festive dinner with my mother, Terry, and the Wades. Saru was kind enough to steal this gingerbread house from a co-worker, which the kids pretended to eat for quite some time before being allowed to snap some of the nonpareils off the roof.

Also looks like we forgot to dress Zach for the day, as this was dinner time.