Secret Handshake

The girls made up this "secret Speier girls handshake." It seems more like bedtime cheerleading to me, but whatever. I honestly don't know what goes on in their little minds.

Lili

Lili recently got her own library card. Oh joy! We have been going to the library every weekend, just the two of us. Audrey is always welcome to come, but she prefers to give us a wish list and "stay with Daddy." Kateri is NOT welcome to come, because she prefers playing with the germy toys in the children's section to actually browsing for books. I put a moratorium on checking out American Girl books, and Lili once again proved that she is her godfather's goddaughter with her selections...

I love these little weekend trips...thank you, Lord, for giving me my little bookworm Lili and proving that some tiny fraction of Bird family genetic material has actually been passed on...

Our New Year's Adventure

Our family was in the midst of enjoying our low-key, relaxing Christmas break when we heard that a large storm was dumping snow an hour north of us, conveniently where Nona's cabin is located. Our kids had been staring jealously at the pictures of happy little cousins with snowmen for the past week, so we decided to drive up and give them a taste of when real winter is like. Real winter is beautiful, thrilling, exciting...

...and kind of a pain in the neck. Nona's cabin is on a lovely steep plot of land that affords gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains, but turns out to be a little tricky to get to in the snow. Highway patrol wouldn't even let us continue on the 15 miles to Pine from Payson without putting on our snow chains. Even with the snow chains, as we tried to make it up to Nona's street we felt the horrifying sensation of our car sliding downhill as Luke tried to accelerate forward. So we parked in the semi-plowed driveway of a conveniently vacant cabin, and hiked up the rest of the way. That in itself was an adventure; the snow plows had had the same problem as we did trying to get up to Nona's street, and the snow was up to Kateri's chest, so I had to carry her most of the way, while Luke was burdened with our provisions, and Lili and Audrey were on their own. Kateri had snow pants, but the rest of us were in jeans, so when we finally reached the cabin, I had the girls strip off their snow-caked clothes and huddle under a quilt together on a couch while Luke started the fire to start warming up the cabin. I think Lili's confidence in her parents' prudence was a little shaken at this point...as I kept hearing a little voice from the depths of the quilt asking "Are we going to be okay?"

After a little lunch, a little warm-up and another hike down to the car for Luke, we were ready to enjoy the snow.

The girls were so excited...

There were a lot of firsts for them... was their first real time playing in snow,

...first time making a snow angel....first time experiencing the horrid discomfort of having freezing snow wedged in between their clothing and skin...

And also their first time sledding. The powdery snow was too dry for a snowman, but it turned Nona's unplowed street into the perfect sledding hill...

It was definitely a New Year's to remember. We spent a cozy night at the cabin (the girls and I were awestruck by the gorgeous view of the stars from Nona's porch at night) before heading back home the next afternoon. We were so blessed to have such a great little adventure, and so blessed to get home safe and sound. Thanks for sharing your cabin with us, Nona!

In Praise of the Beve

This year, the kids' school decided to have their Christmas program on the feast of the Epiphany, on a Thursday...a school night for us and for my brother the teacher, who nonetheless schlepped his family out to support his nieces as they performed their crucial roles as innkeeper and choir member.
Sweet little Abby sat quietly on my lap for the entire lower school's performance.

We've been so lucky to have Nona and others from Luke's family living in town during our seven years here in Phoenix, but there is just something wonderful about sitting waiting for the show to start and looking up to see my brother and his lovely family walking in. I guess I never really expected to have any of the Birds actually move here. It is such an blessing to know that he is around. So Steve, I may not have started a viral video campaign to get you to move here...but I sure am glad you did.

Christmas Vacation

has come and gone. The kids are back in school, the tree is stripped and bare and lying by the side of our house like the sad, crispy fire hazard that it is. Our mantle will stay the way it is until the 6th. I love the way it looks with a fire crackling away underneath it. It reminds me of how lovely the last couple of weeks were.

Santa did indeed come and eat his cookies and drink his milk, leaving gifts in their place.

There was a lot of this.

And this.

And a good amount of goofiness.

Speaking of goofiness, Luke cleaned out our garage and discovered in the process that Kateri still fits in her old baby sling...and apparently still loves it.

There was a lot of snuggling on the couch and staying in PJs half the day and plenty of time to read and play games together and watch movies without having to worry about homework or carpools or any of that. It was heavenly. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if we could have seen all of our absent family, but it seems like they all had lovely Christmases of their own, and we had a great time with Nona and Travis and Cole, so we are grateful for that.

There was even a snowy adventure at the end, but that needs its own post.

So, we are starting the new year feeling recharged and refreshed and excited for 2011, despite the obscenely large pile of laundry that I am ignoring to type this post.

Happy New Year everyone!