The last two years our city has seen major snowfall–four feet at a time, convenient of course, when I’m on bedrest, contracting every night, all night, and wondering whether we should brave the storm anyway for a triage visit.

This year we have enjoyed an exceptionally mild winter with very little snow. . . much to the disappointment of the kids–and me, now that I can finally go out and play in it again!

The least indication of flurries is a call for coats, mittens, boots and hats around here. Here the girls are going for a “walk in the snow.” Mara was very excited that there were snowflakes glistening in her hair.

Pictures and details to come. . . whenever I get around to it!! . . . For now, a quick sketch.

Such a delightful age!

My 3-year-old son meets M&Ms.

“Wowwwww! They are all the colors! . . . Mmmmmm, they have CHOC-lut inside. . . And look! ‘E’. . .  and ‘E’. . . and ‘E’ . . . I’m reading the letters on them!”

Since we were a couple days behind, I doubled up on the “Mary” and “Joseph” ornaments, and we did those the same day. We used clothespins for the people and cut felt and fleece for their clothes. The kids got to pick the fabric colors for the clothes.

“The most important part,” Mara told me as I began setting the craft materials on the coffee table, “is the jewels.”

Good thing she mentioned jewels, because I never pictured Mary and Joseph with jewels.

Here is Mara with her Mary and Joseph–before Mary got her head covering.

I enjoyed watching their looks of concentration while drawing faces on the clothespins. This was especially tricky for my three-year-old Micah. I had to laugh when he held up his Joseph-complete-with-a-face-drawn-by-a-3-year-old and said, “Look! Joseph is going like this! [cue facial contortions]”

His expression was exactly Joseph’s clothespin-face!

Micah, of course, wanted his Joseph to have a dark blue “cape.”  Sometimes–maybe, I should say, even typically— the biblical narratives are lost on this 3-year-old boy, as his Joseph became a superhero, whose special power was camera-evasion!

Micah kept whoooosh-ing Joseph away, right at the second I tried to snap the picture. We laughed a lot together over Joseph. . . Superhero Joseph. . . Someday Micah will understand the real Joseph too.

“Carissa, we don’t brush our hair with the dog’s brush!”

“Jessie! we don’t wear the Christmas ornaments–either on our shirts. . . ”

“. . . OR in our ears!!!!”

And: “Micah, we don’t slide down the banister–especially when it’s decorated with garland, lights and stockings!”

No picture here. He was stuck–you can’t very well slide down the banister when it’s decorated–and I was too busy trying to rescue the garland to snap the shot.