It seems that all our pictures this month have a background of snow. Funny thing - I think I have gone outside more this winter than the previous years (in balmy Washington). Well, the kids love the snow. They still whine and even cry when it's time to go inside. They are doing well. Brigitte started ballet again on Saturdays and she now declares that she wants to be a ballet teacher when she grows up. (She also insists that she will be going to the moon when she's 4. Thanks for the IMAX movies Nonna!) She's really grown up the past months. Her tantrums have nearly disappeared and she's really asking intelligent questions and making clever remarks.  Felix has had a rush of testosterone, we believe. He loves to wrestle and poke and hit and fight...and he laughs through it all, like it's some big joke. He follows Brigitte throughout the day and yet he's quite content at times to sit and read books by himself or play with his animals (and make his animals fight with each other!). We're not planning much the next couple of months...just more fun in the snow. 

in our backyard

Brigitte has been using our landlords' garden shovel as a snow shovel.

Hiking at twilight

This looks awful...as if I tackled Felix and now I'm proud of it.

I think this may be our first picture ever of our kids posing well together.

...do you see what I see?

I love washable markers.

These guys from Saskatchewan!! I came from the prairies too but this is the biggest and tallest snowman I have ever seen.

And it only got better!! The snowman (actually the kids call it the Mama-snowman) now has a face and even hair made from cedar branches.

On the weekend...

What we thought was a 2 km walk through a forest, turned out to be a 5+km hike. It was great though. I felt like my father as I pulled Brigitte on the toboggan. When I was a kid, I sometimes got a ride just like this. Brigitte loved the experience. She was singing like no one was listening; completely in her own world. She dragged her hands along the snow beside her, occasionally picking up a branch or cone. Of course she was perpetually slowing me down with her hands on the snow, but she was enjoying the ride.