Thank you note

 I forgot to post this thank you note, written by Nicole a day or two after our Halloween party last year:

Such a sweetheart!

Go ye heros

That song from Pirates of Penzance, where the Major General's daughters are singing to the policemen:

Go, ye heroes, go to glory,
Though you die in combat gory,
Ye shall live in song and story.
Go to immortality!
Go to death, and go to slaughter;
Die, and every Cornish daughter
With her tears your grave shall water.
Go, ye heroes, go and die! Go, ye heroes, go and die!

https://youtu.be/pmBq_xtuOUM?t=103

...It's a whole new experience when your 3-year-old and 7-year-old are belting it out in the middle of your condominium community.

Little Nicole

I found this picture today, from October 3, 2014.  Poor little Nicole.  I took her with me to a free Neon Trees concert and stubbornly stayed until they played their most famous song (which wasn't until the very end).  She was only a year and four months!

Food critic

We have joked for some time that Allison is a bit of a food connoisseur. When she eats new foods, she adopts a quizzical expression, taking time to thoroughly examine the new substance. We have come to realize that she prefers to eat many foods one at a time: she likes strawberries, but not with milk; peanut butter, but not with bread.  Hand her a sandwich or a quesadilla, and she will dissect it, always eating it in the messiest way.  If you ever try to get her to eat something, she will cower, mistrustfully.  Never offer her food, or it will immediately become an object of suspicion.  To top it off, she is also terrific at throwing up unwanted foods.

The youngest keeps growing

Following Nicole's lead, Allison made us presents:

 

They're Daddy, Mommy, and Nicole.  She made one of herself but I lost it.  I realized later they all fit together--so we can see where Allison cut out her "Allison" doll from Daddy's neck.

A couple Allison quotes from this week:

"The reason why I like Justin is because he's brown.  He's different."  (I asked her what color Mommy is, and she said, "brown."  So I guess he's not that different.)

After Daddy bought us BBQ with a gift card from his job:

"Daddy, you are very nice to us."

While stuffing her face with BBQ:

"I love this house more than anything."

More art

 

By Nicole, inspired by an "Elephant and Piggie" book

By Allie.  I think it's a little cruel to Daddy

Allison art

I asked Allison what this was.  I don't think it was anything, because her response sounded made up.  She said, "It's a tap hand."  Regardless, I was impressed with the commitment to symmetry.  I think it's her first abstract piece of artwork.  (Okay, let's face it, everything a toddler draws at first is "abstract."  That's why a Jackson Pollock looks like it was done by a two-year-old.)

I asked her what these were.  She said the first one was an alligator.  I asked what the other was.  She said a "rrrgrlu."