Who knew Abe's house was so delish?

I hope I've mentioned before my wonderful sitter, Angela. She's a great fit for us because not only is she an experienced sitter, she also was homeschooled, so she helps me A LOT with Will's work. Earlier this week, I gave her a project I found online where you can create "Abe Lincoln's Log Cabin" with pretzels, peanut butter, and other various and sundry kitchen items.

Anyway, she needed me to actually buy the pretzels, which was the limiting factor. I did eventually remember, however, and it ended up being a great little project. He had a blast, and we all enjoyed the bounty of peanut-buttery snacks afterwards. (What? You didn't think we'd just waste all that food, did you?)

"It was a strange, cool day," says Will

That it was, for sure.

The first rather odd thing we did today was take a trip down to the Hernando Courthouse Square to see some visiting performers from Cirque du Soleil. They're in Memphis to perform their Saltimbanco traveling show. I would love to have been able to go to it, but Ben's in the lovely, sunny resort town of Cleveland, OH this week, so no Saltimbanco for us.

But I digress. The troupe sent some stilt-walkers to Hernando to promote the show, and they were pretty cool. They clowned around, walked on stilts, tossed around a big balloon that all the kids in the group chased with single-minded intensity, and gave out clown noses.

Will had a blast with the balloon, and Adelaide thought the whole thing was quite curious. Today our sitter/nanny (I'm going to make up a new word for her, like "sanny" or something) was with us, which was GREAT because she stayed with Laila while I chased after Will, and I was able to take photos. It was much more fun that way.

After that, we decided to have a mommy and kids night out. We went to Chick-Fil-A, which is of course FINE dining when you have little people with you, then headed to Books-A-Million where we had dessert. I read Newsweek, Will took in another book, and Adelaide enjoyed the Little Mermaid book she found despite my best efforts to hide it from her view.

(News update: Dora is still very cool, but lemme tell you, she's all about "THE MERMAID!!!" now. So much so, in fact, that having Little Mermaid panties is actually counterproductive to potty training because she simply doesn't want to take them off to potty. *sigh*)

Anyway, we all had dessert, the kids got MORE books (it's my weakness, not a bad one in the scheme of things, I guess -- my mom was ALWAYS giving in to me when I asked for a new book, and I turned out okay...right? RIGHT?) and then we came home. After reading the ENTIRE Mermaid book, Adelaide went to sleep and Will and I geared up for our "date" -- a brand new Mythbusters and, right after it ended, a lunar eclipse.

Mythbusters was great -- it was all about McGyver -- and we loved it. After it was off we rushed outside to get a look at the eclipse.

As we sat out on the back porch, cuddled together in a blanket as the cold wind whipped around us, Will ruminated on the coolness of the eclipse.

"Too bad Adelaide isn't awake to see this," he said.

"Well, she wouldn't really understand anyway," I said. "We can tell her about it when she's older, thought."

"Like when she's 5?"

"Sure honey, when she's 5."

He paused for a moment, then turned to look at me.

"You need to write this date down so we remember," he says.

"Tell you what," I said. "I'll blog about it tonight. That way we can have it on there and find it whenever we want."

"That's a good idea..." he agreed, turning back to the sky and muttering mean things to the clouds that obscured his view of the copper moon.

So here I am, sharing our day with you all, just like I promised Will. And of course, I have the photos from Cirque on the square.

Let's go fly a kite!

Will got a new kite a few days ago, and we decided that instead of cursing the high winds because we can't get anything done outside, we'd take advantage of them and go fly a kite. Will's very proud of his "three-dimensional wingspan attached space shuttle." Anyway, after a crash course (pun intended) on kite aviation, we walked over to some empty lots in our neighborhood and let 'er fly.

I'm also trying out one of the lenses I got from Ben's parents' friends generous Nikon-tastic gift: a manual 50mm f/1.4. I LOVE this lens, and I'm really happy with the amazing speed and the great colors from it. I also used a filter with these, though I can't remember off the top of my head which it is. Anyway, I'm getting better with my manual settings, and I love this lens. So, with that...

A rose by any other name would NOT be this cute

Seriously. I mean, it oughta be criminal to be this cute. Yeah, I'm her mom, but I think this is one of the best photos of her in a while. She had her Valentine's day party at school today, and they sent the kids home with roses (wrapped in tissue paper) for their moms. Well, Adelaide was NOT about to give her rose up. Ohhhh, no. It wasn't leaving her hand. After we got home, we decided to go out back, and I grabbed my camera. (Will is playing at a friend's house right now.) Anyway, this is one of the shots I got, and I am still working on editing the others. But this, to me, is a Valentine's Day keeper. (And the photo's not bad, either.)

Be my valentine

This weekend, we went back up to KY. My sister was coming in from Frankfort, and my grandmother is turning 80. So we all gathered back at my parents' house and had a lovely little family weekend. The kids got to play together and exchange (early) Valentine's gifts, and we got a little getaway from all the stuff that needs to get done at home! The weather was uncharacteristically beautiful for February -- low 60's and sunny with a light breeze -- and the kids had a blast gathering leaves and jumping in them together. I love this photo of the three cousins after a major leaf-leaping event. Aren't they sweet?