Farmer Brown, by Darwyn

The other day Darwyn drew a picture of "Farmer Brown", the subject of a Calvin and Hobbes strip she saw.  I love it.  It's surprisingly detailed compared to her other art.

The person is Farmer Brown, of course.  (Observe the huge belly button.)  He's about to light his gas stove; he's striking a match held in his left hand.  Outside his house we see a derailed freight train (left) and an air plane about to crash (right).  The foreground is grey sidewalk.

Here's the original comic that inspired Darwyn's art:

The kids love Calvin and Hobbes, and I am very, very happy to read it to them.  Darwyn especially likes the story about the snow goons.

One big heart and lots of paper valentines

Darwyn has been beside herself with excitement about valentine's day.  In mid January she saw valentine's at the dollar store and that was the beginning of the end.  For the past month she has busied herself making valentines at home, at preschool, in library programs, with Jose.  She amassed so many valentines for her family and friends that she needed her own large bin in her bedroom to store them all.  Not only that, we needed to figure out how she was going to deliver all her love notes...we decided to host a valentine's day party.

The party was simple.  We were going to make valentine mail boxes at the party and the kids would deliver their valentine's to their friends.  Darwyn insisted that we also needed to decorate cupcakes....a signature event at all our parties.  Darwyn asked me every day for the week preceding the party if today was "valentine's day".  Finally, the party day arrived.  Dar painstakingly helped me set out all the materials for decorating boxes.  She also helped clean and prepare the food.  She dished out candies for cupcake decorating, organized veggies on a veggie tray, and helped me rip the bread to go with the spinach dip (the later she did while telling me in great detail everything she didn't like about pumpernickle bread).

Finally her guests arrived.  The party was a smashing success,  Dar had all her valentine's in a nice pink gift bag half as tall as is and she dutifully delivered them to everyone's mailbox.  Of course, she had made so many that all of the other children had delivered all their valentines and read all the one's they had received, before she was half done giving hers out.  But she loved it just the same.  When Darwyn was done everyone's box was overflowing with her  homemade valentines.  She's a small girl with one big heart!

First time on ice skates

We finally got Max and Darwyn out to an ice rink to try out the ice skates they got for xmas.  Both kids were enthusiastic and persistent and not at all discouraged by how hard it is to learn to skate.  We skated only for a short time, which was perfect for our first outing.  I suspect that Greta and I will eventually need to get ice skates of our own so we can do some real skating with the kids.