Dacia's Visit

I would fail indeed if I failed to mention the best bit of our February: a luxurious, week-long visit from David's sister, Dacia. Always the intrepid bargain-hunter, Dacia took advantage of holiday sales to book a bottom-dollar airline ticket, which gave us something to look forward to in the long, midwinter lull. Boy, do our kids love them some Aunt Dacia...

And, boy, does she love them, as evidenced by these pictures she took on (or after) various adventures with the kids...

That last picture is of Graham after Aunt Dacia's preschooler rite-of-passage: the trip to Build-A-Bear Workshop. As you may have gathered, Graham chose a Spiderman bear with Spiderman-printed plush, as well as the bear-sized Spiderman costume. It was love at first sight--Graham knew instantly that this bear was the One. And let me tell you, this bear has been well cherished (assuming you measure affection by costume changes, which Graham certainly does).

Dacia, as always, it was such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks for the way you and Josh love and invest in our family. We don't take it for granted, and we love you guys very much.

Meg's In Print!

Here's a newsflash: after several submissions to the magazine Highlights' "Your Own Pages," followed by several gentle rejections, Meg received the following letter early this month:

Dear Margaret:
Thank you for sending us your inspiring illustrated poem, "The Actress," a while ago. The other editors and I enjoyed seeing it. We have posted a copy of your work on our Web site, HighlightsKids.com, and we have enclosed a printed copy of the Web page for you... your work can be found in the March 2015 area; keep hitting the green right arrow button until you find your work.
[...]
We hope you'll continue to use your creative talents to bring joy to yourself and to those around you! Best wishes from all of us here at Highlights.
Sincerely,
Christine French Cully
Editor in Chief

I'm including the printed copy they sent with her letter, but you should really check out the real thing here! (Keep hitting the green arrow until you see Meg's contribution, titled "The Actress".)

Congratulations, Sweet Pea! Way to persevere until you saw this wish come true!

Pictures

We interrupt this lengthy succession of postless days to bring you... as many posts as I can squeeze in before February of 2015 shivers its way to its snowy bier and sleeps forevermore. (And, yes, I realize that today is February 28th. I might only get to two posts. We'll see.)

Let's start with a couple of photos from my phone.

Esme mugging:

"Mommy, come look! We put ten things on Meg's head!"

And what I found when I went in to check on our post-lunch quiet reading time the other day:

(How I love these two best buds.)

Did you catch that I wrote "photos from my phone"?? One of the most notable events of this month was that I finally, finally joined most of the rest of the first world and obtained a smart phone. Until very recently, I was making do (more or less contentedly), with my very old, mostly broken, bright red, Samsung flip phone, circa... probably 2007? It took very bad pictures, so I didn't use it to take pictures. It took me five minutes to send a brief text, so I avoided texting. I didn't have apps; I could only look at my email when in front of my laptop--in short, my life was very similar to most people's lives in 2005. And I was ok with that. But we finally lost the charge cord for the dear, old, red Samsung, and... it was time. Hence, pictures from my phone!