Darryl sent me a link to an interesting UK news article the other day. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7884138.stm

Apparently some environmentalist thinks that having more than two children is selfish, because it hurts the environment too much.  Since I recently crossed that more than two children threshold, I thought it was kind of interesting.  Okay, not really.  I thought it was absurd.   Why doesn’t he try taking care of a newborn for 6 weeks and then I’ll ask him if he feels selfish.  Selfish is the last word I would use to describe taking care of more than two children.  In fact, I’m counting on this helping me become self-LESS.

Okay, after looking at that picture maybe I am a little selfish because I get to hold him a lot and he is so cute…  But I think I’m mostly just tired.

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I thought I’d blog a little about TV.  We have CNN Europe, BBC, Euronews, Eurosport, Hallmark, Discovery, Animal Planet, and a few others.  CNN covered a the US elections very well, so we got all the news, with none of the ads.  Eurosport covered the Olympics, and it was really nice to have non-biased commentators, and no Michael Phelps overload.  We even saw events that had no Americans competing!

Every few weeks or months, some of the channels are taken away and a few different ones are added.  Last time we got a new channel, FoxCrime, and it quickly became a favorite.  It has Monk!  Except it just keeps going through Season 3 over and over.  But the other night I was up with Daniel and found an episode from Season 1, which was fun because I hadn’t seen that in a very long time.  

The thing with this channel, it will go through a season of a show (either one show a week, or one show a day), and then switch to a new show entirely.  So you never know what is really going to be on.  And because there are no commercials, shows start at random times.  This is actually good, so I can’t get too hooked on watching anything. 

Another English channel that we have is Jetix.  We’ve discovered a show called “Lazytown” that the girls like (mostly Kathryn).  The good news is it comes on right when I’m fixing dinner.  It is about a town with a hero named Sportacus.  The villain, Robbie Rotten, tries to get the kids to be lazy and eat candy.  But Sporticus always gets them to play sports and eat sports candy, which is fruits and vegetables.  There are cute songs, including one about brushing your teeth (20 times up and 20 times down, 20 times left and 20 times right).  So guess who makes us count to 20 while she is brushing her teeth.  And one girl always does a dance at the end that Kathryn tries to imitate.  Kathryn and Amelia always eat pieces of apple while they watch the show.  Its a really cute show, except that there are only like 6 episodes so now we’ve seen them all about 12 times.

Kyiv Adventures | 2 Comments »

I love to hear my girls talk.   Amelia repeats the last word or two of everything we say.  One of my favorites is to say “I love you”, and then she says “yuh yoo”.  But once last week when I tried it I got a different response.  I said, “I love you!”  And she responded very clearly with, “I love me!”

I also like to hear when Kathryn and Amelia talk together.  Often Kathryn is trying to explain something to Amelia, who always says, “yeah”, or repeats the last couple of words.  The other day we were playing with the winter sand.  Kathryn was frustrated because Amelia and I weren’t doing exactly what she wanted.  Finally Kathryn said, “This is ridiculous!”

Amelia, Kathryn | 1 Comment »

 When it started to get really cold and snowy and not weather that we wanted to be in at the park, I bought some “winter sand”.  I’ve read about this idea before, but never got around to trying it.  I looked at the store, and the yellow split peas looked like the best “winter sand”.  That’s what I told the girls it was, so that is what we call it. 

We pour it out onto a blanket and they get the sand toys and play!  Of course it doesn’t all stay on the blanket, but it is easier to pick up than real sand.  And it vacuums well, too.  No, you can’t make a sand castle, but they mostly like to fill containers and pour them out.  We leave it out a few days, then clean it all up and save it for awhile.  Luckily we have an “extra room” right now.  It used to be Amelia’s room, and will someday be Daniel’s room.  It will also be your room when you come and visit!

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