Why No Pictures?

To the long distance Grandma and Grandpa, and aunties (and Uncles, to some degree :-) ), who like to see pictures as frequently as possible... for some reason our computer isn't wanting to talk to the camera.  :-(  I don't know what the problem is, but hopefully, we can get it resolved soon. 

Pictures or no pictures, we are well here.  The weather has been freezing the last few days, but I have a cozy house and a husband to fire up our woodstove, and my girl is getting big enough to offer to put more wood on the fire and even volunteered to go out and get another load of firewood.  And get it she did, though her pile was comprised of small, almost kindling size stuff.  Sweet girl.

Yesterday, we had two little boys with unhappy tummies and GI tracks.  The big boy vomited three times, and kindly did all of those before Daddy left for work in the morning.  What a HUGE blessing washers, driers, and tubs with running hot water are!!!  Can you imagine being a pioneer in the dead of winter with sick kids???!!!!

Though, Clara hasn't yet mastered all the letters and sounds of the alphabet, she is dong fairly well with that, and yesterday I decided to try her on sounding out REAL words: mat, rat, sat, etc.  At times, we were both frustrated, and at others we were both very pleased with her successes!  At her request, we did even more then I had been planning to!  And one of the very cute happening was that Hilkiah seemed rather tickled that Clara was "learning to read!"

The other day Clara popped out with the observation that "Artichoke starts with an 'R'".  She wasn't looking at the word, but just how it sounds.  I started explaining about the sound "R" makes and the sound "ar" makes.  But Hil's reaction to big sis's observation was just too sweet!!!  In a impressed, sincere, almost "big person" way he says "Good job, Yahyah!"  (Yahyah is his name for her)  The way he said it was just incredibly adorable.  The tone of voice was like "Wow!  That's really impressive that you figured that out!!!" 

Well, that'll be it for now.  I'll try to be back soon with more from 'round here!