Just to set the record straight

The baby wasn't done yet, so we put the little one back in the oven.

The other picture was taken around Christmastime of 2010; we had borrowed that baby for a Nativity Scene we were hoping to stage (that ended disastrously... DON'T ASK). That baby has since been returned to his rightful curators, the Appels.

So, here's a picture of, L to R, the baby and Sharon on the main deck of the houseboat we built last month.

The little gwill what's turning FIVE today

Serenely tugging on an apple-ginger brew (oh, stop worrying you alcoholic teetotalers out there) and waving a bouquet of tulips in the midst of our barely-unpacked country cottage.
She remains the most wildly surprising thing I've yet encountered in my 32 years. God, I love her...

Two moving vignettes

Moving as in, "we're moving on Saturday", not as in, "you will find these pictures emotionally stirring." First, Sharon and baby Caper scrubbing years of accumulated dreck from the range hood's underside...
And second, Huckleberry, after having spent thirty seconds outside at the new place, the environs of which are a veritable clay pit after a warmish spell in January...

During the Flood

We had a warm spell, a mess of rain, a lot of melting snow... and so the creek rose. I took the children down the Nature Walk a block down the street from us to go have a look.