it was a nice day today, so we went to the park

ellen wasn't very interested in actually playing. she thought it was best to sit and watch the other little girl swing.

cook books

I've decided it really is time I get down to business with this whole cooking thing. with my Amazon gift certificates I've ordered some cook books. Some very basic cook books. I've discovered that the basic books are rather hard to find. If I want to cook lobster or some crazy combination that looks just a bit to fancy for Dave and my tastes, I've seen plenty of them. But to do normal food that we budds will eat seems to be harder to find. Apparently the cooking world thinks I should already instinctively know how all that works. so i'm excited for those to arrive. i also ordered the gnostic gospels and the nag hammadi texts. also very excited to see those. And my spending spree ended with a boxed set of the chronicles of narnia. yay! I love to shop.

ellen is the proud new owner of "big-girl bed". she's doing pretty well in it - we're still adjusting though, she's not sleeping for as long as she used to. She's also just decided that staying in the bed really is overrated so we're learning how to stay put.

ellen is growing up...

my first every monday quote

Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue, but of the life; is not apprehended by the intellect and memory merely, like other branches of learning; but is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds its seat and habitation in the inmost recesses of the heart. John Calvin, Institutes

school has started again. i'm feeling a bit insane to be taking classes this semester, but i'm also really enjoying them at the same time. I'm taking the second half of the church history class i started earlier. I'm also taking a weekend seminar that talks about the da vinci code. it's an all day 9-5 deal that started today and will finish tomorrow. It's really fairly interesting, but I think it could have easily been squeezed into a one day class. it has really warmed up the last few days...it was 60 a couple days ago! thats practically shorts weather!

mom and ellen play with ellen's new blocks

dave putting our snow "spiders" on so we could pick mom up from the airport. She got iced into portland for the first day of her visit.

It was rather cold the past few days...

the sun is shining! the sky is blue! and we are going outside (hear peach from finding nemo)

so on dave's lunch break we figure lets go fly our new kite. turns out it was freaking cold. surprise.

the set up...put it in a bush so you can get some distance first

dave's getting ready...

its up!

and its down