Max and Esme

Final round up of Christmas weekend

More pictures

Christmas 2007 The children were charmed this morning to see that Santa Claus had indeed made his promised visit. Max claimed he heard reindeer munching carrots during the night - and sure enough, the remains of the carrots and cookies were found on the plate. Here are a few pictorial highlights from this morning.

Snow Pepsi The next generation of snow sculptors in training. Max and Grandpa made Max's dog out of snow on the front lawn. Alas, our 50+ weather today means he's no more than a memory and a picture.

Early Christmas The whole family got together in Rodman this weekend since we couldn't all manage Christmas itself. Here are some pictures of the kids at play.

Whirling dervish I'm not sure exactly what that is, some kind of animal I think (I'll have to ask Max.) But the sound of the words aptly describes what my children look like when they're dancing. A favorite pastime is to put on punk rock music and dance madly around the front room. Dancing generally involves turning in circles until you're dizzy, jumping up and down, or chasing each other in progressively smaller circles until someone gets caught. I've included some action photos that show you how hard it is to capture a picture of my wildlife in action.

Homecoming The best part about being away is the joy of coming home again.

As usual Whenever I go to London on a business trip I can count on two things. The first is that it will rain here at least part of the time. The second is that the kids will be sick while I'm away. Sure enough, the forecast is for rain through the weekend (although it is quite warm) and the kids both have stuffy heads and Esme has a cough. I had a chance to talk to them both last night on the phone. Esme asked me 'where are you?' and Max chatted about his day. A nice end to the evening for all of us. BTW... my boss took us for dinner last night at a swank restaurant in Leichester Square... the actor Ralph Fiennes was sitting at the next table! Pretty neat.

First snow We had our first snow (that stuck) overnight and throughout the morning today. After 20 minutes of dressing Esme appropriately we played outside throwing snowballs for about 6 minutes. But both kids were excited to make tracks and play in the first offering of December. The second picture is of Esme reading to her puppies. She climbed up into her chair and tucked them all on her lap under a blanket so she could read them stories. Just like she and mommy do at bedtime. The puppies seemed to appreciate Esme's rendition of the classic board book Put me in the Zoo .