Devilish Charm

This little man is full of charm.  Devilish charm.  And it's a good thing that he has it.

Today he stole a pair of Joe's scissors and cut one of Joe's brand new books.

Front cover and back.

Joe was fairly devastated as he treats his chapter books as if they are made of gold.  So Sam had to pay me the money to replace this book as well as apologize to Joe. 

Someone else in the house has been a bit distructive lately.

Lacey has decided that it is loads of fun to rip her dog bed to shreds.  Rolls of toilet paper can be substituted for a bed and shredded just as well.  Lucky for her, I understand why she does all this stuff. 
Plus Sam and Lacey are two of a kind...

A kookaburra has replaced the magpie as the resident bird of the deck.  For the first several visits, we'd all point, look, and comment.  It doesn't matter that kookaburras are quite common (and sometimes annoyingly loud) around here.

We've a very nice winter so far.  My parents enjoyed their visit, and we had good weather almost the entire time.  In fact, the weather for the whole winter has been much better than last year, less rain and warmer days.  The weather is supposed to get colder and wetter later this week though. 

In case you haven't heard...

Tom is back in a sling.  On Wednesday morning, all three boys were having a bit of a wrestle in the front yard.  I stuck my head out the door and cautioned them against such action, with a reminder to be careful.  Two minutes later, Tom starts screaming!  As soon as he came in the door, I had a feeling he'd rebroken his collarbone.  Well, actually, Joe jumped onto Tom's back while Tom was lying on the ground and that broke the collarbone.  An x-ray confirmed the break, right through the healing of the other break.  Tom gets to wear his sling for 6 weeks this time.  It means that his soccer season is over.  He's handling it all fairly well, but we still have 5 1/4 weeks to go. 
The kids will head back to school tomorrow.  They've been off for just over two weeks.  I am certainly ready for things to get back to normal a bit around here.