Snow, Reading and Videotapes (DVD's, actually)

It's snowing again. Beautifully falling, decorating the trees like a postcard from somewhere far away. My princess calls it 'illustrated': "look at that illustrated stop sign, mommy, look at that illustrated tree!".
She's reading now, spelling the world around her. A simple car ride becomes a spelling bee contest: "what does N-A-I-L-S mean? what does V-E-R-I-Z-O-N spell? Don't look mommy, let me ask you!" Prince Reader and I can't look and are not aloud to say the word before she's done spelling. It's a whole new world out there, and we are about to spell our way through it!

Talking about reading, we watched Freedom Writers together and my son got the book out of the library. The book consist of the actual diaries of the kids the story/movie is based on.
Prince Reader reads fast. 30 pages into the book he asked himself, and us, whether it's appropriate for him. We read a random page, swallowed hard and answered that question to ourselves: no!
Both of us oppose books censorship so we agreed to discuss it with him, main message to be: 'It's not appropriate for you at this age, but if you want to read it you may. The diaries were written in a certain context, by kids with a very different life reality than yours. We'd like to keep discussing any issues that might bother you with this book. Let us know how it progresses'.

Hubby took the book and was racing through it to see what's up next. Seeing that some interesting issues rose by page 45, he discussed it with our charming reader, who, by that time, put the book aside. Of course the discussion got him reading again, and of course he read it faster than both of us so this morning he showed hubby the following sentence on page 150:
"As his pe***s twirled in my mouth, thoughts of the popcorn he promised me ran through my mind"

Yikes.

Now what do we do? How do you explain to your innocent child that such disgusting abusers exist? How do you keep sex and love connected in a good loving way, when reading about these kinds of relationships? and why now? Why does it have to be out there at such young age?
Yes, I know, you might ask: why did you let him read it in the first place?
I have two answers for you:

1. We are a family of readers, this is our world's reality.
2. We have to keep communication open, discuss our way of seeing the world, relationships, love and sex. We can't prevent our kids from reading so to never discuss the subject.

I chickened out. Put it on hubby's bill of education - you raised it, now you explain it.

What would you do? And who would you do it with? (just kidding, couldn't resist)

5 Good Things About The Snow

I recently spoke to my friend Laurie on the phone. She said they are taking their drinks outside, so they can sun bath. Outch.

We had about 20 degrees that day. And it wasn't the cozy Celsius kind. So here's the advantages of snow for you, Laurie, and all of you who think snow is just cold weather. Snow is a life changing experience!

1. It is a known rule - when temperature drops, enjoy all the CARBS you want!
2. Sun bathing in the snow is much more time effective - you get reflections on all sides so your tan is even (got that pun?) more perfect.
3. You get to spend lots of cozy family quality time at home.
4. Snow falling is such a magnificent picture!
5. There's a whole lot of winter fashion we enjoy - most of my wardrobe can be black because I can ACCESSORIES now. So many scarves, hats, sweaters and layers, not to mention the BOOTS.
6. Here's a bonus one - I can neat more AND wear it, too!

Family Quality Time - Gaby's reading!

Winter Fashion Show

Winter Picture

Stay Warm and healthy

Sara Brown.

Snowed Inn.

First time we shoveled snow this year. Yuval went out with my dad and they did most of the hard work. I was asleep in our cozy bed so I couldn't take a photo of them - sorry.
It snowed before but not to the extent of actually shoveling it. This time it started snowing Saturday afternoon and in the morning we found ourselves looking at about two inches of fluff covering the grounds completely! First the snow is like dipping in whipped cream - very impressive and VERY COLD. My son said today that he is positively sure he's turning into an icicle. Me too.

So here's how it looks like:

This snow cake waited for us on the deck

Let me slide across these stairs...

The back yard

Best Shoveler

Best shoveler taking a rest

Shoveling helper at work

Proud shoveling helper

The front yard, fluffed to perfection

Stay warm and happy,

Sarit.

Our First Snow

It snowed yesterday. Four hours of snow and my carbs craving is aiming to hit the roof. I started a list of 'what else do we need to make it through the winter' and it gets longer and longer...
Here are some photos from this morning:

Icicles on the few bushes that managed to still have their leaves on

The girls made snow balls

Donald tries to figure out what is this white stuff and where the heck did his bathroom spot gone to?