Happy New Year!

One of my resolutions for this site is to start a couple of regular features. One that I am starting today is the weekly photo of Charlotte. It's sometimes hard for me to think of things to write, so I took a page from my writing instructor's book: write a description or evaluation of an image. Describing a photo of Charlotte (why I like it, why I took it, what's going on in it) is a great way to tap my memory.

So here's the first one, kind of a cheat since it's from last week, but cut me some slack! I was on vacation!

This is Charlotte, all bundled up and enjoying the fresh snow in Iowa. You can also kind of see the downed branches on the trees in the background from the major ice storms that moved through the Midwest in December. Charlotte didn't stay out for very long--long enough to watch Nana Deur build a tiny snowman, but it was pretty cold.

One thing this picture makes me think of is the book Snow. It's one of Charlotte's favorites, and occasionally she busts out some of the lines from the book, like "Oh yes, oh yes" (which in the book is followed by "I do like snow.") or "Come out! Come out!" ("Come out in the snow!").

Also, the way she pronounces "snow" is pretty adorable. It's hard to describe, but it sounds a little bit like "no" but with kind of a nasal thing at the beginning. That's how she starts any word that begins with the "sn" sound: "snake" is "nake," "snail" is "nail," etc.

Speaking of pronunciation, remind me to tell the story of the way Charlotte says "fork." I bet you can guess!