Fire! FIRE!!! No...wait...forget it, false alarm.

Rat a tat tat. She's a sharp percussionist.

To Christy: I'm working on a video/audio of them babbling over the monitor. I've actually tried already, but they have a preturnatural sense for when I'm filming them, even when we're in different rooms on different floors, and promptly clam up. Damn psychic kids.

And there is nothing stopping you from enjoying this soup. It is calling to you. If you want, here it is; very very easy:

Slice about 5-6 large onions thinly (no need to dice or chop, just slice and cut them so they're semicircles). This is the hardest step of the recipe...
Saute onion in a large pot with 1/2 stick of butter over medium-low heat for 30 minutes
Add a tbsp of flour; saute 3 more minutes
Add 1 1/2 quarts of beef broth.
Add a dash of worchestershire and a splash of red wine (those are optional)
Bring to boil.
Simmer for 15 minutes.
While that's going, cut up some french bread (the denser and higher quality, the better) into cubes; toast under the broiler on high.
Ladle soup into oven proof bowls. Top with bread cubes. Add craploads of shredded swiss and parmesan (or gruyere, some people do that, or use whatever you want).
Broil until bubbly.
Let cool. (very important. Nobody likes mouth blisters)
Thank brother in law.

Some get all lunatic and add rosemary and bay and thyme and 12 other things; I prefer to stay basic and let the onions speak for themselves.

I should say that eating a lot of this soup made my pee smell kinda funny. So, you know...caveat emptor and all that.

Poor Jen/Mommy. She's working at school, as it's the zero hour for a giant presentation thingy (I'm paraphrasing) that needs to be done, so she's called to let me know not to wait up. Less than a week out from graduating and being done with school, and she's not even allowed to slack.

Tonight, I decided to do music night. I dragged out an electronic piano, a snare drum, a tamborine, and (most importantly) a cowbell and let the girls have at it. They seemed amazed at first, then interested, then okay with it all, and then kinda bored, until finally, maybe 12 minutes after starting, they were ready to go back to what they normally do: reading stories and playing with baby (a baby doll that Lily likes). Meh. I wouldn't call music night a failure, but the tour is definitely on hold for now.

I don't think I helped things when I gave the snare drum a rather enthusiastic couple measures, and Lily seemed pretty annoyed. She told me, "Nooo!"

I'm not sure if it's already happened, but Lily counted to ten all by herself tonight for, as far as I know, the first time. Yay! And while I was doing the alphabet for Abby, she nailed "L-M-N-O-P". Yay! My kids are geniuses. Geniui? Geniusees? Smart kids.

Speaking of talking, we now have a new word for pacifier. She's started dropping the "paci-" part, and is just calling it "fier", or "fire", since that's exactly what it sounds like. So every night, come night night time, we find her loitering around the buffet, pointing at it and mewing, "..fire! fire!" We might be avoiding crowded theaters for a while.

Day two hundred and ninety seven.

I like error pictures. I probably did permanent damage to her retina with this flash, but it was worth it. So blue!

She even looks like a piano player.

In case you thought I was lying about music night (how dare you not believe me!??)