Freedom

Austinclimbing out of crib, originally uploaded by ersphotography.

Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas this year.  We always feel so blessed and spoiled. 

A Christmas Eve picture of the boys.  This was as good as it got.

Zach is such a fun fun age for Christmas.  He was so excited.  He is really funny with his Santa requests.  All he wanted this year were "small beads for making robots." 

Done.

Austin giving Zach some random loves.

Big pencils!

Austin is still a bit overwhelmed with it all.  He opens one present and just wants to play with that one present.  It was almost a challenge to get him to open everything.  He had fun though and loves all of his new toys.

Zach has been into super heroes lately. 

 "Hey Mom, I could lift this whole house if I wanted to!  I'm so strong, aren't I Mom?" 

His definition of a superhero outfit is superhero themed underwear, jeans, socks with a stripe on them, and a stripey shirt.  Funny boy!  I thought it was time for him to have a cape and mask too. 

 Super Zach!

We all got an Xbox Kinect from the Smiths for Christmas.  I was so anti-video game, but this has been so fun.  I love that your body is the controller, so you have to jump and duck and move around to play the games.  It has been so perfect on cold and dark afternoons and evenings when the boys are restless (which is what we intended).  It does a good job of wearing Zach out, which is no easy task.  His favorite is a river rafting game.  Austin still doesn't get it, but I'm sure he'll love it someday.

In the afternoon we headed to my parents' house for Christmas #2.  The boys needed to get outside, so we were going to take them sledding.  But they ran out in the backyard, so we just played out there. 

We built a large sledding hill in the backyard.  The initial plan was to build it as high as the deck, but we made it to the top of the picnic table on the deck.  The boys loved it.

We had a wonderful Christmas and hope you did too!

A Piano!

I had a wonderful surprise recently.  I inherited my grandma's piano.  I have wanted a piano for years and am so thrilled to have one now!  And it is so special that it was my grandma's.  We have been loving it.

(Oh dear, are the pictures on our wall really that crooked??  It seems impossible to keep them straight with two boys thumping around!)

Now to practice and see if I can relearn some of my old piano skills...



Miscellaneous December

Here is a post of many random fun things we have done in the last month and a half or so...  Sorry it is long.  I promise this is the abridged version.

Playdough

Trips to the park (some with friends)

LOTS of playtime outside in the snow.  We had snow on the ground for a long time.

Snow mowing

Robot snowman

Austin attacking the computer.  He loves anything with buttons, and seems to very quickly figure out how to turn things off...

Loads of art projects

Playing up at NCAR

We were restless and headed to the zoo despite a prediction of a huge snowstorm hitting that day.  The zoo was deserted.   I have never parked so close (about 4 cars from the entrance) or seen so few people there.  It was marvelous.  It meant that I could let both boys run as free as they wanted and not worry about them getting run over by strollers or swept into school groups.  It was a little chilly but we bundled up and had a great time.  Thankfully, the huge snowstorm didn't start until that afternoon.

One night we were heading to bed and started to hear a funny sound.  We soon discovered that it was a leak dripping from our ceiling near our front door.  Argh!  Luckily I had been lazy and left my running shoes by the front door, which it was dripping onto, or I don't know that we would have heard it and found it that night.  We drilled a few holes to help water drain out and into a bucket instead of spreading through the ceiling.  Apparently our roof needs some work...  We think it is from our lack of insulation, so when snow is sitting on the roof it melts along the roof with snow still on top and sits there because the rain gutters are frozen...

We knew there was some kind of problem recently from the horrible ice on our front step.  Cal's done a couple of things that have helped a lot, but we'll still need to get it fixed.  This is all ice and quite thick.

Zach and Cal built a huge snow fort in our front yard from the big storm.  He was so proud of it!

Preschool

This year we have been doing a little preschool co-op with some friends of ours from church. We did this for awhile last year, but the way it was set up just didn't work for us. This year we bought a preschool program that we are doing and have organized it differently, and it is great. There are 5 kids and we take turns teaching in 2 week blocks. I was a little nervous about it, but it is actually quite fun. The kids are so cute and have so much fun together. It is a little tricky with Austin, but he does pretty well and I try to incorporate him as much as I can.  Cute kids! 

Kira, Jett, Preston, Raquelle, and Zach

Turkeys right before Thanksgiving.

We set up our play tent one day when we were talking about hibernation and taking shelter from storms.

They love music and dancing!  (and I love that it gets some wiggles out!)

I've learned that I have to put most of our toys into other rooms before they come over or it is an explosion.  Even so, it is often a bit of a mess when we are done.  They get some free play time and it is so fun to see them play together and hear their conversations.  Their imaginations are getting so good!  Here is a picture from one of the first times I had them- see the chaos? 

I can't believe we are already halfway done!  I went to a kindergarten meeting this last week for Zach and I am working on getting him registered.  It doesn't seem possible that I have a child that age.  Crazy!