We woke up this morning to several inches of snow! It snowed while we were in Florida and one other time there was a tiny sprinkling so this is the first "real" snow we've seen this winter! It is light fluffy powder too, the boys had so much fun playing in it. Finally starting to feel like winter now that it's almost February!
Ethan's been reading small words since he was two, but now that he's three he's really starting to get the whole reading thing so I finally sat down and recorded him reading a few books. I print the books from starfall.com and DLTK . We also got the your baby can read dvd's a few months ago which he likes to watch in the car.
He loves doing homeschool and if you tell him something 2 or 3 times he'll remember forever. He can locate almost all the u.s. states, knows the pledge of allegiance, the first 8 articles of faith, all the apostles, the planets, and is a pro on the computer- he loves pbskids.org and starfall.com. and he's on a dinosaur kick so he can identify quite a few of them and will tell you random facts like "birds are pterosaurs". He constantly amazes me with the things he picks up even when he's running around the room like a wild monkey and I don't think he even hears a word I'm saying.
We had a great week in Orlando although the weather was crazy cold the first half of the week. The first day wasn't too bad, we went to Animal Kingdom and were pleasantly surprised when we went on the safari. When we went last April it was ok but the animals were far away and hard to see, we figured it would be even worse since it was so cold, but they were all out and really close to us, there was a giraffe and rhino that were less than 3 feet away from us. It was awesome. The lines were so much shorter too and it was a really pleasant trip despite the cold. It's so fun to see Ethan get so excited about seeing Mickey Mouse and Lightning McQueen.I ran my 5k on Friday morning. I was a bit nervous since I just had a baby and had bronchitis the last few weeks, but I finished in 40 minutes. Not much compared to what Anthony does all the time, but it was pretty good for me. Saturday the boys ran a 100 meter race, it was cold and rainy and they were crying at the end. Ethan did really well but kept looking back to see where Anthony and Joshua were. Anthony ran the full marathon then walked around the parks for another 4-5 hours that evening. We also got to see our good friend Tracey who did the goofy- half marathon and then full marathon the next day.
Of course just as we were getting ready to leave the weather turned beautiful again. But it was a fun trip. It's fun to see the kids enjoy it more each year as they get older. Now it's back to unpacking and getting settled into real life again...
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! It's always so fun to get everyone's Christmas cards and see how families are growing and changing. We had a nice quiet Christmas here with just our family. The boys had fun opening their presents- Ethan of course tears right into it and starts jumping on all the bubble packaging while Joshua tears one tiny piece off at a time and places each piece on the table before tearing another piece off. Ethan & Joshua are obsessed with Thomas the Train and they each got a little portable track and trains from their cousins that they play with nonstop. They also got sleeping bags from their grandparents and Anthony and Ethan have already camped in the backyard twice. Anthony also got them the cutest little bathrobes, Joshua looks so adorable tromping around the house in it. I got some new photography gear and a new computer with a large screen so I can actually see the pictures when I'm editing them.
Grant is getting to be such a chunky monkey. My other boys were always below the 25th percentile for weight, not Grant. He's in the 95th! This little chunker weighs 13.8 pounds and he's only 2 months old. He's already starting to outgrown 0-3 month clothes. It's nice to finally have a baby with cute little fat rolls!
We're still getting unpacked, it's going to take me forever to get everything in it's place, and even longer to take pictures, but I did manage to get a picture of the living room- the only room that's 90% unpacked, and since we're getting ready to go to Disney World I'm sure it will be July before I get any other pics posted. Anyway...here are all the pics from December...
