The last few weekends have been very full and very fun! Mt. Blue State Park had a "Get Outside" event with activities ranging from skating, to snowshoeing, to animal pelts/print identification, to cross-country skiing and snowmobiling. The top few pictures are of the view on the ride the park ranger took us on... Uncle Jon, this is what we need for our family... think you can weld it? The day was really fun until lunchtime when Gabe experienced his first "judgment" from on lookers when Ben threw an all out fit in the doorway of the packed lunch area... the other kids and I were in line pretending we didn't know them... we all got in the car and went home after that:)
We finished up Audrey's room and I remembered to get some pictures of her in it. She doesn't really like the crib mattress so far, but I hope that is just a temporary adjustment. We have discovered that she talks in her sleep which is really the cutest thing ever at this age. At first I thought she was waking up to play at 2 am, but she would go back to sleep on her own with out crying.... then I checked on her and she was sound asleep talking away. Audrey has also been experiencing a huge developmental explosion. She now military crawls around to anywhere she wants to get to, she claps her hands whenever she gets excited about something, she "dances" to any type of rhythm (which makes me sad that we don't do a music class anymore) and she can say "hi" and "bye bye". Her speech is far and away advanced for our family... we will see how that holds up over time;)
James continues to enjoy and do well at school... he is having far fewer "accidents" at school, so we are optimistic that by the time he is 5 he will be completely potty trained during the day. A few nights ago he came out of his room after bedtime and said, "I have the silly putty stuck in my hair". I put some ice on it and made a cursory attempt at removing it, then like all good parents, I told him to put a hat on and we would deal with it in the morning;) In all fairness this was not an emergency and it gave me a chance to google "how to remove silly putty from hair". As it turns out the answer is baby oil... came right out the next morning. That same afternoon the boys and I went out to play in the snow while Audrey napped. I was out front with Ben and Noah while James was making his way around to the front from the back. As he walked closer he had blood pouring from his mouth with a trail of blood in the snow behind him. It should be noted that he had no idea he was bleeding and was totally unfazed by what had happened. Here is how the conversation went:
James: "Hi Mommy, could I please have the purple shovel?"
Me: "James, what happened?"
James: "Nothing"
Me: "Why is there blood dripping from your mouth?"
James: "I don't know"
Me: "James, look at the snow"
James: "Oh, I have blood coming out"
Me: "Yes you do, did you lick the fence?"
James: "Sort of"
Me: "Sort of?"
James: "Yes, my lip and tongue got a little bit stuck"
Seriously, that sucker bled for over an hour and at no point did he complain. However, he does now say that he should only lick the snow when he is outside;)
Ben has been making huge strides in the potty training area! I can't believe that we have a child willing to potty train before 3.5 years old! He has been ready for about 6 months now, but I just didn't have the energy to do it. Since he is getting bigger though he is resisting diaper changes more and has started kicking while being changed so I finally just got rid of his diapers. He is very motivated, does everything on his own (including cleaning up spills) and isn't afraid for falling in the toilet (it has happened a few times) even in public places. This is one area that his bigger size is a huge advantage!
Noah has started learning to ski! There is a program offered in this area called "snowcats" that is run by the college and is fantastic. They meet 2 days/week after school for 2 hours lasting 6 weeks. The progress Noah makes each week is really impressive. This is a picture of his group while they were competing in the "olympics". They called themselves the "rainbow trout" since their flag color is rainbow. He is really enjoying himself and we can't wait for James to be old enough to participate in this next year... Now for me to learn to ski...:)
Last weekend Gabe's best friend from childhood, Dave came to visit. In true fashion, that couldn't have been scripted better, he arrived to a scene of chaos. We had other friends with 2 girls (4 and 6 yo) over for dinner and everything was going well. But, wouldn't you know as Dave walked through the door our 3 boys were fighting over the yogurt on the counter spilling it everywhere and pulling each other backwards while kicking and screaming... fantastic! Thanks for staying Dave! It was a really nice visit after that including Dave helping us make a dump run and stacking wood in our basement.... oh the joys of being an adult:)
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