Baby Picasso

The girls really wanted to paint this week and Reid determined that he was NOT going to be left out of the loop anymore. He was so proud of himself and only sucked on his paintbrush once or twice. I was worried that he was going to dump the water bowl but he didn't. He happily tried to drink it. But he didn't dump it all over the table. Thank goodness for non-toxic kids paints!

Such a Good Daddy

The kids love playing games. I think they must get it from my side of the family. My dad was a huge fan of card games and we played a lot of them growing up. Eric is not a huge fan of card games but because he loves his babies he played Uno with the girls tonight after work. He played Michigan Rummy with the big boys this weekend too.

After the girls ballet recital we headed to Costco to grocery shop and eat some delicious food court dinner. As we were walking out of the store a man stopped Eric and said, "Sir, thank you for being kind to your kids." Eric looked surprised and thanked the man for the comment and we went on our way. But it is true. Eric is kind to his kids. He speaks kindly to them and spends time with them as much as he can. We are so blessed to have such a nice dad for our family.

Another Ballet Recital

The second session of ballet for the girls finished today with a recital. The girls were music box dancers this time and their routine was very cute.

Lucy woke up this morning and came screaming into our room to remind us that today was her recital. It has been so much fun to see the girls embrace ballet this session. Not that they didn't have fun last time, it just seemed as though they really got it this time.

 Anxiously awaiting the recitals start.

They were the first group to perform. All slumped over waiting for their music. 

Add a twirl to the routine...

The girls got flowers at the end of the recital. They were so excited that as soon as Miss Jillian brought them out they ran up to get one. Too bad that they needed to wait until they were called.

 The recital ended with cookies and punch. It was a very favorite part of the program for everyone.

Mr. Reader

Zane's reading has really taken off in the last few months. He is getting more and more interested in the books that Andrew is reading and since Zane thinks he should be able to do everything Andrew can do... he has picked up more advanced readers and jumped right in. It is so neat to see him loving reading. I don't know if he will ever be as fanatical a reader as Andrew but he certainly likes to do it! Makes this momma's heart proud.

New Things!

As kids have grown and tummies have gotten bigger several changes have happened at our house. We have moved from buying our bread to baking our own bread. This has saved us an enormous amount of money in the short term but has required me to begin baking bread almost every other day. My old KitchenAid mixer only allowed me to bake two loaves at a time and we are a big bread eating type of family.

Now I am looking forward to only needed to bake once or twice a week. Hooray for tax returns that buy new/bigger appliances.

Also we have had a glider since Andrew was born. Those things are not designed to be used for almost 10 years. It was completely falling apart and when we were at Babies R Us last weekend we  found this fun recliner for a great deal! This should be wonderful for nursing babies and snuggling little ones in the night!

And because I have yet to post a picture of my baby bump, here we go. I am 28 weeks pregnant and this little man is a mover and a shaker! Getting very excited to meet him and welcome him to our family.

Zane's Valentine's Day

Since Zane and Andrew have both had the same 1st grade teacher, I had a pretty good idea what Zane's Valentine bag was going to look like. You just don't mess with a good thing. I was not expecting Zane to actually name his Valentine bag though. This is Lovey Jr. Not to be confused with Lovey (the blue elephant) or Lovetta (the pink elephant that is technically Gwen's but magically seems to belong to Zane). He was so proud of his bag and thrilled to dig through it and show me all of his Valentine candy and cards. Seeing their joy over things like Valentine's day parties just puts a smile on my face.

Math Team

Andrew got his math team shirt last week and today was the first day that he wanted to wear it. I don't know if it is because it was red and today was Valentine's day or what his logic was but he would not wear the shirt before today. He is really enjoying math team. The big competition is sometime at the end of April and he is really excited for it. He has such a math brain and so many of his proud moments come from understanding math concepts. It just makes me and Eric giggle because while we both are halfway decent at math, it certainly isn't our passion in life. Oh the joy of wondering what direction Andrew's life is going to take him. I am certain math will have some part of it.

Fashion

The girls both got themselves dressed this morning without any input from me. It makes me laugh at their complete and total difference in clothing choice. Lucy is all about comfortable. She has quite the eclectic taste. Stripes match stripes. Flowers match flowers. Hello Kitty matches Hello Kitty. You get my point. She sees things matching that maybe do not match at all. Gwen, on the other hand, is actually extremely good at putting together matching outfits. She has a tendency to want to always match pinks together (even when they don't actually match) but for the most part she ends up wearing a much more put together look. She is also very certain that she should have dresses with bows and sparkles and pockets and they must twirl. There are items in her drawer that she will not put on at all. It is maddening when I need to do laundry and the outfit she wants to wear is not clean. Can't hardly wait to see how this plays out in the years to come!

Comfortable?

Most days Gwen and Lucy watch their movie in the afternoon and then play. Apparently today Gwen must have found the movie less than thrilling because the next thing I know I look over and she is crashed like this. Ultimately her entire body slipped off the couch. It did not wake her up though permanently. She rolled over and slept for another hour once she hit the floor. Goofy little girl!

Report Cards

The boys both brought home their report cards this week and we were pleased to see excellent grades and behavior from both of them. They are right on track and excited to start the next semester! Good job Andrew and Zane!

Progress!

It seems we are turning a corner with Andrew and his journal writing. Today he came home from school and we talked about his day which was pretty good. Then it was time for him to start his homework. I asked him if he had an idea of what to write about and to my surprise he instantly said yes! And then he sat down and wrote his journal entry. It was about learning long division in school and how he instantly understood it. Now this is huge progress for Andrew. Some of our biggest fights were about him writing something about himself and writing something that was a memory from his day. Both topics were covered in this entry and best of all there were no tears! So proud of my guy!

Fun with Daddy

Reid and Eric are such buddies. He is the one who seems distraught that Eric is at work. He looks for him in the mornings and is a total snuggle-bug with Eric when he is home.

It doesn't hurt that Reid is just as playful as Eric is. He loves all kinds of games and teasing. Tonight Reid started torturing Eric by pretending to lick him.

Except that most of the time it wasn't pretend licking. Most of the time he actually connected with Eric's face. This was not the most fun for Eric but Reid was in seventh heaven, giggling and carrying on.

So Worried

This morning Gwen was getting dressed and as usual she was very interested in matching with Lucy. Gwen is so picky about what she wears. She has very particular tastes and while I can guess at most of them (pink is good, almost always) some are very obscure and random. This morning was a fight to get her dressed though because she wanted to match with Lucy and didn't have anything that was the same as what Lucy was already wearing. This time of year I usually insist on the girls wearing leggings under their skirts and dresses so they will stay warm. Also I try and convince them to wear them so their panties don't show. Gwen and I were talking about how Lucy was NOT wearing leggings today (totally different post) but that maybe Gwen should so her panties wouldn't show while she was at the gym playing. She then started sobbing about Lucy's panties showing and how that would be embarrassing. SIGH, Poor little lady. She loves her sis so much.