These two (boy and dog) have a new favorite passtime. They just LOVE to go through the gate in the back of our yard and down through the woods to the very back of our property line where there's a creek. The dog is amazing at locating the ball no matter where we throw it in the woods. She makes these concentric circles, getting bigger and bigger until she finds the ball; no matter where it is.
We've explored a lot of the creek lately and it's definitly a fun and exhausting way to spend the morning and afternoon.
The kids are growing up fast. It seems like yesterday when Will was just a toddler, and now Kylie is carrying on full conversations with people at the grocery store. What happened?
Now that Kylie can talk a lot more, there's a bit more fighting and arguing than we'd like to have. Occasionally, there's love and sharing and hugs. We're trying to make that a more frequent occurance.
The weather here has been crazy: icy and snowy one day, warm and spring-like the next. Our flower bulbs are confused; they're poking through some places. The dog LOVES when we go outside with her, though, the game of fetch could last a week with that dog.
Overnight, there was a winter storm advisory in effect. Since winter weather tends to go around us, we didn't expect much, but there was a generous coating of ice and sleet when we woke up this morning, and it was enough to make the backyard slippery. Daddy and Will set out right after breakfast while it took the girls a little while to get dressed.
Will is our more cautious child, and he didn't want to try the new snowtube on his own, but Miss Fearless was more than willing to give it a try. Once Will saw Kylie fly across the backyard, he hopped in with her.
Once Daddy was tired enough, we took a walk through the icy woods to admire the branches and trees.
We are so lucky to have made friends with the Gabor family since moving to VA. With a matching set of kids, parents who get along well and even the same dog, we have a lot in common and do a lot of things together.
The boys are only 2 weeks apart and the girls are about 5 weeks apart, so we're hoping they'll be friends for a long time.
Will started football last Tuesday, and so far, he seems to really enjoy learning the rules of the game. He especially loves that "Hut Hut, HIKE" means "go". The coach tries to trick them by yelling out other funny words, but they can only run with the ball if they hear "HIKE!"
Turns out, Miss Kylie also loves going to football. She's become the official equipment manager of the group, handing out footballs one at a time, collecting the cones and always ready with a cold drink for her brother.
Football runs until Valentine's Day and then it's on to Tee-ball, a house favorite. The kids in football are all talking about the Superbowl, though, so we may need a little more Patriot's apparel around here shortly.
I confess. There was a time. Maybe last week? When I wondered why we ever got a dog. I remember wondering it many other times in the last year or so, too. When you ate pieces of the playground. The maple tree we planted. The pear tree. The other maple tree. The fios cable. The air conditioning insulation. The jack-o-lanterns. The 12 or so wooden blocks. The plastic baby doll. The red sox croc I still haven't told Kylie about. The snow boot I told Target just "fell apart". I think you get the picture.
You've been an escape artist, brought home from at least three different neighbors and spotted frolicking around with the neighbor's dogs just last week. You bark every. single. time. you go outside. Why? To announce your presence? I don't think the grass cares. Speaking of grass, if you could pick up your own balls and toys, they might not get chopped up by the lawn mower.
You are a royal pain to take to the vet with 2 small children in tow. But, it's those children, especially the boy, that gave us a reason to want a dog. And now that you are almost 1, you're starting to grow on me (a little...just a little...don't get any big ideas) You really are very tolerant of the kids and their antics. You make an excellent dentist patient, as you can see in this video.
I predict you will be dressed in tutus, wrapped in blankets, help fight crime in the backyard and take many many hikes down to the creek in the very back of our property. Thanks for giving our kids the dog we hoped we'd have. Keep up the good work.
On Saturday, Will told us about an experiment he did at school to hatch some dinosaurs out of ice eggs. He explained the whole experiment and how they had to guess which would melt the ice fastest: hot water, cold water, or no water? He said he guessed hot water and that he was right! Then, he asked if we could do the same experiment at home.
So, we gathered up the little dinos and dropped them into Solo cups and set them in the freezer to make the ice dino eggs. (Mommy snuck in the freezer and added food coloring to make it more exciting)
Then, we tried different things to melt them.
We melted three to do the experiment and then we dropped the rest into the bath tub and let the kids stir them around and try to break the dinos out of their eggs. We talked about how sometimes Tank's water bowl is ice in the morning, so we tried to leave the dinos in their cups of water on the front porch all night long, but, alas, they did not turn to ice last night. It was a fun experiment and the kids really liked taking the dino eggs into the tub with them.
Josh got a giftcard to Lowe's for his birthday from Gram and Gramps (Thanks!). So, on Sunday he headed off to Lowe's to pick up paint for the Master Bedroom, one of the only rooms in the house we haven't painted.
We painted one wall a dark blue and the other three walls a lighter blue. It looks like a completely different room now and the white trim and doors really stand out, making the room look very nice. With some extra paint, we made the basement bathroom look very inviting for our guests.
After our green pudding mixing and eating yesterday, we played with Tank and gave her a bath. That's when we noticed it was SNOWING again! We bundled up and headed outside to enjoy the first snow of the season.
and just like the characters from Charlie Brown told us:
Patty: Try to catch snowflakes on your tongue. It's fun. Linus Van Pelt: Mmm. Needs sugar. Lucy Van Pelt: It's too early. I never eat December snowflakes. I always wait until January.
The kids ran around the backyard, the frontyard, and the driveway collecting snowballs and eating snow.
Will really wanted to go sledding but there's hardly a covering in the yard and the temperature is headed right back to mild by tomorrow. At least we had some delicious fun before dinner and a warm bath.
