Ethan and I have our standard lunch options that we both enjoy (pb and j, quesadillas, fruit and yogurt with granola, wraps, etc.), but one day he thought it would be fun to try a peanut butter and jelly wrap. Although it was tasty, it was very messy. We haven't done that one again.
The "big legos" came out into circulation recently, even though everyone can handle the little legos; the little legos just make way more of a mess :) Ethan has enjoyed making all manner of creations, while Kate brought out her little animals to have adventures in and among the legos.
Stuffed animals in the basement have also been high on this winter's play list. One afternoon, I stumbled upon this scene on my way downstairs ... a dozen or so stuffed cats all in capes.
Other basement play recently has involved diving onto or over different therapy balls, this is a relatively new skill for Anna.
Ethan thinks that it's extra fun to line the red exercise ball up right behind the yellow peanut ball and then dive across both of them.
Ethan has also discovered how to twist up the trapeze bar so that he can spin at ridiculously fast speeds. It takes a lot to make this child dizzy.
Not only that, but Ethan has also learned recently how fun it is to jump from the third or fourth stair, through the banister, onto a beanbag. Pure joy.
On a slightly different note, Kate is continuing with the piano lessons we began in January, although we have decided to postpone Anna's until summer. We all decided that her schoolwork and daily eye exercises were more important. Back to Kate ... she is doing fairly well by my observations. Granted, I've never taught piano lessons before, but I've known Kate all of her life and this is one of the few activities we have placed in front of her (besides imaginative play and reading) that she is willing to continue and even seems to enjoy. Hooray!
Random side story about Kate. Last Thursday morning she announced that she only had one of her gym shoes in her backpack. What?!?! Up until this week, she has been wearing her snow gear and boots to school, packing along her shoes to wear once she arrives at school.
But it's kind of hard to participate in gym when you have only one shoe. Since we learned of this issue about 5 minutes before we had to leave for school, we told her to grab some other shoes from the basket and look for her missing shoe at school.
Apparently, Kate's feet have grown and the spare shoes no longer fit, so she borrowed a friend's boots to wear for the day at school. And she couldn't find the missing shoe.
Thursday afternoon we looked and looked, inside and outside, but couldn't find that crazy shoe. Kate tried on a handful of other shoes we had, but they were all either too tight, or just a bit to big. She wore the too big ones on Friday and then Ethan and I tried the lost and found bins, because it's not really lost until Mom can't find it, right?
By Friday night I was realizing we would need to make a trip to a store over the weekend for some new shoes for Kate. This was not in the original plans for the weekend and no one was looking forward to it. I will admit that I was probably the grumpiest about the whole ordeal.
Matt offered to make one more sweep of the yard on Saturday morning in the off chance that Kate's shoe fell out of her backpack on Wednesday after school while she was wandering around the yard. You know what? He found it ... behind the play kitchen on the other side of the sandbox. True story.
The relief and joy I felt at not having to take Kate in to buy new shoes is indescribable. Instead, we had a wonderfully productive and fun Saturday, which included these three goons playing with rocks, sticks, trucks, plastic animals, and who knows what else on the patio, plus an afternoon family trip to a park to enjoy the beautiful weather.
Speaking of the weather, we have had some record warmth here in the last week.
Enjoyable weather, but crazy stuff, too.
This weather is even rivaling the unusually warm spring we had five years ago, when we lost a good portion of our fruit crop. I have been out checking our fruit buds almost every day. Today was supposed to be the warmest and then the forecasters are predicting more typical February weather again this weekend. We would be incredibly sad if our fruit trees didn't produce this year, especially after the amazing harvest we had last fall. At this point we just have to wait and see.
All the canned fruit stored in the basement is still holding up, but we are on the tail end of our frozen vegetables. In fact, I just brought up the last of them this week. The peapods and freezer pickles have been gone for awhile, but we are going to miss the butternut squash, corn, beans, and broccoli when they are gone. We still have plenty of sweet potatoes, beets, both canned and frozen, and pumpkin, both whole and cooked. We also have a good supply of tomato products as well, thankfully. The family much prefers our salsa and spaghetti sauce to store bought ones.
I'm glad that we made it this far with our veggies. However, no matter how much we put up in the summer, we always seem to run out in February and March. These kids just keep eating!
One of these days I'll try to include a few videos of some of Anna's therapy work and maybe even Kate's piano progress!
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