Spring Has Sprung

Since it was finally warm enough to let my monkeys outside, we took advantage of a break in the spring showers yesterday and headed onto the patio. We played a rousing game of alphabet hop--which entailed jumping onto the chalk letters as I called out their name and then David took a ride on his trike--and by ride I mean he sat on it, inspected the tires, tassels and bell, walked it three feet and then called it a day........maybe one day he'll get the hang of peddaling....

Puzzle Time!

David has a new love of all things puzzle. We got him this set of jigsaw puzzles for Christmas and he was mildly interested, but would always give up and ask for help to finish them. As you can see here he doesn't want my help anymore--except when it comes to bathroom breaks......

It was really hard to get a video of him doing a full puzzle, so you'll just have to take my word for it that he did these all by himself!   He also loves this giant dinosaur puzzle he got last week--it didn't take him long to master it and now he puts it together by himself first thing every morning :)

Brotherly Love

Henry is pulling himself up on everything now and he's pretty proud of his new accomplishments! It has caused some tension between the boys when he pulls himself up to the train table and upsets the layout, but David doesn't seem to mind sharing the play kitchen with his little brother!

Henry Can Crawl

I thought I'd post a video cofirming the fact that yes, Henry can crawl! He's been scooting around for a while now. Mostly backwards so that he ended up stuck under the sofa. He was also able to miraculously make it to Raleigh's water bowl in seconds if he found himself within a five foot radius of it, but I never actually saw how he was doing that......

David never bothered to crawl, he just sat there until he pulled himself up on the furniture and started walking so it's been fun to watch Henry do this low crawl all over the place!

Henry vs. David

First David lulls Henry into a false sense of security....he's all smiles and hugs....

Then, the hug takes a turn for the worse and it turns into a body slam.....accompanied by the classic line, "Henry fell down" complete with the innocent, I don't know what happened look from David.....

Peace is restored as the boys perch in their favorite spot in the house--the back of the sofa--looking out at the squirrels. It's the favorite spot of dogs and children everywhere.....But Henry will soon get his revenge....

Ah, brotherly love...why do I have the feeling things are only going to get worse from here....

Our Simple Lent

For Lent this year we decided to try to keep things simple and just focus on a couple of activities for David to help him learn about the season. I made this sacrifice/kindness jar for him to put a bean in every time he makes a sacrifice, does something nice or says a prayer. On Easter morning they will have turned into jelly beans. He doesn't really seem to care about the jelly bean part yet--I'm not even sure he knows what they are--but he sure does love the noise the beans make when he throws them in! This is currently the centerpiece on our table, but we'll see how long it lasts there.......

We have also been counting down the days until Easter. David loves this calendar--mostly because it resembles a train track. He was driving his bus up and down it all morning. I drew his attention to the pictures of Jesus at the top and our exchange went something like this:

Me: Who's this? (pointing to Jesus on the cross)
David: Jesus
Me: They put him on the cross and he died. That makes us very sad. But then what happened here (pointing to the risen Jesus)
David: He fell off!

Well we'll have to work on the whole rising from the dead part...... I just got a beautiful book, The Easter Story, by Brian Wildsmith to read with him during Lent and help him learn about why Easter is so important!

We also put these NOW crosses that I made on the radio, TV, and computer to help remind us of our Lenten resolutions--one of which is giving up the time we were wasting using these devices and using it for Bible study, reading, and other more worthwhile endeavors. You can read more about the NOW cross here.

(Not) Ready to Play!

We woke up to a winter wonderland this morning and here are some pictures of David trying (unsuccessfully) to convince me that he is dressed appropriately to go play in the snow. For some reason this mean old mommy didn't think a pajama shirt, some underpants and daddy's shoes constituted appropriate snow play wear....After a while he changed tactics and tried to get me ready to go outside by giving me daddy's shoes....the boy's persistent that's for sure.

Don't worry, when Chris gets home he'll have his chance to make snowmen to his heart's content--hopefully while wearing pants....

A Manly Taco

Kate gave us her famous chicken taco recipe to try last week and this is how Chris really made it his own. It's a real man's taco--a tortilla, refried beans and two taco shells. Thank you to Kate for the excellent (and super easy) chicken recipe! Chris has announced he no longer wants beef tacos to disgrace our dinner table again--it's chicken tacos forever :)