March catch up!

Touching the sting rays at Mystic Aquarium

Juno, the Beluga whale

Juno loved the boys and kept swimming up to the glass to interact- so cool!

Trains, trains, trains!  This almost two year old knows what he likes!

Doing a little decorating

These long cold days call for paint!

I'm just making a smoothie and eating some carrots! No big deal!

A boy and his crocodile- Bronx Zoo

Grandma and her boys on the Bug Carousel

The kids help me ring in year number 36!

Maddie, Marshall, Ethan, and Uncle Bobby

Uncle Keith visits from MN

I remember way back when, when this was a weekly blog.  I would sit down while Ethan was napping and blog every Thursday morning.  My how the times have changed!  We're still doing so many fun things, and the kids are still completely amazing.  There's just no time to sit and reflect on it!

Nate will be two in two weeks.  This is so crazy!  He has blossomed into a little boy right before my eyes.  In the past few weeks, he has begun to put words together to form short sentences and thoughts.  I absolutely love being to able to hear what he has to say.  If I wipe his nose, he'll say, "Mama, hurt nose"  and he has started naming things that he thinks are good, and yucky.  Last night, we were eating pizza, and he looked over at me and said, "delicious pizza, Mama"  It took him a bit of time to get the words out, but he's putting it all together now,  I love hearing what he has to say.  This morning he asked to try pancakes and told me the exact fork he wanted to use. "fork, choo choo."  It's not only adorable, but I imagine a relief for him to be able to communicate with us.  Can't remember if I mentioned it previously, but Nate and I are doing a Music Together class that meets weekly at a local church.  He really likes going and has taken to the class routines really quickly.  When it's time to put away the instruments he goes around the room and collects them from the other kids and brings them to the teacher.  And at the end of class, when the teacher turns off the lights, he immediately lies down on the floor and snores as it is "calming down time"  Really amazing to watch him grow and to see how uniquely different Ethan and Nate are from one another.

Ethan is doing really well.  He has a new interest/obsession.  He started watching a show called Octonauts.  It's all about sea creatures.  He is completely into everything ocean, sea creature, water, and can spit out the most random facts about the topic.  It's been so much fun!  We've visited some local aquariums and it's been so cool to see all of the animals that we've read about and seen on TV.  We've hit the non-fiction section of the library pretty hard- we leave weekly with books about Moray Eels, sharks, whales, and so on.  I'm thrilled to have moved onto a topic that doesn't involve trucks! This morning, I brought Ethan to the dentist.  He looked like such a big kid, sitting in the chair on his own.  The hygenist was writing notes, and Ethan said to her in a little voice, "You know, I'm a kid who is really into sea creatures" and they proceeded to have a very mature, engaging conversation about sea life.  The kids cracks me up on an hourly basis, but to watch him interact with strangers in such a mature way, blows my mind.  He's huge!

Pete has been in Russia for the past 3 and a half weeks, and I'm counting down the days until he returns (3 to be exact)  We've all missed him a lot.  We're super thankful for Facetime, but it's just not quite the same as having Daddy home to help with dinner, tubbies, and bedtime!  I think I may take a nice, long nap, upon his arrival :)

Thanks for reading!