Good morning, wearing a hat!

Lillian and I said goodbye to Alan and Simon out the front window and hi to every other person walking down the street - especially the dogs. Then she went and played with the hat in the front room. Super cute. 

Walk in the cold

Auntie Amy needed help moving some furniture so I had both kids for a few hours in the afternoon. We were all getting a bit stir crazy so, cold or no, we needed out of the house. Simon desperately wanted to ride his tricycle. I would have said yes to almost anything to get his coat on (don't tell him that!). Pushing the trike through the snowy patches was not my favorite thing but well worth it. We were all better for the time outside.

Stuck in the snow and waiting for a push. 

Stuck in the snow again. I paused to get a picture of them both. 

Simon's First Baseball Class

Simon had his first Baseball class on Sunday. The session is a Christmas present from Grandpa Bart and Grandma Kiki and we went to show him the place while they were in town. He was so sad to leave then and so happy to come back on Sunday. We got there a bit early as I thought we'd have some paperwork, but they just went ahead and set him up throwing into a hoop while he waited for the rest of the kids to arrive. One of the kids in his pre-school class, Ryan, is in this class with him. They were adorably next to each other the whole session. He had a blast!

They actually have set things up really well. They have a group of kids hitting at a T and then another, separate group just behind where the pitcher would be. When the kid batting swings he runs toward a line of cones (first base line) and runs through a finish bar that has been set up. At the same time, when the batter swings the kids in the outfield take that as go and grab a ball and run up and throw their ball through a red or blue hoop. It gets the motion of the game without having to depend on the skillset of the other kids.

Practicing throwing with a coach pre-class. 

Simon is in back waiting to go.

Kid hit ball, Simon is in back running.

Simon throwing through the hoop,
other kid ran through the cones on right and knocked down the finish line bar

Simon's Fort

Playing with the fort building set that Joe gave him for Christmas. Lillian was not allowed in for the first bit of playing but after some talks she is now welcome so long as she doesn't try to pull it apart. 

Lillian has something to say

Lillian is 14 months old and she has a lot to say.  She was talking away last night after she had just finished eating dinner, Simon and Alan were already upstairs getting ready for bed. So I figured I'd take a little video of her talking, maybe we could even show off some of her new animal noises (owl, snake, wolf).  What I got was hilarious. She is talking, and talking, and talking. She calmly responds to my requests, but then gets back to the point. Whatever that is, it is loud. I think she was trying to tell me she wanted to walk up the stairs and see Simon. That is certainly what happened after I turned off the video.

PS Yes, she is still wearing her Santa outfit even though it is two weeks after Christmas. It is just so cute and it has the added bonus of being very warm.

Sawyer's birthday

We got invited to the birthday party of one of the kids in Simon's pre-k class. They held it at Pump it Up which has a few rooms of big inflatables. We went last year to a party here and Simon was a little intimidated. This year he jumped right in. Even climbed the climbing wall! 

Going down the slide.

Getting ready...

Getting helped...

On his way!

He liked jumping off the wall and being let down gently more than climbing the wall.
He did go back about 5 times though!

New year celebrations 2014

We went to a sponsored Family New Year Celebration at the soccer club called Little Kickers. It was an amazing event, both kids loved it - the only thing I would have changed was the time. They had it from 4:00 to 6:30. Lillian goes to bed around 5:15/5:30 and Simon goes to bed 5:30/6. So going in we knew both kids would be tired, but we hoped it would be fun enough that they didn't notice.

The first thing Simon did when he got there was run to the soccer section and kick a ball then run around like a crazy man for about 45 minutes. During that time, Alan and Lillian explored a bit. They found a slide and some tubes for Lillian to crawl through. There was sand and lego things and big white puffs that they used for a 'snowball' fight. They had a dentist who was doing a Make Your Own Toothpaste craft, crown making crafts, face painting, pictures from a professional photographer and a countdown and balloon drop every 45 minutes or so.

Dinner was Pizza and Hot dogs and Simon acted like we were torturing him that we made him stop playing soccer long enough to eat (two bites) of a hot dog and a cup of animal crackers. Lillian loved the animal crackers so much she wanted to hold her own cup and was very possessive of it. When her cup full was all gone (and begging for more from me was a fail) she started hunting for food to steal and I had to pull her away from about 10 other families 'picnic'.

Around 6:00 Lillian looked at Alan and made the sign for sleep and added a pitiful please afterward. We gave Simon notice that the evening was coming to a close and we were headed out of the parking lot by 6:20 (which isn't bad considering how tired he was and how much he really didn't want to leave). Both kids were in bed and asleep by 7:00. Definitely will do it again!

KICK!

Goalie in Action

She kept kicking off her shoes because she was running around like a mad thing.

Through the tubes

LOVED the slide. She kept bumping into kids and a couple times bounced off and got knocked over.
She just laughed, got back up and headed toward the slide again. 

Balloon drop!

She has a heart face-painted on her left cheek. She could only sit still for a minute so it's a light pink.

Still smiling.

Watching Simon play ball at the end of the night.