Back in the Swing of Things

At the end of the week when the boys were sick, I needed to get them out of the house.  A semi-nice day provided the backdrop for a trip to the park.  Liam liked bouncing on the motorcycle

And swinging on the swing

Robin liked the bouncy butterfly

My boys!

Robin drew this picture all by himself.  I asked him to draw a head, and he made the rectangular box head, then gave it eyes and a mouth.  Then I drew the stick figure on a piece of scrap paper, pointed out how the lines represent the different body parts, and asked him to add them to his picture.

And he did!

Another crafting picture.  I love how he will examine something that he's trying to recreate to see the details.  He's either got an artistic mind, or an analytical one.

Robin did this all by himself.  He was playing with his foam alphabet puzzle and kept showing Dean the letters from his name.  The next thing Dean knew, he walked into the living room and saw Robin's name on the floor.  Good boy Robin!  He's getting a lot more familiar with letters lately and has learned most of the alphabet song now.  (I love that he sings "Now I remember my ABCs.")  He likes for me to spell the names of family and friends, and identifies the letters as we go.  He also knows how to spell "toy," because I wrote it on the bottom of some tupperware we gave him to play with.

His rendition of the ABCs currently sounds like this:
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I, J, K,
M, N, N, N, O, P,
Q, U, S,
Y and Z.
Now I (re)member my ABCs,
next time you sing with me."

We had a superbowl party again this year, and Madonna did the halftime show.  One of her songs had, among other lyrics, "L-U-V Madonna...something Y-O-U."  After the singers repeated this several times, Robin joined in by singing the alphabet song.

The week after the boys were so sick, I discovered that the temperature was supposed to reach 61 on Monday.  Still desperate to get everyone out, I decided that we would visit the zoo.  I tried to invite some friends, but nobody could make it last minute.  This penguin talked to us!

This monkey swung in front of us right after we arrived.  That was neat!

This is the first time I let Robin take a picture with my new camera.  He doesn't quite know where to hold it yet.

Liam got to play the drums this time!

Liam's first ride on the carousel.  Robin first wanted to ride a tiger, but then when I told him he couldn't change his mind mid-ride because I was going to be hanging onto Liam, he decided he didn't want to ride on something that went up and down.  So he chose the stationary peacock instead.

He still smiled and laughed through the whole ride, at least.

One evening, Robin decided to sit behind Liam and "hold" him so he wouldn't fall backwards and get hurt.  He was being very protective/big brotherly that day.  They looked so cute together, I asked Robin if I could take a photo of them.  He said 'no.'  Then Dean asked if he could take a video, and Robin said 'yes.'  So here you are:

We got a TON of snow in early Feb.  Robin "helped" me shovel a little, and wandered around a lot.

I planned ahead though, and got a movie cued up and paused so he could go inside and start it for himself when he got cold, because I knew it would take me a long time to shovel a foot of snow, and he wouldn't last that long.  It was needed too, so I was glad I did it.

We got a total of 18 inches over two days.

Saturday was much warmer, so Robin had a ball playing in snow that was more than half as tall as he was.

I tried to build a "house" for Robin, although it didn't work as well as I'd hoped.  I started with a bucket and tried to make igloo blocks, but by the third one I couldn't get them out.  Then I just dug/packed.  Here it is (it's really hard to see though, the contrast isn't right.)

Dean dug a path from the back deck to the trees so he could shake the snow off of them, and from there most of the way to the composter.  Robin loved these "houses" more than the one I made.  Oh well.  It was fun to follow him through the special channels.

In the "bedroom" created by the table.

Tons of snow!

The other day I was burping Liam and he (as usual) held himself back a bit so he could look at me.  Then he picked up the burp rag and began wiping at my face with it.  He did this twice in one day.  It made me smile.  That's what we do with burp rags, after all!

On the day we did the crafts pictured above, we also made a giant (they were Jack and the Beanstalk themed.)  Robin wanted to make the giant anatomically correct.  We'd already drawn clothing on it, so I pointed out to him that you can't see those parts through your clothes.  Ah, kids.

Robin is sleeping less and less during naptime, but fortunately he's been very good at respecting quiet time these days.  His room is always a mess when quiet time is over, but that's worth it.  One day when I was helping him clean up in the evening, I noticed that his backpack was full.  Inside, I found a full set of clothes and pajamas.  He'd packed himself an overnight bag!  When he saw me looking at the contents he told me "we need go somewhere.  We need go Ama and Poppa's."