Showing off new skills

Cas brought home a new scooter for Collin, and he and picked it up very quickly.  He loves to zoom up and down the street on it.  The next day the boys ran an errand and Cas came back with a scooter for himself, after going to three stores to find a scooter where he wouldn't exceed the weight limit.   

Maya cheered for Collin's first scooter ride from the front porch lawn.  Since then, we've done a few family rides, where Maya and I are on my bike and the boys are on their scooters.  I expected to be figure-eight bike riding down the street, but surprisingly we're all about the same pace.  

Oh the hand-me-down cuteness of the dress, the leggings and the boots.  It makes me gleeful!

Collin took a long nap on Sunday and so I got some one-on-one time with my daughter.  Though we dress her like a girly girl, we haven't bought her too many girly toys since right now all she cares about is if she can chew on them.  Surrounded by cars and trucks and showing off her crawling skills -

Chomping on Mater -

Collin's new skills of the winter including getting brave enough to walk the balance beam by himself at gymnastics (though at an adorably cautious pace), flying down the street on the scooter, and picking up all kinds of info at school and from reading.  

Maya is cruising all over furniture, dancing/bouncing when standing to music, crawling everywhere, I think she's trying to repeat "up" when she wants to be carried, and she's also starting to be remotely interested in books beyond just as another teething toy.  

Our yard has more (weed) flowers than yours

Sweet Collin loves to gift others with flowers, especially his mommy.  This sometimes means he pulls nice, living flowers out of planters at restaurants, but mostly it means he picks the tiny flowers in our front yard.  Yesterday he was telling our neighbor - who has a beautifully landscaped yard - that we had more flowers than he did, but I don't think Jeff was very jealous considering the vast majority of our flowers are growing off of weeds!

Daily pickings - 

Maya in her tutu and Collin who has already learned to roll his eyes and thinks it's hilarious (he thinks it's like sticking out your tongue; as of yet he doesn't do it disrespectfully).  Posing at the park for a Friday picnic -

Maya reading a book to herself . . . or more likely, opening her mouth to nibble on the book.

We happened to check on Collin after we had put him down and realized that he didn't go immediately to sleep.  Instead, he's been reading at the end of his bed where he gets some light from the bathroom and then falling asleep among books.  I have a love/hate reaction to this.

Maya in her first pair of "jorts" on the first day of March -

Three of Maya's blankets still leave a lot of Cas exposed as he snuggled up to watch tv.  They are the softest blankets in our house and the purple chevron one was knitted by Aunt Coady -

Smiles for spaghetti (and pretty much any other food) - 

While Collin has been struggling with sharing since Maya started to crawl, he still has plenty of sweet brother moments.  Here was one of him complimenting Maya when he saw her outfit for church on Sunday - 

We're enjoying the flowers, picnics at parks, watching Collin play peek-a-boo with Maya, and watching Maya grow by leaps and bounds.  We're biting our lips not to laugh at Collin as he explains why he cannot share Spiderman with Maya because then there will be too many villains and the bad guys will win the battle (or whatever increasingly creative excuse he comes up with for not sharing).  And we're praying Collin has a heart that is kind and generous - and that we do too!

Spins, Slides, and lots of Smiles with friends

It's so nice right now that we can mostly pick our kids' friends, and I love that they play with my good friends' children.  On Valentine's Friday, we met one of my best friends and her daughter at a wonderful park on a gorgeous February day.  The girls weren't so sure about the photo -  

But soon they were running around playing, and Maya was scooting around on the quest for the most tasty leaf -  

The stunning Katelyn on the playground - 

And my little beauty, double-fisting it with leaves -

Collin wasn't sure if this spinning cup was fun or terrifying.  Though he was smiling most of the spin, he claimed when it stopped to be scary, so we took a dramatically sad photo -

Happy to be outside and practicing pulling up -

On Saturday, we met my friend Amber and her three kiddos at another park. 

Amber had them spin and then run to a tree and back, to not only burn energy but also engage their brain to stabilize them after spinning -

The kids had no idea it was beneficial to their brain, but they knew they were having a great time -

Collin loves playing with these three -

Thankful for a beautiful weekend to get outdoors with my kids, my best friends, and their children!

My Little Loves on Valentine's Day

I spent Valentine's with my two little loves and away from Cas, who was out of town for work.  Dressed for the occassion, we took lots of pictures in their red -

I gave Collin a "polliwop" [his word for lollipop, and we think it's cute so we perpetuate the wrong word usage] and he assured me it was his favorite Valentine's ever!

Maya assured us she was quite pleased with the leaves she found all over the yard -

Brother and sister laughing at each other- 

Sweet big brother . . . until Maya started to reach for the polliwop -

Natural smile with sugary gift in hand -

Smiles and kicking feet greet Collin in the morning as soon as Maya spots him -

We spent time at my parents' in between play dates and dinners with my friend Kelly.  Collin - and my dad - were equally excited about Collin's new rocket - 

The rocket of course got stuck in the tree, so we had to fire tennis balls at it to free it -



Collin got bored being the ball boy for the tennis balls, and went to his fighting men - 

We tried to get a cute shot of my mom and the kids in their Valentine's shirts, but Collin's hug over my mom's shoulders was a choke-hug and Maya wasn't having it -

Maya is happy now, but my mom was still fighting for a breath - and this is the best we got!

Oh this girl, I cannot stop taking her photo!

Crawling Lessons and other snippets of our life via an iPhone download

Collin knows he can catch a ride in the front footrest area of the stroller, so we keep him moving by encouraging him to find sticks to defend us from the bad guy trees.  He got a little ambitious with his stick collection on this walk.

One Saturday in December, I was hoping to meet up with Amber and her family at a park, but it was cold and rainy.  We ended up at a bounce house place, where shockingly, Collin asked me if he could ride the mechanical bull.  This is the child that at three, I had to accompany him on the slides at bounce house birthday parties.  However, he didn't want it to speed up so much that it threw him off, so eventually I had to enter the ring and carry him off the bull!

A few weeks later, we tried to meet up with Amber again at the bounce house place, but it was packed with kids from daycares.  So we went to Chuck E Cheese instead.  It was Collin's second time there, and though he probably would have been content "playing" games without the tokens, Mackeon, Holden and Esmae quickly filled him in on how it works and how you earn tickets.  He had a blast and with his socialized share of tickets (thanks to Mackeon winning 100 but splitting them with the younger kids' meager winnings), Collin was able to get these vampire teeth.  Which two minutes after this picture was taken were dropped on the floor of the bathroom at Chuck E Cheese and haven't been worn since.

We send messages like this to Daddy when he's traveling for work - 

We send pictures like this to Grammy and Brownie as thanks for the foam toys - 

Collin started back to gymnastics class right before he turned four.  We had been in a parent-child class when he was three until I reached two weeks before my due date and we paused.  I was ready to go in the fall, but Collin wasn't ready to take the class without me.  A few months later with a noticeable increase in confidence, Collin enjoys his Monday gymnastics while Maya and I wave and smile to him from the viewing area.  Some days he listens, some days he tends to run around like a maniac, but I appreciate that he's getting to be active, adventurous, and learn new skills.

Maya's new trick . . . which we learned at gymnastics, I'm sure much to the delight of the other waiting moms who listening to us imitate and me cheer as she figured it out!

Christmas onesie picture.  My dad got these as a gag gift and handed them off to Cas, but he has worn them at least twice, so he likes them for more than just a photo!

It's no surprise that the dogs love to clean up after Maya now that she's predominantly eating finger food.  But I was impressed with Bruno's Pavlovian connection that when Maya starts to get fussy in the high chair, that's his signal to start his stalking, since we'll be taking her out soon.   

 

And speaking of Maya eating, this girl can put it away.  She regularly out-eats her older brother!  Here she is with a black bean goatee - 

Our happy little girl loves spending Wednesdays with her Grandma Libia!  Here they are swinging and giggling on a Wednesday afternoon - 

In Collin's stocking, he received a ticket to a dinosaur movie - and there was a matching ticket in Cas' stocking.  And he also got a certificate for pottery painting with an identical one in my stocking.  So last Saturday, we headed out for our mother-son date.  He chose a robot, and I painted a vase.  He was quite patient as my vase took a little longer than his robot (or I painted all three layers of the colors as instructed and he painted until he got bored).  After pottery, we hit up Marble Slab.  It was a great afternoon!

My girl and me in our matching chambray and polka dots on SuperBowl Sunday - 

And finally, a crawling lesson for Maya . . . that didn't quite take . . . by her sweet big brother -