Thursday, January 28, 2010

Did I mention it's been snowing?

This winter has been CRAZY for snow! Last winter, we hardly had any, and this winter it flurries, at least a little bit, most days. We've been having some fun getting the kids out to play, but I have to admit that I am way over winter right now. I am ready for some warmth and sunshine BIG TIME. (Hopefully we'll have some nice weather when we visit Rome in a few weeks.)

So here are a few pictures of us enjoying the snow- and a few of us going stir-crazy as well. ;)



Toby sledding with Daddy down the hill at the playground.

Mommy, Charlotte, & Toby (in the middle) coming down.
(Next year I think we need to get a sled that fits adult-size bums a bit better.)

Some days we get a little snow... some days we get a LOT, but there has been snow on the ground almost continuously for about 6 weeks now.

I've been doing yoga a lot lately- Toby's got mad yoga skillz. ;)

At first he was afraid of the vacuum,
but now he insists on having a turn every time I use it.
Did I mention 'stir-crazy?' (lol)

And last, but not least, Charlotte moved up from Nursery into Primary at the beginning of January. Here she is with Anton having lunch at her first Primary activity. She is having a HARD time with this adjustment-- she has to sit still much longer, and she misses her Nursery teacher. Thankfully, her good friend Anton is with her (and Sandro too) and while they may be the 3 rowdiest Sunbeams EVER, at least she is getting used to it. AND they have a fantastic teacher.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Charlotte-isms

I've had a few recent requests to share some more of the wisdom of our three year old Yoda. Enjoy. ;)

"Boys and girls are different... because of the pee-pees."

"You are naughty because you don't go to work. You don't have a job."
(While pretending to be Santa- to me.)

"Are you ready to be nice again?"
(To me again- as she is getting out of time-out.)

"These are your choices."
(Anytime she disagrees with us. Yes, I know where she gets this.)

"Mommies get together to talk... without kids? That's weird."
(As I'm leaving for book club.)

"I was a baby, but now I'm growed up. But I'm still growing. I'm going to be taller than Daddy."
(Gee, I hope not.)

Friday, January 08, 2010

oh shoot!

We've been having lots of fun shooting pictures of the kids with the new Sony Cybershot camera, and getting used to some of the features. Here are some of my favorites since Christmas.

Big shoes to fill.

"Cheeeeeese!"

The weather has been very cold lately,
Toby all bundled up in the car.

Charlotte is obsessed with eating snow. This day, she first smashed it on the glass door to the patio and then ate it off. Lovely.

Sweet Snow White and Little Polar.



Toby climbed up in the chair with his favorite Froggy and "Lisa," that he hauled down from the loft, and snuggled in with a blanket all by himself.
(He loves taking care of baby dolls.)

16 months old and irresistible.

Building towers is a new favorite pastime around here.
We have enough mega blocks to build a tower as tall as Rob! :)

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

vocab update

Toby is a man of few words.

He says "Mama," "Daaaaaaad," and "Bubba" for Charlotte and for a long time those have really been the only intelligible things coming out of his mouth besides yes/no head movements. This past week his vocab has blossomed though. :) He now says "juice" which is also what it sounds like when he says "shoes." He says "janku" (thank you) and most recently "tow" (rhymes with now) for tower-- aka he wants to play with blocks. It's fun to listen to him try to communicate with us FINALLY!

Charlotte, on the other hand, is so verbal, she has her own dialect.

She has developed the habit of saying things like "here my are!" And "I'm is!" (As in, 'Charlotte, eat your dinner'- 'I'm IS eatin'!') While Rob and I still think she's adorable when she makes these proclamations, I thought today maybe we should work on correcting them a little. Boy, that was more challenging than I thought it would be! I offered her a penny for her bank to say "here I am." That was impossible. (She was completely bewildered and embarrassed as the words kept coming out "I'm is" or "my am.") Slowly I said "I. Am." over and over. "I'm am." she finally replied. It'll have to do for now. Anyway, she's still the only 3 year old I know who uses words like "astute, usually, perhaps, exception, and fascinating" correctly. :)