January Snow Fun

Even though we had a great time at the park in the springlike January weather, we have been really happy that the second half of the month has been wintery. Finally we have some snow on the ground, and hopefully a lot more in the mountains. 

The first snowstorm was just enough to go out and walk in and make tracks.

The next snowstorm, though, was a lot bigger and Zeke had a great time shoveling snow and playing until he got soaked and cold. 

Nora wishing she could go out and play too.

January Park Fun

For the New Year's holiday we went to 'Freeze Fly' with Aaron's RC club. However, no freezing was required this year! The weather was beautiful, probably around 50 degrees. If it weren't for the cool breeze that blew occasionally, we would have been overdressed in our winter coats and hats and scarves. 

The other great thing is that we were flying at a park instead of a model airplane airport. That meant the kids could play on the playground to their hearts' content and I could keep my eyes on them and the planes at the same time. It was a win-win situation.

Planes in the sky on a beautiful day in Salt Lake. 

Nora trying out the slides by going down with Zeke.

Stylin' in Zeke's Cars sunglasses.

Zeke loved the swings.

Crossing the bridge to get to the slide.

By the end of the day Nora was sliding basically by herself. All I did was hold one of her hands to help her balance as she climbed in at the top. She loved it. 

For a couple of hours I was able to completely enjoy playing with my kids. Most days there are places to go and things to get done, but today all we had to do was have fun. It was glorious. 

First Words

Nora's vocabulary is exploding! She says about 25 words now, and they are coming fast. I was thinking the other day that I don't remember Zeke's vocabulary expanding this rapidly at this age, and it didn't. He was 20 months before he said a total of 25 words (Nora is not quite 17 months). They said their first words at around the same age (14 months). In the two top-25 lists, there are 8 that overlap: cheese, fish, cracker, socks, shoes, mom (mama), dad (da), and kitty/cat.

Zeke                Nora

yes	bye-bye
cat	hi
cheese	cheeeese
jet	fish
cracker	cracker
truck	shoes
shoes	socks
socks	cheese
sit	go
fish	chocolate
hugs	train
hat	cookie
shirt	marshmallow
chicken	pretzel
baby	cup
Cheerios	m&ms
color	dad
dad	uh-oh
mom	mom
chalk	ball
soup	down
church	apple
kiss	car
hand	bottle
hot	kitty

It's fun to see how the lists reflect their personalities and our situation. In Zeke's list you can see our jet rally vacation and evidence of the chickens in the backyard. Nora's list shows her love of food (particularly sweet treats) and evidence of having and older brother playing cars and trains. Both of them love their goldfish crackers and socks and shoes [shoes mean going outside, after all]. 

School-Age Boy

Zeke got to go to preschool for the first time this week! Miss Katie called about an opening in her class about two weeks ago, and we went to meet her and tour her classroom. Zeke thought it was pretty neat, and then he saw her train table and was totally sold. He asked many many times over the past couple of weeks when he could go and play trains with the other kids at preschool. At least he had Christmas and New Years activities to keep him busy while he waited :)

His first day was Tuesday, and he did great. All during breakfast and the ride to school he asked me if his nut (his 'N' show-and-tell item for the day) was in his backpack, and as soon as we got to school he excitedly pulled it out to show Miss Katie. When I picked him up, he showed me the farm book he got to bring home to read together. He's already learning things and has brought home fun projects he made. He loves it all, and I love to see him be so excited about everything he is doing and learning.

As we talked to Katie about the curriculum in her class, I was happy (and relieved) to know that Zeke is right where he needs to be academically. Zeke deserves a lot of the credit for that. I haven't had time to 'play school' with him as much as I would have liked, but we have taught colors, letters, numbers (etc) and now words as we read together and just as part of the things we do every day, and it has really worked well for him. I'm so proud of Zeke for all that he already knows, and so glad that now he has school to feed his need to learn at a fast pace. He's totally ready for it, and I know he will thrive there.

Bringing in 2012

New Years Eve we spent the morning partying with the extended family on the Loertscher side. They all go tubing in the morning but we're not fans of the cold so instead we built a huge train layout that was ready to play with when people arrived for lunch. Once Zeke got into the mode of being okay letting other people choose where the trains went, he really enjoyed playing with his second cousins (and probably some of his second cousins' kids too). Next year we might try a gigantic loop instead of the individual connected tracks. 

Nora played trains, thoroughly enjoyed being free to wander around, and was absolutely adorable as usual. Goodness she is getting big.

After the party and running our normal Saturday errands, we braved the cold at dusk to light the sparklers we bought for the 24th of July that got forgotten about. Or, Zeke, Heather, and I did sparklers and Aaron played with fire.

Zeke loved the sparklers. It was a lot of fun, other than the fact that it was freezing!

Nora wasn't so sure. I was a little worried about her feeling left out without her own sparkler to hold, but she really didn't want to have anything to do with them. 

The fireworks were a fun addition to our celebration. 2011 was a good year, as they all are, and we're looking forward to more great things in 2012.