jacob is sooooooo excited

Jacob is soooooo excited to go to his first "friend birthday party" tonight!! This "first" has been a long time coming for him. One of his talents is making friends easily, but he simply hasn't had many opportunities until this year. Therefore, he has been counting down the days to this party since the invitation arrived. He's been counting down the hours and minutes this afternoon. It's pretty much like waiting for Christmas morning, except without having to go to bed. The kids get to go to Chuck E. Cheese, also a first for Jacob. I hope the party turns out to be all the fun he's soooooo looking forward to! I can't wait to hear all about it!

blue candy canes

Matthew snuck into Ryan's room right after breakfast and raided his candy stash. He confiscated a blue candy cane. Fortunately I found him and got him to the kitchen where he could enjoy the sweet blue goo before it got all over everything except himself!

Yuck. Whoever invented blue candy canes should be sued. It's a good thing this little guy is so darn cute!

basketball basketball basketball

The boys basketball season is quickly coming to a close. Jared has one more game and Ryan has two. They have both had winning seasons and fun teams. I've enjoyed watching them play because they really LIKE playing basketball. Both the boys are good shooters and handle the ball well. Jared has done a good job rebounding this season as he has had to be the "big guy" for his team. It seems I can never get a good action shot, but at least you get the idea! This is Jared at the foul line, shooting. He made both foul shots! Here he is just warming up before the game.

Here's Ryan waiting for the ball to be thrown inbounds during a game.

Here he is taking it down the floor. He loves playing point guard.

surviving winter camp

Jared had his first winter campout a few weeks ago. Fortunately, it was a "warm" weekend, so Jared & Mark didn't freeze. Mark really doesn't like winter camping, but it was good father-son bonding time. The group got a later-than-planned start Friday night, so they were only able to get camp set up before dark. They each used two sleeping bags and a quilt to stay warm in their tent during the night. In the morning, everyone went snowshoeing with these awesome snowshoes that they had made especially for the campout (the scouts made about 20 pairs). Jared wasn't that thrilled with snowshoeing at first, but the second time out (at another scout activity) he had a more enjoyable time.

matthew's favorite toy

There it is...the VACUUM! Matthew loves this thing. He gets it out of the closet everyday. He screams if I try to put it away. He knows how to completely disassemble the entire thing. He pretends to vacuum and also gives real vacuuming a try. The noise doesn't bother him a bit. The accessories make great swords, lightsabers, and weapons too!

I wanted to buy a toy vacuum, but it wouldn't provide the same entertainment as the real one. We just hope that with all the playing, he doesn't actually break it.

Yes, he even tries to empty the dirt cup by himself.

Unfortunately he's not strong enough yet to do real vacuuming that would be helpful, but pretending is fun and keeps him busy for a good chuck of time -- and that IS helpful !

our new alarm clock

Matthew is our new alarm clock. He learned how to climb out of his crib last week. I'm NOT thrilled. The first couple of days he would wake up and sing or talk for a minute before climbing out, closing his door, opening our bedroom door, closing it behind him and then jumping up onto our bed. Now he's much more quiet about things -- he doesn't make any sounds when he wakes up -- he just quietly and sneakily climbs out of bed, shuts his door, opens & shuts ours, and climbs up on our bed. This little scenario happens anywhere between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. If he's not satisfied with getting us up, he runs into Jacob's room yelling "Jacob! Jacob!" and then climbs into bed with him!

Matthew is the first one of our kids to learn to climb out of the crib by himself. He'll be getting a big-kid bed soon. In the meantime, we've really got to teach him to entertain himself at 6:30 a.m.!

stellar star

I was pleasantly surprised to find this picture of Jacob (I think Ryan was using the camera) and fell in love with it because it really shows off his happy, silly, teasing personality. Jacob earned a "stellar star award" at school last week for being a know-it-all in a very good way. His teacher was discussing President's Day and began introducing President Lincoln when Jacob raised his hand and proceeded to tell the class all about Lincoln being assasinated, including all the details about who, what, where, when, etc. His teacher gave him the star award which means he got to visit the principal's office for positive reinforcement, call me at home to tell me what an awesome thing he'd done & get more congrats from me, and then put his award on the school office window in hopes of being drawn to earn fantastic rewards later. When I was talking with him at home later in the day he told me that his knowledge about Lincoln is really all thanks to Jared for telling him that stuff (Jared LOVES history). It's amazing what little brothers learn from older brothers. Thank goodness Jacob knew that the part about "Lincoln sold poison milk to schoolchildren" (The Simpson's) wasn't true and left it out of the story!

all warm again

In case anyone was wondering...we got our heater back about a week and a half ago! Yay!! The manufacturer actually sent us a new one. It's so nice to be comfortable again! I cannot believe the difference it makes in regulating the temperature in our house of many levels.

teething tales

Ryan has finally lost teeth #3 & #4. Their absence makes a great toothless grin, don't you think? He managed to lose #3 at school with much wiggling, jiggling, and tugging. Tooth #4 -- the top front tooth -- took a lot of wiggling and a lot of tugging and finally got pulled out by Dad. His new tooth was already beginning to poke through, so I don't know why it took so long to come out, but it did. Ryan is now working on loosening up #5, his other front tooth, and #6 on the bottom.

Matthew has finally cut two molars. Hooray! Chewing with teeth is much easier than gumming everything. We're hoping he gets more teeth soon -- he's up to a grand total of 9!

A few weeks ago, Jared was eating dinner when something flew out of his mouth and across the floor -- a tooth! That was the easiest tooth to lose EVER! He will be seeing an oral surgeon later this month to decide when to pull out 5 teeth. It will probably happen in March and unfortunately won't be as fun to lose as the others.

first haircut -- finally

Matthew's curls were getting to be obnoxious, so it was time for a haircut. His first. (This actually took place a couple weeks ago) I didn't want my baby boy looking anything like a girl, so I got the scissors going. I only managed to cut myself once and I think I did a pretty good job on the haircut!

The lucky kid got to play with a DS so he'd stay still while I snipped away!

jordan

Today is Jordan's birthday. He would have been 13, an official teenager!! Wow! I can't believe it's been that long since he was born. Thirteen years ago I never thought life would go on and that we'd ever have a family. Time never stands still, miracles happen, and we've been very blessed. My heart is full of gratitude.

how long was sherbert plannin' on makin' this thing?

We went to the symphony Friday night. The featured music was Schubert's Unfinished Symphony -- loved it! They also played a piano concerto by Mendelssohn and performed Petrushka by Stravinsky. We enjoyed those pieces too, so it made for a really nice evening.