This weekend, inspired by president Obama, we practiced shooting rainbows. This one onto Celia’s foot.

I am still playing catch up with blogging, but once I finish up the Christmas series I’ll be up to date! I have kept up once I got through the holiday hullabaloo. Then we got hit with snowmageddon, and I still can’t even look at the pictures without cringing, there’s still snow in our front and back yard. But back before there was snow, there was Christmas! We had Christmas #1 at home at our house with my parents and the bulk of the gifts. Emphasis on bulk.

There’s Fred in the corner, checking out the loot. Speaking of Fred, or Fredwina we should now say, he had medical problems back in November where he started peeing all over the house for no apparent reason. Poor guy was very uncomfortable and ended up after many exams and attempts, discovered to have bladder stones. He was scheduled for surgery and on the morning of, he ended up blocked (unable to pee, literally blocked) and thankfully the surgery then cured that problem which would have killed him. Because of the blockage and the stones, they decided that it would be appropriate to remove the male genitalia that makes it more likely for this all to happen to him and we agreed because having a cat pee all over your house is no fun. So Fred is no longer anatomically a boy, but he’s healthy and we love him. Back to Christmas…

We had a very nice Sunday morning opening up obscenely many gifts. Ewan has got gift opening down pat now and so he’s thrilled to open up everything in front of him, even if it isn’t his, so watch closely.

My most clever gift this year is the one above, nothing amazing, but it’s a toothbrush holder because Jordi was  getting very frustrated that we all had our toothbrushes too close together and hitting one another in our current setup. This one is a custom wood model and has worked out great so far.

Above they are making cookies, peanut butter blossoms. Since I was sick for so much of November and December I barely got the cookies made once I finally felt I wouldn’t be spreading germs. But they were made and all baked off. Next year I hope to be starting sooner, and not sick.

Also for Christmas morning I made a short video of just how active our morning was, the kids don’t sit still at all. It’s a time lapse one and I like watching how Ewan’s water bottle moves around the frame, again and again and again. Plus the paper bag full of recycling.

Celia has started to learn how to read as she knows most of her letter sounds now and she’s starting to be able to put it together with help. She also likes to hold her own storytime at home now for her captive audience (Ewan) who is very appreciative of anyone who reads ‘Birthday For Cow’. For now she’s memorized it, but she’s starting to show us signs that she’s understanding all the letters around her! Ewan wants this book read multiple times a day. The book tells the story of making a cake (without turnips) and so all I want at the end of the story is some cake. The moral of the story is to think about what the person really wants for their birthday though (turnips in this case), but I really just think we all want some cake.

Hey I got older this past year too! Here’s a few photos from my birthday at the end of last year. I got a new flash for my camera so I can take better photos inside in the evening and the dark. I still don’t get too much practice but it’s getting better!

Fridays at our local library we have storytime which we do attend once in a while. Ewan is finally old enough to sit and listen to a few stories, and Josie still loves to be read to and smartly answer all the librarian’s questions along with the craft. This weeks theme was wind and they made paper bag kites!

[photos taken with android phone]

This was on the way to the library, just a few moments before Ewan fell face first flat in the puddle. Note he’s wearing different pants in the above puddle because I had to buy him new ones at the thrift store as his other pants (and socks) were soaked.

I actually remembered the photo while it was light, and while it was still March! Score!

And this was Josie’s suggestion for a pose arrangement. I think she’s been looking over my shoulder too much while I laugh at Awkward Family Photos. Celia seems to be unable to make a normal face in a photo lately, despite talking about it right before starting.

Saved by my flash tonight as I repeatedly throughout the day remembered that I needed to take my weekly shot, but then had one child or another unavailable, and then remembered, and then forgot, and then bam the day is done. Definitely compared to having a 1 year old 5+ years ago, the day goes very quickly. We’re always moving onto one thing and the next. But one thing to remember about this time of life is the striped pants, or no pants, as those are generally the preferences. This is one of Josie’s favorite outfits, she basically is wearing the same three outfits again and again and again without using her other clothes. Ewan generally prefers not to wear pants, but definitely wants to wear his boots (not allowed today as they have mud on them).

Each year for the last few years we’ve been talking together as a family most nights at dinner about what we’re thankful for during the month of November. We’ve done it for a few years now and the lists are always full of a few funny ideas. This year we had to interpret Ewan’s ideas as he was not yet speaking more than a few words. This month Fred was struggling with his health and so that came up a few times. Also the tradition of looking around the room, and naming whatever you see is also well and alive in our lists! I was also not healthy particularly during the month of November, so there’s a bit more awareness of the gift of health in general, but not mine.

Celia’s list

1. Going on a trip
2. Tried our tofu
3. School
4. Candy Corn project
5. Discovery Museum
6. Alphabet project
7. Little Q Hot Pot
8. Fred is alive
9. Healthy parents
10. 3 bitty books gift set
11. Healthy mommy
12. Healthy daddy
13. Tio Javier
14. Tia Vani
15. Ezzy
16. George
17. Lights
18. Frog cups (from our trip in Florida at the rainforest cafe)
19. Mister
20. Self alive
21. Olaf
22. Stamp markers
23. Ewan’s bat (an art project from halloween)
24. Cutting and pasting book
25. Ghosts aren’t real (yes we are all thankful for that one!)
26. Mommys pictures
27. Number gloves (new gloves with numbers on each finger)
28. New blanket mommy made me
29. New Necklace
30. Paintbrushes

Josie’s list

1. Money to go to disney world
2. Disney
3. Good parents
4. Losing a tooth
5. Airplanes
6. Television
7. Little Q Hot Pot
8. Fred is alive
9. Pama
10. Mommy’s Cooking skills
11. Ewan
12. Frozen
13. Tio Javier
14. Tia Vani
15. Abuela
16. Abuelo
17. Mommy (1000 times)
18. Daddy (1000 times)
19. Celia
20. George
21. Ezzy
22. Mio
23. Myself
24. Healthy Daddy
25. Papa
26. Lights
27. Snow
28. Ewan closing drawer without taking things
29. Going out to play
30. Reading “Touching The Waves”

Ewan

1. Cheese
2. French fries
3. New sippy cup
4. Glue – he does really love to glue things
5. Dinner table
6. “uh oh’s”
7. The Family
8. Nursing pillow
9. Applesauce
10. Curried chickpeas
11. Music
12. Vampire bat project
13. Da-da
14. High fives
15. New teeth
16. Climbing
17. Mama
18. Josie
19. Celia
20. Papa
21. Pama
22. I can jump!
23. Toy strollers
24. Carriers
25. Hair
26. Rice
27. Beans
28. Nursing
29. Waldo Park
30. Thanksgiving!

Jordi

1. Family dance party
2. Warm house
3. Loving wife
4. My health
5. Healthy Josie
6. Healthy Celia
7. Darling Jen’s cooking
8. Healthy Ewan
9. Going skating with Josie and Celia
10. My job
11. Vacation
12. Our kitties
13. Fred is safe after surgery
14. Chai lattes
15. Help from Pama and Papa
16. Video games
17. Quebrada outings
18. Our bikes
19. Our neighborhood
20. Safe travels
21. Waldo park
22. Friendly neighbors
23. Silvia who cleans our house
24. Music
25. Mommy’s pictures
26. Abuela and Abuelo
27. My brother and sister
28. Daddy and kid dates
29. Kids learning well
30. Family games

Jen’s list

1. Our health
2. Daddy
3. Electricity
4. Strong bodies
5. Warm house
6. Polite children
7. Lady who gave us a cage for Fred
8. Fred is alive
9. Pama and Papa
10. 60 degrees in November
11. Healthy Celia
12. Healthy Josie
13. Abuela and Abuelo
14. Angell Hospital
15. Doctors
16. Camera
17. Sunshine preschool
18. Healthy Ewan
19. Angell Memorial Animal Hospital (oops that got on there twice!)
20. Mr Rogers
21. Library
22. Washer and dryer
23. Dinosaurs are dead
24. Modern Medicine
25. Neighborhood
26. Grocery store
27. Microwave
28. Our minivan
29. Warm bed
30. Waldo Park

This update is very special edition because Josie is writing it with me. She’s read the whole book of the first two years of her life (the blog made into a book) and enjoyed hearing the stories so I wanted to give her a chance to contribute too. We’ve also been very behind in our Josie reports, but she’s been more consistent all year so it will be easier to catch up.

This year Josie has been homeschooling. We’ve been making a weekly list of things that I try to finish each week. I study math, multiplication, addition, and subtraction, mad libs (part of speech), journaling, handwriting (with the handwriting without tears curriculum), spanish reading, spelling, reading out loud and reading independently. This week I did a worksheet on the words ‘there, they’re and their’. I think homeschooling is going really well and it’s fun. I want to homeschool next year.

Other than school, I have been doing gymnastics, ballet, swimming and choir. At home I have been working on my cartwheels and handstands, gymnastics is the funnest thing in the world. For my ballet recital this year we will be doing the happy prince, and I get to be in it! We started learning the dance and we’re trying to get to know the places we will be on stage. I just finished a session of swimming and now I started a new one with the same teacher, Miss Sarah. This last session I got rid of my bubble and now swim with no flotation help all class.

And now Josie has mostly lost interest in writing about herself so I’ll add some more. We’ve had a great year with her at home, I can tailor her lessons to her interests and to her strengths and weaknesses. We slow down and speed up as needed. Plus I can include Ewan and Celia in a lot of the lessons at different levels. Josie also teaches Celia a lot of her lessons (not by my request! this is them playing) to review math and reading. Plus we all get to cuddle and read. Josie is also a voracious reader herself. Most mornings she hangs out in bed for an hour reading. It improves her mood and gives us all some time to wake up and get moving.

As a six year old she can really communicate complicated thoughts and ideas to us and it’s a blast to hear what she’s thinking about and understanding about the world around her. It’s also interested to see what she’s picking up from books because she has more  free time to read than I do and so I can’t pre-read the stuff she’s reading. We generally read a book together at night, we’ve been reading the dolphin diaries series and also Charlotte’s web lately. I made sure to finish up Charlotte’s web during the day though, not right before bed since it is a rough ending.

Otherwise Josie plays with a number of friends from choir and around town. I also ran a math club for two months that Josie and Celia joined in and we got to meet a number of new friends and practice our math. One of her favorite activities of the week is Games Day which is a homeschool get together at the local library for a few hours of playing (mostly board) games with other kids, we all go and it’s been a great way to learn about other new games and try them out.  Let’s hope we can stay healthy as the weather warms up and we can all enjoy getting outside more and Josie’s dying to get back onto her bike (but she’ll need a new one as the current one is too small!)

• Size/weight: 8, ~50″ tall, 62 lbs
• Favorite foods: pasta, pizza, cheese
• Favorite toy: stuffed cat named ribbon
• Favorite book: Animal Ark series (Also re-reading Ramona series, the Dolphin Diaries series, and the Buddy Dog series)
• Favorite activity: play dolls with Celia and Ewan
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8; gets up about 6:30
• New skill: swim without a bubble, better handstands and cartwheels
• Teeth: Lost her first two! Gained 5 more, 23 teeth
• Literacy: reading chapter books

Well this week was tough finding them in good spirits playing together, more often carping on one another. So I got to dinner today and went ‘ack I don’t have a photo for my project!’ so they mostly decided they were going to pose for me. I threw Rody out in the rug and said ‘everybody sit on him!’ and got my picture. I’ll work on getting better next week, but we’re mostly getting rained on these days and I haven’t taken my camera anywhere fun. Also Jordi is now sick, hopefully he’ll feel better soon.