To celebrate Josie’s birthday she chose to send our family packing to the Cape codder resort as we have done every year since she was born. This time we took my parents along. I’ve got lots more pictures to share, but here’s the classic setup at the wave pool before swimming on Saturday morning.

On Sunday morning on the way to Quebrada for breakfast. No more winter coats yeah!

Monday morning we went with Jordi’s brother and his girlfriend Bruna to the Stone Zoo to enjoy some animal peeping! Celia’s favorite animals are always the river otters and that particular morning they were very active, wrestling, swimming and moving all around. My favorite part of the photo though is that Celia and Josie are holding hands, and Ewan’s got his stick. Mostly Ewan enjoyed playing with various sticks, having lots of room to run around, and identifying various animals as ‘cats’ or ‘dogs’. Josie and Celia watched the otters for a long time.

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!