Just another cold weekend

Even though we had grand plans to do something this weekend, it was just too darn cold!  It barely got above freezing on Saturday, and all the things we wanted to do involved being outside.  I can't wait for spring to get here!

We did brave the cold on Saturday evening to go out to eat with Alex, Neely and Isla, which was definitely worth going out in the frigid temperatures!  It's so wonderful to have family who are pretty much our best friends!  Man, are we lucky!

Speaking of best friends.  Jason and I also got to catch up with Jeff (on the phone), which doesn't happen nearly enough.  We miss him!  (Hi, Jeff!)

We've noticed this week that Sims has grown a lot.  All of a sudden, very little of his clothes fit him.  They are all too short.  I guess it's time for me to do some shopping, before all of the winter clothes are sold. 


Hey, what's this guy doing in MY chair?

Maybe he won't mind if I sit in his lap?

Forget that!  This is MY chair.

Much better.

Laid-back days

Everything in our household has been very subdued lately with very little happening.  We've spent the past couple of weekends at home mainly, just doing stuff around the house.  We've really enjoyed this after the busy-ness of the holidays.  It's just taking me a while to want to do stuff.  I actually would have never noticed this, if I didn't have this blog.  It wouldn't have even occurred to me that we haven't been "doing" anything lately.  But when I realized that I have nothing to really report on the blog, I thought that maybe we need to DO something this weekend.  Of course, I don't know what we're going to do yet, but we need to do something. 

Until then, here are a couple of pictures of Sims from this past weekend. 

Sims is looking at our Nerdy Baby flashcards, which include K for Kepler's 3rd Law, S for stratiform cloud formation and Z for zoological oddity.  They are awesome.

Maybe I'll have something new for you next week.  Thanks, blog, for the motivation.

Ice Day and Funny Moments

Yesterday, we had an Ice Day, which is obviously not as exciting as a Snow Day but I'll take what I can get.  We all stayed home, even though Jason still had to work.  So I got to spend lots of quality time with Sims, which was wonderful!

I have to share a couple of funny moments with Sims.  Last night, Jason was going through some old CDs (circa 1996), and he was listening to a few songs here and there, and we were surprised when Sims would start dancing.  He danced to a Helmet song. (And if you don't know who Helmet is, they play VERY hard rock.  Think headbanger music.)  A few minutes later, we were listening to Yo-Yo Ma, and Sims immediately started a ballet-esque interpretive dance, which ended with a sideways roll on the floor.  We were laughing so hard, and Sims just looked at us very seriously.  If only we had it on camera!

We've also noticed that Sims seems to like folk music.  He will dance whenever a song sounds folky.  This morning we were reading a book that had a banjo in it, and he seemed intrigued.  We looked up banjo music on You Tube (don't you love the internet?), and he loved it!  I guess we're going to have to play more folk music.

Another random moment: This morning, I overheard him saying, "Tickle, tickle, tickle."  He was tickling his stuffed animals!  Too cute!

Speaking Toddler

Even though Sims seems to understand everything we say, he hasn't been the biggest talker.  I mean he babbles a lot, but his vocabulary has been quite limited.  That seems to be changing.  A lot!  He is now picking up a word a day, and it is great to watch (and hear) him learning.  His newest word is tickle.  Whenever we tickle him, we say, "Tickle, tickle, tickle."  He will now say it when he is being tickled, even though sometimes it does sound more like ticky, ticky, ticky.  He will even try to tickle us while saying it.  We just love it!

It also seems that he is trying to talk more in sentences.  Of course, we can't understand what he is saying, since we are not fluent in Toddler.  (Too bad Rosetta Stone doesn't offer that!)  But we are learning.  We are starting to realize that he really hasn't been babbling.  He understands himself totally.  We just don't understand his accent yet.  We're getting there!

Some of his other new words are meow, owl, mouth, wreath, and Isla.  We are trying to keep a running list at home, but it is hard to keep up!

Back to Reality

Today is our first day back to reality.  After two weeks off work, it was hard for all of us to get up and at 'em this morning.  We have all been sleeping in lately (Sims and Jason slept until 9:30 yesterday!!!), so getting up at 6 am was down right painful.  And I really miss my guys today.  I'm so used to us all being together.  I guess it will get easier as the week goes on, but I woke up this morning singing, "Everybody's working for the weekend."  (Gotta love the 80s music!)

So it's a new year, and I have a few goals.  I won't call them resolutions.  First, I plan to read the entire bible this year.  Jason gave me The One Year Chronological Bible for Christmas.  It's set up into short, doable daily readings, so I think I can actually accomplish this.  Jason is the one who inspired me to set a reading goal, since he started his reading project.  Don't worry - I won't be writing book reports on my bible readings.

I also want to learn to sew.  Jason's parents gave us a sewing machine, and I've already practiced by making a pillow.  Considering that I had never touched a sewing machine until New Year's Day, I was pretty impressed with myself.  All I really want to do is make some throw pillows and simple curtains for the dining room.  I'm not planning to start making my own clothes or anything complicated like that.

I plan to keep up my fitness routine, which should be easy.  I love my fitness group and am really looking forward to seeing them today at noon.  It's nice that they are expecting me to be there, so if I miss a day, they notice!  That can really motivate me on the days when I'm just not feeling like exercising.  I am so lucky to have found this group!

2011 also holds the first plane ride experience for Sims.  We are planning a trip to London this summer to visit my sister-in-law Tina.  Jason's whole family is going, so this should be a great trip.  Maybe we will take a few days to go to Paris.

Other than that, I hope that we can do lots of small, special things as a family that will help Sims' childhood seem magical.  If you have any ideas for that, let me know.

Did any of you make New Year's goals?

Fun in the snow

For those of you wondering whether I only wear my rainboots with formal wear, I am here to show you proof that I have gotten them wet.  I was happy to have them when we were all out in the snow!

What a great way to celebrate Boxing Day - by playing in the snow!  (To be honest, I have no idea what Boxing Day is about or how to celebrate it.  I just know that it is the day after Christmas.  Boy, did we have a happy Boxing Day!)

Jason made a small snowman that Sims liked a lot.  He kept calling it a "no-man."

When we went back inside, we were greeted with looks of bewilderment from our cat Graham.  As if we were crazy to even want to go out in that white stuff!

Christmas Day

Happy New Year!  I know everyone is ready to move on from Christmas, but I still have more pictures and updates to share.  Please indulge me a little more.

This Christmas was really special, since Sims seemed to kind of get what was going on.  We were all excited about waking up on Christmas morning to see the look on Sims' face when he saw what Santa brought him.

Santa brought him the table and chairs, books, lots of Playmobil figures, and most importantly, the cat you can see in his stocking.  That cat has been a big hit!  He also loves the table and chairs, where he can read, eat snacks and play with all his toys.

After Sims played with the gifts from Santa, we had Moravian sugar bread, which is a Christmas morning tradition in my family.  That is something I look forward to all year!

I followed in my mom's footsteps this year and wore formal wear for Christmas.  My mom started this a few years ago, when we first celebrated Christmas at our house.  She surprised us all by wearing a formal dress, and she's worn one every Christmas since then.  This year I decided that I wanted in on the fun.  Plus, it's not really a celebration unless I'm dressed up!  Technically, I believe my outfit would be more semi-formal, but my skirt did have a small train on it!

If you are wondering what shoes I am wearing, well that's definitely an unexpected part of my outfit.  I started the day wearing heels, but then I unwrapped these beautiful Hunter wellington boots from Jason!  I just had to wear them.

Can you blame me?

We waited all day for snow to start falling.  I was so hoping to see my first white Christmas.  It finally started around 6 or 7 that evening.  I was just happy to see snow on Christmas.  Beggars can't be choosers.  Plus, it kept snowing all night, so we had a white Boxing Day.  There haven't been any songs written about that, but it was still pretty great!

The snow did make us postpone celebrating with Alex, Neely and Isla, but we got to see them on Monday instead.  They were traveling home from Shelby on Sunday in all the snow.  We were just glad that the whole family could get together before Mom and Smith had to leave.  We, unfortunately, did not take many pictures when we were with them, but this one is pretty great of the dads with their babies (even though Isla is not too happy.)

My dad and his wife Wendy came up on Tuesday for a couple of days, and we had so much fun with them!  Dad brought up an old home video of Alex and me, when we were about 5 and 10 years old.  It was fantastic!  Dad's parents were even in the video, and they passed away many years ago.  It made me realize that we need to take more videos of everyone because they are so much fun to watch years later!