Elliott sings

Elliott sings a few songs: Row, row, row your boat and BINGO, with some other lyrics thrown in.

a heart for mommy

Elliott came home from sibling care (where he hangs out while I work in Oliver's classroom on Tuesdays) with a big pink heart he had made for me. He was so proud of it and it was just the cutest thing to listen to him say the whole way home: "heart for Mommy! I made a heart for Mommy", repeated over and over again. I think it's the first time he has ever made me anything on purpose before. Love.

January happenings

Here are a few things we were up to in the first month of 2014.

I met some of my favorite Paleo food bloggers and authors at a bookstore with my friend Emily.

Elliott napped on his new Thomas the Tank Engine nap mat made by Gramma

more like Nick did the napping

Quite a few beach trips for Penny! She loves the water.

The view on our hike back from the beach

Oliver learned how to play SPOONS.

Nick got a new (temporary) hairdo.

Elliott cut paper

And Oliver cut fabric (making a tie for Nick)

sunny walk to the farmer's market

Oliver glued a lot of Popsicle sticks (here he's making a box)

a visit from Oma (and painting bird houses)

tree climbing

too cute in their new workout clothes from Oma

Elliott tries to copy Nick's funny face

and is looking so cute after his bath

walking to preschool on pajama day

pre-bedtime run to the store with Nick in matching pjs

and one of Oliver's outfits of the day!

matching

The boys love to wear matching shirts and in fact dress the same about 50% of the time. It's a cute phase and I doubt it will last for too long. Here are some pictures of them in matching blue button down shirts.

Happy 2014!

Wow, January is over and I didn't manage a single post! We had a busy and fun-filled January and started New Year's Day off with a trip to Zoo Lights at the Woodland Park Zoo.We thought we might beat the crowds by waiting until after Christmas, but apparently New Year's day is a very popular time to go. We still had a great time!

my current favorite family photo!

2013 ornaments

I think this may be the final photo post for 2013, yay! I still have videos to edit though so I'm not quite caught up. This year, after hearing about it from other families, we decided to start a new traditions of letting the boys pick out an ornament. They will each pick out their own every year, and I will take a picture of them with their ornament to keep a record of what they chose. When they move out and have a tree of their own, they can take all of their ornaments, along with the memories, with them. They were both so excited to pick out their ornament, and seemed to know exactly what they were looking for. Oliver picked out a felted snowman, and Elliott, a Lionel coal car train.

  

And here they are together, with their matching Thomas shirts:

 And a few more photos from Evan: