Noah

• In January Noah became a Sunbeam at church. Amazing! No more kids in nursery!!!

He has since had the opportunity to recite a scripture moment during Sharing Time. I was so proud of him because he basically said it without help from me, although he was a little quiet about it which is unusual for him. It is quite obvious to David and I that he enjoys his time at Primary. For Family Home Evening one night he took a turn asking us all why reading the scriptures was important. After each one of us answered, he exclaimed, "Good job!" which is a phrase frequently used in primary.

• At some point in January Noah decided that he wanted his own room and since there were no bedrooms left, he decided to spend his nights sleeping in the bathroom. David said absolutely not - what if Savannah or Xander needed the bathroom during the night? I knew full well this sleeping arrangement would be short-lived so I told Noah he could do it. And guess what? I was right - the bathroom as Noah's bedroom lasted all of two nights.
  

• Just like Xander, Noah LOVES to play in the snow. He and Xander have spent many hours out there doing whatever things you can do in the snow - digging tunnels, building snow forts, throwing snowballs, and lots and lots of sledding.
  

• One day this past month Noah informed me that he was now a monkey and he even made a tail out of toilet paper for himself.
  

• The kids and I spent an evening at one of those bouncy places for Noah's best little friend Abby's birthday party.
  

• This is the first year that Noah got to be involved with Valentine's Day. He decorated a little shoebox so his friends could put valentines in it.
  

They had a Valentine's Day party at school with the usual mix of games, crafts, and food.


He was pretty happy with all the valentines and candy he received from his classmates.

• One of Noah's goals this year is to learn his ABC's and to learn how to write his name. He is really coming along on his alphabet and knows almost all the letters plus the sounds they make. He has no interest so far in writing his name but he does love to draw and color and is getting much better at both those things. He is now starting to draw people with arms, legs, and facial features. Too bad the canvas for his beautiful drawing below was my couch!
  

• Noah says that he wants to be a fireman and a builder man when he grows up. He definitely has spent a lot of time the past few months carrying his tools around the house and finding things that need to be "fixed".
  

Xander

• Xander has also been playing indoor soccer this winter and is enjoying it as much as last season. Although it's a little painful to watch (Xander is still in the age group where the kids just follow where the ball goes and there's A LOT of falling down and on top of each other) we still enjoy cheering Xander on. At the start of the year Xander had set a personal goal to score 8 goals this year and so far he has 3 under his belt.
  

He's number 12...this is right before he scored one of his goals!

• Xander and Noah really enjoy spending their afternoons out in the snow. For awhile we had a ton of snow on the ground because it just wasn't warm enough for it to melt away. The boys made up a sled run at the side of the house and would spend hours sliding down the hill.

• Xander LOVES school, especially his teacher, and each night at dinner he fills us in on all the many fun things he and his classmates do each day. One area in which Xander is really improving is his reading. Each afternoon Xander and I spend about 45 minutes reading one of the many readers we check out each week from the library. That goal of his to read 5 books by himself by the end of the year will most likely be completed much sooner.
• Xander likes to head down to the basement when he finishes his homework and jam out to some music - Star Wars, Shrek, Disney, Phantom of the Opera and Pirates of the Caribbean are some of his favorite CDs.
• With several snow days keeping us indoors Xander and I have had some fun times playing Gauntlet, a game on the old Nintendo 64 that we still have. We make a great team!
• Xander continues his fascination with "bad guys", his most recent favorite being Rumplestilskin from Shrek Forever After. Xander even decided to copy his hair - Xander no longer has a faux-hawk but "the Rumplestilskin hair". Good thing he didn't want to copy it exactly and dye it red!
  
  

A Much Needed Update

My mother-in-law told David that she missed my blog, a great motivating statement to get me back on track. I've kinda fallen away from the blogging world because the months of January and February have been rather uneventful. And yet, as I've thought about what to update, there have been some fun things we've been doing to keep ourselves busy. Let's start with Savannah...

• The winter months always bring indoor soccer. Although Savannah's team has not been doing that great, Savannah has been playing really well. Savannah's coach has her playing defense, a great position for one so competitive and tough as she is.
  

• The kids have enjoyed the few snow days we've had. Here is Savannah with our tree that got blown over in the vicious wind we had a few weeks ago.
  

• We've had two Keepers meetings this year - the first was in January, the topic: Cleaning and Organization. I got to tackle that very boring subject and it was definitely not as successful as our February activity, machine sewing. The girls learned how to use a sewing machine and even made their own pillowcases!
  

Look at that concentration!
Preparing the fabric...
What a great new pillowcase! Savannah did such a great job.

• Savannah has been steadily reading the Harry Potter series and has almost finished #4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
• Twice a month she attends Activity Days at the church.
• She has been extremely busy with her schoolwork, learning her multiplication facts as well as tackling division. She has done a lot of reading as well as various writing assignments.
• One of her favorite things in the whole world right now is Monster High, a bunch of dolls such as Frankie Stein, Cleo de Nile, and Draculaura. She received most of them for Christmas and I can often find her up in her room playing with them. She has also created several of her own Monster High dolls including Carla La Rouge (a devil), Zeeba Zombie, and Becca Bones (a skeleton).
  

• A friend of mine gave me an aquarium with all the trimmings which I handed over to Savannah to work on for a Keepers award. We picked out several colorful fish from the pet store and have had such fun watching their antics these past months. The highlight was Xander's fish had babies so we ended up with 8 free fish!
  

Snow Day!

Wednesday the kids were overjoyed to wake up and discover that it had snowed enough during the night to produce a Snow Day! I didn't mind it that much either as I got to enjoy a morning of sleeping in, something I don't get to do that often. David worked from home so he took care of the kids' breakfast as well as getting them all bundled up to head out for some fun in the snow. By the time I made it out to take some pictures, Savannah had been out for several hours and was halfway frozen, thus the "I'm trying to smile when all I want to do is cry" look on her face.

Superdad David also built the kids a sled run so Xander had fun doing that.

Although Noah didn't spend that much time outside, he did enjoy digging for a bit.

After the massive snow storms we received last year, it's funny how 4-5 inches of snow doesn't seem like that much anymore. Savannah keeps saying that she hopes it snows again real soon; me - I'm content with the amount we got. When does spring start?!?! I'm done with the cold!

Goals 2011

The kids and I sat down at the start of the new year and discussed some of the goals that each of them would like to accomplish in 2011.

Noah:

1. Learn my ABC's
2. Learn to write my first and last name
3. Stop drinking out of a sippee
4. Stop crying when I get mad
5. Wear underwear without being asked
   
   

Xander:

1. Score 8 goals in soccer
2. Memorize each monthly Primary scripture
3. Read 5 books by myself
4. Learn how to cook a soup and pizza
5. Be better at sharing
   

Savannah:

1. Do personal scripture reading twice a week
2. Eat healthier snacks
3. Be kinder to my brothers
4. Finish reading all the Harry Potter books
5. Study harder for school
6. Earn 15 Keepers awards
   

Mommy:

1. Start playing the piano again
2. Read 100 books
3. Start exercising
4. Survive soccer camp
5. Stick to our Total Money Makeover

Christmas Vacation

Christmas morning came and, although Santa did not come for my kids (he delivered our presents in Baltimore), he did leave some fun gifts for the cousins. Every year the kids gather at the top of the stairs before heading down to the family room!

McKenna got Monster High dolls which is what Savannah has been longing for since the summer. McKenna was so sweet to let Savannah pretty much monopolize her new dolls.

The kids did get to open some gifts from family...Savannah received a new outfit for her Felicity doll;

Xander, of course, got a new Star Wars guy;

and the most excited person of the morning was Noah - he received a Skeletor and Panthor from Grandma and Grandpa! As you can see, he was in heaven with his new gift.

We always have such a wonderful time staying with my parents and this visit we got to stay for nine days. They spoiled us, as usual, taking us to the Children's Museum, to lunch at Red Robin and then to the movie "Tangled", and babysat the kids one night so David and I could go out. We also hit the local Chuck E. Cheese for a few hours (my least favorite place in the whole world)



and then to the mall where they have this trampoline thing that the kids love to do.



New Year's Eve was a pretty low-key affair with most everyone in the house asleep by 11:00. Dad did get us Montgomery Inn for dinner which was YUMMY!!! The week flew by and now we just have to look forward to our next visit.
One final shot of all the cousins.

Although we hated to leave Cincinnati, there was a bright spot: the kids had presents waiting for them at home.
Initially the excitement was low because Santa did not deliver the gifts that they had been hoping for. But they got plenty of other wonderful things and I loved that they had bought gifts for each other.

When I handed Noah his gift from Xander, Noah exclaimed: "Xander, you got me a present? Thank you!" and ran over to Xander to give him a big hug, without even opening his gift.

Noah was excited about every gift he got and would say, "I've been dying for this" after he opened each one.

And then came the finale...the BIG gifts from Mom and Dad. We explained to the kids that we had contacted Santa and told him that this year we wanted to get them the big ticket items. The kids were thrilled! Noah got his Joker car, Xander got his remote control Star Wars tank,

and Savannah got her Monster High dolls.


Another wonderful Christmas!