A January Catch Up

Well, that was a fast month.  Usually January, in all it's horrible, wintery, cold glory, drags on and on.  This one is over like that!  How to get through January-have a newborn.  I have posted only a few times this month so here are some updates for all of you waiting anxiously, refreshing this page every chance you get!

Ben toured one of the fire stations in town with his cub scout troop.  Tessa came with.  It's a small group and an adult has to be present with each kid so siblings are often there. They had fun and one of the tour guides was a guy we went to college with so that was cool!

Fire station garages are the cleanest garages I have ever seen.  You could eat off the floor in this place.

Calvin is too young for the drop in daycare at the Y (they have to be eight weeks old) but we have still been going there quite a bit.  We watch Tessa's swimming lessons once a week and two days a week, which are conveniently her days off from preschool, they have bouncy houses and free play in one of the gyms.  There is also a climbing wall in this gym.  It has become Milo's favorite activity and he doesn't even want to be in the drop in anymore.  He says "play bounce!  Play bounce!" and throws a fit if he has to stay in there.  This is my signal to quietly exit and go drink my coffee by the pool windows.

There are always other kids there.  It looks like we have the place ourselves here but it's pretty busy actually.  

Here is Tessa coming down the slide and building up some static so she can electrocute me.  

Last Friday Ben's school had a family fun night with the standard school carnival games, hot dogs and balloon artists.  Milo and Tessa loved the fishing game.  

Now, thanks to the fishing game, we have five (yes, five) of these hand clapper things!  Yayyyy.  Fortunately, the event was free but they gave each kid a bag with tickets so they could only accumulate so much crap.  

This one was also a hit.  They kids chose a sucker and if the end of the stick was colored in red marker they got an additional prize which was a tiny novelty eraser.  Tessa looooooves crap like that so now we have a new collection of erasers too.  Milo just looooves suckers.  

We waited in line for the balloon artists.  They had a simple line and a complicated line and we went in the simple line.  Milo and Ben both got swords and Tessa got a dog.

Imagine a few hundred elementary school aged boys loose with balloon swords.  It was intense. 

One of the kids got disguise glasses as a prize.  Haha.  They've been on the living room floor ever since.

Here is a funny picture of Tessa pretending to by like Allan.

It seems he's fatter than her although he is much smaller.  

Here is Ben playing with the kids' favorite toy-a plastic hook from a package of socks or something similar tied on a string.  Yes, it seems simple but this is the kind of thing they go to war over.  I never throw those hooks away anymore.  

He was fishing for a catfish.  Notice Ben's knees-he has been destroying jeans regularly.  He will leave the house in the morning with intact knees and come home with ripped knees.  It's crazy.  Little boy knee pads should be a thing.

Milo has been the most two year old-y two year old you ever met.  He whines, throws fits, acts cute and babyish and says things like "I want to snuggle" while dragging around a blanket and then two minutes later hit your leg because you don't immediately jump up to do his will and get his drink or snack or whatever he wants.  He loves to walk around in his soaked diaper instead of getting  changed or...novel idea...learning to use the toilet.

He likes to be like a baby which is very annoying but this chair is broken anyway so...

These are his favorite toys right now.  Only the blue car hauler is new from Christmas.  The red pickup is from a rummage sale two years ago and the two monster trucks were my brother's from the 90's  The yellow one  is a tow truck and also has a string with a hook on the front which Ben was also obsessed with when he was younger.  Milo calls it the "hook" and he drags "hook" everywhere with him and recently started bringing it in the bath tub.  

In this picture he was saying them in order "truck, red pickup, hook, truck!"

Calvin is being a normal baby.  He likes to wake up at 4 am and stay up for an hour which would be fine if I didn't usually get up at 6:15-6:30.  

He's good at making faces that show great concern.  

I love how he furrows his eyebrows.  

Ben always wants to hold him as soon as he walks in the door after school.  

After holding Calvin and watching "Wild Kratts" on PBS he gets to work on his puzzles.  Puzzles are his latest "thing". 

He can do the smaller sized ones (they are 100 pieces) himself.  He got a twelve pack of nature puzzles for Christmas and they are a mix of 300, 500 and 100 pieces.  They are pretty addicting.  I have enjoyed doing puzzles throughout my youth and I remember why once I start.  It's so...satisfying!

Next up-February!  Another traditionally blizzardy, cold, crappy month.  We shall see what lies ahead.  Tessa is already excited about making her Valentine box for preschool.  I'm not sure if Ben's class will do them.  I hope they do the easy and fair alternative and all decorate the same style of bag at school or something.