Mark and Anne of Fridays: Zoo Days

Recently temperatures warmed up enough to take the kids to the zoo.  Our buddy Wrench the Polar Bear sure was happy to see us!

 

Soccer Star

Mark had his first every soccer game on Saturday. He had a great time playing and cheering on the team (even while playing). He lost track of the ball a lot and demonstrated more enthusiasm for the uniform than soccer skill, but he did check on everyone who fell down (on both teams) to ask if they were OK. 

Matt "assistant coached"--or, in other words, wrangled the benchwarmers. 

All of Mark's grandparents and GGG turned out to cheer on the team and help wrangle Annie.

All in attendance had a great time!

Quotation Mark Mondays: Big Brain

Matt:  "What ARE you doing to do with that big brain of yoru when you grow up?"

(long pause for thinking)

Mark:  "Remember.  And discover."

Long Time, No Post

We'd like to apologize, loyal readers, for such a long hiatus between posts.  We have a pretty good reason for falling a bit behind:  she weighs about 25 pounds and is super cute... but she's EVERYWHERE.  All of our Baby Chasing has left us too busy and too tired for blogging.

But, we thought it was about time for a little update and some pictures.

An update on Annie:


She is walking with confidence now, eaily scooting up and down stairs, and getting into everything.  We have to keep our eyes on her at all times and do our best to be one step behind her every minute, lest she eat wood chips, fall off the stool in the bathroom, trip while running and land on her face,etc.  She is a handful.  But she is also very smiley and very happy.  She wakes up happy and stays happy all day, unless she's hungry or tired.  It also seems that she can understand what we say most of the time, and she's starting to communicate with us.  She says her version of lots of people's names, makes a variety of animal noises, and does lots of pointing and hooting.

She really likes:  pretending to be a monkey (which she thinks is funny), making you smell her stinky feet (hilarious), and being chased and ticked (hysterical best fun ever).  Other favorites include playing outside, eating spaghetti (best food ever), and carrying footed pajamas all over the house.








An update on Mark:

Mark continues to have a lot to say (of course).  Current interests include the states, presidents, space, and music.  He tells us he wants to learn to play piano, and he spends lots writing musical notes on pieces of paper and telling us he's writing a symphony like Beethoven's 5th.  He's making steady progress in reading, and his ability to figure out the answers to math problems continues to amaze us (mostly because we wonder where the math thing comes from).

He still enjoys having long, in depth coversations more than anything else, and we are starting to be thankful that we now have the internet on our phones.  Over lunch recently, we had to figure out which oceans had the warmest temperature (the Indian Ocean), then rank the oceans by temperature.  We then had a conversation about Mohandas Gandhi, who Lynne's "big kids" were learning about in school.  Mark wanted to know how he was similar to Martin Luther King, if he lived before/after Dr. King, if he was assassinated, why he was assassinated, and if he could see pictures of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Mark is also playing soccer this spring, which he's super excited about.  And he's also starting to look out for and truly enjoy playing with his little sister, which warms our hearts.

An update on Lynne and Matt:

We are still working at NCHS and the East Aurora school district, respectively, and looking forward to the end of the school year.  We still are crazy about--and exhausted by--our kids.  And we're strating to feel settled in our new house.  We still haven't unpacked all the moving boxes and our garage is a mess, but we've done some painting, hung some of our pictures on the wall, and begun to make the house our own.  We are very happy.

Quotation Mark Mondays: Toots

At dinner, Mark lifts up from his chair, slightly.
Matt: "Mark, did you just toot?"
Mark: "Yep!"
Matt: "Mark, don't do that and you don't lift yourself up like that."
Mark: "I have to. If I don't lift up, I'll balloon up!"

Anne of Fridays: I'm Walking Here!

 

Not long ago, Anne started walking.  Unlike her brother, who took one step... then wobbled... steadied himself... and didn't take another step for days, Anne skipped the wobbly stage and barrelled on ahead.  One morning, she just pulled up on a kitchen chair, looked longingly at something across the room, and made up her mind to go for it.  She walked across the whole room without stopping.  Later that day, when we took her for her 1 year check at the doctor, she walked all the way down the hall to the room where we'd be treated.

And she hasn't stopped since.  Now she's pretty much all walking, all the time.  Sometimes we open the baby gates for her, and she walks from kitchen to playroom to kitchen to playroom to kitchen, around and around the big circle that makes up our main floor.  Then she charges up the stairs, back and forth on the upstairs hallway, and back to do the big circle again. 

Ugh. Winter

By all accounts, this winter has been brutal.

We've missed four school days so far due to extreme cold, with temperatures below -20. With wind chill, two days were at -40. We've also had tons of snow. The shallowest snow in the front yard is about 8 inches deep, and there are giant mounds on either side of the driveway that are taller than Mark (and he's 41").

We've pretty much been trapped inside by either snow or extreme cold (or both) on every weekend since Christmas. On the one hand, we feel extremely lucky to be in our new house, where there is enough space for everyone. On the other hand, it's beginning to feel like a bit like The Shining, minus the Redrum and the creepy kids. We're starting to wonder what the outside is like.

The pictures below are from a rare day when it was warm enough to take Mark outside to play in the buckets and buckets of snow. He made snow angels, and we dug a "snow road" through the front yard, which is sort-of like a tunnel with no roof.

We had a great time outside that one day, but we are definitely, definitely ready for spring. To be honest, though, we'd take 30 degrees. Or even 25. And maybe enough melting to see what our new backyard looks like.