So, to catch you all up, here are a few of the things that we've done/observed/laughed about in the past couple of weeks:
1. Linus' phone use.
This cracks me up. He HAS to talk on the phone when someone calls. Lucky for me it's almost always my mom or Brian, but he can be a real chatterbox when he gets on. Somehow he has learned that if he takes his breath mid-sentence, he can ramble on for 10 minutes without anyone else getting in a word. I tried to take a movie of this but it's impossible to take movies when you want them to do something, so this is the closest I could come up with:
My parents had a cartoon on the fridge for as long as I can remember. It's a picture of a teenage girl sitting on her bed talking on the phone and her parents are at the door saying "Remember how excited we were when she said her first word?". I think about that cartoon whenever he gets on the phone.
2. Sledding.
The kids have learned to love the snow. It took awhile, but now they always ask to sled anytime there is a flurry (which happens quite often). Because we have steep steps off of our deck, we piled the snow down the stairs and that has been our easy source of winter entertainment. Good thing (for them) that they are forecasting up to a foot of fresh snow this weekend.
3. School.
School is going well and the kids are learning a ton. They have gone from not wanting to do any sort of crafty thing whatsoever to choosing painting/cutting/gluing/drawing whenever it's an option. They are also starting to participate more in the songs and dances which is a huge improvement over just standing in the corner. I'm so proud of them - they are such little people and are able to do so many things independently.
4. Zoo.
We had a few days off of school and I wanted to take the kids to do something fun instead of staying cooped up inside yet again. So, we tried out the Brookfield Zoo that's about 15 minutes from our house. I wasn't expecting much after frequenting the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park so many times, but I was pleasantly surprised. The zoo itself was huge and really nice. I have to say, though, that it is strange to see the animals indoors because I've never lived anywhere where the animals needed to be indoors. On the plus side, we were VERY close to almost all of the animals so the kids got to see a lot.
5. Playgroup.
I recently found a playgroup that meets a couple of times a week. The mom who organized it was so nice that when I asked her about joining she organized a special meet-up at her house so I could meet the other kids and moms. It was nice to get out and talk to other adults instead of 3 year olds all day, but Sadie and Linus were the oldest by far with the age range being 6 weeks to 3 1/2 so they were bored after an hour of playing with every toy. We tried again the following week at the Conservatory, but again we lasted about an hour. I'm not sure how often I'll meet up with this group - the moms are great but the kids need to get something out of it too. I am fully aware just how spoiled we were in San Diego to meet such a great group of women with fantastic kids. I miss you guys!!
6. Field museum.
I also took the kids to the Field Museum one day mainly to see the dinosaurs. That place is HUGE! We were there for almost 3 hours and didn't even see half of it. This is another place that we'll have to take people when they come to visit us.
7. Hiking.
Last weekend we wanted to get out of the house and took the kids to the Morton Arboretum for a snow-filled hike in the woods. We talked it up a lot, told the kids that we needed to look out for animals in the snow and started our walk alone in the woods. It was cold, but so refreshing to be out in nature. That is, until we were about a half mile from the car when the kids went jelly-legged on us and refused to walk any further. Do you know how hard it is to carry kids dressed from head to toe in several layers of slippery jackets and snow pants? We were all glad when we made it back to the car.
8. Shedd aquarium.
I also took the kids to the Shedd aquarium on President's Day when we had the day off of school. I wasn't the only one with this idea - even though we were the second in line and had the place to ourselves for almost an hour, a flood of people came and we had to leave because I didn't even have enough room to push the stroller around. But, this place is amazing - another place to bring people when they visit. It's a huge aquarium (we saw about half of it) with almost everything low enough for the kids to see. Here they are at the sting ray exhibit which was a glass floor over the water so you can follow them around as they swim:
9. Serenade.
One thing that Sadie and Linus have been doing A LOT lately (like every. single. minute.) is singing about everything. And it doesn't have to make sense. Actually very little of what they sing makes sense or are even real words, but it is hysterical when they do it. Sadie especially will close her eyes and really get into it which completely cracks me up. Like most things though, as soon as I pull out the camera they stop doing it, so this is the best I could do:
Hilarious.
