King Elliot

This morning before school Henry decided that Elliot should be "King Elliot". So he made him a throne and pulled him all around the house like this for about 15 minutes.

100 days

Henry celebrated his 100th day of First Grade today!

Henry has been doing a great job in school this year! I get consistent feedback about what a kind, helpful, and energetic member of the class he is. His reading skills have been consistently improving, he loves math, art, and library, and he started after school piano this term. He still isn't a huge fan of his Mandarin Chinese class, though (all kids at his school take Mandarin from K-8, so sorry Henry, you will be doing it for a while!) We love his teacher and class, and since his schools loops for 1st and 2nd grade he will be with the same class/teacher next year as well, which is wonderful. He happily goes off to school every morning and thenevery afternoon - after Piano, Lego Club, or swim - he tells me all about the things he learned that day. Great work, Henry!

Neverending Winter

This winter Will.Not.End. It has been so consistently, bitterly cold since November, and we all have complete cabin fever. Poor Henry doesn't even get outdoor recess many days because it is so often deemed "Dangerously cold" for them. Even though the walk to and from school in bitter temperatures isn't fun while we are doing it, I am glad for it because some days it is the only thing that gives the kids some fresh air.

So, we have very few photos of recent goings on...because nothing much is going on. Henry has school and then we try to fill the afternoons with activties (he does Piano, Lego Club, and juts finsihed up his most recent swim session. Plus maaaaaaany playdates). We get Elliot out of the house for Music Together:

And My Gym:

We get occassional respites from the cold (50 degrees feels like a beach day!) but the playgrounds are still covered in ice and snow, and it doesn't look like we will be getting a consistent thaw for a while now. We are counting down until we can finally spend some solid outdoor time on the playground!

Sunshine State

It's school vacation week, so we took advantage of the break to escape the seemingly neverending misery of this year's winter and head to Grandpa Tim and Nene's house for some much needed Florida sunshine. We lucked out by leaving on Friday morning, which put us perfectly between two snowstorms (and between two days of cancelled flights) and while we were gone we missed 3 different snow events. The sun and high 70s weather was much needed!

Henry is obsessed with going to Florida - particularly due to the pool. We barely made it to the house before he jumped in.

Elliot also loved the pool - but considering he can in no way swim and didn't seem to have any fear of running straight off the edge, this caused a wee bit of stress for the adults.

We spent one afternoon at a local nature preserve where the boys spotted all sorts of birds, turtles, and alligators:

Headed to the zoo one morning:

Went to Henry's favorite playground where we rode the carousel:

Went to the beach:

And did lots of relaxing:

It was a great, but too short, trip (and returning to the sleet and giant snow piles this afternoon was not fun!). Only two months until we head back to Florida for our Disney vacation!