Winter Fun!

We have spent the past two months doing many things to get ready for the holidays.  Whether it was holiday crafts, activities out and about or special events, we have kept very busy.  This was a holiday season of "firsts" for us as I took Brody to his first movie ever, Polar Express, and I also took him to Disney on Ice for the first time.  He really enjoyed both and behaved very well, it was fun to get out and do something just the two of us.  He made it through 85% of the movie and then decided it was time to go play.  Since he had never watched a movie before, not even at home, I was very proud of how long he made it.  We also made our first trip as a family to the Festival of Trees, which both kids enjoyed.  Brody helped me decorate our Christmas tree this year, which we did with only non breakable ornaments and just decorated the top part.  Briana was curious but not as bad as I thought she would be.  She only tried to climb the tree once.  LOL

Brody finished up his classes for the year and we have just been filling the time with various outings over the past few weeks.  Tim had a nice week and a half off at Christmas so we were able to go to the museum, swimming and a few other things as a family.  Brody is really into music right now and loves to listen to CD's, play instruments and dance around.  He loves singing and making up his own songs.  It is hard on all of us being cooped up in the winter so we try our best to come up with fun things to do each day.  He loves art and is very into many of the preschool activities I am doing with him at home.  When he is interested in an activity he can sit forever.  He is developing a sense of humor and if we laugh at anything he will repeat it just to get a reaction.  He loves to be silly and is very into pretend. He is starting to spell words and use letter sounds to sound words out.  He asks me to read everything to him-signs, receipts from stores, menus, etc.  He was very aware of print and is showing many early literacy signs and awareness.  I have gotten him a few beginning reading books and he loves the repetition and the rhyming.  It is a very fun age as he is so curious about everything and has to know how everything works.  He is so smart and can really figure out many things on his own without any help.  He really amazes me with the things he can do!  He is always becoming more and more independent and we are definitely encouraging him to do much more on his own.  We have a ways to go but he has come such a long way.  3 is a tough age as they are still babies and need your help but in their mind they want to be independent and do everything on their own.  And I think their ears only work half of the time. :)  We had our first snow right before Christmas and Brody definitely loved getting out and playing in it!  He loves to be outside!  He is in the "ackward" smile phase where he will smile for the camera but he will close his eyes or make a silly grin.  Which is funny but I would also like some good pictures!

Briana is developing away and is still a little diva. :)  She is starting to use a few words-up, mama or mom, dad, baba (Brody and other family members are called this). She answers "yah" to almost everything and will shake her head yes and respond when asked a question. She waves hi and bye and completely understands anything we ask her to do which I think is so crazy.  She is super smart and is already able to match shapes and do puzzles.  She loves to stack things and dump things in and out.  She is very into dress up and loves hats!  She is playing with her "babies" now and will hug and kiss them.  She is very loving.  We had her 15 month check up after Thanksgiving and she is just barely 20 pounds.  She is a petite little thing!  She eats when she wants to but can be picky.  She loves fruit and milk and really likes chicken and ham.  She is a screamer which Brody never was so we are definitely trying to get used to that.  I keep encouraging her to use her words so hopefully once more words come she will stop the screaming.

Things have been going well around here.  We have all been back and forth battling a yucky cold/flu/ear infection bug but it seems like everyone we know is sick so we have just picked up a combo of germs.  No fun!