April snow brings...

We've had some crazy Colorado weather the last few weeks, complete with gorgeous 70 degree sunshine and record lows of 5 degrees with a foot of snow.  I'm pretty sure Jane's been confused about all the talk of Spring and the snow in the backyard - she asked me yesterday if we could watch The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  :) We have also had beautiful days, like today when we went for a nice walk on the Poudre trail.  That being said, we are all ready for Spring! Hopefully we had our last snow yesterday.

Jane is turning into quite the little young lady. She is almost done with her first year of preschool and has loved every minute of it. When Nathan or I serve as parent helper Jane gets to be the class leader and she can't wait for those days. The class leader gets to help their teacher with some of the activities and also gets to decide which of their tasks to do first. I was just in class last week and I saw Jane being very sweet and helpful.  I can't believe all of the things she has learned! One of her favorites is counting things - she counts everything and can count up to 20 without mistakes now. She loves to count her orange slices and tell me, "Mom! That's how many kids I'm going to have! My house is going to be crazy!" :)

She is also still our little fancy Jane - she has continued her two year strike on pants and shorts, only wearing leggings under her skirts and dresses when it's cold. It is a battle for anything else and it's not one I usually choose to fight. She chooses all of her own outfits - how dare we try to help! I guess you're only 4 once and who knows? Maybe she'll be some famous fashion designer someday. 

Her new favorite toy is her "little legos." She got a set from Papa and Nana for Easter and we set them up on her little table in the guest room so she can play without Henry's interference. She loves building little houses and towers and then showing us what she's built. I told her maybe she will be an architect someday and then had to explain what that was - she wanted to know if she could wear fancy clothes to work...lol. 

My little man Henry is growing up into a little boy too, although he would really like to stay my baby sometimes. This last week he was laying on the bed with me reading books and I heard my phone ring in the other room. When I ran to go grab it he followed me crying, "Mommy! You forgot your baby!" :) I love all of my snuggles and cuddles from him so it's okay with me! He also loves to wear his pajamas all the time. It is a fight to get him dressed most days! I give in a lot and take him to drop Jane off at school or go to the grocery in his PJs. The only time he will change willingly is if we promise he gets to play outside.

When he's not playing baby he is constant energy! He loves to play pirates - seriously he turns anything into a sword. One day he handed me the purple pretend grapes from their kitchen - he had the green grapes and said, "Arrr matey!" Those aren't that easy to sword fight with. :)
Henry has also really started to enjoy going to the pool. I take the kids to the daycare at the gym while I run (the snow is ruining my outside runs!) and then we go to the pool for an hour or so. Henry started out wanting me to walk him up to the top of the kids slides and then he would wait for me to walk back around to catch him but now he just does it all on his own. Monday he must have gone down the bigger slide 20 times! It's a great way to wear him out.

Henry's other favorite thing right now is reading books. You rarely see him without a book in his hand. He has a few that he loves the most - "Where the Wild Things Are," "There Was An Old Monster" (about a monster swallowing a tick - kind of like the old lady who swallowed a fly), and a book called "Kisses" that my grandma gave Jane a few years ago. He also gets very attached to "little books" - like the ones that come in kid's meals from Wendy's or Chic-fil-a. Sometimes he wants one in particular and I have to search the whole house to find it before bed. It is lots of fun sitting and reading to him, especially trying to find out how much he can quote the book while I read. I bet he could read most of them to himself from memory. A few of the books he loves are ABC books and he actually knows and recognizes quite a few different letters and will say them with me while we are reading. He has a lot more patience for learning with Mommy than someone else I know.  :) 

Well, I hope it's fun to hear about how they are doing, it's for me too because I hope to have this all printed and saved for years to come! Enjoy our pictures from the last few weeks! 

One of our many tent forts over the last few snowy weeks.  The only problem is that they never want us to take them down.  :) 

Daddy had to read night-time books in the tent one night. 

We took a spur of the moment trip to the zoo a few weekends ago. The new elephant show was really fun - the kids loved it.

Of course we rode the carousel, on a couple of pandas.  :)  

Love this face! 

The bears were wide awake and keeping us entertained.

Notice any similarities between this face...

...and this one? :) 

We had our biggest snowstorm of the year last week and I thought this would be our last snow so I went all out with the snow fort. 

 Jane decided it needed a tunnel so she dug one out with her little sand shovel.

 The kids chose The Jungle Book for our family movie night. They love to snuggle up in their sleeping bags from Gramma and Grandad. 

Nathan and I went to a Rockies game on Sunday with friends. Henry and Jane stayed with Papa and Nana for the afternoon and this is how we found them when we came to get them. They had just been playing in the hot tub.  :)

So much for hoping that we had our last snow last week! Maybe this weeks it was the last one? 

 Just the beginning...we got a few inches, but it was mostly melted by today! 

Another tent, this time made on all her own!

After our walk on the trail Henry and enjoyed a snack on the front step.