January bits and pieces

Seeing that February is coming to a close, I figured I better get these pictures from little moments of our life of January that weren't on the blog yet. 

I'm hopeful that we are finally out of the deep, deep freeze, but at the same time we have been enjoying the extra art time at home. I so love having a double sided easel. So do the kids.

Milayla has become a very intensely focused artist. She gets very serious about which colors to use and what kind of shapes. It's all quite abstract still at this point, but shapes of different sorts and sizes are definitely the norm and she is starting to draw houses, faces and flowers. It's fun.

And when she decided to make a rainbow and couldn't quite reach the top of the board she promptly went and got a stool. No problem.

Meanwhile, Atticus is busy working on his spelling. He is getting a pretty good spelling bank at this point and has become very determined to sound out the words that he doesn't know.

He's pretty excited about the whole thing.

Atticus is also learning the piano. I'm pretty sure a bench with an adjustable height would do wonders for him but, at this point, a couple books will have to do the trick. He's pretty young to get started fully so we are taking a pretty leisurely pace but something that has really stood out to me is how much better he does when he doesn't worry about it being perfect. When he just simple gives it a try. Though I don't think that is something just exclusive to him around here; we all (especially me) seem to have a vein of perfectionism that holds us back probably more than it helps us.

And we got a special, surprise package from Great Grandma and Grandpa Hochstein. We were all pretty excited about that. They are always thinking of us and sending cards or phonecalls our way. It's a nice treat and the kids love getting to send cards to them as well.

The kids also loved the new hats that they got in the package as well. 

And we feel officially canadianized as we also got a moose statue. The kids are enamoured. It's pretty much the coolest thing ever.

And we finally, after many weeks of every possible strain of cold virus (or at least what felt like it), caught the full blown flu. Jason was the first one out, the rest followed. One morning after using a hefty amount of my persuasion skills I convinced the kids that they should at least eat a little bit of breakfast before retreating to the couch for what would end up being most of the day. After they ate a few bites, I helped them get set up with their blankets and a few books. Of course, a few books to these kids means a few piles of books so as soon as I headed back to clean up the kitchen Atticus brought over some more options.

They were pretty proud of their stash. I love those kiddos. 

And the kids were pretty excited to get to go to Chapters/Indigo to use there gift card from Great Grandpa and Grandma to buy some more books. Considering the children's book/toy section was bigger than any book store they had ever been in they were pretty excited about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure the kids were most surprised by how many Thomas engines there are. We ended up getting a nice, new stack of books that have been read seemingly endlessly since.

I love that Atticus and Milayla run to show us when they are all dressed for church. Such good looking kiddos!

And Atticus completed one of his goals for the year of learning to tie shoes. He's been furiously tying knots in everything possible for the last several months so I didn't expect he would have much difficulty in learning to tie a shoe bow, but I was still pretty taken by the fact it took him all of 5 minutes for me to show him and him to learn it on his own. He learned to tie on this threading lion but has practiced tying his shoes since. I think he still needs a bit of practice time to have it comfortably down, but over all, he's doing pretty awesome. 

Then both kids are in swim lessons for a couple more weeks. They have been loving the class. Milayla is really ready to move up to the next level but her birthday doesn't make the cutoff so we need to hold off for a while and just work with her on our family swim trips.

Atticus was in the big transition class and he now takes his classes solo (without a parent in the water with him). It was a pretty big step for him since the water is well over his head, but it's been the perfect challenge for him to get some confidence in his abilities. He really loves the fact that he did something hard.

And Milayla can usually be found making patterns and practicing her colors with her jar of pompoms.

Or climbing on top of our legs.

She has also learned to count to 10 and is nearly making it to 12/13 every time.

Then there is this picture, that just makes me smile. After we had all been sick for a while the kids had an adjustment time of starting to eat more food than they were. After one lunch time when Milayla hadn't eaten as much of her lunch as I would have liked Atticus sat down and helped her along while I tidied up the kitchen. It did the trick and Milayla ate up the rest of her lunch. Thankfully, we are all healthy now :).

January was a good month, and I am grateful that the flu bug is all gone now. February has been a busy one, but I will get to that another day. As for the upcoming March, we are looking forward to some spring cleaning, sugaring off season, and the first birthday of the year (Jason) that kicks off our spring/summer birthdays and holiday season. Good times ahead.