Changing Seasons

In anticipation of the storm rolling in this last weekend, we raked up all of our leaves and got our yard ready for winter. Ethan had a blast playing in the pile of leaves. He was such a great help using his own little rake and spreading the pile of leaves out after Mom had gathered them all.
It was a good thing we got the yard ready, because this morning we woke up with nearly a foot of fresh snow covering the ground. After church, Kyle and the kids headed out to have some fun. Seeing Brooklyn in her snowsuit reminded us of the movie "A Christmas Story" - we don't know if she could put her arms down.

By the time we got out to play, the snow had formed a thick layer of ice after sitting out all day. This made it hard to roll out the snow balls for a snow man. We were able to build this little guy though.

Ethan likes to watch a fairly new PBS cartoon called "The Cat in the Hat Knows a lot about That." When he saw the snow coming down, he got really excited to build a snow Cat in the Hat, just like they do in one of the episodes. Brooklyn just wanted to eat the nose.

Ethan had fun making snow angels.

Brooklyn is cute. We can't believe how fast she's growing up. She more like a little girl and less like a baby every day. She had her two-year-old doctor's appointment this week. She came in at 24.8 lbs (25th percentile) and 34 inches (75th percentile). One of the milestones for kids her age is if they can speak at least 20 words. She probably knows more than 200. This girl never ceases to amaze us with the things coming out of her mouth.

We also took the kids to the dentist for their 6 month checkup. Ethan was so excited to go to the dentist. We heard him saying things like, "I'm so excited to go to the dentist," and "Do I have cavities?" He got X-rays for the first time, and has no cavities. The dentist says both kids have very good teeth, but he can already tell that they're both most likely going to need braces when they get older since their teeth are packed so tightly. Better start saving now...

We celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on Thursday. It was a fun day. We ate lots of chocolate fondue. Mmm, boy!

The other day, Ethan wanted to get out the costumes we got on clearance after Halloween this year. He liked the soldier because it was like the toy soldiers on Toy Story. He loved talking on the phone and drinking from the canteen. He still uses the canteen to get a drink when he's thirsty.

Without any prompting, he knew that pirates say "ARRRR" and "Shiver me timbers."