Happy January

I promise this is the last monthly catch up post for a while. Thanks for dealing with my blog-nesting lately. :)

First of all, Happy New Year from the cutest boys on the planet!

We spent New Years morning with the wonderful Jones family, who had us over for a delicious brunch and a freezing sledding session at City Forest. The big boys didn't seem to mind the 4 degree weather at all.

Thanks to my evil nemesis, the Polar Vortex, we've had a LOT of snow and below-freezing days. We somehow accumulated ice on the inside of our windows, which stayed fogged up and drippy pretty much all of January. We literally haven't seen our backyard in months. MONTHS. Like, we don't even know if that brick patio we spent all summer building is still there.

This window says "I love you Dad", written by Josh.

Such weather meant quite a few school closures, so it was my treat to keep both boys entertained without leaving the house much. I actually love when they get to stay home and play together. We built sculptures with marshmallows and toothpicks, made play dough, painted, made bean bags, and baked cookies, muffins, and Jude's weird creations (see the pan full of various paper cups).

Jude started potty training, which has gone really well, and which kind of explains the naked picture below.

The boys also like to help me with my sewing projects, which there have been a lot of lately -- it comes in phases. Jude especially enjoys sticking all my pins into the fabric when it's spread out on my bed, so I can discover little pokey surprises when I lay down at night. It's awesome.

Baby girl is getting a new bedspread for her room and a bunch of new dresses made from the mountains of fabric scraps I've saved over the years.

While all this was going on, Matt took a little trip to Arizona to meet our new twin nieces, Piper and Emmy. They are currently the world's cutest babies, and I am dying to get my hands on them.

While he was away, my belly got bigger, which the boys point out regularly. In these pictures, I was almost 32 weeks along.

One Saturday, we went to the little museum here in Midland to see the frog exhibit. We ended up spending most of our time building Lego towers with our friends. The dads got a little too into it and were eventually asked to stop because their towers were crashing onto people.

I've been trying to spend more time doing fun things with Jude so he gets some extra attention before the baby comes. We've been going to open gym at the gymnastics center and he LOVES it. I also took him on a date to the library one night, where we stumbled upon a class and he made a new girlfriend. (I know, a new girlfriend while he was already on a date with me!) After she grabbed his shy hand and pulled him into the dance circle, he was hooked, and followed her around the rest of the hour. It was sweet.

Josh has been busy in school, and he's learning so much! I love this little blip he wrote below. (He won't let me call it a "story" because he says his stories are much longer.)

If you need a translation: "The silly penguin is being sneaky. After he wakes up the polar bear he'll waddle all over the iceberg really fast to run away. Because the penguin knows the polar bear will be furious." Also, on the bottom left you'll see Martin Luther King Jr. with a mustache that looks like an angry face, and the bottom right features Leonardo and April Oneill. 

I love these boys. They've been trying out the idea of sleeping on the floor together. I often find them up hours past bedtime, reading with each other or talking. Mostly it's Josh telling Jude to be quiet so he can sleep. He's very responsible. Jude is very mischievous. Maybe that's why he passes out on the couch sometimes and stays unconscious even while I put on all his winter gear for school pick up.