Planting a Garden

The past few years we have spent our summer in Utah visiting family.  This year we stayed here and I decided it was the best time to have a real garden.  First step building our garden boxes. 

The Boys were such good helpers. We are all very excited to see how our garden turns out!  

Lots of happy tears...

I can't begin to tell you what a happy day it has been for my family. My mommy got married today.  We kept it simple with just close family. My mom had her kids there (all seven of us) and all of here siblings. We also believe  her parents were there with us too. There are not enough words to completely describe how completely happy we are for our Mom. After 18 years of being single she has found a man who is amazing in every sense of the word. We all love him dearly, not only because of who he is, but how he treats our mom.  Today our family received  major blessings.
 There were a lot of happy happy tears shed today.

(thanks Teresa for the great pic)
 But most importantly were the cheers expressed in Heaven. 

Nicholas is 3...

and I finally got around to taking his pictures. ( it's been a little over a month since his birthday) he has a very hard time staying still and not moving. But I think I captured his personality  pretty well.

Can't tell you just how much I love this little guy!  What a fun 3 years he has been.

January Happeinings...

We started off the new year with  a haircut, for Brock anyway. (Nicholas refuses to get a hair cut, but one of these days I'll have to give him one too}

Followed by a pretty exciting day where I turned 30! Nicholas and I enjoyed a little birthday lunch (while Brock was in school) at Red Robin, YUM! :)

 Nicholas also had a fun birthday where he turned 3! When he's happy he tells us, "I'm having a good day!" I love hearing him say this day after day. He always give Ryszard and I hugs and calls us his "best friend"  I live for those hugs. 

Brock and Nicholas are really protective of each other when others are around. but if it is just us they are constantly fighting. (wish I knew of a way to stop that.).
Brock is loving preschool. He has made friends quickly and most days is so excited about telling me what he learned in school. He loves to rush into class and read the board to see what they are going to do that day and then wants to let everyone know before his teacher even has a chance. he has been reading more lately. (Nicholas got a few new books for his birthday) the other night i told them I was only reading one book and not the usual three i do because I was tired Brock then said. "that's okay Mom I will read the books to Nicholas!" and he did. He asked for help with a few words but mostly did awesome on his own. Oh the joy!

February will hold some fun  adventures and I can't wait.

Reading

Brock has been my little reader for quite sometime and I couldn't be more thrilled!  When Brock turned to I set a goal to teach him his alphabet. Within the moth he knew it. He knew upper and lower case letters and the sounds each letter made. VICTORY!  a few months latter we were in Utah visiting family when my brother was saying the alphabet (in alphabet order) when Brock looked at him like he was crazy. Brock did not know alphabet order. or the ABC song. because I didn't use that method to teach him. But on the flight home he started singing the ABC song. (I never sang the ABC song) I asked him "where did you learn that" and he said "Uncle Matt".
Okay so ABC's out of the way next was to learn words. I started incorporating learning time into our daily/ nightly reading time. I would pause every now and then in a story and point to a word, tell him what the word was and then we would spell out the word. After a few months I he started pointing out words to me!  At first I just thought well he's heard these stories so often that he just knows the story. I doubt he really knows the words. But a few days later I picked up a few new books and Brock started pointing out a ton of different words on every page.  I then started letting him read the parts he knew. I would pause and he would read the word I pointed to.
when he was half way through his third year he was reading to me. most of his books. Part of it was memorization the other half he really did know.by age 4 he was reading every word. Don't get me wrong there are still a few words here and there that he needs help with. But for the most part he is reading. I love coming into a room and seeing him reading books to his brother. Love my little reader. I had to record him reading a few books the other day just because I didn't want to forget what his little voice sounded like at this age.  Love that the first thing he does at preschool is read the board to find out what they are doing that day and gets all excited to learn. (his teacher loves this too) He is constantly telling me when someones birthday is because he reads it on the school posters.  love that Nicholas is learning to love books by watching his big brother. Oh the simple joys that fill my heart as I watch them grow!

Birthday Happenings

I had a super relaxing birthday. Ryszard let me open one of my gifts early (a case of Steven's Hot Cocoa mix) which makes me super happy. LOVE IT!  I stayed in bed until 11:00!  ( although I had gotten up 3 times during the night so I kind of needed it). Ryszard and I then went to the gym and I finally reached a few of my weight lifting goals! when we got back I made up some  "snow paint" aka colored water. put it in squeeze bottles and headed outside with the boys to do some snow painting. Brock and Nicholas just felt like squirting each other mostly, and I drew their names. (some colors worked better than others.

 We later went to Longhorn Steak House
 for dinner. Nicholas fell asleep on the way there and mostly stayed asleep the rest of the night, but Brock Ryszard and I enjoyed some yummy food. {no dishes to wash after!}

 it's a great day to turn 30!

Nicho's Volcano

Nicholas has a love for volcanoes. I don't know where it cam from, but he asked Santa for a volcano for Christmas and after looking a few places I found, I mean Santa found one. 

it all started with tying the string, then on to the plaster. let that dry  then paint let that dry then eruption. it ended up taking a few days for the final erruption. Nicholas liked it well enough but he did ask one question:  "mom why it not pooow?"  Arms up in the air. I think he was hoping for a bigger explosion . 

But I'd say he was one pretty happy boy!