Snow

This was an incredibly snowy winter. Which meant a lot of time cooped up inside. But when we got new snow, I did try and let them out a little.  Jack didn't get out as often as the bigger boys, so when I did go out with him, he was pretty happy.

JJ made a few snow angels

The boys love to shovel, such a good thing for me.

The fresh snow was a little too  powdery for snowballs, but Ryan sure tried.

Jack liked being outside, until his hands got wet and cold and his boots fell off in the snow.  He cried because his hands were cold and because I took him inside.  Poor kid.

Riding Frontrunner

For Martin Luther King Day, Jeremiah took the day off and we rode Frontrunner up to Salt Lake. It's the new commuter train in Utah. The boys were really excited to ride the train.

 Here they are eagerly waiting.

Big smiles from an excited boy.

They all had lots of fun and were very patient.  It helped that I brought snacks.

Ah, yes, the car show

What would January be without the car show. And honestly, with four boys, what is more appropriate.

Building a Rocket

Christmas means lots of boxes, especially if you do your shopping online, like this sick pregnant lady did. The boys had seen on Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (a favorite PBS show) kids decorating a box to look like a rocket. So we saved up some toilet paper tubes and got our the tape and crayons and they went to work creating and decorating, and then flying their rocket.

Jack's fine motor skills

For Christmas, the boys each got a toilet paper roll filled with coins for their piggy bank. When we got home, we pulled out all the piggy banks for them to fill with their coins. Each boy loved it, as I knew they would, but Jack surprised me with his ability to pick up each coin and put it in the small slot without any help. As I'm writing this it occurs to me I need to remember this the next time he needs something to do. It will entertain him for hours. And he didn't even try to put any of them in his mouth.

Christmas

We spent Christmas in AZ with my family. We always have such a good time and the boys are always so excited. I think much of the reason is that it is always better weather than at home and they spend a lot of time outside and at the nearby park. The favorite present this year was the cheap M&M light sabers Santa left in the stocking. They ran around with those things all week long and even now 3 months later, they get a ton of play time.

Green for JJ

Blue for Ryan

My 3 cute Jedi

Red for Jack

Jack seemed to enjoy these toys the most.  He would grab two and just keep turning them on.

Can you guess what JJ is?  A pirate, with an eye patch he designed himself.

Each boy asked Santa for a Slinky

And Ryan asked for a blue train.  We certainly did not need another train at our house, so Santa was kind enough to brainstorm and find a Thomas flashlight.  It fit the bill and was multi-purpose

Jack was not interested in opening presents.  Weird, I know because most kids his age are all about tearing paper and playing with boxes.  He left most of his gifts untouched and we brought them home still wrapped.  Santa left this ball popper, which was not wrapped, so Jack was perfectly content to play with this.  I also got him to unwrap a stacking toy, which was also hugely popular and today is still probably his favorite gift from Christmas.

Santa also brought the boys scooters and my parents have this long hallway that they rode up and down while they were waiting for an adult to take them outside to ride their scooters.  It was so nice to be in Arizona because Utah got tons and tons of snow and ice and they never would have been able to ride their scooters if we were home.

For me, the nicest part of being home is that the kids have someone (or in this case 4 someones) who are new and they can talk their ears off, and I am completely uninteresting and they don't talk to me as much.  We had a great time baking cookies and visiting places with Christmas, but resting was the best part of the trip.