January 2012

I don’t know why I have put off posting about January for so long.  It just never feels like a very exciting month.

I guess I should give January at least a little bit of respect, because (you are going to be jealous of this if you live somewhere cold) at least in Texas we get some January days that are warm enough to go to the park. 

Tristan was doing a science project involving throwing lots of different kinds of balls and then measuring how far they went, so he and Daniel used the field near our neighborhood pool, and the rest of us played at the playground.  We rode bikes, just for fun.

Here is Henry trying to pose as a super sweet and tender older brother, and Cindy is like, “yeah, right – this kid is going to poke me in the eye as soon as you put away the camera, Mom!”

Mountain climbers:                                 

Swingers.  Henry hates swings – I try to get him to swing a little bit each time we go to give him a chance to realize how fun they are, but so far it isn’t working.  He says they stretch out his stomach too much.  Even the next day he kept sighing and then talking about how stretched out he was feeling from all that swinging.

Ollie and Ollie Junior:                            

Tristan working on his science project.  Is it just me, or did he grow up all of a sudden?

Rachel crossing the monkey bars away into the sunset:

On the cold days in January, the kids did a good job of entertaining themselves inside.  This is a very typical scene of Henry and LIzza – they get out stacks and stacks of puzzles, and then go to work. I’m not sure why Lizza’s making that face.

Lizza is also a fort builder.  She builds multiple forts every day, all around the house.  This fort was for coloring in.

Tristan taught the kids how to make houses and buildings out of folded paper.  Then they would knock them down by driving toy cars into them. 

I bought these fun color tiles, and they love setting up big elaborate lines and then tipping them over like dominoes. 

It turns out the tiles are also good for making blue-haired people:

Tristan and Oliver played on the same basketball team this year, which was fun.

Tristan has decided that basketball is his new favorite sport.

Three little chefs:                                   

Some pictures of Cynthia being cute:

Pushing some tiny little dinosaurs around in her stroller.  While wearing Henry’s pajamas.  If it weren’t for that fancy necklace, I would think she was a little boy.

Also, that picture reminds me of myself when I was little:                                          

Back to her girly fanciness in her Sunday dress:

Her very favorite thing to do these days is read.  She carries books around with her everywhere.

She is lucky to have so many older siblings to read to her:

And speaking of books, here is something funny that Henry and Lizza did in January.  Henry loves the Dr. Seuss book “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket.”  He and Lizza decided to copy the book and set up random little toys all around our house, posing as the things in the book.

(If you haven’t read the book, this will make no sense).

Sometimes we have a feeling there’s a Zlock behind the clock.                   

And that Zelf on the shelf, we have talked to him ourselves.                             

Here is Darth Vader, doing his best impersonation of a Nink in the sink.              

Henry thought this little toy salt shaker would make a good Zillow on the pillow.

And even though this looks like a dinosaur, it is really a Findow in our window.                 

We also had a Zamp in our lamp:                                                                                  

A Nook Gase in our book case:                                                                                     

(I couldn’t figure out why the little frog in the book case was holding a toy banana, but then I looked in the book and saw this picture, and it all made sense. Haha!):                                                                         

Here’s a Zower in the shower:                                                                                               

A Wasket (Henry’s blanket) in our basket:                                                       

And a Zall scooting down the hall:                                                                  

And here’s Henry, showing you that the only one he’s really scared of is the Vug under the rug.

So I guess we did have a little bit of excitement in January.