school celebrations

For Valentine's Day, parents were able to submit paper hearts with why they loved their child written on them.  It was fun for the boys to find theirs in a sea of hearts.

At the end of each marking period, the different grade levels have their own celebrations.  Harrison is showing me his timeline project.  Then he showed me everything else they've been working on.

The boys love showing off their baby sister to their classmates.  All the kids love Grace.  The boys are so proud to be her big brothers.

 Leo's celebration was about how his class is 100 days smarter.

 It never fails when I take pictures at school, someone else always wants to jump in.

dress up days

Last week was kindness week at school.  One of the days you were supposed to match with someone else.  Harrison didn't want to do it until Zoe asked to match with him.  Then he remembered that she had a pink vest that matched his park ranger vest.  He only agreed to match if they wore their vests.

 Today is the 100th day of school.  Students could dress up like they were 100 years old.  Leo was all over that.  It's hard to tell but we put white powder in his hair.  He wanted me to draw on wrinkles but changed his mind and we had to wash them off.

 I think he's a darn cute old man. 

Grace also likes to dress up.

Valentine's Day

The boys woke up so excited to celebrate Valentine's Day.  We started the day with sprinkle pancakes and pink milk.

Everyone got a balloon.

Leo made Grace a valentine (that's a picture of her).

The love these kids have for each other makes my heart swell!
Leo wanted to entertain us with the Valentine monkey song before school.

Notice how quickly Grace goes from starting to fuss to watching Leo dance.

Grace and I met Jeff for lunch.

And we took the whole family for a Valentine's dinner at Chuck-E-Cheese.  Isn't that romantic?  The boys sure loved it and we finally used this Christmas gift.

 This is the valentine Harrison made for Grace.

 It says "I love when you laugh".  He asked me to write "because it's so beautiful" (because he ran out of room).

 💗I love love!💗

new foods

Grace is experiencing so many new foods that I can't help but document some of it.

Green peas were okay.
Crackers are a favorite.  This was her first time self-feeding.  She loves doing that!

She seemed to really like gnawing on pizza crust.

Grace has had bananas before as baby food.  This time we cut up a banana and put it in a mesh feeder.  This was the biggest hit so far.  She went to town on that!

Avocado was just okay.  Adding crackers made it better.

We tried strawberries and blueberries next.  Those were so juicy she might as well have been drinking from a juice box.

We are constantly trying to encourage the kids to try new foods.  Harrison is more willing than Leo.  I was really proud of Harrison for not only trying new food tonight but also helping me prepare it.  (Hawaiian chicken with coconut lime rice)

EIGHT MONTHS OLD

 Highlights from Grace's eighth month:

• has two teeth!!
• first fever :(
• ate peaches, blueberries, strawberries, peas, peanut butter (with no reaction), sweet potatoes and crackers for the first time (not a big fan of green veggies)
• went to the amusement park
• super ticklish
• loves to laugh
• very interactive and more verbal 
• likes to blow raspberries
• unofficially weighs 18.2 pounds
• such a happy baby!

 See those two little teeth?

 so big

ships

Talk about a fun day for the boys!  The Naval Museum had a Lego shipbuilding event.  They got to create lots of Lego ships and do all kinds of Lego activities.  Once a certain number of events were completed, a new Lego set was given to each participant as a reward.

 their prizes 

We also enjoyed the rest of what the museum had to offer.

 The boys loved the shark tank. 

Besides the Legos, the highlight of the day was touring a real Navy battleship.  Even though it hasn't sailed for years, it was still really cool.

 I was shocked at all the places we were able to explore.

 For $70 you can spend the night on the ship.  That doesn't appeal to me but Harrison sure wanted to do it.

 It was a fun family day!