Abby, Zoë and Enzo

It seems like we are doing construction every weekend now, and the girls don't mind it one bit.  Mommy was debating staying home for this one, but we decided to switch it up.  I would hold Enzo and take photos while she helped the girls build.  Ssshhhh, don't mention that Zoë's base was put on backwards.  But we always seem to make at least one mistake during the projects, although I have been getting fairly good constructing these things as of late.  We were surprised to see Anna Claire show up for the build.  She also met some of her school friends there as well.  Abby and Zoë were excited to meet them.  We were done with the project quickly and made our way over to Target for our ritual snack while we browse event.  The girls have turned into some true grazers, and Enzo too.  Oh yeah, forgot to mention that Laura, Enzo and the girls got to try their first Shamrock shake from McDonalds.

During the cold months the homeschooling group has been meeting at the nearby recreation center as their 'indoor park day'.  Unfortunately we haven't made one single time.  Today, however, we finally got there.  With the nicer weather, though still a bit on the chilly side today, a lot of the kids were outside at the skateboard park.  This made me really nervous, because it's just cement and pavement everywhere.  I sucked it up however, put Enzo in the ergo and let the girls play - with just a few requests of ramps not to play on.  Zoë, Abby, and Maggie found a good sized ramp and used it as a slide, wave, waterfall, and who knows what else.  Zoë did fall down when running once and hurt her hand, but no serious injuries were had.  The upside of that was that Maggie said she'd go play inside in the gym with the girls, which was nice for Enzo because he was ready to get down.  Iris joined in and they all played different games with the basketballs.

We took a snack break in one of the other rooms after Maggie and Zoë collided and Zoë's nose started bleeding all over the place.  It wasn't really a bad run in, Zoë just has a sensitive nose like her Daddy.  Enzo was all over the place, running through any open door that he saw.  He did pause to try to hug Maggie's little sister, Zeland, who is two.  She wasn't in to having a hug though so Enzo moved on to Naomi's baby brother, who was happy to have the attention.

Zoë mentioned something about how loose her second front tooth was feeling so after I got Enzo down for his nap, I washed my hands to check it out.  Zoë was nervous that I was going to yank on it or something, but it turned out that all I needed to do was to touch the tooth and it came out.  Zoë was thrilled that she'd be getting another visit from the tooth fairy.  Abby on the other hand was quite peeved.  She went downstairs and huffed to Chris about why did Zoë already lose her second tooth when Abby was the first to lose a tooth and her second tooth is barely even loose!

We are going to try out taking turns doing the PiYo class and the yoga classes with the girls at the Y.  The PiYo (pilates and yoga mix) is on Tuesdays and the yoga classes are on Wednesdays and Fridays.  The only drawback to this is that the PiYo class starts at 8:25 and the yoga classes start at 7:30... a.m.  This morning the girls slept until about 7:00, but I didn't hear them get up and didn't get up until Enzo woke up at almost 7:30.  This didn't leave much time since Enzo was ready to eat and I'd hoped to get out of the house by 8:00 to give us time to get there and have our mats set up a few minutes early.

Chris and I decided that if I was going to go into the class with the girls, as I was going to this morning, he and Enzo would still come along in case Enzo needed me and then Chris could get me and just stand in to monitor the girls in the class.  When we do the yoga class this may be especially neccessary because I'll need to get up and have the girls up by 6:30 at the latest, right around when Enzo usually does his morning nursing.  Anyhow, we all scrambled around and got to the Y just barely before the class was to begin.  However as the girls and I were heading back to the aerobics room, the person at the front desk directed our attention to the hand written note on the door saying that the instructor had just went home sick and class was cancelled.

Chris was just coming in with Enzo in the stroller as we were talking at the front desk.  We told him we rushed for nothing and headed back to the car.  Chris told the girls that this was a "Piyo drill".  We're all wondering how on earth we're going to make it to tomorrow's 7:30 yoga class.

Zoë and Abby were bummed that we'd missed the PiYo class, therefore missing the ability to show us how well they were going to do.  I decided that I'd pack up a picnic as well as some stale bread for the birds.  We also brought the bubbles along.  Just before heading out, Daddy ended up having something come up on the computer, so we had to go without him.  We were bummed that he wasn't coming, but set out anyway.  It was a bit windy in the park so we found a building to sit behind and then the sun warmed us nicely.  We ate our greek salad sandwiches - Enzo loved the olives and feta and then took turns with the bean/corn salad and the cucumber salad.  After our mandarin oranges were finished we decided to go feed the birds before having our cookies. 

As we were tossing bread to a huge bunch of hungry seagulls and pigeons, we saw Daddy ride up on the bike, he'd even brought Enzo's helmet along.  I let Enzo out of the stroller and he immediately started chasing the birds.  Abby told Chris, "Dad, those seagulls are so big and some of them are really nasty." Once the bread was gone, Chris dumped some bubble solution in one of our lids and the girls used all of the various bubble blowers.  They also got a quick spin on the bike, sitting in Enzo's seat (it is rated for up to 40 pounds, which they aren't yet).  By this time Enzo had run all over the park and was getting cranky so we hopped him into his seat and I biked home with him while Chris and the girls packed up our stuff.  I heard they even got turns riding in Enzo's stroller.  Abby helped Chris push Zoë up our street at the end.

I'm trying again to win one of these thing!  I just saw that softbums (the brand of cloth diapers we use) is coming out with new prints for spring and they're doing a giveaway, which you can earn entries into by doing various things - one being to blog about it. :)

We still just have the original cover colors we started with ('cause I didn't win anything in the last giveaway!), green,  blue, orange and one white.  It sure would be nice to get some extra covers and such!  Keep your fingers crossed for me (us)!

That's right, Enzo pooped on the potty for the second time!  Enzo was nursing and told me he needed to poop (or that he was pooping, he says/signs both in the same way) so I asked him about it but he continued nursing.  After just a moment he again told me, "poop" so I talked up the potty and got him on it, with no protests from him.  When I was taking his diaper off I noticed that he had just started to go a bit, so I hurried with having him sit and then tried to keep him occupied while he finished up.  He got this out of the way nice and early, Daddy wasn't even up yet (possibly why there were no protests for Daddy to sit with him on the potty instead of me).

He and I went up to wave good-bye to the poo and tell Daddy all about it.  There was lots of clapping and high fives.

We started the sunny day by walking to church and back.  As soon as we got home it was time to pack our stuff up and head to Angie's for lunch and then ice skating.  The girls played outside with Kayla while Angie and I got lunch ready - green and pasta salads, as well as marinated chicken and spicy sausage on the grill - and of course I had to help out a little with holding sweet little Alyssa.

After lunch clean up was done we packed up and headed to the nearby ice skating rink.  Angie had some beginners skates that were the right size for the girls, so I just kept my shoes on and walked around the rink with them.  After maybe a lap, Angie suggested that I put on her extra pair of ice skates and go around with the girls.  I was a sorry sight, but at least I managed to stay up and I think it was helpful for the girls to see, slowly, how to make the skates go on the ice.

Chris was wearing Enzo in the ergo, taking photos but Enzo tired of that pretty quickly and they went to the playground instead.  Zoë and Abby also decided after not too long that they wanted to go to the playground so we cut the skating short and played for a while.

Back at home Zoë and Abby were begging to bake so I let them make some chocolate chip cookies, mostly, on their own.  Abby worked on the dry ingredients while Zoë mixed the sugar, butter, and such.  They needed some help mixing with the electric mixer and then combining everything together, but somehow I still ended up with most of the clean up.

This morning Daddy took the pedals off of the bikes, as well as the 'training wheels' off of Enzo's little fisher price bike, for some more balance practice.  This time we had them go on our side street, so that they'd be able to coast a little on the (very) slight hill.  Doing it this way seemed to really help, both of the girls were at least attempting to balance.  Zoë was coasting for a good few seconds by the end of our practice.

Later on Grampy came over and brought his air pump and filled up the tires in both bikes.  We all went out for some more bike riding.  Each of the girls got two turns down and back up the road with Grampy helping, and two turns with Daddy.

Just before dinner time we packed up and Grampy joined us for a potluck that one of the families in our homeschooling group was hosting.  We made a spinach artichoke dip in the crockpot to bring.  I was excited to use the carrying case for the first time.  (It's the little things in life, right?)  Of course, when we first arrived the girls were too excited about running around with Iris, Greta and some of the other kids and wouldn't sit down to eat.  Finally, a little bit before the fire was started outside, we got the girls to sit and eat a little something.  Grampy followed Enzo around, as he was curious about everything around.  Chris got Zoë and Abby rounded up to get their shoes and coats on to go outside as all of the other older kids were heading out as well.  Grampy, Enzo, and I stayed inside for a while and then we too joined the group outside.

Enzo was getting tired by now, but instead of settling down to snooze in the ergo, he got into over-tired mode and was just cranky and all over the place.  At about 20 minutes to 8:00pm we started getting ready to go... unfortunately some of the girls other friends had just arrived and everyone was bummed that we were leaving.  I told them that we'd try to make it to the indoor park day on Wednesday and they'd get to hang out then.  As the girls admired the beautiful starry night, they said their good-bye's to Grampy and then we got home.  I got Enzo to sleep while Chris got the girls stuff done and to my surprise, when I came downstairs, the girls were all cozy on the couch with a movie!  They were happy to be snuggled up having a late night movie night.

It was a quick and easy build today.  Abby and Zoë were excited to see that they had some craft stuff ready for after the project too.  They like that kind of thing.   We started quickly as this project only required a few nails.  I did the glueing and helped Abby.  Don assisted Zoë with her project.  Five nails and a single screw to hold the rain guage on was all it took.  We were done in record time, and without any complications or errors.  We have been getting better at these projects.  After Home Depot we stopped by Market Basket for some supplies for the pot luck we planned on attending tonight.  Laura likes Market Basket for the free coffee while you shop.  The girls like the 5 cent bulk candy sample coin box, that they feel they need to feed.

We finally had some sunshine and warmer temps today so I decided to take the girls to the park to practice riding thier bikes without training wheels.  One of the bikes had a flat, so I took the training wheels off of the other bike and got Enzo into the ergo and off we went to the park.  It didn't take long for me to give up, though I did let each of the girls have a couple of turns trying.  Instead I decided to just let them run a bit in the park.

On the way home I was sure that I just wasn't going to be the person that would be able to work with the girls on this balancing act of riding a two-wheeler.  I got some suggestions though and have renewed hope that Zoë and Abby really will one day ride a bike with no training wheels.  And hopefully before Zoë's exasperated prediction of  "by the time we're 10".

Enzo just learned to sign "see you later" and it is so cute! You can go here to see the actual way to sign it (though it's a very slow example for those learning the language, it's a more fluid sign).  Enzo does more of a chicken wing and wrist twist combonation while attempting to say the phrase.  "Table" and "dirty" are two other newer signs he's been doing a lot lately.

We're working with him now on signing two or three word sentences.  Whereas the girls singed in sentences seemingly from the start, Enzo prefers a more short and to the point approach such as just signing "more" or "milk" or "please".

Another cute thing he's started doing, though not sign language it is sort of related because it's a gesture, is shrugging his shoulders, putting up his hands and saying "I don't know" in his cutie little toddler way.  If he is wanting something and doesn't know where it's at he'll come up to us and do this.  It never gets old.