There's so much catching up to do I don't know where to start. I so desperately want to use this blog as a tool to capture our family memories, but there seems to be so little time for such things at this phase of our life. But I'll continue to do the best I can.
I have many updates and photos to catch up on, but right now I just want to take a moment to catalog a few things I want to remember about Henry at 3.5 and Eleanor at 2 years.
The biggest milestone we've seen lately is the transition of the two of them from enemies (of sorts, maybe aggravators is a better term) to friends, and, maybe, co-conspirators. The jury is still out on whether this is 100% positive for me, as they seem to be finding new ways to gang up on me...but that's ok, because they really are starting to show themselves as the very best of friends. What a joy it is for us to see them playing together, imagining together, building together and laughing together. This is what I pictured in my head when we found out we were expecting a second child, and it makes the first two tough years worth every challenging moment.
Make no mistake, life is not all roses...they are 3 1/2 and 2, after all. But they so obviously love each other, and that makes my heart sing.
Eleanor is talking up a storm and stringing two and three sentences together. She has an amazing vocabulary and can now repeat any word you throw at her...even words like "ballerina" and "refrigerator." She has lots of favorite phrases, but one of the ones that cracks me up this most is "it's not working now" which she uses when she can't make something work the way she wants it to.
She still loves MMCH and is obsessed with all things Mickey Mouse. We have tons of MM coloring books around the house, and she will ONLY color the pictures of Mickey...not Minnie, not Pluto (although he's her second favorite...whenever she's watching the show and he's not in the scene, she says, "Where'd Pluto go?"), not Donald or Daisy...JUST Mickey. She is interested in no other television...only MMCH.
She was recently diagnosed with asthma (boo) and also spent a night in the hospital with pneumonia. It was our first trip to the ER with one of our kids and was a very scary experience, but they took fantastic care of her at VCH and she recovered very quickly.
Henry is growing up so very, very fast and it makes me sad and happy all at the same time. He can carry on very adult-like conversations with us and has an unbelievable ability to both convey his emotions ("I am mad" or "I"m so frustrated" are two of his common complaints) and to express himself ("Mom, she's antagonizing me!!"). He is bright and social and, although we recently went through a bout of the terrible 3s, a clamp down on the rules of the house restored order pretty quickly. He's such a great kid. Loves us and his sister, is eager to please and follow directions, has turned into quite a good little eater. He loves school and has made two very good friends there this year (Jack and Teague).
As much as we've loved Crieve Hall for the kids, we recently decided to move them to the preschool at our church. We struggled with this decision a lot, but I'm absolutely certain now that we made the right decision and I know it will be an easy transition for them. It will be so sad to leave CH, though. I cried in the hallway yesterday just talking to the administrator about it when she approached me to say she'd noticed we didn't register for next year.
Otherwise, life is rolling along peacefully. Winter is nearing its end and we are thankful for that and looking forward to spring. We recently registered the kids for swim lessons for this summer. I can't believe those summer activities are right around the corner! And Easter is later this month!
It looks like this weekend we will get what may be our last snow of the year.
