catching up

It has been a long time, but I'm not ready to give up on the blog yet. Life is just too busy lately, and when I have free time I tend to use it for other things. I really like being able to look back at how the kids have grown and how life has changed, so it's time to start catching up a little. 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. As it turned out, there was a big snow storm that knocked out power at my parents' house for several days. We went anyway, and other than small inconveniences (no internet) everything was able to function on their generator. 

Beautiful drive north:

Henry turned three the day after Thanksgiving. We had a cake and he opened a few presents. 

Henry is very proud to be a three-year-old. 

Since Thanksgiving was late this year, we jumped right into Christmas activities that weekend. After arriving home from New Hampshire, we went for a ride on the Polar Express. 

We also go each year to a day of Christmas events around town. There are a lot of things for kids, and at the end of the day Santa arrives at the town common on a fire truck. Last year he talked to Celia, and this year Henry got a high five. 

Somewhere in there, we decorated gingerbread houses and made peppermint ornaments for our neighbors. 

A botanical garden near us has a lot of events throughout the year, including crafts for kids, musical performances and light displays at Christmas. We went one day, but the kids didn't last long enough for us to see all the lights. We would have had to wait until it got dark. I'd like to do it another year. 

There was a theme this year, of using found or recycled materials to decorate trees. There were some really neat ones. This was my favorite, covered in paper peonies. 

We had a good Christmas. I hardly took any pictures. My parents were here Christmas Eve and stayed over, and we had both families here on Christmas Day. It is a lot of people, but it always works well having everyone here. 

Here they are with their Christmas loot. Couldn't get them both looking and smiling, but each picture has one kid looking...

We're at the very end of a nice, long vacation week. We were pretty successful at keeping the kids busy, but also had some moments of insanity. We had a friend of Celia's over to play one day. They had a great time, and the kids were so busy with each other that it was actually a break for me too! We went to an indoor playground one day, and another day it was warm enough to go to an outdoor playground. Since it has been unseasonably warm, with no snow yet, I've been trying to get the kids outside and running around as much as I can. At some point soon we'll have a long period of cold. Another day we went to the mall to use the play area and ride the carousel, and on another day Celia went to play at another friend's house. She has some nice kids in her class, and we're planning to start inviting more friends over. We've also done quite a bit of painting and drawing. 

Henry is starting to do more with his scribbling, painting and drawing. He is starting to make more representative drawings, rather than scribbling all the time. The other day he drew this face and said, "Does this look like me?" He is also recognizing more letters, and is starting to write a few. 

Henry had his three year check-up this week too. He did very well getting a finger prick and a flu shot. His flu shot gave him a fever later that day, as it has done before. He seems to have a little reaction every year. He weighs 30.5 pounds and is 37 inches tall, around the 30th percentile for both. His iron levels were high, and the doctor and nurse were very impressed that a vegan toddler could have such good iron levels. 

Honestly, is he not the cutest little monkey? 

There you have our last couple of months in a nutshell.