This and that

1)  Thank goodness spring is around the corner!  It's been great the past few days to get outside and play.  We've taken walks, gone to the park, and Evan's been learning how to peddle his tricycle!  Finally his legs are long enough that he can reach the peddles.  But watching him learn made me realize that it's not that easy!  Peddling is just something I've been doing on various types of vehicles for so long now that I forgot it takes time to learn!  I thought learning to ride a bike was all about balance, but if you haven't peddled anything before, that also takes some coordination.  The part he struggles with most is if he doesn't peddle one side down enough and then he switches to put weight on his other foot he ends up pushing the peddle backward.  Either way, in just a span of an hour he started to get it pretty good, but not consistently yet.

Watch Evan riding his tricycle in "Peddle peddle peddle!"

2) Emma is no longer stationary.  While she's not crawling yet, she is in the phase of rolling, pivoting, and even scooting (usually just a little backward so far).  I can place her in the center of her play mat/floor gym or her homemade quilt from Aunt Linda and then within a minute she's on the carpet.  I need to pull out the big quilt that I used for Evan when he got to this stage!  Now if only I can remember where it is! lol.

Floor time on her homemade quilt from Aunt Linda, with Evan as a playmate.

3) Just over a week ago we awoke one morning to a cold house.  Our furnace had been having problems intermittently because I had noticed the thermometer in our bedroom was reading pretty cold temperatures in days prior.  Well, it finally went kaput one night when we had a bit of a cold snowy spell (of course that's when they always go out right?).  Luckily we had some space heaters that we put in our master bedroom so we could all stay warm and get ready for the morning.  And when it got repaired it was just a capacitor that had gone out.  However, they indicated that our blower motor was probably on the fritz as well, and that in general we may be needing a new furnace soon. (sigh)  So we're lined up a few other quotes and opinions for this week to help us evaluate whether or not we need to get a new one or not.  We've decided that if we do, we'll probably upgrade (higher efficiency and 2-stage furnace with variable blower), so of course if we have to get one it'll cost us a pretty penny.  Just when I was hoping to do some other small renovation projects on our house this summer.  Oh well...maybe we'll get a good tax refund this year to help us out? :)

4) Evan always has some funny things he says, so I'll thrown in a few of the things he's said recently that made me or John laugh...at least those that I can remember.

---
He brought me his animal book opened to a page with a crocodile recently and said "It's a scary crocodile.  It's gonna eat my head!"  I have no clue where he learned that one!
---
John and Evan have a bedtime ritual of saying I love you more than things now.   John will say one and then Evan will repeat it in a whisper.  It's really quite cute and goes something like this:
John: I love you more than the stars.  Evan (whisper): More than the stars.
John: I love you more than the moon.  Evan (whisper): More than the moon.

John: I love you more than anything in the whole world.  Evan (whisper): The whole world.

What made this story funny was one recent night Evan added something to the very end, in a rough and  grunting like voice.
Evan: (whisper) "....the whole world." (grunting voice) "We don't eat poo!"

What a nice reminder at bedtime!  lol.

5) Well, I might have had time for one more but the kids just both woke from their naps and it's still beautiful outside today.  Time to go back out and play! :)