The Winter that Wasn't

In Indiana we didn't have winter, so no sledding, building snowmen or beautiful snow pictures. :( While I know that most everyone is happy about the lack of winter, the boys and I missed it. They kept asking me when it would snow and I assured them it would. :) How was I supposed to know this would be a no-snow winter? Dan even bought a new sled and we didn't get to use it. So, the winter toys have been put away and we are on to spring. But, we did have Christmas. Here are a couple pictures.

Everyone got a new hat for Christmas. Unfortunately, they didn't really need them this year.

One of the fun things they received for Christmas was boxing gloves and headgear. Jonathan got this for them. What a great idea! They have boxed each other without getting hurt. There was even a boxing demonstration in the living room in their underwear one night!

Bethany got them this big, heavy box. They were so excited to open it. They were expecting some great gift, but it was a little bit of a trick. Inside was a 24 pack of orange soda. The other part of the gift was a trip to an indoor amusement center.

For school we studied about California. The state flower is the poppy, so we made poppies out of pipe cleaners and crete paper. Don't they look cute?

Maicol and Juan Pablo.

February brought a visit from my brother and his family. My Mom came and stayed with us too. Since it was so nice out we went to a local park and hiked. This is the boys with their cousin. It only took about 4 takes to get a picture of all of them together, looking the same way, holding still, etc.

Grandma and Maicol playing basketball.

March took us to Grandma's for a visit. It was 80 and warm enough to play in the water. She has a little pond that isn't more than 18 inches deep and they had a great time playing there. Of course they were just going to walk out on the log and a little and not get wet. We all know that eventually they would all be in the water. :)

Our dogwood tree is beautiful this year.

The new favorite activity this spring has been fishing. Maicol is the leader, but the other two like to go too. They have been mainly catching bluegills about 5-8 inches long. After many days of trying Maicol finally caught a big carp.

Andrew's 7th birthday was in March. Here he is opening his gifts. Notice the fancy wrapping paper. :) Hard to believe he is 7.

"The boys"

Life continues to just fly along here. Everyone keeps getting older. Maicol keeps reminding me that in just over 2 years he will be 15 and able to get a driving permit. Yikes!! School is going reasonably well. They much prefer to play outside, watch a movie, play the computer, etc. You get the idea. :) I'm always trying to design ways to add those types of things into school, but there are things you just have to do even when you don't want to. They all still have their strengths and weaknesses and we keep working on those things. Maicol is playing (for the first time) baseball. His first game will be Saturday, so the next post will no doubt have pictures of that. He is very, very excited. With the good weather we have already started having hotdogs and marshmallows outside. We may go throught a record number of hotdogs and marshmallows this year.

Thanks for reading...

Karen