Our little artists

Natalie has really been into drawing pictures for a long time now. She started out with scribbles, moved to shapes, and now she's on to drawing people and practicing her letters. Eric is also fascinated with the crayons and markers, and he loves to scribble whenever he gets the chance. I just wanted to post a few pictures so you could see them playing at their art table since they do it so often.

Natalie has been into drawing the whole family together. It started out as smiley faces, then they got ears, then hair, then arms and hands, then legs and feet, and recently they've started to get fingers on their hands. She's actually getting very good! She's also very good at coloring in pictures these days. We'll keep you guys up to date on the new artwork developments.

Gymnastics!

Natalie is already on her second session of gymnastics, and it's going pretty well. She started her first session all the way back in January, and is almost at the end of her second session. The first session was with the 2-year-olds where the parents could come along with them to class. Her second session is with the big boys and girls and it's just Natalie and her fellow students with the teachers. It took a week or two for Natalie to get used to going solo but she's doing very well now. She's now willing to do all of the activities as well.

They have a lot of really fun obstacle courses that involve lots of jumping, climbing, and somersaults. She was most nervous about the activity where you stand up on a platform, then swing out over a big foam pit and drop in. It took a few weeks but now she does it all the time!

Here are some pictures of her in class. She now has a pretty blue gymnastics outfit to wear. We'll make sure to get some pictures of that at some point for you guys as well :-)

Easter

Happy (super-belated) Easter folks. It's a bit embarrassing to post pictures so obviously late, but oh well. I post them all eventually!

Eric's favorite part of the Easter basket itself was the grass. It is pretty interesting I guess.



Natalie had a great time going on the Easter egg hunt, and she really enjoyed watching her Dad and Grandpa Steve try to get her new Dora kite into the air. With only a few minor injuries we managed to do it. Both Natalie and Eric found out they like kites a whole lot. Actually, Eric likes pretty much everything outdoors (especially birds), but more on that later.




Eric also got a neat little bulldozer he likes riding around on. Eric's crawling around now (more on that later too), and hopefully the bulldozer will help get him walking!

Eric's big birthday party

On the Saturday after Eric's official birthday, everyone came over for his big birthday party. It was quite a party and everyone seemed to have a good time.


Eric really, really enjoyed the cake :-)




Natalie enjoyed having friends over to play with as well. She played a little baseball, and drew plenty of pictures as well. She had a good time playing with Greg and Mary's daughter Emily. Thanks to everyone who came!

Happy 1st Birthday Eric!

Eric had quite a day for his 1st birthday! He had to go to school, but that's ok because he really enjoys it. We also still managed to fit quite a few activities into the evening though.

After school we went to Skyline, where Eric learned to use straws for the first time!




Then we went to an Easter Egg Hunt at school! Natalie had a great time seeing her friends and finding easter eggs with surprises inside, and Eric loved playing on the playground and watching the kids run around. He also loves to go down the slide.






And finally we went back home for cupcakes and presents. Eric wasn't shy at all about digging into the cupcake. He started out pretty well, but after he wiped his face a couple of times it started to get a little crazy with the cupcake crumbs.






Natalie really enjoyed the cupcakes as well. Her favorite part is definitely the icing.


Eric also got to open a few presents, with plenty more to come this weekend!

Sooo Big!

A while back Eric started the the So Big performances for everyone. Just like Natalie, Eric is super cute when he does it.





And check out this throw back picture of Natalie doing "So Big" when she was a similar age!


Eric also scrunches his nose up just like Natalie used to do when he's feeling mischievous.



And, of course, he's still ridiculously cute.