March, March, March, March

 March has arrived!! And with it the tempermental weather we know and love. Like wind! Lots of wind! So much wind that Clark got the joy of watching trash cans blow around the street during his rest time last week. 

This is actually the end of February but we got hit by a MASSIVE storm that kept dumping and dumping. The kids were in heaven and I was too - once I found out they would go play in the backyard alone...without me...happily:) 

Clark figured out a new game called "throw snowballs at anything that stands still and see what sticks". 

March also brought some scholastic success. This cutie passed his 100 Fry Words at school. He was pretty smug behind that mask. 

Charlotte is crushing it at preschool, making all her letter animals. She advanced to the more chatty Monday/Wednesday class and that means she gets to ride the bus to and from school. Mom was very nervous the first day but she jumped on like a boss. She had glomed onto the "Froggie" video and now can make all her letter sounds which is a big accomplishment even if Mom's ears start to bleed whenever  begins "the A says...aaaaahhh". Ahhhhh, indeed. 

One Sunday, Dana busted out the puzzles while I had a meeting and discovered he and his kiddos share a passion. 

One Saturday we randomly bought new twin beds for the kids. It was soooo time for the Queen mattress to go. Look at all that floor space. 

Unfortunately, for Char, potty training started on Friday so her bed is rolled in our closet until the bed wetting settles down. 

It seems like once the weather gets a bit nice, all we do is park it up. That's where we've spent most of the last week, going from one playdate to the next. Clark took his slide game to the next level by going down on his feet. 

Char occassionally pinks it up hard and she was on full display at my eye doctor's appointment with her pink game:)

When the park is not an option, we make our own fun with the couch cushions. 

We had a veeeerrry windy egg hunt and birthday party for Elisabeth one Saturday. We had gotten rained on the day before so I was prepared with thermals but still....brrr...

Hmmm...what else? Oh yes, they love to do this weird dance from Rapunzel where they spin around and around and around which laughing. Hard to catch on camera but it's pretty funny. 

And we've had lots of friends over to break up the monotony of school. One day we invited Timmy over and Madeline (in all her rollerblading glory) just joined in. She literally spent 2 hours in the backyard in her rollerblades and became my hero. 

Clark and Timmy, naturally, invented a game called "his the remote control shark with the snow shovel". A real crowd pleaser. It was all fun and games until a red panted hoodlum who shall remain nameless locked himself (and a litter sister) in the shed and mom had to come rescue them. Playdate over!

Guess what?....my RS ladies can paint!

And just for some fun news to remember - while we had this lovely winter storm, the South (in particular Texas) was having the coldest weather in 50 years. All the Texas family lost power for almost a full week and several friends had pipes burst. They had to boil water for the rest of the month and at one point it was 50 degrees in Jeff and Jess's house...brrrrr!! It brought up some good discussions of emergency preparedeness and made us very grateful our heat stayed on.