what do you do with all this snow?

this is our walk home from school. it now takes over an hour but adds an hour to my sleep time.

 i love when the real workers high-five me and tell me what a great help i am.

i was the first sledder..

 ..so mom had to help. yup, those are her knee high boots...

 hard to sled in 16-ish inches so..

dad took me skiing this weekend!

 of course, i love the chair ride.

ok, i admit, we sort of like it. but another 15-20" over the next two days? a storm for the history books? seriously? on the day we are to fly to sunny florida? ugh!

the babies that don't sleep so well anymore

this one is working his new tooth! came in on thursday and was joined by another on sunday.

my big guy

matt loves loves loves his swim lessons. he works so hard and is so proud of himself. and i love having some alone time with my favorite big boy.

 it is fun to see him come out of his shell a bit with his instructor. he is so chatty, telling her about his brothers and toys and school. he does much better one-on-one.

on a related note, at our parent-teacher conference this week his teacher told me he tells her he loves her and gives her hugs! (yes, i teared up a little.) and that he is so helpful and (seriously, she said this:) respectful to his teachers and the other children. sniff, sniff. love him.

 this is him not crying when water gets in his face. he still freaks out in the bath.



videos

because the tedious task of watching videos upload is way more fun than cleaning the fine white, powdery dust that has settled over every inch of our apartment.

jack walks more than he crawls already. still finding it weird to see his little body come around the corner...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlSH7Ncdynk

ben is working on other skills. seriously, they all three fight over this toy...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WJ0AWTrPMo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB8FhEBgO14&feature=BF&list=ULmkana30vUy4&index=23

and matt, well he is honing two of his best skills, not cleaning up and whining... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRGJrmYJDyQ

ahhhhhh. so very very nice.

home at last

after a week in a temporary apartment (while ours was renovated. for free. oddly, as we search for a place to buy.) we are finally home. nothing worse-nothing-than three kiddies away from their toy stash. this is them playing with one of their new faves (thanks aunt nin) before we left.

 notice what's missing from this picture?

 (i wasn't talking about the big one. he wouldn't miss bath time with his brothers for anything.)

 the true joy of bath time here is getting everyone out.

 spent an afternoon at the museum of science with a newly curious matty, a newly walking jack, and a head-banging ben. i think he is trying to walk like his brothers but is nowhere near ready yet. we met a woman with a three year old and twin one year olds. we actually worked as a team chasing whatever kid of ours we saw. it was so nice having the extra help.

it is fun now doing the experiments with matt.

 and he showed jack how to get close enough to the T-rex to upset the guard while not actually touching it. (therefore not "breaking the rules.")

 these guys liked the rocks.

 i offered matty anything he wanted from the vending machine (one of his favorite things at the museum) if he would eat this tiny dot of guacamole. think he did?

 he did help his brothers in the baby area. heaven forbid they play with something on their own.

 this was how we spent the rest of the late afternoon. gosh how i love a tired little boy who will sleep for 11 hours.



swimming and climbing and walking

matty has been loving his swim lessons. he still shrieks if a droplet of water gets near his eye in the bath, but he laughs and splashes all over the pool with miss janna banana (the best swim instructor ever). he was so proud that he could float "all by himself."

ben climbs on everything. he can almost get on matty's bed. this is his new favorite perch. he is still perfecting the disembark however, so we are sporting a few black-and-blues on the noggin.

he was not happy when jack stole his seat. this may be the first true pout from his pretty face.

 and we're finally official. jack walks. after a couple of weeks on unassisted standing, and then a week or so of 2 or 3 steps, he now wobbles all around on two feet. anyone else have a 9.5 month walker? it's weird. like dancing baby from ally mcbeal weird.

 and my big boy walks everywhere now. just waiting for his buggy board wheel to (finally) fall off and he is on his own! he is a snow-stomper at heart and we rarely leave home without his big snowplow. makes for good sleeping at night.   

(and boston can make fun of NYC's snow clearing efforts but this was the only path, along a highway i might add, that was cleared three days post-blizzard. the roads were dry, but i had to struggle with stroller over and around huge snowpilesa and go about a mile out of my way to get matty home from school on unclear sidewalks (after walking over the charlestown bridge with traffic to get there!!). thank goodness the museum of science was on the route. a little run-around and some coca, and we were back on the road. today, i learn to drive in the snow!

who knew we loved blizzards?

our first venture out involved a snowplow. it was great fun. matty rammed his nose into it once and got the wind knocked out of him after falling onto it full speed.

 the second time involved a whole lot of playing.

this is a mountain of snow made by snowplows dumping snow from the parking lot above.

we only got a foot or 14" in boston but it was the great, packable snow that is so much fun. the littler ones slept through it all nestled in their stroller.

9.5

somehow we've made it to 9 1/2 months. the best part? babies sleep most of the night now:

 at least jack does. ben better be cutting his first tooth today after the last two night. let's just say lots of screaming. 11pm, midnight, 3...and he screams for at least 45 minutes before giving up. no, he still has no signs of teeth.

matty's class is studying volcanoes and it seems to be his favorite yet. so what do we do?

 we make our own.

 with purple lava of course. fun the first 3 times.

 can not leave these guys alone with anything. i think my injury is actually vacuum-shoulder. seriously. it's really what i think.

 ben will now clap his hands on command. and wave. but that's an old trick.

 he is sooo proud of himself.

 jack is focusing more on eating. he ate 4 ravioli a few nights ago. with pesto. chopped into the tiniest of pieces, it took an hour. ad he ate 3 ikea meatballs on wed. and almost a whole piece of bread with hummus (no crusts). and he still only has the 2 teeth he grew at six months. no new teeth here since mid-October. 

 i do not know what he is chomping but it is not ravioli this time.