The Cold Winter

It's been a pretty wet and cold winter this year. Nothing compared to my friends and family living up north but we are definitely acclimated to the warmer weather.

Ashton's big achievement in her world was mastering the monkey bars. She can officially go across them and she is very excited. She's been working on this for several months.

Tanner has been working on riding a two-wheeler. He figured it out pretty quickly and took off with little problems. We had to get him a 12 inch bike as Ashton's 14 inch one was a little too tall. I'm looking forward to some fun family bike rides in the upcoming months.

We've been working on a few house projects lately and that means lots of trips to the lawn mower store for Tanner. This boy loves riding the lawn mowers.

We're preparing for our summer vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains and step one was finding a hiking backpack/carrier. I have a soft structured carrier but knew a frame one would come in handy for our hiking trips. Found this really nice one that someone was selling locally so we scored big time. It can hold any of the kids and is pretty comfortable. We're looking forward to romping around some mountains.

As always, the kids continue to have crafts galore going on.

Our local library hosted some events for Chinese New Year. I took Ashton one Saturday to the Lion Dance and she had fun. She got to clash the cymbals too, which she loved.

We're going camping this spring and I had to double check that our tent would fit the kids and I. We had fun setting up the tent and playing around in it. The kids can't wait to go camping now.

Ashton is definitely mastering her artistic skills. Here was a page of everything she is thankful for. The family, Earth, trees, bunnies, fish, and a Christmas tree (to remember Jesus Christ's birth).

I decided to be a super cool mom and make funiculars at home. Well, it didn't last very long but the kids had fun making them. It's the process that counts, right? Not the end product... or so I tell myself.

Ashton started piano lessons in January. I'm surprised with how well she's doing. Our teacher is someone from church who has a pretty low-key commitment requirement. So we felt comfortable testing it out and seeing what Ashton thought. Well, she loves it. Two months in and she still loves to practice. Here's a video from a few weeks ago of Ashton and her teacher playing a duet together.

 I'm ready for the sun to come out and the rain to go away. I miss our 70 degree days. But before I know it, it will be 95 degrees and 10000% humidity so I should be grateful for the cooler weather.