The superhero known as "The Mailman". He puts on his red Spiderman hoodie, and his two-sizes too big Spiderman snow boots and that makes him The Mailman. He's obsessed with the mailman since he mailed his grandmothers letters last week. He also took it upon himself to bring the family food: a can of enchilada sauce.
 

 

One of the best things ever: a baby-sitting co-op. Four families taking turns watching all the kids every other Saturday. Last Saturday was our turn.
 

Score

I very rarely take my kids to the mall for several reasons:
-I don't want to spend any money
-I don't have a double stroller which means Darek has to walk which means...trouble
-The dumb car strollers you can rent at the mall: on the rare occasion that we do go to the mall, Darek asks me 1,000 times to get a car stroller. It doesn't help that we see multiple other kids cruising along in them. The dang things cost $5 to rent and you only get $1 back when you return it. Ridiculous.

(This was taken in November in Iowa)
 

Today gave me another reason to dislike the mall. I was letting Darek and Mia play in the terrible excuse for a play land when a little boy threw up in the middle of playing. How many surfaces had he touched that Mia and Darek touched? Good grief.

I took the kids to Payless afterward and asked if they had hand sanitizer which they did, yay! And then I told Darek that we could go look at the car strollers. Sometimes it's enough to just let him sit in one while it's attached to the machine (totally cheap on my part, I know). But we were in luck - someone had left their double car stroller next to the machine without locking it in place! My two kids were in heaven! A great day for them (even if it does mean that their expectation for getting a car stroller will be that much higher when we go next time).

Darek's 3rd Birthday

Darek's 3rd birthday was very highly anticipated (by him). It started with Mia's birthday 6 weeks ago that got him very anxious about his own birthday. Two days before his birthday, we bought a dragon cake at a cake auction (boy scout fundraiser) and told him it was his birthday cake. That did it. He talked about that cake and asked when he would get to eat it 100 times before his birthday. He had decided that he would eat the face, daddy could eat the feet, Mia could eat the tail, and Mom could eat the belly - and he told us this over and over again. His birthday was on Sunday, so we had eggs for breakfast at 8:00am followed by birthday cake at 8:30am. We just couldn't wait anymore (at least we had some protein first, right?).
Our 3 year old Darek:
-wrestles with daddy everyday after work
-still uses a blanket and pacifier (I know - the pacifier has 1 day left)
-sits on my bed with his blanket and pacifier and watches tv when he gets overwhelmed
-always says "I want a hug" when he's crying and gets sent to timeout
-absolutely LOVES family night
-laughs really easily
-takes toys from Mia
-yells for me to get Mia when she's near the stairs saying, "Baby's gonna fall - get her!"
-loves nursery and school

Darek desperately wants Blayne and I to play with him constantly - blocks, play doh, drawing, etc. We know that it won't last for ever, so we do what we can. We are crazy in love with out little man.
 
 

He got this scooter as a present, pretty cute.
 

Warmer than it looks

Sure there's snow on the ground, but not nearly as much as there has been. We played outside for hours today and it felt absolutely wonderful.
 
 

Darek has been potty training. On Sunday we were sitting on my bed and out of the blue he said, "I wanna go pee pee in the potty." There's been a kiddie potty sitting in the bathroom for months and nothing would convince him to use it. Just wanted to do it in his own time I guess. He hasn't had an accident since (although he won't poop in the toilet).

And Mia has been walking for a few weeks. She looks so cute and little tottering around.

Please keep coming Spring...