Spring Has Sprung

Crocus and Early Snow Glories are blooming. Yipee!!!

Mouse Proficiency

Yikes!! Alex has learned to use the mouse on our computer. He recently learned how to log on to our computer by pressing random keys, so I added a password. I guess that gave him encouragement to see if he could log on using the mouse, and apparently he can now point and click quite well. Last night Jeremy sat down at the computer with him to help him play his favorite Go Diego Go Games online, and Alex told him "No, I'm going to do it!" and took the mouse away from Jeremy. He then amazed us by immediately maneuvering the mouse to do exactly what he needed to to win the game. Wow! I wonder how long it will be before he learns my password and starts navigating to Diego himself?

Museum Adventures

After visiting the Museum of the Rockies a few weeks ago on a free visit day, I went ahead and purchased an individual membership this morning.

Alex loves dinosaurs, but the dinosaur exhibit with the huge creatures and low grumbling dino sounds was really scary this morning. We were the first ones there when the museum opened, so we were all alone in the hall with the giant beasts. I can't blame Alex for running back out of the room, I felt like doing the same thing. Instead, I picked him up and we quickly walked on to the less scary hall of horns and teeth (yes, actually less scary!). There is a baby protoceratops that looks and sounds like it's asleep, breathing softly. It's little and cute, and one of Alex's favorite parts.

From there we went on to a hall filled with beautiful fancy rocks. Alex wasn't particularly interested in them today, but we stopped long enough to take a picture in front of some giant quarts crystals for geologist grandad.

Alex insisted then on returning to the original scary dinosaur hall, but upstairs where you can look down on them instead of having them towing above. There were some other little kids in the room by then, too, so it was much less terrifying than earlier.

With membership comes admission to the planetarium, so we went to a special Saturday morning children's program I thought Alex would enjoy. It was a cute narrative about all the neat things like ladybugs you can find in your backyard and the story of two bear constellations and Leo trying to eat their tails. Alex sat very still on my lap through the entire thing. When it ended he burst out crying. I think he had been scared stiff through the show, and let all that tension out when the show ended. I'm not sure I'll take him to one of those again soon.

One Small Step

Alex has learned to put on his own shoes! He has had very little interest in getting dressed (or undressed, for that matter). So far, he can unzip his pajamas, although he has never bothered to actually take them off, and take his socks off. It's nice to see him really helping to get out the door in the morning.

Blanket of Snow

Today we had the perfect snow. If I have to have snow in April, this is the way to do it. It was warm and wet and deep.


After a winter of cold dry fine snow, today Alex built his first snowman. Balls of snow rolled easily, picking up all the snow down to the greening grass below. With the ease of rolling, we started by building a caterpillar, with a body of multiple giant snowballs. Then Alex noticed the snowmen the kids down the street had built, and wanted one of those too. So, he helped me roll up the snow, and then he selected brown leaves for the eyes and nose, and picked out the perfect place on the head for them. We finished by rounding up some sticks from our neighbor's yard and Alex pushed them in to create his very first snowman.

Back In Bozeman

We've actually been back since November, and it's been a long cold Montana winter. From life on the beach it was hard to return to snow, especially 6 months of it. It's still snowing regularly here, although the bulbs are making a valiant effort to appear and most of the grass is now visible in the front yard. The backyard, on the north side of the house, still has a foot or two of snow in most places. Unfortunately, that's where I planted my earliest spring bulbs, so there is still no sign of them. I treated myself to a wireless outdoor thermometer so that I can figure out when my greenhouse will be usable, and have discovered that the temperature ranges from 13 degrees at night to a sizzling 111 degrees during the day when the sun is beating down on it with the vents closed. So, I'm not sure I'll be using that anytime soon.

Alex and I are staying very busy despite these cold days. We've joined a Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) group, which is usually the highlight of our week. It's so fun to hear Alex explaining what he did there like quite time, and singing "silly" songs.

We've also been attending a class on the Five senses put on by the City Rec Department . Alex loves the circle time, when he's often the only child actually copying the teacher in hopping like a bunny, popping like popcorn, or flying like a bird. He doesn't appreciate the craft time, and usually completes a project by simpling smearing one brushstroke of paint or glue on it and declaring it finished. The one craft he really enjoyed was making a little drum out of a used cottage cheese container and decorating it with foam dinosaurs. He loves dinosaurs, and he loves drumming even more. I've signed him up for a Music and Movement class put on by the same group this summer, which I think he'll really enjoy.

We've been swimming on Friday mornings, and he's quickly overcome his fear of the water, especially since this is a nicely heated pool, used mostly for small children. He does have some lessons to learn about locker room etiquette, since he mortified me one day by pointing out the colors of the little girls' underwear "Pink underwear! Look, mommy, she has pink underwear!"

I've started preparing to organize our church's VBS program for this summer. Alex already has many of the songs memorized, months ahead of time. He just loves to sing.

With a morning of snow, and no activities scheduled this Monday, I decided today was an excellent day for crafts. So, we spent the morning using scrapbooking supplies to create alphabet letters to hang in Alex's room. Since he's learned to sing the entire alphabet song and can spell his name, I decided it's time he learn to recognize the rest of the letters. He thought that was great fun. After cutting out each letter I let him put a sticker on it for something starting with that letter (alligator for the A, etc.). We finished A-D today and hung them in his room to start learning. Amazingly he wasn't done with craft time yet, and begged to put together a mini indoor kite mom had sent him for Easter. So, we put that together, and I dug out another little kite I'd bought for him, and we raced around the house flying kites, just like the naughty Things in The Cat and The Hat.

He's sleeping now, giving me a chance to recover before another round.

The Walking City - A Boston Weekend

Our lucky little boy finally rode a train. We drove to the outskirts of Boston on Saturday to Jeremy's cousin Mike's house. From there we were able to hop on "The T" for a short trip straight to the center of town. Boston was a great town to walk our boy through, following the red brick road called the Freedom Trail. The town is filled with history. Plaques throughout the town describe the historical significance of countless sites. It was refreshing to be able to walk through a town and soak in the history without spending the day in museums. The Irish Potatoe Famine memorial was one of the sites that impressed me the most. The statues were beautiful but haunting. The Old North Church was also impressive. The pews were very different. Each family would actually pay rent on their pew box. These boxes look like a great idea for anyone with small children. In order to stay warm and avoid drafts, each family would sit in one boxed in area, similar to an old train car box.

As I expected, my favourite part of town was Faneuil Hall Marketplace. We arrived just as hunger was overtaking us, and after watching a short juggling show we wandered through the busy Quincy Market. I found one of my favorite food combinations, a basil, mozerella, tomato panini. Yum. Jeremy surprized me by ordering lamb kabobs. The shopping itself in the market was a bit of a disappointment to me. I was expecting something similar to the diverse handcrafted offerings of Pike Place Market in Seattle, but found more modern standard stores, like Crate and Barrel. The open square itself was more than I imagined, though, reminding me of the crazy streets of Paris. Around every corner we were surprized and impressed by street performers. There were two living statues, one of which was a golden pirate, who would remove baseball hats from unsuspecting tourists with her hook hand. The musicians were also entertaining, especially a one-man band. One crazy street performer was juggling knives high on a pole held up by audience members.

We finally broke away from the entertainment and made our way to a beautiful nearby fountain where Alex and I joined others walking through the cool cascade. The three of us then wandered on to our final stop of the day, Paul Revere's House, before heading back to "The T" and Mike's house.

On our way back from Boston on Sunday, we stopped at Dianosaur State Park near Hartford for a short walk. We were there late in the day and didn't go in the dome with the actual tracks, but enjoyed watching fearless chipmunks along the trail.