Reyes Family Time: Happy New Year! (and quick kid updates)

Mario and I frequently turn to each other after looking at the calendar and say "Do you remember time going this quickly when you were a kid?" and invariably, our answer is always "no." We seem to remember time moving quite slowly when we were children, and yet, as adults, time seems to fly. Here we are, closer to the end of January than the beginning, and I'm just starting to think of it as "the new year."

We've been busy getting back into our normal schedule and finding new indoor activities to do now that the never-ending rain has arrived. There are a couple of gymnastics gyms that hold "open gym" hours for kids 5 and under, so we've been exploring those. Mathias particularly loves making obstacle courses out of all the gym mats and running on those. We've also been spending more time at the library, at story time at a local bookstore, and a cool little place called "old school" that has a lot of arts and crafts and toys for younger kids. Mathias is my little buddy and happily tags along with me whenever Miriam is at preschool, whether we are running errands or going somewhere to play, just the two of us.

Speaking of Mathias, we can now proudly say he is pacifier free! He'd been getting it for naptime and bedtime (and other times inbetween, if he was particularly fussy or we were going to be in the car), and he was growing a bit too attached. So this past weekend we went to the store and he "bought" two new stuffed animals ("friends") with his pacifier. He handed it over to the clerk without a word of complaint, and we both think the weekend went much more smoothly than we anticipated! He asks about it sometimes, but more in a teasing, funny way, rather than the sad, forlorn way that we were dreading. This is a big year for him; getting rid of the pacifier, potty training (which we are working on currently, and he's doing pretty well!), and eventually, moving into a "big boy" bed. We are very surprised he hasn't yet climbed out of his crib (we are sure he could if he tried), but we are taking advantage of him staying in his crib and leaving him in there as long as we can! He is so smart and learning so much every day. Without us realizing, he's been picking up letters of the alphabet as we talk about them, and he can point to and identify about 10 letters. He can spell his name (well, he spells "Boo", which we call him about 50% of the time), almost count to 10, and can make more of a mess in 10 minutes than I care to clean up. He's a happy guy most of the time, and he loves to build things, read books, and do anything that Miriam does.

Miriam is turning 5 in a few months, which we still can't believe, and she's seeming older and older every day. She still loves imaginative play and uses all of her toys to create great stories about stuffed animals going on trips or ponies building a tower, complete with food. She knows all of her letters and numbers and knows most of her letter sounds; she's shown a bit of an interest in reading and spelling so we are working on that a bit at home. She seems really comfortable at preschool now and has branched out to playing with some new kids in her class. She really loves to do art projects and coloring, and has started asking for chores to do every day. She still takes violin lessons and seems to be picking up a lot of the mechanics. She also wants to play soccer, but we are going to wait until the rain lets up a little bit before signing her up for anything outdoors. She's a great older sister and has loved helping Mathias with his potty training. When they are getting along, they play so nicely together...I love seeing it. This morning I had a really bad headache, and so they played "going on a trip" together nicely for about 1.5 hours...they packed up their bags, packed up snacks, packed up toys, put out chairs on the airplane, and then rearranged the living room to be a "hotel" that they stayed at on the trip, complete with pillows and blankets all over the floors. It was pretty cute to listen to, and I think Miriam likes that Mathias listens to her and follows her directions about what to pack and where to sit!

Things with me and Mario are good. Mario's been busy with his "year end" financial things that always happen at the beginning of January. I've been starting to do some school research so we can decide where to send Miriam for kindergarten next year. The application process opens in March so we'll need to start making some decisions soon! I also joined a recreational volleyball league that started last week. I haven't played in about 5 years and definitely feel rusty, but it has been a lot of fun to get out there and play again! I don't know enough people in Eugene who play volleyball so I got assigned to a team, but that hasn't been too bad...everyone seems very nice!

Here are some pictures from recent weeks, including the trip we took to the Willamette Pass Ski resort to play in the snow: