Reyes Family Time: February, and little memories

Happy almost March! We've had quite a busy February (including the 2 weeks where our whole family was extremely sick and a week of Mario traveling), so all of a sudden it is almost March and I haven't done a blog post in over a month.

Things are good here. Miriam celebrated Valentine's Day with her class; we made homemade heart crayon valentines for her class, and she loved picking each one out individually for her friends. (She was much less enthusiastic about writing her name and addressing 21 Valentines, so we had to spread that out over several days.) Miriam's preschool is wonderful and they always invite siblings to their class celebrations; Mathias really loves to participate and walks right up to the kids and joins in whatever they are doing. We are contemplating finding some type of preschool for him next year, but we aren't going to make any decisions about that until the end of summer. Speaking of school for next year, we spent two weeks touring local elementary schools and ranking our school choices for Miriam for next year. We were both really impressed with the Japanese immersion school that's about 2.5 miles from our house, so when applications open next week we'll be putting that down as our first choice and really hoping she gets a spot! The school really focuses on teaching Japanese culture and customs as well as language, and we are excited about the opportunity to possibly send her there. She was with us on the school tour and seemed to like it, although she did turn to me in one of the Japanese classrooms and say (with quite a concerned expression on her face) "Mom, I can't understand anything she's saying!"

The weather has been starting to turn nice here and we've been taking full advantage of it, frequently stopping by the park after picking Miriam up from preschool and then playing outside again after naptime. Mathias loves to zoom around the sidewalks on his little tricycle while Miriam chases him or rides her bike along with him. We've also started on our outside projects for the year; we are putting in raised garden beds in our backyard, putting in some new flowers in the front, installing a playset in the backyard and I'm also hoping we can put up some window boxes and put down some patio paving stones. We've got a lot of great outdoor space and I'm looking forward to enjoying it this spring and summer for the first time!

The kids are at such fun ages right now; we are having a lot of fun during our time together at home. They both love to dance, do art projects, play outside, help me bake in the kitchen and make huge messes around the house. Mathias is talking up a storm these days, constantly repeating anything we say and learning new words all the time. He's got an adorable little grin and a funny giggle that we get to see all the time, and we try to soak up as much as we can. Miriam is sounding so grown up these days, walking around the house singing to herself and saying things like "I don't quite understand what you mean" and "Can you please repeat that?"

Here are a couple of little memories that I want to remember, since they are growing and changing so quickly:

-Shortly after we bought our car in December, the Toyota dealership called to say our car rack was in stock and we should pick it up. Mario was getting ready in the morning and Mathias had his phone. Apparently Mathias answered the phone and talked to the service person from Toyota (Mario heard Mathias saying "hello Daddy? hello Daddy?" but thought he was pretending) for about 2 minutes before Mario discovered he was actually on the phone.

-When Miriam concentrates hard on something (like coloring or cutting), she sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth and wiggles it around the whole time she's concentrating. Pretty cute!

-When Mathias wants to call out to someone and is trying to make his voice louder, he sticks his whole hand over his mouth (like he's giving his mouth a high five); he's seen us use our hands as megaphones and is trying to copy us, but he hasn't quite got it figured out yet.

-Often times when we go into Miriam's room at night, she's fallen asleep with books in her arms.

-Mathias will shake his head "no" at the same time he's saying something (to indicate he doesn't want to do that thing), so shaking his head + saying "like" = he doesn't like something. Or if he shakes his head while saying "eat", it means he doesn't want to eat. It can be tricky if I'm not looking at him to figure out what he wants, because sometimes he says exactly what he wants, and sometimes he uses his head movement and his words to indicate what he wants.

-Miriam's incorrect lyrics to songs always make me laugh, and when I try to correct her, she always insists her lyrics are right. A sampling:

*She sings "Spaghetti looks a lot like Christmas" instead of "Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas"

*She sings "I like a gumball drop it" instead of "I like to move it"

*She sings "Come great a giant pile of leans" instead of "Come rake a giant pile of leaves"

In short, they are both adorable kids and we are so blessed to get to enjoy their little, funny personalities every day. Between all of us being so sick and Mario being gone, we don't have a ton of recent pictures. But some are better than none, so here they are: