January

I have to admit, I've been getting bad about posting lately, so I'm trying to give monthly updates with fun tidbits and a few photos.

Here are a few January happenings:

- At breakfast, Matthew has begun to tear his bagel into more reasonable sized pieces to eat rather than cramming as much as he can into his mouth.

- One day I was gearing up the kids to get ready to run a few errands. among my commands were for Grace to get her shoes and socks. to my surprise, Matthew went to his room, pulled open his drawer, got out a pair of shoes (2 that currently fit him and match) and brought them to me to help him put them on!   He's proving to be quite a good listener!

- Matthew surprised himself and me both when he launched himself into the bathtub while I was brushing Grace's teeth!  Thankfully there was no water in it and he didn't hurt himself.

- On another occasion, Matthew dove into the bathtub head first (in his clean pjs) while I was bathing Grace.  He was willing to make sacrifices to reach a particular toy.

- Matthew put his paci in the drawer after naptime one day.

- During Christmas card season, Grace became adept at distinguishing between the "good mail" and all the rest.   In other words, she knew that if something was hand addressed or had a cute stamp that there was probably something fun inside.   So now whenever the mail comes, she always grabs the good stuff and runs to have me open it, leaving behind the rest on the floor.

- Our favorite neighbors across the street gave Grace a baby doll as a Christmas gift.  When I asked her what she was going to name it, she decided to call it "Baby Jesus".  The ironies in this name are that 1) our neighbors are Jewish and 2) the doll has pink clothes.
Here is a link to a video of Grace putting Baby Jesus to bed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YynKbgX2Nh4&feature=share&list=PL2994ADA94034094F