Singing

There are two activities that I hope to instill a love of in my boys. Reading books, which they have seem to have mastered, and loving music and singing. I love singing and miss singing in the church choir so much, but between not having the lung capacity for it while pregnant and dealing with little ones it just hasn't fit in my schedule again. Instead I've settled for singing to the boys while pregnant and with them young. They both have their favorites and sometimes will only settle down for one particular song. Since my Dad sang to us all the time when I was little, my repertiore mostly consists of hymns, spirituals and old folk songs but we all love it. Now, if I don't have music going Caleb points at the CD player and says please until I turn something on. Our favorite background CD is Beethoven piano music, but we listen to anything and everything from an awesome jazz Christian musician my brothers gave us from New Orleans, to Latin music. I love just putting music on and dancing around the room holding my boys. They love it as much as I do. All of this to say most of y'all are musicians and share the same love for music that I have, but if you aren't... try to instill a love of music in your children so that they don't miss out on a beautiful part of life.

Backyards and Swing Sets

One of the reasons we LOVE our duplex is the backyard. It was already mostly fenced in when we moved here and our lovely landlords have told us that we can put up more fencing, play toys and plant anything we want. For Christmas Andy's parents bought the boys a swing set and this weekend was the first chance we've had to bring it down and put it up. Between weather, being sick and people traveling it just hasn't worked out until now. Anyways, we are thrilled and here are some pictures from Saturday. We have since gotten most of the leaves up and have 2 lounges chairs out that we got for wedding presents and have been storing under our bed. :)

Getting everything out...

My cutie pie... he has my eyes :)

Caleb is so excited. Can you tell?

He wasn't quite sure what to do with it at first

Yes, we have a sandbox and LOVE it!

Caleb wanted to "help" Deke so he laid down next to him :)

All done!!!!

I'm back among the living... :D

Well, it's been over a month since I last posted because I've been spending every waking moment either studying or taking care of sick children. I am happy to say that I took my final in Latin yesterday and while I'm scared to find out how I did, I believe I did well enough to pass the class. That's all I'm asking for at this point so we'll see. After this I have 3 classes left which I will be starting the first of March. :)

On the babies front... Caleb is talking up a storm and 2 days ago said "wove oo" to me after I said I love you. :) He is very smart and we have had to be creative to keep him out of the fridge so that he doesn't eat us out of house and home. Stephen is almost walking. He'll take several steps between pieces of furniture and is starting to walk across the room. It's so exciting and fun to watch. He also says "hi" and "da", we are loving it.

Now it's time for me to go clean my house which I let slip while I was frantically studying for my final.