March Update

1. I am convinced there is nothing worse than Rexburg springs. We had one of the worst blizzards of the entire year today--snowing, blowing, complete white out. Jeremiah says its supposed to be like that all week. That is why I am leaving town for "spring" break! There is no such thing as spring around here!

2. Tyler and Jacob have signed up for baseball for the first time. It took a great deal of persuasion on my part to get them to agree to this. They enjoy playing as a family, they have great arms for their age and I like to see them involved and doing some kind of sport. I told them to give it just one year, do their very best, work hard and then if they still don't like playing for a team, they don't have to do it again. Then the costs started adding up and I wondered why I wanted them to do this?!? $85 just to sign them up then we had to buy them mitts, batting gloves and cleats. Oh, well. It's all for the greater good, right? We're not buying mitts, we're buying confidence, improved skills, coordination and experience. Right? Sounds kind of like a Mastercard commercial...I guess we'll see if it pays off!

3. Michael has now advanced from "Da" to a clear "Yes" or "O-kay". It makes us giggle every time he says one of them. You just so rarely hear those words. Most people say "yeah". So to hear him say "Yes" is so cute. Tonight we were trying to play "Life" as a family and Michael kept lifting up the board to hide his car underneath. He'd look around innocently and ask "Where car go? Huh? Where car?" We'd tell him he needed to put the board down cuz it was messing up our game and he would quickly and cheerfully say, "O-kay!" and pull his car out from under the board. It was so funny because it was so unlike Michael. We normally get evil eyes and a growl, followed by, "No! No way!". I hope this new change sticks around awhile!

4. Michael doesn't say "Stop it Mommy" any more. We've reintroduced a wonderful thing called naps and he is actually quite nice now. Occasionally when I am reprimanding him he'll say, "Mommy, stop talking me" (stop talking to me) or he'll say "No way, Mommy". It's pretty funny.

5. Michael is obsessed with marriage. There is hardly a day that goes by that he doesn't talk about "Mommy marry temple. My marry temple too. My marry girl." ( He says "my" instead of "I"). He loves to talk about girls and getting married. I really don't remember my other boys being this girl crazy at age 2?!? Not surprisingly he likes the book, "Cinderella". Why? Because they get married. It's a very funny obsession for a two year old boy, but I guess as long as he is set on getting married in the temple, and as long as he and his girlfriend continue to talk about "nothing" then I won't worry about it!

6. Michael's second obsession lately is with his toes. He definitely did not inherit Brooks genes since Michelle and Kimberly are so anti-toes! He constantly takes off his socks, and when we're in the car he'll pull off both his shoes and his socks so he can play with his toes. One day I was reading him a story and after the first few sentences he suddenly cried out, "Mommy, can't see toes!" And he proceeded to throw his legs up on top of the book so he could see his toes!

7. Michael has really gotten into books and singing lately. At least 75% of our day is spent reading and singing. He is constantly saying, "Mommy, read book me." or "Mommy, sing me" (meaning, sing with me). When I am unable to sing or read with him, he'll look at books and read them to himself, or sing songs by himself. It's so cute!

8. Michael has discovered "Little Einsteins", a TV series on the Disney channel. I recorded a bunch of episodes on our DVR so I can put one on for him any time of day and we don't have to tune in at a certain time in order to watch it. He absolutely loves it. He is constantly repeating things from it and when he and Jacob get together they sing the whole theme song and reinact parts of it together. It's hilarious. He's so funny to watch when he's watching the movie because he'll sing along with them and answer all their questions and do everything they tell him to do (like "raise your arms as high as you can and say 'Blast Off!').

9. Michael used to ask me 50 times a day to watch a movie and of course 49 of those times I would have to tell him "no", "later", "tomorrow" or some other word that would set off a tantrum. So I started telling him we could watch a movie at "movie time", but right now was "breakfast time" or "bath time", etc. We must have done this for 2 weeks and it just didn't seem like he was getting it. But one day it suddenly clicked. He was talking to me about "Little Sy-sine" over breakfast. "But", he said, shaking his head. "Not movie time. Eat time." YES! A breakthrough! Ever since then he has been very receptive to the answer, "Yes, you can watch that movie at "movie time". He now understands what that means and he knows that he will get to watch one at some point, and most of the time he doesn't throw a fit. Hallelujah! It's not too often you have a breakthrough like that with a two year old!