Hippity Hop

Happy Easter! 


So apparently the Easter Bunny has been a pretty busy dude. He already stopped by Mimi's last weekend (an early easter celebration) AND still managed to stop by this AM at our house to drop off a soccer net.  We have already practiced our soccer skills this AM (much to Dad's delight).  And now the rest of the Easter chaos begins!

Life in the household continues to change.  Everator is ridiculously close to crawling, now easily getting on all fours but finds himself bewildered as to what to do next.  He even has gotten to the point where he can lift himself on his toes and hands in a "downward dog" position!  Impressive yoga for a 8 month old.

And it would be fairly difficult to find a smilier and more content child than Everett version 2.0. 
From 4 months on, he has been personality plus all of the time.  The screaming in the car, the endless tears in the crib are now distant memories.  Audrey no longer automatically covers her ears when entering the van.  I can actually chuckle a little (just a little) when thinking about what life was like during early infancy.  At this point, he cries only when tired or hungry...  which is basically what the other men in the house do anyway.

Audrey is hilarious.  All of the time.  There are not enough opportunities in the day to make a note somewhere of the crazy and funny and quirky things that come out of that girl's mouth.  This morning she negotiated a graham cracker and piece of chocolate after we found a remnant baggie of Smore's materials on the deck.  It is currently 8:58 central standard time, but since awakening this morning she has played the role of Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, and Rapunzel, done some grocery shopping, sat on her potty,  read me a book "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" crosslegged in her chair, reviewed the comics with me and has taken her pet stuff dog "Fetch for a walk.  No wonder this 3 year old needs 2 and sometimes 3 hour naps.  How is it that I don't take more naps? 

Swimming lessons slowly improve.  Audrey's has not been exactly a prize pupil (instead of swimming to her designated spot, she "might" (visualize me using hand quotation marks) try to grab ahold of the teacher instead.  She has previously talked of her fears "sinking in the water" but was actually disappointed this Saturday when the Easter holiday displaced her weekend lesson.  We do like her new teacher Nate for her "Little 2" sessions.  I think that her previous teacher had gotten a bit frustrated with Audrey's periodic resistance and it started to show towards the end.  Hopefully we will have a little fish by the end of the summer! 

Apparently our dramatic little girl prefers ballet to swimming!  Go figure.  I haven't yet been to a lesson, but the word on the street is that this has been more successful than gymnastics- Audrey has been quite the exemplary student learning "Position 1" and plieing like a champ.  Gymnastics lessons seemed most akin to a shepherd hearding cats- the teacher would spend more time gathering children than actually promoting a lesson.  When it came to picking something outside of swimming lessons, Jen's desire for ballet trumped my suggestion of karate.  It sounds like Mom's instincts were right- Audrey just loves it.  (But karate for this summer is not off the table.)

Must run and easter egg hunts await... I might even get a couple chocolates if I'm good!  Much love!  Ryan, Jen, Auds, n' Everator