Winter Fun!

Neither Rich nor I are fans of the winter but we realize that to remain sane we really have to get the boys outside to expend all that energy. It's also such a difficult time of year with the post holiday slump.. Indeed Raf is also feeling a little low as Christmas has ended and today he was feeling very sad about the Christmas tree going. Since it was the 12th day of Christmas today, we took down the tree this morning, and since then Raf has been telling us how much he misses his tree. Poor little thing. 

However, we have been having quite a bit of winter fun. Last week Raf and I went sledding with some friends on some tubes. Raf had a blast. We then visited with Raf's friends' Addie and Calla and sled down a small slope in their garden. The next day Rich and Raf went sledding on a very popularly used slope near to our house. They had a blast... especially Rich :)

While Raf has been very physical in the snow, Charlie has been working on lots of new things, too... tummy time, playing, and even mini-pushups.

And also, as ever, he's working on his smiling...

Yesterday we returned for another session of gym class. Raf loves Coach Dan, and now it's even better now that his friend Rowan is going to class. Both boys had tons of fun. Coach Dan, however, told me that Rafi is ready to move up to the big boys and girls group, which doesn't necessitate a parent to be there with them... and I have to admit that I feel a bit sad about that, but we are going to up a group next week.

Coach Dan is REALLY funny.

I had taken Charlie with me to gym class, and we went around with Raf as Charlie was happily snoozing in his Moby. I think he must have been inspired because when we returned home Charlie was really working hard on his pushups.

Such a happy baby.

This morning we enjoyed a lazy hour in bed (if 6am can be described as lazy), and the boys enjoyed breakfast in bed.

We eventually corralled the boys and managed to get them into the car so we could head to LL Bean to check out some snowshoes for Raf. Given that we can't change the weather here in Maine, we might as well embrace it! And we do love to snowshoe... We picked up some really super snowshoes and poles for Raf at Bean and this afternoon we had a really fun time snowshoeing around the garden. Raf did really, really well. I thought it was going to be a bit of a nightmare but he did so well and got the hang of it very quickly. It's a bit difficult not to step on your other foot when you snowshoe, and although he fell as few times, we trekked up and down the yard until his little legs were clearly getting a bit too tired. Charlie also came snowshoeing but managed to sleep through the entire walk.