This afternoon was lots of fun! I got up early from my nap so I was able to go outside and play with William. It was nice that the weather was really warm. The snow was sloppy and sticky - great for building a snow dog and a snow kitty to go with the snowman William and Mommy made yesterday. I mostly crawled around in the snow, crying for help whenever I would crawl out of my boot or lose a mitten. It was fun to watch Belle dig for her tennis ball. And Mom only had to tell William a couple times not to throw snowballs so close to me. We went for a sled ride around the house. We had to choose our path carefully to make sure we stayed on the snow. There are a few spots in our yard where there is only grass and no snow. But for the most part, there was still plenty of snow for playing. Mom says that only in Minnesota would a snowman be a sign of spring, but the snow is finally sticky enough after months of cold! Now we can watch him quickly melt!

I was proud of myself tonight. I finally said, "up!" Mama's been trying to teach me to say "up" instead of crying and hanging on her legs. And I did it! She and Daddy are looking forward to the new dishwasher that is coming next week. We've been without one for a while now and I tend to get whiny and clingy whenever it's time to do the dishes. Come to think of it, I'm looking forward to the new dishwasher, too!

[Tonight we were reading stories before bed and Eliana was roaring like the character in the book. The following are William's words after he finally stopped giggling.]

I'm glad I got that silly sister that God made.

It's been fun to see the sibling relationship evolve between William and Eliana. They really love each other, as you can see in the pictures. They usually play very nicely together. But of course, there are times when William wants to play something without Eliana getting into it. This doesn't go over too well with Ellie. Today I had to laugh when I heard William tell Eliana to "Go away and stay there!" and "Do something else!" in response to her knocking over his bowling pins. She handled it well. Often she'll cry when William scolds her. She really just wants to play with him. Luckily she is getting more careful with things. Yesterday she wouldn't even knock over William's castle when he told her to! And she is more gentle with paper books that would've been shredded just a couple weeks ago. This is very nice because it's getting harder to keep things out of the reach of our tall, nimble girl who wants to play with anything as long as is not her toy. William has definitely been learning patience and problem solving skills!

I uploaded a bunch of random pictures from the past month if you're interested in taking a look. The past few weeks were crazy with prep for trivia and then recuperating from trivia. In the midst of that we've had a couple rounds of colds to deal with on top of all the usual day to day. But the kids continue to grow and do cute things all the time. Here's my favorite photo from the recent batch. There's more in the February album.

Snuggling on the couch

[Now that William is nearly four and a half, he will be dictating his own blog entries.]

Trivia weekend was great watching Michael play funny games on the computer. Pull-start Diesel won fourth place. Warning: Mom and Dad and me and Eliana didn't win a trophy. Eliana played in the baby zoo and me and Michael wanted to play monkey. Eliana was going to be the quiet baby monkey and playful monkey, and Michael was going to be the loud monkey and not-so-playful monkey, and I was going to be the big brother monkey and medium voiced monkey that was quiet and a little bit loud. And we were going to play that after lunch. But I ended up watching tv with Michael.

Today is flower day. The day we make paper flowers and give them to everbody we know. I was supposed to go to school but I didn't because I was too late because I slept for a long time. Mom forgot it was a school day of Sandy's class of four-year-olds. And after Sandy's class [tomorrow] it's Janie's class of four-year-olds and three-year-olds and two-year-youngs.

We have chocolate chip Teddy Grahams at our house. That is true.

Author: William and Typer: Mom

It's trivia time! Eliana is getting over a bad cold, so we're going into the weekend sleep deprived. Although we'd probably be that way anyway with all the work happening last minute on our new database. It will make it really fun to play from home! So email me or check out www.pullstartdiesel.com to find out more about how to play along. William is really excited now that he's old enough to remember trivia. It will be fun to see how Ellie reacts to everything. She'll probably love it, since she loves parties. It'll take her mind off of her cold if it's still hanging on. Wish us luck, or better yet, log in and help us out! Off to get some more work done in preparation! And then to get a little sleep!

Today at school my class did an impromptu traveling puppet show. My friend Noah and I were the ones who got the whole thing started. Mom and Eliana were watching it all through the observation window. My teacher was reading Old MacDonald had a farm to a group of friends during play time. Then Noah and I got some animal puppets and popped up behind them. We had seen some storytellers at school the day before who had used lots of puppets in their stories, so we were being like them. My teacher then started including our puppets in the story and other kids went to get more animals. Pretty soon we had created a really cool puppet show. We decided to go get enough puppets from the animal barn (aka storage room) for everyone in the class and take our show on the road. We visited the other preschool classes entertaining everyone around the building! We even went into the gym and stood on the stage! Each of our friends had an animal sound solo and if someone was too shy, we all helped him out with his part. I'm lucky to have such a fun teacher! We had to mix up our whole routine today, but what a memorable day it was.

Today I can feel two new sharp teeth poking out of my gums. That makes a total of six. Now my parents can see why I've been chewing on my Little Miss Muffet book so much. I'm also walking more often than crawling, so you can officially call me a toddler now. There are no babies in this house!

Mommy just figured out where my "digo" saying most likely came from. I have a habit of bending down and scratching the carpet like I'm digging and my mom always says, "Dig, dig, digger." She just said it to me again now and I practically saw the lightbulb go off in her head.

Eliana seems to be doing something cute every time we turn around. So it's pretty easy, just turn on the video camera and let her do her thing. She can enunciate "digo-digo" much better, but she was getting a little tired.

It's getting easier to catch Eliana walking. She just started to stand up on her own and take a few steps.