Is it Spring Yet?

Only about another month before we see the first day of spring. Although in Colorado, that means about another month of relatively mild weather (with a few colder ones here and there) and about a week after we officially hit spring, we'll get the biggest snow of the year and continue to have snowfall for the few weeks that follow. Then it will be 90 degrees until Fall. Nevertheless, is it spring yet?

Jude loves to play outside and asks to play outside every day. Today he asked and tried to convince me in other ways...

I feel like a rather lazy and terrible Mom sometimes when I say "it's too cold" simply because I don't feel like standing outside while he goes exploring in mud puddles, water puddles, and puts unknown objects and solids in his mouth. I did finally give in today. He had a blast! He loved walking on top of the iced over snow piles left in the back yard and playing real "games" of football and basketball. He wins each game by calling a TOUCHDOWN! every few steps. I was impressed with his knowledge of outdoor items too. I said, "can you go find a pine cone?" and he'd bring one back! We found sticks, leaves, bark, etc. He knows his back yard stuff-that-should-probably-get-cleaned-up pretty well. Way to go Jude!

A few of his most memorable new words or phrases since my last post are: "alligator", "chomp-chomp" with corresponding hand motions, "hat off", Sodor (where Thomas the train lives), Island (as in the Island of Sodor), curious (as in George), "superhero", "drool bomb" which to him means putting a pillow over Daddy's face, "bed", "nap", "happy", "sad", "cheer up!", "world".
Those last three are Jude's description of the sequence of events from The Little Engine that Could...the train is "sad" because no one will help her over the mountain. The funny little clown says "cheer up! The passenger engine is not the only one in the "world"! Then they ask the next few trains "please, please" for help over the mountain. I'm glad to see that he understands a sequence of events like that! Unfortunately in Jude's version of the story, it never resolves. The train continues to be sad and the clown continues to say Cheer Up!

Little Baby 2 seems to be doing well. My belly doesn't have those pre-baby, tight muscles to hold in the changes anymore so I pretty much already look like I'm halfway through this pregnancy (or at least it feels that way). I'll post this photo because it's the only one I have really but it's silly because I took it myself in the mirror. In the photo, I'm just 13 weeks. I'll be 14 weeks in a few days - I welcome the presence of the 2nd trimester.