Just Chillin'

It's been a pretty uneventful few weeks in the Petroelje house. That's not to say we haven't been busy. We just haven't done anything incredibly exciting. Eric's still in the middle of basketball season, so he's been gone with games and practices. Work has been very busy for me with the semester coming to an end, but that's not a bad thing. My days just fly, and I love what I do! Unfortunately, as those of you who live in Michigan know, the weather has been very "boring" lately. If it's going to be cold outside, I want snow. Cold weather and no snow are no fun, because there's really not a whole lot of purpose in going outside! Eric washed the vehicles last Saturday, and even though the snow was melting, Grant went out with him and played. I had to snap a few pictures, as I love how Eric hauled out his sandbox (and pool!) toys, and he just had a blast filling his dump trucks with snow and sailing his boats on the snow.
Little Miss Brooke has been my "get into everything" girl lately. She is so active. I've lost weight chasing her around the house! It's so much fun watching her explore things, yet can be so frustrating to try and "clean up" only to find everything gets hauled back out again. The big event of this week was the taking down of the stairway gate. I was very nervous about this, because at 13 months, she's not all that old to be going up and down stairs (I think we had that thing up until Grant was 18 months old); however, anytime Grant would go down to play or I would run down to grab something, she would stand at the top of the stairs and cry because she wanted to come down. She even figured out how to open the gate, turn herself around, and start coming downstairs. So...we figured there was a greater risk of injury with her trying to crawl over the bottom bar of the gate than not having a barrier in the way ,and so we gave in. I love not having to open and close the thing anymore when I need to get downstairs, and so far, we haven't had any major tumbles. I just had to be sure that all of Grant's toys downstairs that were a choking hazard were moved to a safe spot. Below is a picture of how I found her this week, though. I was working on something upstairs and both kids were downstairs. Grant started yelling "Mom, Brooke is sitting on my leapfrog desk!" I had to think a minute and wondered how she could have gotten on his small plastic desk that he plays his leappad on. Thinking maybe she climbed up on the small plastic chair, I went downstairs only to find she had crawled onto a large armchair in our basement, then onto its armrest, and then up onto a big desk that we have down there! There she was, as content as can be playing with Grant's leappad. My little monkey!
We've been enjoying Thursdays at the library for pre-school story time, and today I took the kids to a "Third Thursdays" mom's group at a local church. My friend Marcy invited me to go a few months back, and this is just such a great time! Childcare is provided and the moms get to enjoy breakfast and listen to wonderful guest speakers. I had to chuckle, though, as today when we were eating lunch Grant asked me what I was doing at "Aunt Marcy's church" while he was playing in the childcare room. I told him I was listening to a speaker in the gym. "Oh," he said, "were you learning how to be a good mom?" I just busted out laughing.
Well, that's about it! I've got a preschool meeting tonight for Grant. I just cannot believe that my little boy is going to be going to preschool next year! Makes me sad, yet at the same time, excited for him to meet new people and learn new things. He is just so pumped about school! Why can't all high school kids be the same way!? :)