Starting to get cold...

Brrrrr...

Today the high temperature was 27 degrees Fahrenheit, so it feels like winter is now upon us.  Despite that, we're still seeing furry friends in the backyard.

The Mighty 5 month old

Ryzen is such a happy little baby.  It seems like he's always smiling, even for strangers. He also seems to be the biggest baby we've had yet.  He's wearing 12 month old clothing and eats like a champ.  Although he still nurses a lot (including a couple times at night), Tara's started feeding him solid foods, and he adores real mashed bananas, blue berries, pears, smoothies, and oatmeal.  

He'll roll from side to side, and occasionally rolls from front to back.  He's now big enough to play in the Exersaucer, and really likes it.    

Here's the big guy in a subdued moment.  He looks a lot like his sister Aria.  

Crafty Kiddos

Ever since we moved from Tucson, AZ to State College, PA, the kids have really gotten into arts and crafts.

When Aria gets home from Kindergarten, she doesn't ask to watch TV, but rather asks for us to pull out the art supplies so she can start drawing.  She'll spend hours drawing and coloring pictures, and even wrote and illustrated a little story this past week. Here's a picture she colored at school this week to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I was really impressed.  That's pretty good for a kindergartner.  

  

Zade also has gotten really into crafts.  Although he enjoys coloring pictures, he's much more into creating various crafts.  He's always building things.  We constantly find a piece of rope tied to different things as part of his newest trap.  Rather than ask for toys when he goes to the store, he asks for things like duck tape.  Here he is sporting a backpack he designed using an envelope, with straps made out of pipe cleaners and attached with duck tape.  

 We recently watched the movie "Megamind" with the kids and Zade decided he wanted to create his own "black mamba" (as shown below).  He likes to lay down the case, and climb inside.  He's glued colored Popsicle sticks to the outside, and has taped on various things:

Both Aria and Zade are so creative, but just in different ways.  

Game Time

We also picked up some games to play with the family, such as Jenga, which have been a lot of fun.