Letter

As I think I've mentioned before, Aaron is getting very proficient at using the computer now. Today he got on the computer, typed up a Word document, then read it to us. It started as a one-hand typed transcription of a story that Tato was telling him (reversing the roles they had played in an entry below) which quickly morphed into a two-hand typed letter to the store. (Note the very deliberate list-like line breaks.) At least one part of the following reads "Please get cottage cheese and bring it to us," just in case you couldn't already tell:

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Ccxghd hdghy fyh fyfyfyfyfyfgfgffgfyf 7e7t87r7e7e7er 7re 7re7r7rr77r7r77r7r7777r7r7r7yr7rty7 tr7 575 7ty5ty,tyx47t,7475755 8575757575 65868 6886 6666uytuytutu tutr rtt du trurd u etueru bmmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbkl vbgk lghvik hih
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7 7iv7iu87v879o78
v78v7878978v7v87v878787u87 970 9077 08 800878 88p8poiopioioiopioiooooioiop8opop8op8op8ipov8poviv78po7ptopo8 98989898978979789878787
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789969 6[ 6 p[6p7p76p 7p 7 7o6 oo76 o76 o7o o7o7o7o67oo77o66o7o6o76o 7o7o7oo77o7oo76 o7o76oo76o76o76o7o7o 7o 7oooooo7o7o 7o o7 o7777777777777777777777777777777o7 ooojo7joojoj7o7jooj7o7jo7777o7o I[I I[ ii[ I[I[I[I[ ii I[I[I[ [I[ii[ I[I[I[I[I [I [I [I[I[u[[ iutg][8t6[]
856



After he finished typing, he read it to us: "Store. Please get my favorite fruit, some cottage cheese, mango salsa, and all everything."

Easter pictures!
My mom made adorable matching outfits for the three grandsons (Gabe not pictured, but hopefully coming soon). Elliot's has trains on it, which is really cute, but I think my favorite is Aaron's outfit because it's just so appropriate for him: tools! You should have seen his face when he opened the package and saw clothes with tools on them. As far as clothes go, you can't get much better than that. When I put it on him, he also said it was "kinda like a 'struction worker clothes."

An Easter themed Play-Doh Creation

Heading off to go to pre-school with friends (last week)

Bye mom!

Thanks to my sister and her husband's car generosity, we were able to take a short trip to Washington, D.C. this past weekend. We have some friends who live there so we decided to take advantage of their presence and go have a visit. We had a great time-- enjoyed the Air and Space Museum as well as the Natural History Museum. We had the Natural History Museum almost entirely to ourselves, which was awesome because it was predicted to be very crowded because of the cherry blossom tourist season. Aaron loved the Natural History Museum, and we were able to just sit and chill with the dinosaurs for about an hour, since the place was so empty. (We went at almost closing time.) My favorite comment of the weekend was when Aaron tasted our water jug of D.C. tap water and said, "It tastes like swimming water." Indeed it did. We were glad to get back to the yummy-tasting NYC tap water.


Davises and Peterses

In front of the capitol

We stopped at the D.C. temple on the way back, and got this picture taken. This is the temple I remember from my youth, so it was fun to go back and see it.

Aaron playing on the temple floor.

On Saturday morning they had a little Easter "eggstravaganza" at the local park near the Davis' house. Here are some pictures from it.


Aaron and Xan waiting for the "hunt"

So many eggs...

Zina (2.5), Xan (4.5), and Aaron (3.5)
(The four kids-- Xan, Aaron, Zina, and Elliot are, in that order, almost exactly a year apart from each other)

Ready, set, go!

We advised Aaron to go for the middle, so it wouldn't be too crowded. And it worked!

Happily gathering

After he picked up about twelve eggs, he started to come back. I said something like, "You can get more if you want," and he said, "No, I'm all done." I thought that was wise.

He brought his eggs over to the ground and found, with delight, that there was candy in each one.

Ben printed out a bunch of number lines (all from about negative ten to positive ten) the other day, explained the concept to Aaron, then asked him several questions like, "Which is bigger, negative three or two?" When looking at the paper, he answered the questions 100% correctly. It was pretty exciting, and even though he can't do it accurately without the paper he still gets the concept.

Here are some pictures of the number line activity, which Elliot joined as well

Elliot's getting pretty good at sitting up. Here are a few pictures of him practicing

Elliot and Conrad (who is nine hours younger than Elliot, and little brother of Aaron's friends Julia and Weston)

Aaron tried on this cute hat-scarf combo (gifted him by Grandma Marsha) the other day while we were packing up the winter stuff for the season. He thought it was pretty hilarious.

We had a blip of really good weather last week. Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying the sunshine at the park.

Sliding down the slide

Aaron and Elliot with friends Mara and Ava. Mara is Aaron's age and Ava is one.

Swinging

Whee!

A few months ago,we were buying fish fillets at the grocery store and Aaron decided we should get a whole fish, with the head on and everything. At first I told him I didn't know what to do with a whole fish, but he was so rationally insistent, ("Well, maybe we should just try it and see..." etc) that I decided he was right and we could try it. We tried it and it was fun and good. So ever since, we get a couple whole fish whenever we go to the fish counter and cook them up for dinner that night. Pretty tasty. It's kind of funny though because now when we see fish in his books, instead of talking about how pretty or cool looking they are, he says, "Ooh, that looks yummy!"


Here's Aaron making a fish head talk

A few pictures of Elliot chillin' on our couch


This is an example of what a good baby Elliot is... he fell asleep while sitting on the couch.

All grown up

Wearing a sweater gifted by Grandma Marsha

Since Ben is the cubscout leader for our church, Aaron got to attend and sort of participate in the Pinewood Derby this year. Here he is with the car that Tato made (with a little help from Aaron), with his friend Mara (and her car), whose dad is also a leader.

We thought this three-wheel design was pretty cool looking, with a huge hole in the middle of the car. Ben tried to make it as slow as possible so it wouldn't even have a chance to compete with the cubscouts' cars. He succeeded in his efforts, considering that the "Fast Wolf" (as Aaron named it) never even completed the distance of the track. Ben wanted to name the car, "Boy, that's slow!" but Aaron chose "Fast Wolf" instead. It was a good lesson in the joy of just playing the game, and not winning. For weeks before the Derby, Aaron would say, "Tato's going to lose. But that's okay."