The Quickstad Family: April 2010

Well, it's been a while since I have updated this. We have had a lot going on so far this year.

The boys are doing great.

Collin is doing so well in school. His teacher was telling me the other day how impressed they are by him. She said he is very intelligent, which of course we think so but it's nice to hear his teacher saying this. She was telling us that he had told the class that water weighs more than air during a lesson about frogs and tadpoles. He just soaks up information. We were watching the birds in the yard this morning and a mocking bird fluffed it's wings up and Collin said "maybe the bird is trying to attract a mate." He is constantly amazing us with what he knows and his vocabulary. He is really excelling in reading as well. We are very proud of him! He started soccer this spring. He has practice twice a week and games on Saturdays. He even scored a goal one game. We can see improvement since the season started but he mostly enjoys running around with the other kids. He can dribble the ball across the field really well during practice. We are glad that he is having fun with it. The last few months Collin has learned to swing himself on our swing set. He can go really high and loves it.

Nate is growing up fast. We are potty training him right now and he is doing so great. I was dreading this so I waited a little longer to start and it seems to have paid off. Most of the time he is in his underwear now and he goes to the potty by himself regularly. Nate is also learning so much. He of course knows his alphabet but also knows the phonics of all the letters. He can count to about 20. I have been working on teaching the boys the continents and the oceans and Nate loves to name them by what animal lives where. He doesn't know them all yet but it won't be long. Collin is helping to teach him. Nate is a great little helper. He loves to open the fridge and get the milk or juice out and help with laundry. He likes to feed Bella and Tex and Dakota every morning. He is very independent. He really likes to do these things without help which sometimes works. We registered him for school in the fall. He loves to take Collin to school and is always sad when we leave so I am hoping he will love it too. Nate goes to soccer practice with Collin and the coach is great and let's Nate do many of the drills. We think he may be ready to start soon. He seems to be able to keep up with all the 4 year olds.

Both Collin and Nate are still into dinosaurs. We have tons of books all about dinosaurs.

They have both become great eaters. Collin's favorite food right now is tomatoes and we have Mark to thank for that. Nate loves strawberries. They will eat almost and fruit or veggie we try with a little encouragement. They are even eating fish and shrimp.

Bob and I are doing good too. At the first of the year we decided we were going to start running and lose a little weight. We signed up for a 5K in February and set some goals. I started with a program called Couch to 5K since I was so out of shape. It worked out so well. We both did pretty good on race day and we are both still running. We run 3-4 times a week. Bob is up to 6 miles at a time and I am up to just over 5 miles. It's been fun doing this together. We are also trying to eat more organic and cut out many processed foods and make things from scratch. We planted a garden of vegetables and I am really hopeful that it will be a success. Grandma Jan was here for a week to help us get it planted nicely. We've been shopping at more Farmer's Market too. I really want us to get things more local. It's been fun. One of the FM has baby goats and a chicken coop. The kids actually got to help pick out our eggs.

Here are some pictures from the year so far.

Our last now day on the first day of spring this year