But they also made time for yard work ...
... and exploring.
Components of Madeline's owl superhero costume made frequent appearances.
Friday afternoon, after Uncle Marc went to visit New York, the rest of us took a walk along the water in Providence.
Oliver found a football!
On the walk back to the car, we stopped at Dave's Coffee ...
... for delicious hot chocolate.
On Saturday we paid our usual visit to the library.
Then sojourned at home ...
... before deciding to tackle toy clutter with a trip to the container store.
Saturday night, Uncle Marc returned. Sunday morning, Oliver enjoyed Petey. He calls Petey something that sounds like a combination of "Petey," "kitty," and "baby."
This weird amalgam is just one of his many words, as his language skills are exploding right now. He picks up on the words most frequently uttered around the house -- today, for example, he was going through dolls labeling blonde ones "Elsa" and brunettes "Anna." He's good with "please" and "thank you" and delights in tangible things like "box" and "seat." And he loooooves animal sounds, especially a cow's "mooooooooooo!"
As his language skills develop, he's also decided there's not much in the world that's better than books. At all hours of the day he'll run to a bookshelf to fetch something interesting and bring it to us incanting, "Please! Please! Please!" He especially loves Goodnight Moon, Biscuit the dog ("Woof woof!"), dinosaur books (where he points to each one and says, "This? This? This?" seeking identification), and really pretty much anything prominently featuring animals (where we also get a lot of pointing and "This? This? This?"). He's extended his bedtime reading to four or five books most nights -- though if he gets bored with one before it's done he'll exclaim, "The end!" and close the book. It's a lot of fun.
Back to the weekend: Sunday afternoon, we walked to the playground.
Then on Monday, I went to work and everyone else went to the zoo. Once again the kiddos especially enjoyed the giraffes ...
... and the goats.
On Tuesday morning, Uncle Marc took his leave at the train station.
That afternoon, Madeline excitedly put together a space-themed puzzled she'd received for Christmas.
Then the next day -- New Year's Eve -- I took her out of the house on an adventure! We went fossil hunting at a site in Portsmouth known for its loose shale rife with Pennsylvanian-era ferns.
We didn't find any fossil ferns, but we did find other cool stuff like these ice-encrusted tree roots.
And the morning was pretty, if cold.
So we warmed up afterward with hot chocolate from Dunkin' Donuts.
The rest of our New Year's Eve was pretty quiet and uneventful.
Our new year got off to a nice start this morning with a relatively late sleep and muffin-baking -- but things derailed pretty quickly. We had plans to go for a little hike with friends, but had to cancel when Oliver threw up en route. He then seemed to get better as the day went on, so please keep your fingers crossed for us -- between Oliver's teething and colds (and now this) and Petey's continued medical issues, we've had enough!
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