Previously on Snowflake Family

When I last blogged, Matthew was 15 months old, had just started walking and was working on talking.

He looked something like this:


Now, he is 26 months old, talks all the time, and is practicing jumping. Here is a photo of us this winter:


His favorite things are being outside, reading, airplanes, and dogs. We're reaching 100 degree days here so sadly, his outside time is dwindling, but he is out there as often as I let him be. 

He loves to read. He's always loved to read and I love that as he gets older and more capable of doing other things, he still comes back to his love of books. He loves to read his Bible, which brings joy to my heart.

He's OBSESSED with airplanes. In that photo above, we're at our local airport, watching the planes take off and land.

We had an airplane birthday party for him in January which was great fun.


Last August, our 11 year old dog died. It was terribly sad and I miss him very much. Matthew asked about him for a long time. Then he filled his doggy void by Skyping with my mom's dogs. We took trips to Petsmart to visit dogs but he is an animal lover to his core. We waited for the right dog to come along and in February, we got Fiona. She's a 2.5 year old Boxer/American Bulldog mix and they are each other's best friend. We named her Fiona because she's part princess, part ogre.

Here is how I found them when they thought I wasn't looking.


They sit like this together almost every day.


His airplane love is starting to expand to anything with wheels. My days are filled with trucks, planes, cars, tractors, bicycles, etc. My house looks like Grand Central Station. I love every second.

He's my little smarty pants. Since he was 18 months old, he's known his alphabet--upper and lower cases and the sounds each letter makes. He knows his numbers and loves to count--his current favorite number appears to be 10. He loves to label vehicles, animals, colors, and shapes. His little mind is very concrete. He much prefers concrete, tangible, logical play over imaginative play.  I think that's why he has excelled the way he has so far-they're all very hard skills with definite right and wrong answers. His little friend likes to pretend cook and have tea parties--Matthew likes to count his dishes and open and close the doors on the play kitchen. He loves to see how things work and come apart and go back together again. It's so fun to me to see how he's developing and learning what he likes and doesn't like. It's also a challenge for me to try to grow him areas he doesn't enjoy as much but which are still good for him in terms of becoming a well-rounded person. He'd easily spend his days buried in a book if I let him.

He does enjoy some softer skills. He loves to color and paint, and he still loves music and dance as much as he always has. It's so precious to me to see him learn songs that I've sung since my childhood, and to think dancing is the most fun thing we can do.

We take lots of field trips to the zoo and the children's museum and the library. 2 is tough, but overall, he's a really good kid, and I love being a SAHM. I am constantly grateful for the fact that something I waited so long for is everything I hoped it would be, and more. That sounds so mushy and cliche, but it's true. It's a good thing to remind myself of when the days get tough.

In the past year, we also moved into our own auto shop so our business has grown and changed a lot from when DH was working out of our driveway. God has blessed us more than we deserve. DH gets to do what he loves, he gets to work with his family, and our family is provided for.

Well, that's it for my first attempt at breaking the silence and putting myself out there again.  Hope you all are well!