OK, so the sucky part about living in a place where there are seasons is that you need so many shoes. Well, for kids at least. I am the kind of person that can make do with 2 pairs of shoes. I have my boots for hiking, very cold days, and for anything wet. And then I have my trusty moccassins for everything else. OK, I also have slippers for when I go to Hawaii, but I usually use my parents’ ones, so that doesn’t count.

I’ve been applying the same philosophy to the boys, and I already thought that I had to buy a lot just to keep up with their growing feet. But since they started kindergarten, oh. my. god. I have to buy a ton of shoes. House shoes that they wear inside, rubber boots for rainy days, regular shoes for outside, and then now I was told I had to get winter boots, which will replace the rubber boots. Keep in mind, I have to buy two pairs of each. AND I have to buy everything again when their feet grow. I have a never ending stream of shoes to buy. Thank goodness for ebay where I can get things for a few euros. If I had to buy everything in the store, it would be at least 10 euros per pair. That’s a lot. This is in addition to their clothes which include their regular clothes, their mudpants, their snow suits, regular jacket, heavy jacket, hats, mittens and the list goes on. I am buried when it comes to clothes and shoes. Now I understand why relatives always give clothes to us as kids and I welcome any and all gifts, especially SHOES and JACKETS!!! At least I am thankful that they can share clothes, but that doesn’t reduce how much I have to buy as a minimum.

Now that the boys don’t have a bottle at night, they fight going to bed. It is so funny watching them with their stalling tactics. First they scream “NOOOOOOOOOO!” Then I read them 3 books of their choosing. Then all of a sudden every single toy is the most interesting thing in the world. I brought down thick blankets that my mom gave them when they were born to use as a cover and they LOVE it. They like rolling around with it and being covered. That helps some. They still like their green blankets too, but it’s almost as if the green blankets were tied to the bottles. But once their in bed, they fall asleep and don’t wake up until 8am.

Yesterday the boys were farting so much, I don’t know why, it could’ve been what they ate for lunch. After Rowan farted, I asked him “Did you fart?” and he said “all gone fart” and I laughed. So then he said it over and over and he was so proud that he could make me laugh. His speech has a noticeable improvement from a few months ago.