March

March had a lot going on, so much that didn't get around to posting about any of it, so here's a quick run down of a few things we did...

I decided to try out straight hair.

This little monkey turned 18 months old and then missed his first week of nursery eligibility by getting the flu, which he gave to all of us. I won't post pictures of that, it wasn't pretty. Neither was the laundry that piled up because the washing machine stopped working. Thankfully it has been replaced with a "new to us" machine that works great and the old one was taken off to be recycled.
We started painting the house, with a lot of help from Grandpa.
Kara has been accessorizing

We planted


And posed...


We are still painting and the kids had some Spring/Easter pictures taken. More to come soon!

17 month checkup?

Andrew is now 17 months old and he got an extra trip to the doctor this month. Our poor little man caught a nasty virus and had an ear infection. He had started being fussy Sunday afternoon at church and only wanted Mom to hold him. He dozed off on my shouler, then fell asleep in the car. He woke up when we got home but fell back asleep on my shoulder. He woke up to eat then fell back asleep in my arms. After 5 hours I was finally able to lay him down on the couch without him waking up, later I moved him to his bed where he slept all night ( I had been worried that after sleeping all evening he would wake up a 4am or something). He also had a puffy eyelid and wasn't opening his eyes. We called his pediatrician's off first thing in the morning and got him an appointment with his doctor. His appointment wasn't until the afternoon and after eating a little he dozed off again. Thankfully it was nothing serious and we went home with a prescription for the ear infection.

He's doing much much better now and misses his "meh-cin" (medicine). Apparently it tasted pretty good! Sadly all the extra sleep and neediness while he was sick seems to have thrown off his sleeping patterns. He was sleeping through the night before he got sick, but the last 4 nights he's been waking up around 3ish.

Overall he's a healthy. happy little guy. He loves music and anything musical, especially playing piano and "tar" (guitar). He has the cutest little toddler dance too! He usually has a car or a plane in his hand, and often has one in each hand. He continues to amaze us with how observant he is and all the words he can say. His vocabulary has more then doubled in the last month, he probably says 70 or 80 words now! Most of the words he's learned are toys or food, but thank, welcome, eyes, nose, happy, and blast-off are also words he uses a lot. So far he's not really interested in coloring or painting and prefers to eat the pens and crayons.

12 years

Then...

And now..

Really? 12 years? It's been that long? Looking forward to what the next twelve years bring us together!

3 and a half

It's a great age, I love that she's old enough to do real crafts. Like make this necklace out of colored straws. And say things like "How about this dress, Mommy?"

But still young enough to dress like a fairy, act silly and say things like "It's my Kara's purple one doll blanket."

lunch at the park

15 and 16 months

My little man is 16 months old today! For his 15 month Well Child Checkup visit last month he weight in at 24lbs 12 oz, which is 50-75% of the average for boys and 32 1/4 inches, which is the 75-90%. So he's got some meat on his tall bones, but he's no chubby baby. I think he's too active, he runs and jumps and climbs it all off. He's all boy, and loves to play with his cars, planes, trains, tools and star wars toys. He's got 12 teeth now, 6 on top and 6 on bottom so I think we are done with teething for now, whew! He's also a very affectionate lil guy who loves to give hugs and kisses too! He often will wrap his arms around mine or Jeff''s neck and give a kiss then run off. So sweet! Jeff and I are amazed at how fast he's picking up words. I decided to make a list, there are almost 30 words that we can think of that he knows and uses regularly. Most are food and toys: chip,hot dog,chicken,bubble,ball,balloon,bike,yo-yo,thank (you),d-d-d-dora, man,yay,amen,night night,fly,hat,mine,wait,shoe,what,want that,light,no,wow,up,Lego and cho cho train.

November Ice and Snow

It's January and I'm finally getting around to blogging about things that happened in November. Obviously I have some catching up to do so here goes...
Mid November we took the kids to see Disney On Ice:Let Celebrate! It was going to be just me and Kara, but then I found coupon code online that made the $25 tickets only $11 (+ 5.75 each in fees) and we got a ticket for Jeff, and Grandma Lisa (my step-mom) came too! Andrew was free because he is under 2 and we debated if we should find him a sitter or bring him. In the end we decided that if he got too restless that between the 3 adults and 4 seats we should be OK. So glad we did, he loved it! Both the kids had a kind of deer in the headlights look of amazement for the first half of the show, and by the second half Kara was clapping and Andrew wanted down on the floor to dance along to the music. The seat in front of him and Jeff was empty because the little boy who had been sitting there had moved to his dad's lap. It was an fantastic show, and watching the kids see all their favorite Disney characters come to life was priceless! Someday I will have the time to learn how to do photo collages, but for now, here are my favorite photos in no particular order.


The week of Thanksgiving provided another winter treat, SNOW! Kara was thrilled! She had wanted snow last winter and we didn't have any at all. The girl had been making angels in the sand all summer and so it was a dream come true for her to make an actual snow angel! Jeff and kids built a little snowman. Andrew kept touching it's head and at first I thought he was trying to knock it over, then I realized he was saying "hat", as in, the snowman needs a hat. Sheriff Woody was nice enough to loan our little frosty his hat.