Rosstopherandlowen

Big News

2012-01-16T20:51:00.000-06:00

Here's a family picture from over Christmas.

See that new cute girl there over on the right? Meet Kia. The soon-to-be newest member of the family! Sam and Kia are planning to be married in May, and we are super duper excited. We love her already, and can't wait for her to be a part of the family. Congrats (a little be-lated) guys!

Christmas hodgepodge

2011-12-30T23:02:00.000-06:00

We had a fantastic Christmas this year. Little kids make Christmas sooo fun.

Here's a ton of photos from this year.

5th annual hilltop excursion

2011-11-21T21:24:00.000-06:00

The wind was not our friend this time around. Holy Cow. We were pretty limited on options for going though, since we hadn't been to Manhattan as a family in a looong time. And we were only there for the day. I was totally not feeling up to going. But as always, I'm glad we made the effort. Maybe someday I'll plan better and actually use some props or something. For now, just glad we got what we did.

Thanks Dad, for taking these for us!

Previous excursions pictured here, here, here, and here

Friends

2011-11-19T14:00:00.001-06:00

We were seeing a lot of this cute boy last month. Ethan and Leah sure love their friend Noah. Noah's sweet baby sister Audrey was born at 25 weeks along, and we're praying hard for her and her family.

Come and wrestle with the kiddos anytime, Noah!

Preschool

2011-11-16T22:16:00.000-06:00

We've been enjoying doing a Co-op Preschool this school year with Ethan. He loves it, I love it, Leah loves the one-on-one time. Leah always gets sad when Ethan first leaves though. One of our field trips was to the fire station. I love Ethan's little shy "I really love this, but don't want to show it" face in the 3rd photo. Having kids is so fun!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

I really liked their costumes this year. Ethan was happy with his robot costume, but it would have been a bit better if he could walk in it. He was able to shuffle along well enough to grab some candy though. That's the important thing. Leah was not shy at all about getting candy. She took it by the fistful if we let her. Cute kids in costumes.

The kiddos' room

2011-10-30T13:00:00.013-05:00

I always think it's fun to have a look (spy) into other people's houses. So I thought I'd put pictures of the kids room. Plus I think it will be fun for them when they are older to see what their room looked like when they were itty-bitty. We finally replaced the gosh-awful light fixture, and I just framed the last piece of art, so I think it's as ready as it will ever be. Some notes:

-That beautiful quilt on Leah's bed was made by my dear friend Joy.

-The various art is mostly from my study abroad in London.

-The Magic Mary piece of art is from a box of paper-dolls from my mother's childhood. I love it so much.

-Everything else pretty much comes from thrift stores, antique stores, or handmade by me or the kids.

-All of the furniture is hand-me-down. That crib is the crib that all three of the Honey kids slept in.

-Oh and I spray painted and re-covered that little red chair. Cutest fabric ever!

-We opted to take out the closet doors because they really took up a lot of space and were kind of a safety hazard.

-Ross of course made the little fridge and oven.

-The roman shades were made using the tutorial from Little Green Notebook. We had to make some adjustments to them because we wanted them to be dark enough to block out the light when closed, and that meant two pieces of fabric, which meant it was really heavy! So Ross made some wood slats to use instead of the existing mini-blind pieces. In case anyone wants to know. :)

- A lot of these things were used in Ethan's nursery, and I was glad when I found out we were having a girl that I had gone with a gender neutral theme. Although girly things are hard to resist sometimes!

Leaves

2011-10-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

This picture pretty much sums up the

happy glowy feel of Fall this October for me:

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-19T14:58:00.001-05:00

We went to the Pendleton's Pumpkin Patch this year with our sister-in-law Janae and her two kids. This is our first time going there, and I highly recommend it. It's free! And it's a perfect size for littler kids. They have a butterfly house that costs $3 a person, which is really worth it. The kids loved it, and they had the cutest farm boy who pointed out lots of interesting things and told us everything we could care to know about butterflies and their habitats. Definitely worth visiting again. Only it felt wrong to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt and under the 80 degree sun in the Fall at the pumpkin patch. I'm excited it's actually getting cold now. I've been waiting and waiting to make soup this year!

Birthday Girl

2011-09-28T09:46:00.000-05:00

I really wanted to do a little birthday photo shoot with Leah in her homemade birthday dress for the past couple of weeks, and finally got to it last night. The weather has been very patient with me, staying gorgeous for lots of nights in a row. I think I found a new favorite place for pictures!

Side note: Ethan was really upset the whole time because he has a very irrational, but very real fear of the wind. It would be really funny except that he is seriously scared out of his mind. He was terrified that the balloons would blow away, or that our dinner would blow away, or that something would happen to Leah... Such a weird thing!

It kills me that this picture is out of focus. Kills me!

Leah's birthday

2011-09-27T14:00:00.002-05:00

Leah's 2nd birthday was last Sunday. What a lucky mom I am to have her in my life. And I mean that, even though she climbs on everything, destroys most things, and empties everything else. She's got such a sassy little personality. But I just look at her in awe. Like how does this cute little being belong to me? And when she sees my anger rising over something Ethan has done, she reaches up to my cheek, strokes it and says in a soft sing-song voice, "it o-tay mommy, o-tay." She is very ornery for about 30 minutes after she wakes up from her nap, but otherwise is a pretty happy girl. She fights tooth and nail for her toys though, and that is a pretty big source of conflict between her and Ethan.. and other friends.

We kept it a low key day, except that Ross and I were in the kitchen most of the day cooking dinner. I feel kind of guilty for not spending as much time with her on her birthday, but at least she was happy and seemed to have a good time anyway. I made her an over-the-top crown out of felt for her to wear, just for fun. And I made that little yellow dress too. It actually worked and fit when I needed it to! It makes me want to try more. It's the June bug dress from Craftiness is not Optional

Thanks Grandma, for acting so excited about her dollar bin present!

I love all of these pictures. Mostly because I love all of the people in them.

Thanks, Uncle Sam, for helping Leah blow out her candles.

And thanks Grandpa, for not only not stopping Leah from sticking her finger in the cake, but encouraging her to do so. :)

Thanks to the Honey's, for being willing to make the trip; and sorry for having to spend more time on the road than actually visiting. Love you guys!

Sidewalk chalk paint

2011-09-25T14:00:00.001-05:00

Fun activity, found via pinterest. Here's the link.

Don't judge me by their clothes. :) I didn't know if it would stain or not.

A new discovery

2011-09-23T20:10:00.002-05:00

We recently discovered a new park in the area. It's always so exciting!

Day 8

2011-09-14T14:00:00.000-05:00

And finally, our last day! We were up pretty far north so we decided to make the excursion to Mt. Rushmore. They have a great museum there, along with lots of nice facilities. We could have spent a lot more time there, but we still had several hours of driving ahead of us, so we made it a quick trip.

And last but certainly not least, we stopped at 'Car Henge'- some good ol' American Culture. For whatever reason both of our kids were crying through the whole stop, so we made it quick there too. It was so interesting to me though, I would have really liked to see how it all got done.

We finally made it home at 2:00 in the morning! It was a super fun trip, but I don't want to do it again any time soon. I'm grateful for everyone who hosted and especially for Grandma and Grandpa Terry who helped a lot with the kids while we there. Phew! And.. done.

Day 7

2011-09-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

This was a really fun day. On our drive him we made our way through Yellowstone. We were able to go with some of Ross' cousins. The scenery was beautiful. The lame part about it was that I missed Old Faithful by 30 seconds. Literally 30 seconds. Luckily the cousins, Ross, and the kids got to see it, but I had to make a stop at the bathroom, and walked up just as the crowds were leaving the area. Wah wah.

We made this little stop in the middle of nowhere and enjoyed another view of a waterfall.

Road Trip: Days 4-6

2011-09-11T20:56:00.002-05:00

So the at the end of the third day I started getting really sick. I had a nasty stomach bug which I learned later on was a parasite that I caught at one of the local pools here. Gross. So I really didn't enjoy that last day of driving to Utah and wasn't able to have as much fun as I wanted to at both family reunions. Which was kind of sad. But luckily by the last day or so I was feeling much much better...just in time drive home. :)

Saturday was the Terry (Ross' dad's side) family reunion. It was a lot of fun. Halfway through though, a huge microburst and rainstorm came through. And after an hour of solid rain the sun came out and a clear blue sky graced the party. It ended on a very good note.

The next day we drove up to Idaho where the Groom (Ross's mom's side). We spent the next few days in a beautiful cabin in Island Park, ID. The highlights of those few days were floating down the Snake River, and breaking a pinata, and capture the flag. And of course, lots of good food, and lots of good company.

This first picture is so hilarious to me. Actually it's blurry cause I was laughing so hard when I took it. Ross didn't want to buy a real tube, so he used this one in the basement of the cabin and blew it up. Of course it was leaking air before he even got in to the icy cold river. He was sitting in the water the whole time, until he bummed a ride on my tube. But he saved $7! He'll say that's not exactly how it happened. But if you know Ross Terry, you know that's exactly what happened. ;) It's okay though, I sure love him anyway. The few photos of the river were taken with my point and

shoot and with the waterproof camera case. FYI.

Road Trip: Day 3

2011-09-08T20:26:00.004-05:00

I had my camera out pretty much ALL day this day; and therefore took the most amount of pictures. We were in Steamboat Springs, CO. It is such a beautiful little town! It had a really good feel to it. Clean, green, friendly, and WAY up in the mountains. Brandon was an excellent host and showed us some of his favorite places. Starting with this charming restaurant where we were able to sit under umbrellas and next to a babbling stream. Leah impressed all of the servers with her cool shades.

We went on a mini hike around the College where Brandon works. Ethan was really excited about being up in the mountains. Leah refused to stay on the path. Brandon said that he had recently seen a bear in that area, so I was a little nervous. It was a fun time. I really miss mountains!

We also went to the Yampa River and let the kids get some aggression out.

Throwing big rocks does the trick.

Also, I will never trust Brandon with my children again.*

And then the last part of the day was a little walk to a waterfall. It started to rain on us so we had to run from tree to tree to take cover. Again, the mountains are so beautiful!

*Kidding of course; I hope it's obvious that that picture was photoshopped.

Road Trip: Day 2

2011-09-05T22:26:00.001-05:00

The second day we made it to Steamboat Springs, CO to visit our friend Brandon. We were in the car pretty much the whole day, so all I mostly took pictures of the scenery. It was a pretty amazing sunset.

Family History, I am doing it!

2011-09-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

We recently returned from a loooooong road trip. We calculated 2900 miles, and 50 hours in the car. Oh my. The kids did really well; better than expected. There was an hour or two in there where I thought I would probably die. But luckily we made it through. I'm not sure how long it's going to take to post all of my pictures, I took a bunch! But here's a couple from the car the first night.

Boating

2011-09-01T19:52:00.001-05:00

I thought it'd be fun to have a little boat race in the irrigation drain thing across the street. I won't mention that the paper boats we made didn't work longer than 30 seconds; but I will say that we had a fantastic time playing in the water anyway.

A pretty morning at the park

2011-08-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

Painting

2011-07-27T14:00:00.001-05:00

Last time I painted with Ethan he was SO not into getting his hands messy. But after seeing Leah dive right in this time, Ethan was like, "Oh, maybe I will try that". That's like with most things Leah does. "Oh, climbing onto that kitchen table does look fun!"

Birthday Date

2011-07-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

We went on a super fun date on the Friday after my birthday last weekend. Dinner at a fancy restaurant, Nelson Atkin's art museum and Water Lilies exhibit, then the Plaza and fancy cupcakes (for free!). Makes me realize we need to make date-night a priority, and not just something that occurs every once in a long while.

Here are some "polandroids" from the museum.

Slave Labor

2011-07-23T21:37:00.000-05:00

We took advantage of the extremely hot weather and had a little car washing party. I put my little slaves right to work. I think that little kids in swimsuits are pretty much the cutest ever.

The 4th

2011-07-09T14:41:00.002-05:00

I think the 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it. Although it's really lame that you can't set off your own fireworks in Johnson County. I think next year we will have to leave town so Ross can show his firework skills to our kids. When he was a kid he used to save up all of his money so he could go all out on giant fireworks. That thought makes me laugh. I'd really love to continue that tradition though.

I started the day off with a friend at a festival nearby. It was CRAZY. So many people, and so many things to see. I couldn't handle it for very long, but it was fun.

Leah's hair kind of looked like a firework.

Then we went down to Olathe to visit Ross' brother and family.

We enjoyed some good food and good fun outside.

And then I was really excited to try out a technique that I had seen a photographer friend do a couple of years ago. He wrote a tutorial a few days ago on how to do it. See here.

Between comforting kids who were scared of fireworks and an almost full memory card I didn't get to do as many as I wanted, but I still got a few cool ones I think.

Sorry there are so many pictures in this post.

Hope you had a good 4th!

2011-06-24T14:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently we have really beautiful light in our back yard in the afternoon. And also my kids are always really happy in the swing. Why didn't I put that together before?

A happy swinging/spinning boy

2011-06-22T20:52:00.003-05:00

I wish it wasn't so little, cause his facial expressions are priceless.

Edited: This is an improvement, although I wish the picture quality was better.

In the past few weeks we have...

2011-06-19T22:43:00.002-05:00

Spent an awesome weekend with great friends:

Received visits from my grandma

And from my family-- the world travelers. They just got back from a

trip to England and Italy. It was difficult not to feel a little sorry

for myself for not getting to go with them.

Read a really good book (The Book Thief).

Enjoyed the flowers at City Market.

Bought a couch. It was a very impulsive buy. I love vintage furniture

and have been (very) s- l-o-w-l-y collecting pieces.

I'm very happy with it, and it's also super comfortable. But it's blue,

and my walls are blue. A little much. Ross says I'm not allowed to

paint yet, since we've only lived here for a year.

And.... TA-DA!

Yep! That's right! James has landed a spot on Ethan's rear-end.

I would say he's 95% potty-trained. It was not quite as big of a deal

as I thought it would be. I got some good advice from

my sister-in-law and just put him in underwear

and braced myself. It took a few days, but now we are there.
GO ETHAN!

Summer fun

2011-06-12T20:46:00.000-05:00

We had a lot of fun at the Old Shawnee Days carnival a couple of weeks ago. It was super HOT and Humid-- felt like the middle of August. It had been a long time since I had been on a 'scary' ride so I was pretty excited to try out the Ali Baba. Thanks to Becky for snapping some pictures while we were on it! (She took the photos on the bottom left and the top right.)

I love summer!

The magical bush

2011-05-18T14:40:00.000-05:00

So I know this is a whole bunch of pictures of flowers. I was so happy when I walked around the corner of our house and beheld the most magical bush ever. I hadn't really seen it yet, because it's tucked away around the back corner of our house. I saw it and I was yelling at the kids to come so I could take a picture of them with it and they wouldn't come and then the light was gone. Luckily a couple of nights later it was gorgeous again so I forced the kids outside. The light was just glowing through the branches. Sigh. I know I'm a nerd. Ross was like... yeah... awesome...

It's way overgrown and really needs to be pruned back but I really don't have the heart to do it. Perhaps next year.

These two were taken at a different time of day:

Eeeeeethan

2011-05-15T14:00:00.005-05:00

I've been meaning to talk a little about Ethan. I haven't updated about him in a while. Ethan is a light. Delightful. Full of joy. Thoughtful. Sweet.

And then he flips a switch and he is.. el diablo. Luckily he's 80% delight and 20% diablo. I think a lot of kids are that way. I'm hoping that he is peaking with his tantrums and that they will start to dissipate over the next couple of months. He is SO strong willed. It is tricky to discipline him, because one little innocent time-out often turns into a 45 minute long scream fest. Dude. Just do your time and get over it!

He is still not interested at all in potty training. I'm trying my best to wait patiently for him to decide he wants to start. I'm thinking that most likely he'll be in diapers when he goes to kindergarten.

I love his hugs. And he gives me smacking kisses on the cheek. He pats his little hands gently on my face and says, 'you're a nice mommy.' He still loves to snuggle. Loves to read books, loves cars. Currently his favorite movie is UP and will request it as much as possible. I love it too, so I often comply. Answers questions with full, descriptive sentences. "Yes, I DO want to go to the park and play on the slide."

I'll admit I've been struggling a lot with being patient with him. And with Leah. I hope I can overcome that so that when he grows up he'll remember me as the 'nice mommy' and not as the annoyed mommy.

I'm grateful to be a mom. Grateful to be his mom.

Vintage Playground

2011-05-13T09:00:00.001-05:00

Still playing around with those actions...

Processed with A&S actions

Ross said I could post this

2011-05-11T14:44:00.002-05:00

I think it's so funny!

2011-05-10T14:09:00.003-05:00

So I thought I'd share some fun new actions I found for FREE the other day.

Straight out of the camera:

Processed with a few of the Apples and Sister's actions:

Many are a little (a lot) too processed for my taste, but they are kind of fun to play around with. I'm not sure if they work with Photoshop Elements, but they work with all other versions of Photoshop. And you can't beat free! Find them HERE.

365:11

2011-05-08T14:00:00.004-05:00

So I decided to create a new blog to dedicate to project 365. I don't know, it was just cluttering things up here. I like things all in one place. The link is on the left, if you're interested. Hope everyone had a good mother's day!

FYI: Canon 20D, ISO 1600, f/4.5, 1/100

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T13:14:00.003-05:00

To our mothers and grandmothers. We love you so much!

Made using picasion.com

365:10

2011-05-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

Growth. Well hopefully. This is our first year at the gardening thing, and we'll see how it turns out. I hope we at least get one juicy, flavorful tomato.

365:9

2011-05-06T14:00:00.001-05:00

365:8

2011-05-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

Aren't our avocado green counter-tops awesome? The answer is yes. Actually I'm surprised at how well they've held up in the last 40ish years. And I really don't mind the color at all.

A night on the town

2011-05-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

We've been enjoying the lovely weather these days. The kids and I wait on the front steps, watching for daddy's civic to turn around the corner so that we can go out and play (or work in the yard) until dinner time. This particular Tuesday evening we buckled the kids up and rode our bikes down to Mi Ranchito for $1 tacos. I'm pretty sure that half of our ward frequents Mi Ranchito on Tuesday nights. And why not? They are delicious and they are cheap! This was our second time going.

Leah enjoyed the crayons more than the food:

Then we headed to my favorite park, South Lake:

Sounds like a pretty perfect night to me!

365:7

2011-05-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

365:6

2011-05-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Snuggly wet baby.

365:5

2011-05-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

I'm a very lucky girl.

365:4

2011-05-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

By the way, I'm a couple of days behind. I started this last Monday, but didn't start posting about it until Thursday, so I will always be posting a couple of days later.

365:3

2011-04-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

Playing cars while daddy is out of town

365:2

2011-04-29T14:00:00.000-05:00

Project 365: 1

2011-04-28T14:47:00.005-05:00

In an effort to more consistently pick up my camera, I decided to embark on my own photo-a-day project. That is, I will take at least one photo a day for a year and post it. (I'll probably take more.) Google 'project 365' if you want, to see what others have done. Or click here for the link to information about the project on Photojojo, one of my favorite photography sites.

I want to improve my technique, I want to improve my creativity, and I want more pictures of my kids when they are itty bitty. That is my motivation.

Wish me luck!

365:1
Typical view of my bathroom while I get ready

Or this:

On an unrelated note, I just found this picture from a couple months ago. That is nail polish all over her tummy and leg. Yes, she got it all over the carpet, and yes I am awesome because with two hours of scrubbing, it did indeed return to its original color. And a special thanks to Mitzi for coming over and cleaning up my little hellian.

Cancer-Free is the Way to Be!

2011-04-25T21:39:00.005-05:00

Good news. After 11 rounds of chemotherapy and some not so fun side-effects, my dad was declared NED (no evidence of disease) today! Yay! They said that if it's likely to come back it will be within the next 3-5 years, so he will continue to have regular check-ups.

My dad wrote a poem for the occasion:

I'm now cancer free

Oh what a joy

I now can return

to a bright, cheerful boy

My colon has passed

every test in the book

but 6 months from now

they'll take one more look

I'm done with the drugs

(they call it chemo)

whatever the name

I don't feel the same-o

So 5 years from now

is what I am planning

To spend time on the beach

doing nothing but tanning

Three cheers for being cancer-free!

Becky's wedding

2011-04-14T22:28:00.005-05:00

This is LONG overdue. Sorry Becky. We enjoyed heading out to Utah in February for Ross' sister's wedding. It was a lot of fun, despite sick kids and snowy weather. I think that Jake and Becky are pretty much the cutest. I'm really happy for them!

And, this pretty much sums up how
our kids felt about the whole thing.
Not really. Ethan was super excited to ride a
hairplane and had a lot of fun with his cousins.
Leah on the other hand... well Ethan's face says it all.

Our kids had lots of fun at the airport.
Better to get the energy out here than in the airplane.

Let's do it again sometime Becky!

Phew!

2011-03-21T13:23:00.002-05:00

So glad we have this done! I've been wanting to paint the kitchen since we first moved in, but it is a big project! We were so lucky to have Ross' parents here with us that weekend. Ross' dad helped with all of the sanding, priming, and painting, and Ross' mom was in charge of our kids. We couldn't have done it without them. My friend Mitzi also came over and helped with the painting. That was a huge help as well!

Here is the set up. They used a paint sprayer for all of the doors.
(This is after sanding them all down.)

The worst part: The CLUTTER. And little hands grabbing at everything within reach.
Which was pretty much everything.

Priming:

And then, TA-DA!!

And a couple more pics for good measure:

I'm so happy with it! Everything is so much brighter, and it feels cleaner. What a huge difference. It took 2 full days of work, and then more to put everything back together, but was so worth it! I'm really lucky I have a husband who is up for all of my projects. I have a really long list going on in my head and even though I keep adding to it- he's very supportive. Speaking of projects, I still have to make curtains for the kitchen, as well as find something to hang up on the wall...

Ross the super-daddy

2011-03-09T13:00:00.000-06:00

So I've been eye-ing this retro play kitchen for a while now, but it's gone $50 up in price since last year and we just couldn't stomach the cost. Or ask the grandparents to pay for that. :) So instead we came up with what I think is a pretty great alternative. Ross found this old kitchen cabinet for $5 at Re-Store and he turned it into a cute little kitchen! I'm so pleased. The kids really like it too. We are still missing a few details: the stove knobs, maybe a back splash, a utensil holder, perhaps a chalkboard on the side. Ross is planning on building a fridge in the next couple of weeks as well.

Before:

The burners are 12o mm guards for computer fans.
I had to have Ross spell that out for me. Only a computer nerd would
come up with that. But they are SO perfect!

The faucet is from a friend who was
donating some old bathroom cabinets,
and Ross cut out a hole for the sink,
which is a stainless steel bowl bought at a thrift store.

I made the skirt under the sink using this tutorial.

Ross cut a rectangle into the oven door and
attached plexi-glass so the kids can
take a peek at what's cooking.

I think everything totaled to about 30 bucks. Not too shabby. I'll post more pictures of the final product when it's done. Until then, thanks Rosstopher! You're the best.

P.S. If you're interested in making your own play kitchen, google 'DIY play kitchen' for lots and lots of ideas.

Ethan's happy birthday

2011-03-06T13:00:00.001-06:00

I think Ethan had a really good birthday. It's fun now that he understands birthdays and is excited about presents and stuff. We started the morning of at 6:30, and headed out to Krispy Kreme's for donuts in our pajamas. I'm still kicking myself that I didn't bring the camera. We didn't get out of the car though, I'm not that brave.

I told Ethan to take a bite of his doughnut and look at me.
This is what I got. I think he was really enjoying it more than it looks.

They enjoyed an extra bubbly bubble bath.

Went to play at the JoCo Museum. (Not pictured.)

Met Daddy for lunch at McDonalds. A rarity for us.

Presents when Daddy got home.

And then cake and games at a friend's house. (Not pictured.)

And THEN, on Saturday we had a little car themed part-ay with his friends.
I got most of my ideas from this blog here.

She (that blog) had this great idea to melt down Crayon's,
and use a chocolate mold to make cars:

There were a few younger
children toddling around as well:

Some of the chaos:

We had a really fun week. I'm so glad this birthday boy is in my life!

Hallelujah it's almost spring!

2011-03-04T14:00:00.000-06:00

We have SOO been enjoying the few scattered days of warm sunshine. I love this time of year. We are so close! It's nice to have a hint of what's to come every once in a while. Last week we went to the park on one of those warm sunshiney days and I brought my camera along.

Fun to get a shot of her looking at me and smiling!

Cause usually she's more like this:

The dude didn't want to take off his 'sweet' shades:

I laugh out loud when I see this picture. What a nerd! :)

Love day

2011-02-28T20:35:00.005-06:00

This year I decided to make valentine's with Ethan to give to his friends. He didn't really care much about it, which I expected. I had a lot of fun though. At least I got him to scribble a bit on each card. Leah joined the fun too. Hope your Valentine's Day was fabulous!

Idea for these valentine's from here (click for link):

Stop Motion Round 2

2011-02-27T16:35:00.002-06:00

I took a whole bunch of consecutive pictures of Ethan jumping on our couch cushions. I thought it'd make a cute little video. The picture's aren't that great and the music's not perfect, but oh well.

Here's the first.

Reality Is...

2011-02-08T13:22:00.006-06:00

A half emptied box of wipes:

A sink full of dirty dishes:

A baby high chair waiting to be cleaned post- lunch:

A little girl who can't keep her
hands out of my make-up drawer.
Also, a bathroom that is still purple:

A laundry basket that needs to be put away. (At least it is folded.):

A forever emptied bucket o' cars:

And 'Thomas' underwear that is doing NOTHING
to entice an almost 3 yr old boy to start potting training.

But this makes it all better:

Good thing it's nap time.... I could really use some shut-eye.

2011-01-28T14:02:00.000-06:00

I read this sweet thought in a book somewhere about mother's who stare intently at their children. The author said she believed every mother stares intently at her child, but that this particular mother had captured it all in her art. She had hundreds of drawings of her daughter as a baby; all of her little details.

I love that thought and so I tried to document the things about Leah that I love. Her soft rosy cheeks and wispy hair being two of those things.

Little children

2011-01-24T21:55:00.000-06:00

Sometimes my kids get along really well.

Before you think it's really cute that Ethan is kissing Leah's head in the top right picture, you should know that he's actually spitting on her. :)

For Posterity!

2011-01-23T13:35:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I'll just pretend like this embarrassing lapse in blogging didn't happen and carry on. :) I've got to go back and post still about Thanksgiving. Just so I have a record!

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun except that we took a bad stomach flu bug down with us. Not only were Ethan, Ross, and I throwing up all week, but we also passed it to my parents and brother. That wasn't very nice of us.

But we did get this funny family picture. My mom was nice enough to have Thanksgiving a day late, because we were feeling decent by then, and the second half of the crew didn't get sick until a day or two later. My favorite is Ethan's face.

Rolling rolling rolling

2010-11-30T13:33:00.007-06:00

So we are always on the lookout for new ways to play with Ethan's bucket o' cars. He LOVES them. But honestly I am SO sick of rolling them back and forth. We've tried a few different locations, including taking them outside on our front sidewalk and letting them roll down the slight hill. Too bad it's only 30 somethin' degrees outside now. I need to embrace this cute obsession with cars, right? It IS pretty cute.

I think in this picture he's saying,
"Mooooo-oooo-oooommmyy, play with me!":

FALLing

2010-11-17T08:30:00.004-06:00

Ross and I were eligible for free upgrades on our phone plans, so we got some fancy ones. I've really been enjoying the Polaroid camera.

Also the 3rd column over, 2nd row down is my favorite picture of Leah. She's so little in her knit hat and pea coat!

(FxCamera for Droid.) In case anyone wants to know. Also, you can click on to make it bigger, Mom. :)

Peek-a-boo

2010-11-09T14:56:00.000-06:00

Photo tip of the day: Kids love to play peek-a-boo. So that is a sure way to get them looking at you and smiling at the same time. Put them in front of a big window, shoot them from the side, or between them and the window (not straight into the window) and take pictures while you play.

Leah's Birthday (back in September)

2010-11-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

So in my head I had a vision of a golden September evening as the backdrop of my outdoor party for little Leah's first birthday. Instead it was muggy, dark, and stormy, so we moved it indoors. Apart from that, it went really well!

So Leah is SO different from Ethan. Some of the things that drive me crazy: She is into EVERYTHING. She climbs on all chairs, tables, desks. She is sneaky. She is a really picky eater. She doesn't sleep very well.

Some of the things I love: She is very very cuddly. She loves to be snuggled, and in the morning at 5:30 when she decides she doesn't want to sleep in her crib anymore, I love cuddling her in our bed until 7:30 when Ethan wakes up. She loves to laugh at her brother. She loves to 'read' books. She loves to dance. She cannot tolerate it if I'm dancing with Ethan and she's not in my arms.

She is very little. She's in the 5th percentile. Probably because she doesn't EAT anything! So people are amazed when she can walk as well as she does because they think she's like 9 months or something.

I need a nice flash. Sigh..

That time again

2010-11-01T14:41:00.003-05:00

Last time we were all in Manhattan we made the effort to get our 'Annual Hilltop Excursion' checked off my list. This year my dad was able to join us and do the clicking, instead of lugging our tripod and using our ridiculously long cable. He still allowed me to direct the whole thing. It's always super windy and bright when we go and I have to remind myself it's more about the tradition and our relationships than it is about how 'finished' we (I) look. This makes 4! trips up the little hill. (Except this year we didn't quite go all the way up.)

p.s. Last week I spoke in church about Family History, past and present. In my effort to keep up with my own family history I'm trying to be more consistent in posting pictures!

Embrace the Camera

2010-10-20T15:15:00.005-05:00

So I really love this idea that I found on this blog. Such a fun blog-- she's super cute and crafty, and a photographer, and her kids are really important to her and it shows.

Anyway, I have been thinking about this for a while now- my kids will have NO pictures with ME in them! Cause I'm the one who's usually behind the camera. But I think I will be trying this challenge out on a regular basis so as to fix this problem. The challenge is to take pictures of YOU with your kids. So that they will have them forever. And also I like looking at these pictures when I'm so frustrated and impatient with my kids, so I can remember that I still like them, and they're pretty cute sometimes.

This is the best I could do with Leah.
Maybe next time.

Thanks for the well wishes for my dad! We all appreciate it a lot. I'll try to update whenever there is new info to be shared.

What's been going on lately?

2010-10-19T09:23:00.002-05:00

So, I have waited to post about this until I knew how big a part of our lives it would be. My dad recently (and thankfully) went in for a routine check-up and found out that he has colon cancer. He had surgery a couple of weeks ago and they removed part of his colon, and they also determined that he will need chemotherapy for the next 6 months. Yuck.

While this is not the easiest for him or us, I feel really blessed to be a part of my family that deals with life's challenges one step at a time and with a sense of humor. Many emails of love and support have been sent, and at the same time emails full of good-natured jokes with my dad being the 'butt' of them. (Get it? Well, my dad will.) Oh, and he's also 'cracking' many of his own jokes too.

Anyway, this is not going to be fun; I feel really bad that my dad will feel crappy for the next few months, but overall we are feeling very positive and moving forward.

p.s. I have a TON of pictures just waiting to be posted, so I'll get on that soon.

It's a race!

2010-09-20T20:16:00.003-05:00

We live right across the street from the backside of a High School and its track. Ethan loves to 'run' on the track and we love the awesome Utah-esque grass that makes up the field. I still wouldn't suggest sitting in it too long though- the chiggers'll get ya!

The other day he found a chair. Sorry dad, it's overexposed:

I love this picture. Even though it is also overexposed.
I get so mad at myself when I don't do simple things
like double check settings. Oh well.

Photographing

2010-09-09T09:59:00.003-05:00

I've had fun doing a couple of little photo shoots for some friends recently!

My friends have cute kids.

Minneapolis

2010-09-01T09:41:00.010-05:00

So we had a REALLY great anniversary this year. My mom and brother came to stay with the kiddos while Ross and I drove up to Minneapolis. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that we planned the whole trip around IKEA. We need furniture! No, that is not the closest one, but we'd never been to Minneapolis before and decided to give it a try. It turns out there is a lot of fun stuff to do there! We were seriously impressed with all of the cool little shops, and of course the many lakes were very picturesque.

Our hotel was very nice, and it was only a 2 minute drive down the road from the Mall of America and IKEA.

And rotate 45 degrees:

The first night we decided to check out the mall. Yep, it's huge! It was just a mall, but it was pretty cool to experience it's massiveness. Also the indoor theme park was pretty cool too.

That first night we went out to eat, then went to Lake Harriet and walked around a bit and happened upon a free outdoor concert.

I found a sweet little bookstore online called The Wild Rumpus that looked fun. And it was. It was AMAZING. I don't have any pictures, but it was the coolest children's bookstore I've ever seen. After that we went to Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream. Delicious.
Mostly it was the ambiance that made the evening so amazing. Twinkle lights, a cool breeze, people mingling on the streets and along the path near Lake Harriet. We also found a fun Trolley Cart that took us up and down part of the lake.

And I saw my dream house.

And then we went to Inception. At 9:45! It was so crazy to be able to do whatever, whenever and not worry about naps and bedtime. Great movie by the way, except that we missed the first 5 minutes. Which I think were pretty pivotal to the whole movie. Oh well, we'll have to see it again.

The next day we went early to the Walker Art Center. Actually we went too early, and the inside wasn't open yet. Oops. But the outdoor sculpture garden was, so we enjoyed 'The Cherry and Spoon' and many other pieces of art, despite the rainy weather.

We then walked across the street where an art festival was going on, and then checked out this cool Basilica.

Apparently it was the first Basilica built in the U.S. It was pretty. And it reminded me of Europe. Then we went to this very fun fabric store, and a vintage shop that was right next door. And then. We had the most DELICIOUS burger ever. It's called a Jucy Lucy, and you can find it at Matt's Bar. This place is a dive. But it has won so many awards, including 'Best Burger' by the Travel Channel. They cook the cheese inside the meat and it comes to you hot and juicy and melty and oh so delicious. There was a line out the door, and we waited, and it was worth the wait. We were a little scared to take any pictures outside.

And last of all, was IKEA! So this couch. We found out at the beginning of our trip that the sectional that we wanted is not carried in stock. I probably should have found that out before we went, but I wasn't 100% sure I wanted it, and needed to sit on it before I could make the final decision. Well, after I decided I wanted it we found out they didn't have it. So we went throughout the store feeling really down and couldn't really enjoy it as much. But we decided to ask down in the loading area for sure if they didn't have it. The guy told us the same story, but to ask if the home shipping could do us a favor and discount the shipping. Well we went down there, and the guy said they have ONE in stock. ONE. And it's only because someone returned it. SWEET! So it took about 2 hours of waiting for them to find it and work it out and everything, but they had it! And we bought it.

Then Ross, the Master of Packing, was able to fit the entire sectional in/on our car.

And there you have it! It was a blast. THE END.

Surprised?

2010-08-18T21:31:00.001-05:00

Leah is always ready just in case something really delicious comes anywhere near her mouth.

P.s. Leah is walking! Well, it's more like, step step step, sink (or fall), crawl to her destination, stand up, step step step step step, sink, repeat. But she's getting more adventurous every day!

Summer daze

2010-08-16T20:12:00.011-05:00

Yikes it's been a month! My dad said my blog is getting moldy it's been so long since I posted.

Well we have been pretty busy having fun, playing with friends, taking some trips, etc. The last couple weeks though have been so hot I have not wanted to step out the door. We've gone a little stir-crazy as a result. But here are some pictures from a trip to the zoo a while ago. It was way hot that day, we went early in the morning but we were still melting by the time we were done. And the kids were pretty much in a daze the whole time. But we had fun!

Also here is Ethan loving our swing.

For the Grandmas

2010-07-15T22:29:00.001-05:00

Here is Ethan 'wancing' at a festival in downtown overland park. He is a pretty shy kid in any circumstance, but if there is music playing, hoo boy does he come out of his shell.

The couple standing next to me couldn't stop telling me how awesome his rhythm is. I don't think I see it, but they said they really knew what they were talking about. We might need to look into that in the future.

An exciting post about closets!

2010-07-13T09:34:00.003-05:00

I say that this is exciting sarcastically, but it really did bring me a lot of happiness. I was kind of stuck in my organizing and putting things away, but after Ross built all of these it was very fun to clean up and finish unpacking!

This closet is in our office/craft/guest room. My crafting stuff now looks very organized. Although the stuff IN the bins isn't so neat and tidy.

Ross built the shelves on the left side of the closet.
We still need to do something about the games on top.
Those will get messy very quickly.

The kids room:

Note the cubby holes on each side

Ross' closet. The rod used to go straight across,
now he can fit dress shirts and pants on top of each other:

Good job Ross! You're amazing.

Good times

2010-07-12T21:34:00.003-05:00

Man I've been feeling so lame about my picture taking skills! I can't seem to get up the motivation to take my camera out. And nothing seems to turn out the way I want either. Especially when we are seriously lacking in natural light. Uggh. I really should take pictures no matter what. If I'm a snob about only taking pictures when they are going to be awesome, then I won't be getting any! And something is always better than nothing. Especially with precious babies that are growing so quickly. Anyway, I'm talking about the good times here. Cause we have been having fun too, amid lots of crying and temper tantrums.

Making cookies on a Sunday morning:

Playing around our little pool: I love her lots.

Wrestling on the bed:

Tomorrow I will be blogging about our closets. So exciting!

Also, do any of you (who might read this blog) have children who prefer to sleep on the floor at night than to sleep in their beds? I have to put Ethan back in his bed at least 4 times before I go to bed, and even then when I go and get leah at 4:00am he's back on the floor. And he's completely asleep the whole time. He doesn't wake up when I move him. I don't know. What a weirdo!

Home

2010-06-27T18:46:00.006-05:00

We have lived in our new house for 2 whole weeks now! It's very exciting. We really love having our own place. I LOVE how the floors turned out. Ross did an excellent job. With some help from friends, he did all of the living room, the hallway and then hired someone to finish the kitchen. We hired someone to put in all new carpet in the bedrooms and family room. It is very soft and worthy of lots of play and wrestling on. Ethan loves to wrestle his daddy.

What else... I love having a garage to pull into. Love having a fenced yard to send Ethan out to... Love the big shady trees all over our yard. But that's also a bit of a con since it makes our house a little bit darker-- hard to get nice naturally lit pictures indoors.

Our happy little family in front of our new house. Ethan's holding a stick:

Lovely new floors and baseboards. Still no furniture yet in our living room. We have quite a bit of furniture to get ahold of to make our house complete. You can consider all of these photos after and before pictures. After paint and floors, before all decorating and other renovations. Ross will eventually be building slender shelves that will designate the front entry. (Next to the front door, and then next to the opening on the right. That opening leads to our family room.)

Our lonely dining room table that we bought on Craigslist. I'm thinking I might paint it a fun color. I'm not sure yet. And I'm collecting chairs to use for it as well. Sorry about the poor photo quality.

Here are the continued floors into the kitchen. The paint is also new as well. It looks lime green in the picture. It's not quite that intense in real life. We are planning on adding one counter and cabinet and painting them all white. As well as replacing the sink, oven (as cool as it is), and counter-tops.

Ross is building a kitchen nook around the window you see where the table is. A bench, and shelves or cabinet up the sides of the windows. One thing about this kitchen is there is NOT much storage at all. We have no idea where they kept their broom and mop.

Here is the kids room. I still need to put all art and everything up. I like the color though. Check out that floofy fan! Pretty awesome.

This closet is really huge. It's probably 3 1/2 ft deep and 6 1/2 ft long. But it's not really practical for two small children and all of their toys. This last weekend Ross started working on building lots of shelves in it, so I will be posting pictures in a couple of weeks of the finished organized closet.

I'm really happy. It's starting to feel like home. There is still a giant mess in the basement, where all of our unpacked and random stuff is. At least we have a place out of the way to put all of it.

Ross only has 5 more weeks of school for his Masters to go and he is done for GOOD!! He is gone Monday-Thursday until 9:00pm until then. So all the little projects are taking a while. I can not wait for him to be done with school! And to have dinner with him on a regular basis. That will force me to make a meal more often, instead of just grilled cheese.

Kids in stripes

2010-06-07T14:01:00.005-05:00

So I've been thinking that it's been a really long time since I've taken pictures of my kids! Shame. Shame on me!

I have to say that one of the most rewarding things about being a mother of two is seeing them love and interact with each other. The first time Ethan reached over and helped Leah get one of her toys just melted my heart. Ethan is always very concerned about Leah and where she is, and is very gracious at sharing his (precious) cars. Because Leah is definitely more mobile now, she is able to be involved with Ethan and likes to be where he is. She's a lot more aggressive than Ethan is. It kinda makes me laugh that she pushes and runs over Ethan more than Ethan does her. It has not been a piece of cake having kids this close together, but I'm so glad we did. It's getting easier every day and I know they will have a great friendship and relationship. (I'm sure with a lot of quarreling and whining in between.)

Oh, and FYI Leah will now eat baby food! She eats both store-bought and home-made and likes to take bites of what we're having. I really don't know what clicked, I tried every other day or so and all of a sudden she acted really excited when I got it out. Maybe she just got hungry enough!

Phase 2: Pulling my hair out because I'm so sick of painting

2010-06-01T11:33:00.003-05:00

We have gotten a heck of a lot done over the last few weeks; I need to document! All of the rooms are now painted. That one little sentence does not seem to do justice to all the work that went into accomplishing it. It was a LOT of painting. Also, what people don't tell you, is that it's not the removing the wallpaper that is the tricky part, it's preparing the wall afterward. There were two places in the house where wall paper had been put straight onto the drywall. When we removed it, little bits of the drywall came off and of course lots of glue was left behind. So Ross had to skim-coat the entire wall with joint compound and then sand it and then we had to prime it, and then we could paint. It makes for a long process.

We had help from family and friends, and now all that is left is the trim and the doors. Painting trim is pretty annoying, and now I've run out of steam, so I hope I can get it done before the carpet is in. Ross and his dad have also

- Put new locks and bolts in all 3 doors
- Cleaned out the gutters
- Removed ceramic tile from the entryway (took ALL day)
- Ripped up all of the old carpet
- Removed the old banister and baseboards and
- Started installing the wood (bamboo) floors

It's looking SO GOOD! I'm so excited to be there permanently. This living in both places business isn't too fun. We're *hoping* that we can move in this weekend, but that depends on whether Ross can get the floors installed and whether our order for carpet has come in.

Yay for new houses!!

The living room. Ross is stepping on the tarp that
goes on under the floors, not the wood:

Before, with "schmaltzy" banister:

After:
Before:
After:

Ethan's room. I painted it a sagey grey green:

Master Bath. Hasn't been touched.
We'll just leave that door closed:

Master Bedroom. All painted except the darn trim.
I did start on the window I guess:

Sorry this is boring! That's all we got going on right now.

Grandpa Honey

2010-05-27T14:15:00.003-05:00

My Grandpa passed away a couple of weeks ago, and I've been thinking a lot about him. The things that stick out most in my mind are these:

His love and talent for music. Both of my grandparents (come to think of it, on both sides) are very musically talented. They passed this on to their children, and my dad's love for music (as well as my mother's) was passed to me. It's always been very much a part of our family's life, and this is due in large part to my Grandpa Honey. (I didn't get the talent so much, just the love:))

His love for Geneology. He was quite on top of things and very internet savvy. I was always impressed by his no-fear attitude about technology that is somewhat atypical of his generation.

His sense of humor. Grandpa could always make me laugh. Even if it was at his cheesiness. Guess he passed that to my dad too! (Love you, dad!)

He helped my grandma raise 8 wonderful kids! Sheesh that's a lot of kids. All of their children are such great people, my grandparents taught them well.

I love and will miss Grandpa a lot. I am sure he is somewhere beautiful now.

Phase 1: Remove wallpaper

2010-05-17T13:37:00.006-05:00

We've been busy at work trying to get our house ready for us to move in. We have successfully removed all of the wall paper in the entire house. So we thought. I just saw a couple days ago that there is still one more border in the bathroom. Nooo!! It just keeps coming!!

It actually wasn't too bad. We had a little help from Ross' brother and family. But the kitchen was the worst. It came off in one inch little pieces. Ross did that one solo. He is such a hard worker!

Ross has now returned from over a week long trip to CA for some training. My mom came to stay with me for a couple of days while he was gone and we got a lot of painting done. My lovely sister-in-law watched the kids for a day while we went to town on those walls. Man, choosing paint colors is not easy. I thought it was, and I'm not a perfectionist, but now that it's MY house and I have to live with it for quite a while, it's important that I REALLY like it. And I do. I don't have pictures of the rooms painted yet.

Master bedroom: lovely purple with floral wallpaper

2nd bedroom: blue and green plaid with duck border

Hallway: vinyl stripey. (that one came of really easily)

Kitchen: removing old phone

Those names say Jennifer, 7-10-75, and Ashley 10-30-87

Always learning

2010-04-21T21:58:00.008-05:00

So I feel kinda sheepish admitting this to the internet, but after a lot of thought, talking to friends, reading your comments, and after even more deliberating, I decided it was not worth it to take his binky away during naptime. AAggh. I know. I took it away and then I gave it back. But we didn't do a huge ceremonial binky boycott, we just said 'bye bye'. (That makes it better... right?) And really, why was I feeling like it was so important that he gets rid of it? I think the pressure came mostly from myself. Anyway, he now uses it for naps, and not for bedtime, and we put it high on a shelf where he can't get to it. And now, I have such a pleasant happy boy who takes naps!! And I think the 5 day stint without his binky has left him more independent and not nearly so attached. So there you have it. Ah, motherhood.

Such a cute little girl:

Look!! A candid picture of ME! With my babe.
(Cause I threw my camera at Ross)

My kids at their best. When their mouths are occupied.

Look are her just sitting up so pretty!

ONE WEEK UNTIL WE CLOSE ON OUR HOUSE!! I can't wait. But Ross has finals the next week, then he has to go to 'training' in San Diego the next, so we won't be moving in until the endish of May. But we can go run around in the empty rooms!

OH! and no headway yet on the solid food. She has tried all of her baby food multiple times. Today we tried pears with blueberries and it was the best response I've gotten yet, only one gag, and it was after successfully swallowing at least 5 bites!

Oh and thanks everyone for your comments! They were much appreciated.

Mothering woes

2010-04-12T14:05:00.003-05:00

I've got a couple of questions. I'm writing right now with a little bit of desperation...

Parenting issue #1:

Ethan has had a binky for a long time. But when he turned a year or so it was only for nap time and bedtime. He's been fine with that, but he has now become very attached to it, and will go into his room, grab his binky and blanky, and lay down on his bed just so he can have his binky. He will also sneak around sucking on it at random times. On Thursday night we decided that we would tell him that binky's are for babies and big boys don't need them anymore, but that he can still sleep with his blanket and a favorite stuffed animal if he needed to. He didn't give us any problems. Friday nap time was a different story. We were out and about, so we didn't get back in time exactly for his nap, so we thought we just missed our window. He went to bed fine without it. Same story on Saturday. No nap, but went to bed fine. Sunday we have church at 11:30, missed his nap, then he screamed a lot Sunday night, but eventually fell asleep. Right now (Monday) it is nap time, and he is sitting in his room playing with his cars.

Do I have to sacrifice nap time in order to get rid of his binky??? Is it worth it? We are talking about a kid who has a regular 2-3 hour nap every single day. I KNOW he needs it, because he is a beast for the rest of the day without it. Maybe we can put him to bed at 6:30 or 7. Ugggh.

Parenting issue #2:

Leah doesn't like solid food! She doesn't like rice cereal, nor does she like other baby foods. I have tried bananas, peas, pears, applesauce. I've tried mashing up foods instead of the baby foods. She will NOT have it! This is totally the opposite of Ethan who loved everything and anything we gave him. I'm ready to drop a feeding or two of nursing, but because little Leah will not eat anything else I've got to nurse her. I'm not overly worried, just wondering if there's anything else I can try, or if I just have to keep at it, and eventually she'll give in.

If you have any advice, please share!

p.s. I really love my children most of the time. :)

Easter

2010-04-07T21:03:00.002-05:00

We had a fun Easter. Spent some time with Ross' parents in Lincoln and his brother's family. I rarely get a picture of Ethan looking at the camera anymore.

Cousin Matthew:

Hiding with his loot under the table:

And we have the most beautiful trees
in our apartment complex. I am positive that Heaven will be full
of cherry/pear trees in full blossom.

Only 3 more weeks until we close on the house!! We are lucky and the sellers are paying for a chimney lining and a radon mitigation. Also I can't sleep at night sometimes cause I keep thinking of everything I want to do to that house and how I want to decorate it.

Leah is getting really good at sitting up! I need to document it. But poor girly is sick again. Grrr... *hopefully* it's the last time this season.

Cute kiddos

2010-03-08T14:16:00.001-06:00

So we got Ethan this magna-doodle for Christmas and I cannot tell you how much he loves it. Best gift idea ever. No mess and hours of entertainment! So he has always loved balloons, and his favorite thing to ask me to draw is a balloon. The other day I found him sitting on the couch making his own 'boons'! It was so cute.

Also I made a headband for Leah, and I think she likes it. I always find so many cute things on etsy, but do not want to spend 15-30 dollars on a headband! I ended up combining a few ideas I saw online and made my own. It makes my little bald baby a wee bit more girly.

Ethan's alphabet

2010-03-04T12:46:00.003-06:00

Ethan has become really interested in letters in the last few weeks. I saw these flashcards at target for a dollar and I thought he would have fun looking at the pictures and letters. It turns out he really likes them, and between them, Sesame Street, and Wheel of Fortune he has learned all of his letters. Pretty cute!

House!

2010-03-02T13:57:00.004-06:00

Of course I would be a slacker right after I exclaim that I'm blogging so much. But we've been busy; we just bought a HOUSE! It is not the one I talked about in the last post, they took another offer. I was initially very disappointed, but I feel really good about this new one. We do not close until the end of April, and it has not yet been inspected, but it is in great shape, so unless something really bizarre happens I think it's ours!

It's a cute brick house, 3 bed, 2 bath and a big garage. It's pretty outdated, it needs new carpet and there is wallpaper in all the bedrooms, but it is immaculate. And it has a groovy green stove in the kitchen that is original to the house, but looks brand new. (We'll see how well it works) It also has a basement that is unfinished, but is very finishable and clean. And it has all new windows. It's really the perfect amount of work for us, because we did want a project, but we don't really have the time or the know-how to do a major renovation. Anyway, we're excited!

I will add more pictures later, and will hopefully be doing several BEFORE/AFTER posts in the next year.

Holy cow I'm blogging so much!

2010-02-10T14:33:00.003-06:00

Know why? Cause both my babies go to bed at 8:00! Hallelujah! And Leah is napping better during the day too. It has opened a whole new world. (Leah used to go to bed at 11:00). And now Ross is gone again Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday until 10:00pm. So I've got a lot more time on my hands.

So we've got some exciting news! Ross just got hired as an auditor for computer systems, working for the OIG. (Office of Inspector General). Turns out government jobs are pretty great! He gets to go to Washington, D.C. on occasion as well, and his first excursion is next week! And probably again a week after that! How lucky is that? For him anyway. Kinda stinks for me. So we're really excited to have a 'real' job. But the bummer is he is still going to school full time, which is why I don't see him at all during the first part of the week.

Also equally exciting: because Ross has a good job, and because we want to take advantage of the tax credit, we have been in the market for a house. And... we put in an offer on one we love! It is a 'short-sale', which means its on the road to forclosure, and it can take up to 45 days to hear what their response is. It kinda needs a lot of work, but it has great potential and lots of room. I've become far too attached already I know, especially cause I'm thinking the odds are about 50/50 that they'll accept our offer. I guess there is no opportunity to counter either, since the bank is in charge. I'm trying to remind myself that if they don't accept it, it is not the house for us.

In other news, Leah found her toes!

(p.s. I think baby legwarmers are super cute)

Man, she is such a cute little peanut. She has become such a content and happy little baby. Ethan on the other hand. He has come full swing into his tantrum-throwing toddlerhood. Holy cow. I have to prepare myself for at least one melt-down a day. Some are worse than others. I have found that if I give him a REALLY long time to prepare himself, like starting to tell him that it's time to go 20 minutes before we actually go, or saying it's time for bed soon when he still has 30 minutes before bedtime, that helps. Or tricking him into thinking something is his idea. That works too sometimes. He's been sick lately so his tantrums have multiplied in intensity and frequency. That is tough to take. It's hard to know what is normal behavior, and what is a result of mediocre parenting. Ah well. Still love him lots.

This guy

2010-02-09T21:05:00.000-06:00

So I've talked a lot about Sam here, cause he was serving a mission and all, but I don't want to neglect my youngest brother Will.

I don't think he wanted me to blog about him, but oh well! My dad already said some of this stuff in a family email, but I'll repeat it here. So he's a little smarty pants. He loves anything to do with electronics and computers. When Sprint announced their new phone 'Pre' (Sprint's answer to Apple's IPhone), Will immediately started learning about it, researching it, and eventually hosted a forum on the Pre. His reputation as the "Pre expert" grew and eventually reached the ears of O'reilly publishers, a CA company that puts out how-to manuals on stuff like how to code, understanding operating systems, etc- a sort of understanding geeky stuff for dummies. Anyway, O'reilly approached Will and asked him to be a technical reviewer for their new Sprint Pre manual. And, they'd pay him! So for a couple weeks, they would email him sections of the book, he'd review, make changes/comments and send them back. The finished manual was sent to them and my dad scanned a couple of pages:

Will is also currently working on a couple of app's for the phone, including a free game he programmed and designed called 'Countdown' and it's already had 14,000 downloads!

Sheesh! 15 yrs old too. Smarty pants, smarty pants. I can't believe he's old enough to be driving, and soon to be dating! Holy crap!

Also, he's a great uncle. Ethan loves him and I'm sure Leah will someday too. I miss living so close to my family. But I won't complain about a 2 hour drive. Some people have it much worse.

Deja vu?

2010-02-05T15:34:00.000-06:00

I'm hoping to do something like this with each of my kids and then hang up all the pictures next to each other. Leah is very smiley, but you would not know it looking at most of the photos I take. She gets so curious about the big black thing in front of my face it's hard to keep the smile there long enough to capture it. Such a sweet girl! And love those cheeks!

Here are Ethan's.

Family (minus the babe) pictures

2010-02-02T14:14:00.003-06:00

I really wanted to get a family picture one last time before Leah was born, and my dad happily obliged. He's so great! I had forgotten about these until I found the cd buried in my desk drawer. I love them so much! So here are a select few.

Poladroid Hilltop Excursion

2010-01-22T11:24:00.001-06:00

As in poladroid. Check it out, it's pretty cool.

Christmasy pictures

2010-01-19T14:49:00.001-06:00

Love this one:

The boys bought matching striped shirts for Christmas day:

Playing in the snow

2010-01-15T15:48:00.001-06:00

Oh right- Thanksgiving

2010-01-13T15:19:00.000-06:00

Leah was actually blessed after Thanksgiving, but we'll let that slide. Thanksgiving was spent at the Terry's this year and there was a lot of

Playing outside:

Playing in a box:

Playing with Leah:

And some attempts at group pictures:

Sunny days WILL come again...

2010-01-12T22:30:00.000-06:00

Christmas: Graham Cracker Houses

2010-01-11T15:28:00.000-06:00

It's a tradition in our family to make graham cracker houses every Christmas. Sam and my Dad compete for the most creative creation. This year we had Peter to add to the mix. It's funny to see how the personalities play out; my dad is very creative but has a short attention span (I have a short attention span minus the creativity), so he is usually the first to finish and go, then Sam is usually done next, then Will, and then Ross and my mom who are both meticulous and patient and finish off their details perfectly.

This was my workspace:

My dad's:

Sam's:

Can you tell what it is? A monster jumping out of the tinfoil!

And I'm lame and forgot to take pictures of everyone else's when they finished.

First things first: the good, the bad, and the ugly

2010-01-11T14:51:00.005-06:00

As happens over the holidays, I am quite behind in blogging. Not that I'm ever up to date. But I'm going to post some things I don't want to forget. Like Leah's blessing.

The good: Her blessing was beautifully given by her father, and many family members were able to participate. She wore the same hand-sewn (by my mother) dress that I wore for my blessing.

The bad: Unfortunately, she had a very sick brother who looked like this:

(the ugly. is that mean?)

you can see it better in this picture

And my mother-in-law stayed at our apartment with him. Thanks Rhonda!

We referred to him as two-face. We thought it was the chicken pox or something similar, but turned out not to be. The doctor's never could figure out what it was. It was so weird how it was only on one side of his face, and it never got anywhere else. He was completely miserable. Poor little guy. Glad he is over that one. Although his face is still kind of red and splotchy.

He's home!

2009-12-14T14:28:00.004-06:00

Yay Sam's home! It was a long time coming- made even longer by a midwestern snowstorm. Sam was scheduled to get here December the 8th at 8:30pm. He was delayed a couple of hours and we were told he would be in at 10:45. So we woke up sleeping babies and braved the storm and the 20 minute drive to the airport. We waited there for a while only to be told that his flight was five minutes away from Manhattan, but had to return to Dallas. We found out later that night that instead of returning to Dallas, his flight had been diverted to Springfield, MO, and was scheduled to arrive at 8:00 the next morning. 8:00 turned into 9:00 (we arrived at the airport then), which turned into 10:00, which turned into 'you'll be updated at 11:00,' which turned into canceled. We left the airport and awaited more information. Sam called from a fellow passenger's cell phone (he had been chatting up the entire airplane and made a few friends) a few hours later and told us he had been flown to Wichita and would now be bussed up to Manhattan. He arrived at 5:00pm. Ross had driven down separately through the storm to see him, but then had to leave early the next day without getting to. Lame!

But we're so glad he's here! He was a fantastic missionary; a great representative of the gospel. We have loved hearing his stories and seeing what a good person he is. Luckily for us he is staying at K-State for one semester, and then will most likely go to BYU after that.

Here we are for the first time at the airport:

And here's the second time:

My dad took all of these photos with his point and shoot. Thanks dad!

Leah Jane

2009-11-23T14:19:00.004-06:00

Can I tell you about this little girl? She's super sweet. But it's been a rough couple months! It started with a cold she caught from Ethan at about 4 weeks. She was pretty congested and was coughing and had a runny nose. She cried a lot. I took her in to the doctor after it seemed like she wasn't getting any better. Turns out her cold had turned into an ear infection. Because she was so little the doctor had to draw blood and make sure she didn't have any worse infection. Oh- and they couldn't get the first arm they tried to work, so they had to poke her twice! That was the WORST doctor's appointment I've ever been to!! She was screaming so loud and is just so little and helpless. Broke my heart. So she seemed a little better after that, but still cried for a couple of hours a day. After talking to some friends and to my doctor I wanted to try some acid reflux medicine. She didn't spit up a whole lot, but she was always so grumpy after eating, and when she did spit up, she spit up gallons! We tried the medicine and it seems to have made a big difference as well. And then to top it off I decided to go off of dairy completely. I had to do that with Ethan as well, but since she was sick and had other issues I didn't notice any improvement when I went a day without eating dairy before. Now it makes a big difference! I'm trying not to think about all the yummy desserts and meals I'm missing out on over the Holidays.

So, long story-- but now she's a whole new baby!! Just a bit of grumpiness at night before she goes to bed. But it's totally manageable. And now she's just so smiley and responsive! I love it! We're very happy to have her as part of our family.

Other tidbits: She does NOT take a pacifier or bottle. (Ethan loved both)
She still sticks out her tongue often.
She sleeps at least 6 hours in a row at night. Sing praises!
She does not spit up. (Ethan did a ton!)
She is loving to coo and suck on her hands.

I sure love this boy

2009-11-16T15:40:00.000-06:00

Halloween!

2009-11-10T10:00:00.000-06:00

So at first we thought it looked like he was in torture, then he figured out what it all meant: CANDY. He was lovin' the trunk or treat! We went to Olathe after and Ethan got to go trick-or-treating with his cousin. By the end of the night he had the routine down: he said 'trick o' treat', when asked what he preferred he said, 'gucker,' and then said 'dank you,' and 'ba bye.'

Next year we'll have to actually put some thought into a costume for him, since we've run out of donated ones now!

Oh, and I thought Ethan sharing his cars and 'mamimals' with
Leah was pretty cute too.