School Shower

The teachers at Adam's school put on a little shower for the teachers who had babies in the last few months. I went and picked up the kids and brought them to school for some cake. Thanks for the gift and the cake, teachers!

One of the 8th grade teachers and a friend of ours.

I went back to work after the shower, but later that night we tried little missy in the Bumbo for the first time. She looks so big sitting up!

Happy Birthday, Collyns!

We were all excited to celebrate my niece, Collyn's 1st birthday. It's especially fun because there were 8 kids there age 5 and under (my 2 weren't excited about the picture and Avonlea didn't make it in). The kids loved their party hats and curly straws.

Avonlea with the Birthday girl

Cohen's hat and straw

 The various ways Avonlea wore her party hat: (Hey, with that many chins, it's hard to decide).

Love Grandma's lap..looking like a gnome!

Happy Birthday, sweet Collyns!

Collyn's loving her cupcake

Momma Chop

Well, I did what many moms of 3-month-olds do (according to my hairdresser) and that is...chopping off your hair. I had much shorter hair when the boys were babies and tend to have a 2-3 year cycle of growing out my hair long and then chopping it off. It was definitely time. Although lately I'd enjoys experimenting with a few "up-dos", I was generally sick of my long, scraggly, static-filled hair and the amount of time it took to wash, dry and curl or pin up every morning.

Here's my before picture:

And here's after having 8" cut off:

I'll be donating to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. I am enjoying the new cut (lots of layers, not a true reverse-bob so it will need less maintenance and blended in some long bangs with the broken-off hair I had framing my face--due to pregnancy and/or teasing my hair).

This cut has truly given me at least 15 minutes of time back every morning and I usually just need to dry with a round brush, run a straightening iron through a few pieces and tease a little up top. I'd like to experiment with curling it and pinning pieces back, but I keep reminding myself that I did this to gain some time back, so I try not to fuss with it too much.

I am super-happy with the cut...now if only those gray hairs wouldn't show up so well!

Avonlea's Baptism

We were blessed to have Adam's dad baptize Avonlea at our church on Sunday.  She was baptized with a boy named Wesley whose older sister, Madie, was baptized the same day as Cohen! Avonlea did great, even smiling up at Grandpa while he was talking to her about how Jesus loves her. It was really special and we are so grateful for those who were able to join us for the celebration of making a promise to God to raise her to know him.

Who would have guessed I bought her dress for $3.99 at a second hand store? It was a little small but I think it turned out cute!

I would argue that Avonlea is fairly photogenic:

Unlike the rest of our family:

Here are the best family shots we got on Adam's phone. I'm hoping his mom's camera fared a little better!

We had everyone over for lunch and cookies afterwards. 

I think my cookies tasted pretty good but my few dozen weren't too impressive when we had enjoyed cut-out frosted cookies after church from one lady who made 1000 cookies for our church to celebrate Valentine's Day! Wow!

It was a special day and we feel so honored that God chose us to raise our special girl. She is truly a gift!

Happy Valentine's!

 Valentine's Day seemed to be celebrated many times over for the kids this year. Ryan had his preschool party, of course, and they had another party at daycare. They all truly loved their cards from grandparents and cousins.  Adam and I celebrated with our traditional Chinese take-out and a card.

New heart sleeper from Grandpa and Grandma

Love this little sweetie!

Cohen: 2 years, 2 months

Maybe it's just in comparison to the baby in the house, but Cohen seems to have grown up so fast lately. He's transitioned to using  names like Mommy, Daddy, Gramma, Nika, Ryan (still RyRy sometimes), etc. instead of Mama, Dada, etc. He knows all of his colors and can sing the ABCs along with a few other songs. He shows more interest in coloring and drawing shapes and also has a new interest in puzzles.

There are some toys he plays with, like setting up blocks, farm animals, and railroad trains, but he's much more likely to want to run around, race, wrestle, shoot hoops, push his lawnmower or rolling noisy toy around or play Duck Duck Goose. 

Cohen has become the instigator of many of the incidents between him and Ryan and we can no longer assume he is the innocent party. He can be sweet and want to help with things like setting the table. He has long mastered using baby utensils and now uses a regular adult spoon to eat his "geen yogurt" or "pink yogurt" in the morning (He'll eat a whole container of Key Lime or Strawberry flavor and still ask for whatever anyone else is having.) He's usually pretty hungry in the morning because he can be picky on the main dish for supper, although we have no trouble getting him to eat his vegetables. He still uses a kid-size fork but has also moved on to drinking out of a cup instead of a sippy when at the table. We also put the highchair away and he can climb up into his own booster seat. It's nice that he is also able to sit on his knees and not require a highchair when we go places like church or other people's houses to eat. He's experimented going on the little potty with a few successes, but we're not pushing potty training yet.

Cohen is very curious, asking what you're doing or what something is for. We can also see some reasoning skills, like when Avonlea sat at the table with us, he told us "Ah-ben-wee not old enough to eat suppah."  My mom has been working with him on using "I" instead of "me" and if we catch him saying it wrong, we just say "How do you say that?" and he corrects himself. He likes to read books sitting on our laps in bed and likes to sing lullabies before going to sleep. He has a funny giggle that we love to see come out and if he is scowling at us, we can usually get him to smile to break it.  Once in a while he'll throw a tantrum about the strangest things, but I know we haven't entered full-blown terrible twos yet.  Right now we just enjoy seeing him discover new things, grow his vocabulary and show his hammy little personality!

Lincoln Children's Museum

We made a weekend trip to Gretna to visit Adam's brother, sister-in-law, and niece. Ryan had been counting down the days for at least 2 weeks and he really enjoyed getting to stay at their house. On Saturday morning, we made a half-hour drive to the Lincoln Children's Museum. Here are many pictures of the things we saw there, in case you have thoughts of bringing your own kids! I would say it was as good as the Children's Museum in Brookings (except this one didn't have outdoor areas) and there were enough different things that it seemed new and exciting. I would say age 1-7 is a good range. Any older than that and I'm not sure kids would be as into the imaginative play.  It was perfect for our 2 and 5 year old!

Air Traffic Controllers

Ryan told Kim "We're coming in for a crash landing!"

Checking out the controls on a plane.

Sitting in a life-size (real?) Cessna

Balls on a track

Bank vacuum tube sent scarves flying to Aunt Kim

Ryan and Mommy played a giant checkers game. He had no clue I was letting him jump me so we could move on to the next thing!

Sound Lab- this machine made different pitches the closer you brought your hand to the tuning spike

Husker Football field

Ryan decided he wanted to be the kicker.

Driving the fire truck.

Cohen the fireman in boots as tall as his legs!

Police Motorcycle

Cohen and Madie on the motorcycle

Truck Driver

Water feature where Cohen quickly leaned over that safety bar far enough to fall with both sleeves all the way in the water. Good thing I had an extra shirt for him!

Ambulance Crew

Grooming a dog, just like in Grandma's shop!

Cutting Pizza.

Prairie Dog Town. The kids can crawl in and out of tunnels and hidden ramps enough that you can lose sight of them for quite a while!

Ryan the Astronaut

Lunar Lander

Ryan on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

Avonlea looked like this much of the morning, snug in her stroller and then in the Ergo.

After we left, it wasn't long before Ryan followed suit!

We had a great visit with Andy, Kim and Madie and it was fun to get away for the weekend!