Wednesday, November 17, 2010

For Daddy

Tomorrow is Abby's birthday and she decided to show how grown up she is by taking her first steps this afternoon. She's been doing a lot of feet shuffling lately, but these are her actual first steps! Since Joe is out of town this week, I had to post this so that he can see. Not a great video, but I do only have two hands! She really is walking, I promise!

Oh, and just a note for future bragging rights...both of her brothers took their first steps around 14 months :-)

Friday, November 12, 2010

Sam's exciting (and a bit scary) news!

Today Sam was eating some apple with his lunch and ...
...he lost his first tooth! As I expected, he was a bit traumatized by it! It's been loose for weeks and we've talking about it lots so that he knew that it would come out soon, but still the shock of it took him a bit off guard. He was fine until he saw the "hole" in his mouth, he thought it looked very funny. But, he felt much better about it once I explained that a new tooth would grow in!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Please, don't judge me too harshly...

Joe is out of town this week, the kids were all in bed by 7:15 and this is how I now get to spend my evening...
...just me, an old chick flick, and a MOUNTAIN of laundry to fold. At least it's clean, right? Here goes!

Who needs toys?

This is one of Abby's favorite things to do while I'm busy in the kitchen...



Notice, also, the pan lid and wooden spoon behind her. Luckily, she hasn't quite figure out how to make TOO much noise with them yet. When she does figure that out, which probably won't be long, I'll have to find a new way to entertain her while I cook! But look at that smile, who can say no to that?!


Fall Leaves

We got outside this week to enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful fall days we've been having. We only have one little apple tree in our yard so there was just the right amount of leaves to play in! There's just something magical about a pile of fall leaves, I'm not quite sure what it is...but they sure had fun!




Saturday, October 23, 2010

Future Chef

The other night I told Andrew that we were having nachos for dinner. He thought for a minute (trying to remember if that was something he liked) then said, "Oh yah, I wike dat!" Then he went on to tell me how to make the nachos, in case I couldn't remember. Here are his instructions:

"You just take some cheese, cook it in da freezer, den you put some ketchup wit it and you have nachos!"

Mmmmm, sounds tasty! Who said you need chips for nachos? And ketchup goes with EVERYTHING, right?



While I'm thinking of it, Andrew has been on a roll lately, always making me laugh. Here's another funny Andrew story...

We were driving somewhere as a family and Sam started whining and complaining about something. Andrew looked and him and said sternly, "Sam you a big boy. Act wike a big boy!" It's always funny (and sometimes a little scary) to hear my own words that I repeat a thousand times a day, coming out of the mouth of a three year old.

He is quite a little character and keeps us on our toes!

Our Kindergartener

Sam started kindergarten this year and I'm just getting around to posting the pictures! But, here is a glimpse of his first day!


This is a "self portrait." It was his first homework assignment that was due on the first day. He was so excited about it! He even designed it to look like his favorite shirt that is yellow with a soccer ball on the front...but the stars and pom poms were an added bonus!

Sam and mommy outside his school. I still can't believe my baby is so grown up!


Here he is at his table, checking out his new classmates...

Joe left work so that he could be there for Sam's first day also.
Sam loves school and is doing so well. He has a great teacher and is making friends. I'm so proud of him and all that he is learning!

She may never forgive me!

...but there's nothing cuter than a baby in the bathtub! These pictures just had to be shared!



She loves her baths!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

We're exhausted...but we're HOME!!!

We just got back this afternoon from a trip to visit Joe's family in Virginia. It was a GREAT trip and we had tons of fun...but we are pooped! I'm going to work on getting pictures posted here soon (since I've taken off the last two months, thanks for the reminder Amanda :-) I figured this would be a good time to pick it up again!) but for now...I think this one sums up how we all feel tonight....
He couldn't even make it through his snack on the airplane without falling asleep! He was so tired!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Birthday Boy!!!

Today we celebrated Andrew's birthday...
he's THREE YEARS OLD!!!

It was a day full of presents, family, his favorite foods, and relatively few tantrums (he IS three afterall, that's about the best we can expect!)

Since Joe's parents live in VA we got on the webcam with them so that they could watch Andrew open the presents that they sent him. It was very fun!



The hardest part was that because of the time change, we had to do it just a little while before church started (that's when they'd be available) so we had to take Andrew away from his fun new toys right after he'd opened them. Cruel, I know. We only had time to get the tracks put together, and then we drug him away, literally!

These next pictures were taken later that night at my parent's house at his "party". My mom made pizza and I provided the cake and ice cream.

As he opened this space shuttle from my mom he said, "It's just what I always wanted!" He was so excited, it was very cute.Here's this year's masterpiece (A.K.A the birthday cake), a special request from the birthday boy, of course!
Of course, Joe had take him to the backyard and try out the new toys! Ela gave it a shot, too!

It was a very fun day and he seemed to enjoy all of the attention. He cried and cried at bedtime because he just didn't want to stop playing! Life is hard when you are three!

Here are a few fun facts about Andrew:
  • his favorite color is red and he likes to point out red things everywhere we go (cars, signs, flowers, strangers clothes in the grocery store...you get the idea!)
  • he LOVES Little Einsteins and would watch the same DVD over and over again all day if I let him!
  • he is a whiz at puzzles
  • he is very fiesty, he may be small but watch out if you get on his bad side!
  • his favorite foods are hot dogs, grapes, turkey sandwiches and bacon
  • he loves to help me do just about anything (cooking, cleaning, yardwork, you name it) as long as we can be doing it together
  • he is our little athlete, very agile and quick on his feet...he loves to tackle Sam, but Sam doesn't always think that it is such a fun game!
  • he is very affectionate and loves to snuggle with me still, lately he's been coming to snuggle with me each morning before I get up, and I can't say that I mind!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

The Great Outdoors

We went camping last weekend with my family and had a blast! It was a campground that we hadn't been to before and it was great! I don't have much time to write about it, but here are a bunch of pictures!



Waiting out the rain...Joe took the kids to the tent to play Uno!

They did their best to canoe down the river...
...but there was a lot of this in the shallow parts...
...and then they'd be off again!



Joe wanted to play volleyball so bad, so we made it happen! (It wasn't as dark as these pictures make it look...)

The creation of "Andrew Rock". Joe started making this rock sculpture and since it was the same size as Andrew, they put a face on it and gave it a name!


Abby and Grandpa, she loves a good fistful of hair to yank on!
(Side note: that sweatshirt is one that all three kids have worn and we have almost identical pics of all three on Grandpa's shoulders wearing it. I have to do a double take everytime I see this picture to tell if it's Andrew or Abby!)

"Don't even think about touching my chips!"


Even though we woke up to rain both mornings, it was great trip! There's just something magical about taking the kids camping, I'm glad we got to do it and I was glad to come home!