Micah's prayer

Here is Micah's new mealtime prayer. He learned it at preschool this year and says it almost every time we eat. It's pretty precious. We try to make him change up his prayer every now and then so he doesn't get into just a pattern of saying the same thing over and over as his prayer.

Garden?

OK, let the games begin. I'm taking bets on whether or not I will actually get any produce from the garden I just planted today. I have more of a brown thumb than a green one, but I really like the idea of having a garden. It's kind of a running joke that I'm really just planting it for the rabbits. The transplanted rhubarb from last year came back (yea!) and the transplanted raspberries from two years ago are doing alright. It's the rest of the veggies that are quite iffy. I planted zucchini squash, pumpkins, carrots, peas, tomatoes, cilantro, parsley and some sunflowers just for fun. I also planted onions around the edge of the garden. I read online (so it must be true) that rabbits don't like the smell of onions and so they won't cross over them to get to the other veggies. Any and all prayer is much appreciated!

Daddy's shoes

One of Ellie's favorite games is to try on EVERYONE'S shoes. Yesterday I cleaned up shoes about 4 times. Here are some pics of her in daddy's shoes. And a pic of AJ and Micah that I thought was cute!

Trip to Como Zoo

Praise the Lord for beautiful mornings at the zoo! Micah's preschool had a field trip to Como Zoo this week and AJ, Ellie, and I met the bus there and tagged along. It was such a nice, sunny morning and it was a fun time. Micah loved it all, from the bus ride (through the tunnel!) to all the animals and then the flowers and gardens. In hindsight we should have packed a picnic lunch and stayed longer, but we enjoyed the short time that we were there. Ellie rode along great in the stroller and didn't really get to see too many animals...we were moving too fast and there were too many kids in front of her! She didn't seem to mind. Micah told us that his favorite part was watching the monkeys. They are always quite entertaining. For AJ and I , the funniest part of the day was how Micah wouldn't leave one of his little friend's mom. She was an official chaperon for the trip, and he would not let go of her hand. She had her own son on one side and Micah on the other all morning. AJ kept asking him if he wanted to hang out with us, but he would just shake his head and stick with her. It was so funny! We were just glad that he was enjoying the time at the zoo. The kids were exhausted and took great naps when we got home. We plan to go back in July with our group from church.

Ellie at 18mths

Elliana has turned 18mths old and she is going on about 4! She is into everything and tries to do everything that big brother does. Her favorite new trick right now is climbing up into chairs. We often find her at the kitchen table drinking out of someone's glass or at the computer trying to type. Also, she loves the phone. The play phones don't quite cut it anymore and she is always after my cell phone or the cordless phone. We are going to end up paying for a phone call to China one of these days.
She recently got over a week long episode of being sick with some sort of nasty bug. It was a week of many baths and many loads of laundry. Fortunately she has recovered quite well.
Here are her stats from her 18mth doctor appt: Height 32.5in (75%) and weight 24lb 11oz (60%). She had only gained 4oz since her 1yr visit, but no one seemed concerned about it.
She's a bit of a picky eater, although she is a great snacker! She eats a lot of fruits, but no veggies. Her favorite foods are jelly sandwiches, pizza, hot dogs, yogurt, applesauce, Cheerios, goldfish, and granola bars. We keep trying new things and sometimes are surprised...the other day she downed 2 small pieces of peanut butter toast!
She is generally pretty happy, and still likes to snuggle with mom a lot. She loves to be outside and swinging is her favorite activity. She loves being in the stroller and going for walks and pushing her little scooter around. She could read all day and is continually bringing out books for us to read over and over again. She also likes to color and draw. She loves to take her shoes and socks off and then 10 minutes later ask us to put them back on.
She is a joy and we are loving every minute with her. We are starting to learn that girls definitely have a higher pitch to their scream when she starts to throw a mini-temper tantrum! She is also much more sensitive than her brother was and much more determined. Hopefully she will adjust well to the role of big sister in a few months. We love you, Ells!

Micah & Amara

One of Micah's best friend's is Amara. The two of them love to play together and are always up to something. Next year they will be in the same preschool classroom. We are already praying for whoever their teacher will be! They were in AWANA Cubbies together this past year and if Amara didn't make it to one of the meetings, then Micah said that there was no one else to play with (only 50+ other little kids there)! Here are a couple of pics of the two of them.

Leaky eyes

"My eyes are leaking." Said by Micah as he stood next to me while I cut onions.

Mmmm....butter

She is so fast and can get that butter out of the fridge before I even know what's happening. As with most things, she is very persistent about it!

Easter egg "hunt"

Micah has been looking forward to hunting for Easter eggs for a very long time (since, like, last Easter!). Once we hit March I let him take out our plastic eggs and Easter baskets and we have played endless games of hiding and finding Easter eggs all over the house. I'm not sure why this is so entertaining to him, but he LOVES it. On Saturday we went to church for the real Easter egg "hunt". I'm not sure how much of a "hunt" it was since the eggs were essentially just scattered all over everywhere. Nonetheless, he had a great time singing and watching the entertainment before the egg gathering. As you can tell from the pics, there were eggs everywhere. We got such a kick out of it because he could have just cleared out an area of eggs, but he would pick up one egg here, then another over there, then that one in the middle of the snow he had to go after. But, again, he had fun and we enjoyed watching him have fun.

"Pretty girl"

Yesterday I was taking Ellie's 16 month pictures and AJ starts talking to Ellie and asking her "Who's the pretty girl?". We both cracked up at her response and luckily she did it again for the camera. Pretty funny!

Ellie's new hair

So we tried this baby Rogaine and, man, is it powerful stuff. But now our baby has some hair! Check it out!

Ellie's new shoes

There were new shoes for Ellie in her Valentine's gift from Gram. Listen carefully and you can hear them squeak!

Visit to the doctor

Both kids were at the doctor today for well visits and were declared healthy. Micah is 41.5 inches tall (75%) and 37 lbs (50%). I told him before we went in that he didn't have to get any shots today, but I was mistaken. Poor guy had his hopes up then ended up getting a shot anyway. I think he shed more tears in anticipation of it then during/after the actual shot.

Ellie is 32 inches tall (90%) and 24 lbs 7 oz (80%). So she is pretty solid, but not off the charts like we expected. She has a tiny little head (the weight is all in that tummy and those thighs!) at 18 inches (45%). She had to get 4 shots today and loudly disagreed with the whole process.

We daily praise the Lord for healthy kids. What a blessing they are!

Micah turns four!

We can't even believe it, but Micah has turned four! He was very into his birthday this year and enjoyed every minute of it. He had a very busy birthday. His cousins had spent the night so when they all got up they shared a special treat of donut holes that AJ had picked up just for Micah's birthday. They played for awhile and then after dropping cousins and Ellie off at different friend's houses, Micah and I went to preschool. It was so much fun for me to share his day at school. I got to hang out with him and do different activities. At the end of preschool we shared a snack and Micah got to share with the class about his family and his birthday. Then we came home and hung out with dad for a bit before the big trip to Red Robin to have supper. Micah had been wanting to see "Red" (pictured above) for some time and it just happened that he shows up on Tuesday nights. Micah could hardly contain himself. The only downer of the day was the tummy ache after he ate too much of an ice cream sundae at Red Robin! Overall the day was great and Micah wore a smile and bubbled all day long.

Winter day fun

A few winter indoor activities to pass the time away...

Ellie at 14 months

Ellie turned 14 mths old on Christmas Eve day. It's hard to get her to leave the note with her age on it alone, so it is absent in these pics. She is not yet walking, although she's getting closer. She can cruise around things and will often walk while holding onto hands, and even sometimes stand on her own, but she's not ready to let go yet. To my surprise, I did recently find her about 3/4 of the way up our staircase. Just the night before she had only gotten to the 2nd step!

She has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on bottom. Still very little hair, although the back is filling out a bit. It seems to be quite light and thin at this point. She has gotten to be a bit of a picky eater and is not quite as willing to try new things as she once was. She still finds plenty to eat and especially likes the sweets. She drinks about 10-12 oz of whole milk a day, but she prefers to drink water. She is learning new words and animals sounds. Her favorite is to roar like a lion.

She is generally a very happy little girl. She also knows what she wants and is very vocal about it! She doesn't like to be told no, especially by daddy. It takes just a moment, then her eyes well up with tears and the lip quivers, and then the loud cry comes. It's kind of cute. Just kind of, though.

She loves to play with Micah and the two of them play back and forth in each others rooms very well. She loves to move things around and empty baskets of toys and fill them up again. She loves to put anything with a handle around her arm and drag it around and fill it with things, just like a purse. I hear that is an expensive habit for a girl to have!

Kids at Christmas

Here are a couple of pics of the kids at the "King Christmas". It was a fun time and we watched the snow fall ALL day long. Driving home was a bit precarious.

Micah got this great cowboy outfit (boots, vest, and hat) from Aunt Renee, Uncle Jeff, and cousin Justin. It is such a hoot on him!

Ellie had a busy day and here she is just laying in the middle of the floor taking a rest and taking everything in.

We got elfed

Check out this link.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1268866470


P.S. If Firefox is your default browser you will need to cut and paste this link into Internet Explorer.

Ellie's cast

Ellie has a new souvenir! It's a beautiful new purple cast on her right leg. What a lucky girl. I know that you are thinking, I wonder how she got to be so lucky? Well, it's all because she has a great mom...who happened to fall down the steps with her. This happened about 10 days ago. Of course she cried right away and I could tell her foot was a bit sore. After about 8-9 days it was still sore and she wouldn't put any weight on it. So I called the doctor who said to bring her in. After 2 rounds of x-rays (Ellie's least favorite part), the doctor discovered 2 fractures, one in her tibia and one in her fibula. Since it had been 10 days from the incident, the bones had already begun to heal. The wonders of being a baby and being so quick to heal. The pediatrician thought we should let it heal on its own, but after he called the pediatric orthopedist, a cast was suggested. So over to St. Paul we headed to have a cast put on. Luckily (see, again, she is lucky!), she only needed a short leg cast and not a full leg cast. All in all, it was a long day, but she really was a trooper. The only time of extended tears was during the x-rays. The cast hasn't slowed her down at all and she moves around just fine with it. If all goes as planned, it should come off in a couple of weeks. We are grateful as it could have been much worse!

Ellie's birthday

Ellie had a great birthday party on Saturday. She was in such a great mood, which was so wonderful for our somewhat finicky little girl. She let everyone hold her and play with her and was very content. I've posted just a couple of pics of her with her cake and a picture of her kissing one of her new dolls. She received several dollies and some toys and some cute new clothes. It was a fun time for all.