Happy Birthday Rowan!

Our little buddy boy had his first birthday yesterday. He's no longer a baby :(

Playing with birthday presents

His carousel birthday cake

Digging in, with a fork

Now he's really eating!

Ellie wants to try it with her hands too!

We went to a local hotel yesterday that has an indoor "waterpark." We had never been there before, but I had a coupon that I was saving for a special time. So, we packed up the kids after Rowan's morning nap and went to the "waterpark." After we bought the tickets, we walked into the pool area, and I saw that the children's area was closed. Which was ridiculous, because that was the entire reason we went! I couldn't believe that the girl at the front desk didn't even mention it to us, when she saw that we had two young kids. I walked back to the front desk, where the girl told me that the pool was drained that morning and might reopen later that day. So, we played in the big pool, which had a large slide that we could go down holding onto our kids. It was fun, but not worth the $26 we paid to swim there! So, we stayed for about an hour, and then I went to the front desk again and managed to get free passes for us to come again when the kiddie pool is open. Good thing, or I wouldn't have been a happy customer!

So, even after sharing cake with our neighbors, we have lots left. It's a really yummy (and extremely healthy, except for the frosting) carrot cake! Anyone who wants some, just fly right over!

Watch this!

Here he comes!

Tomorrow we leave for Arizona!

Yippee! Tomorrow we head to Arizona, to the sweltering heat. Ellie is very excited, and I'm sure Rowan would be if he knew :) We can't wait to see some of our family. I'll be sure to post pictures when we get back.

Here comes trouble!

Rowan has been crawling for quite a while now, and he is really speedy. But yikes, he is beginning the journey to walking! He walks quickly along the furniture, and now he's beginning to stand. I'm so glad he didn't follow in Ellie's footsteps (no pun intended) and walk before 10 months; I'd be happy if he waiting until he's over a year!

Our kids are crazy!

What does a 3-year-old buy?

So, Ellie received some birthday money this past week. Her first money was a $10 bill from Grandpa and Gigi. Ellie was so excited to have her own money! I asked her what she was going to buy with it, and here was our conversation:

Me: Wow Ellie, what are you going to buy?
Ellie: I think I'll buy some groceries.
Me: Well, you don't have to do that. Mommy and Daddy can buy our groceries. Maybe you could buy a toy? Some books?
Ellie: Actually, I want to buy some sugar for my birthday cake.
Me: It's okay Ellie, we already have sugar for that.
Ellie: Maybe I can buy some presents.
Me: That's a great idea! What kind of presents do you want?
Ellie: I can buy Christmas presents for Rowan!
Me: Aw Ellie, that's sweet

Finally I convinced her that she could spend the money on herself, so we went to the dollar store. After about an hour of browsing the aisles, putting things in the cart, and returning some things to the shelves, she finally had 10 items to buy (I paid the tax). Here is a list of what she purchased:

helium butterfly birthday balloon
bouquet of fake daisies
a snake book
a frog decoration for our garden plot
toy cars for Rowan
pad of paper
Mickey Mouse puzzle
bag of decorative rocks
chapstick
tinkerbell nightlight

Quite a collection! She was so proud to give the cashier the money herself. However, she will not be doing this with all of the money she received!

Whew, glad that's over...

It's amazing how many hours are spent planning and preparing for something that is over so quickly! Ellie's birthday party took a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I think it went better than I could have expected, with 9 kids between the ages of 10 months and 5 years old. The theme was "Ellie's Garden Party." We played a couple of games - "stick the bee on the flower" (like pin the tail on the donkey) and "find the critters," a hunt throughout the play area for little frogs, snakes, and caterpillars that Jason hid. They LOVED finding all of those. I had another craft planned involving gluing pieces of tissue paper, but it was just too windy and the kids were having fun just playing, so we skipped it.

The food (my favorite part!) was awesome. We had water and lemonade to drink, and the lemonade was in a watering can instead of a pitcher. Our lunch consisted of fresh fruit and veggies, tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa, and sandwiches cut into flowers and butterflies. But the best part was the cake! I made a chocolate cake, with chocolate butter frosting, and decorated it to look like a garden. I used a garden trowel to serve it, which was really cute, but it didn't really work very well :) I also made a cupcake caterpillar because I was afraid of running out of cake.

Here are some pictures:

Ugh, I spoke too soon!

All the signs were here. Green grass, sunny skies, children playing outside. We even contemplated transplanting all our indoor plants to our garden plot. Good thing we didn't! Yesterday, it began to rain, which has not been unusual for the past couple of weeks. It became unusual when it began to snow! Lots of it too, not just little random flakes. Hopefully it was just the "last hurrah" of winter, because we don't need any more snow!

It's birthday season in our house! Jason just celebrated his a couple days ago, he is first out of our family in our 2-month birthday season. I made him an ice cream cake (like a jelly roll but chocolate cake w/ice cream rolled up inside), and our neighbor watched our kids so we could go see a movie. Tomorrow we're having a birthday party for Ellie. This will be her first "real" party, with little friends and everything. The theme is "Ellie's Garden Party" so I really, really hope it's not too cold to be outside! The forecasted high is 62 degrees, so hopefully it won't be too chilly. I can't wait to see how her cake turns out; I'll be sure to put pictures up on here!

Hmm, is spring finally here?

After snowing one last time a week ago, I do believe that spring has arrived in Madison. Yippee! Yesterday was a really warm day, with a high of 73(!) but it's mainly been in the 50s. We're starting to work in our garden plot, which is a lot of hard work, because it had dead plants all over it. In order to plant, we have to get out all of the roots, so that means lots of digging. In fact, my wrist has been hurting since I last went out there two days ago. Too much spading! We can finally plant some things though, so that will be exciting. Right now we have some plants indoors that we started from seeds. Jason has an acorn squash plant that is HUGE and needs to get into the ground. Here is a picture of our highchair garden :)



The kids are great; Rowan is cruising on everything, but I think we're still far from walking. He can walk using a push-toy, but he doesn't have the balance yet to stand on his own. Thank goodness! Ellie is having lots of fun now that it's warm enough to play outside with the neighbor kids. I've also started watching two girls (different from last semester) in our house about 20 hours a week, so the kids are having fun with that. And, our neighbor kids come over every once in a while too. We've been busier, but it's mostly been fun :) Here are some pictures of the kids. I need to work harder on getting a good one of Ellie!

Rowan "helping" with his diaper laundry


A good belly-laugh


Ellie's beautiful outfit


They love each other!

Silly kids

I only have a minute (Rowan is sick again, yuck!), but here is a video I made of sneaking up on Ellie in the bathroom. She loves to make funny faces in the mirror!

Also, we went to the YMCA yesterday, and it was great! We put the kids in the childcare, and Jason and I shot some hoops in the gym. Oh, and the high temperature yesterday was about 43 degrees. It's amazing how quickly we have acclimated to this weather, because we didn't even wear jackets!

It's been a long time!

Well, things have begun to slow down again. My neighbor is out of the hospital and has healed super-quickly, so she no longer needs my help. Thank goodness! It was a lot of work; I do not know how moms do it when they work outside of the home! I was exhausted not being able to do laundry, pick up the house, clean the kitchen, go grocery shopping, except for after the kids went to bed. Not to mention having so many kids together at once. I am sincerely glad that we never had twins or triplets. Yikes!

The family is doing well. All of us have been sick lately except for Jason, but we're all healthy for the moment :) It's still snowy and cold here, but there haven't been extreme temperatures for the past week or two. It's a little depressing when temps in the 30's sounds warm!! Especially when those of you in Arizona call me to let me know it's 80 degrees out. Thanks so much.

Rowan is no longer the easy, always happy, you could leave him playing on the floor for hours, baby you all know and love. He is now a VERY mobile baby! He crawls, 50% of the time on his hands and feet instead of hands and knees. And I am no longer surprised to walk into a room and see him standing somewhere, where he was previously sitting. He also now has opinions about things and isn't afraid to let you know. We have finally seen his tears! For the longest time I wasn't sure if his tear ducts were working because I had never seen tears on his face. But he really has a sweet personality, with a smile for everyone. Oh, and he loves to show off his two new top teeth :)

Ellie has been quite a handful lately, in good ways and not so fun ways. We have been trying really hard to find ways to have her play with other kids, because she really needs that social stimulation. I'm looking into a part-time preschool for her next school year, but it is expensive! We really don't have ANY extra income right now, so we'll see what happens with that. She has an unending thirst for knowledge, which is awesome, except when she asks you a million questions at inconvenient times. We have always been seriously thinking about homeschooling our kids, mainly for the educational benefits, but now it seems we almost have to so Ellie can continue to advance at her own pace. I know socially, as a 2-year-old, she is nowhere near ready for kindergarden, but intellectually she is at that level. She can read basic books, like Hop on Pop; knows all her colors, shapes, numbers; can do some basic addition, count past 20; etc. Learning is just something she's always liked to do. I always feel I have to make a disclaimer to other moms though, that there are other areas that she may not be as good at, since it doesn't interest her as much. For instance, I don't think she can catch a ball. Or throw with aim. Those just aren't things that we have practiced with her.

Other exciting things:

- Jason received a grading position through school, so he will be making a little extra money grading papers for two classes. Yeah!

- We're applying for YMCA membership, hopefully with financial assistance. They have some really neat classes, especially for Ellie's age. Not to mention free childcare, so Jason and I can get a break and get some exercise!

- One of our neighbors and I are sharing a garden plot this year at our community garden. We've been eating A LOT more vegetables lately (thank you Deceptively Delicious, so it will be great to grow our own. I can't wait for the snow to thaw!

Ok, now some pictures.

We will not be leaving the house today!

Not a good weather day today. Right now it is -9, feels like -34 with the windchill. Yuck! This past Wednesday was the "Storm of the Decade" as all the news reports called it. We had up to 21 inches of snow in some places, almost beating a record set in the 90s. I'm not sure if this was national news or not, but over 2000 cars were stuck on an interstate for over 12 hours Wednesday afternoon/night! I still can't understand how or why it happened, but they COULD NOT MOVE for 12 hours. Something about semi-trucks not being able to make it up icy hills on the road. Can you imagine? Most people didn't have any food, ran out of gas (which meant no heat in snowy weather!), how did they go to the bathroom? I cannot imagine the people with small children sitting there for 12 hours with no food! Finally they sent out the national guard to pass out food and give people gas who needed it. Here is a link to an article: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/271390

Rowan is feeling much better, but he does still have a horrible cough. I wouldn't be surprised if that lasted for weeks; Ellie still has it. He also has a new skill, being able to push himself up to sitting from lying down. But still no crawling! He also has two top teeth to add to his two bottom ones. He likes to grind them together, which sounds terrible! Ellie is really enjoying us watching our neighbors kids, since she has the four year old boy to entertain her. Next week will begin the really busy time, since I'll be over at their house for 9 hours a day.

We had our very first date night since this summer! We swapped childcare with another neighbor couple who has 2 young boys (3 & 1), so we were able to go out to dinner. Ellie loves their mom and Rowan loves everyone, so they had a great time and so did we :) This week we'll be watching their boys.

Busy times

We're going to be busy this month! Our neighbor across the hall went into the hospital yesterday to have surgery done, and she'll be there for about a week. Guess who is watching her kids during the day? She also watches another baby boy, so I'll have 3 babies under the age of 1, a 2 year old and a 4 year old. Yikes! Luckily Jason will be home during most of the hours, so I can send Rowan or the two older kids over to him if it's ever too much. But I'll also be helping her out during her recovery, so we'll be doing this for the whole month of February.





The kids have been sick this past week, Ellie had a mild version first and passed it on to Rowan. He was sooooo sick! The first night I didn't sleep at all because I had to hold him up on my chest for him to breath while he slept. Even then he was coughing and gagging all night. The worst part was that he was barely keeping down any milk because I would feed him, sit him up, and then he would cough until he threw it all up. Luckily he is now a lot better, although he still has the cough. To top that off, he now has his first black eye! He was rolling around on the floor and bumped his face on the bottom of our tv. Doesn't he look like the most miserable baby?

And then beautiful Ellie (with a beautiful juice mustache)

"Drink"

Rowan learned another sign! The sign for "drink" is making a thumbs-up and putting the thumb to your mouth. Can you see his little thumb? Awwww, so cute!

Come on spring...

It has been ridiculously cold here lately. Like, highs of 5 degrees or less. Yesterday some schools were closed because the temperatures with wind chill were close to -20 degrees! Last Thursday it was -8 degrees when Ellie and I had to take the bus that morning. Luckily it's supposed to be more like 5 degrees this morning.

Jason is a week or so into classes, and liking them so far. He thinks that this semester will be easier than the last. Because of that, I was looking into a part-time job outside of the house that I could do in the mornings. I found the PERFECT job for me, but unfortunately they filled it before I was able to interview :( I'm being pretty picky about what job I take, so we'll see if I start working this semester or not.

Ellie goes through weeks where she picks the same movie to watch every day. Let's see if you can figure out what last week's movie was. She now enjoys drinking up all her milk, holding the cup up in the air, peering into it, and saying, "Oh bother. Empty again." If that didn't give it away, she also often asks for "just a smackeral" of something to eat.

Rowan has learned his first baby sign! I was floored when I saw him doing it, but I am not surprised at all by what sign it is, "milk." I put him on the floor one day to change his diaper before a nap, and he was not happy to be put down. His little fist went up in the air, slowly opening and closing, until I realized that he was trying to sign "milk!" I've been practicing that sign with him since he was 3 months old, but not expecting him to get it until more like 10 months old.

Ok, that was just a quick update, because the kids should wake up any minute now!

It's official...

Rowan is a big boy! He's in the 90th percentile for both weight and length: 21 1/2 lbs and 28 in. long. Everything went well at his check-up; he's perfectly healthy and on track with his development. And even though he received 4 shots and went without a nap, he was still charming everyone at the grocery store after his appointment :) He's not really interested in baby food, but he does enjoy eating food he can hold in his hand, like banana in a mesh feeder. Here's a picture of him "feeding" himself rice cereal.

Ooh, guess what I saw today as I was driving around Madison...Texas Roadhouse! Although, after looking at their website today, I'm not too surprised because they have hundreds of locations in 44 states. There's even one in Yuma! We'll be going soon (well, sometime this semester...maybe) to have some of their delicious rolls and a loaded baked sweet potato!

Back in chilly Wisconsin!

Well, I was so excited to be able to see parts of grass when we returned; I guess a lot of the snow melted while we were gone. I seriously thought we wouldn't see the ground until spring. Most importantly, our parking space was completely clear, and I expected that to be completely buried! Well, now it's covered again :( At least this time there wasn't a huge ice storm immediately following the snow, so we can shovel out our spot easily.

We had a lot of fun visiting family, but it's good to be back (especially after our loooong ordeal at the airport and an unexpected overnight stay in Vegas). If only we could bring our family with us! It's so nice for all of us to have our own rooms, 4 people all on different sleep schedules sharing one room is not fun! It's nice to get some sleep again. Rowan is sleeping through the night again, oh, and I forgot to mention on here, Ellie has been binkie-free for about a month now! Jason (and myself as well) is very glad that her teeth will be able to form unimpaired. She did pretty well getting rid of them, but we did have a few rough nights.

Rowan has his 6 month check-up on Tuesday, so I'll be sure to update after that with his stats. I unofficially weighed him in Iowa and he was 20 lbs, but we'll see what the official weight is. He still isn't real interested in eating food (at least baby food), but he's been willing to try the baby rice cereal the last couple of days. And, he's getting up on his hands and knees and rocking. Yikes, here comes crawling! He can get into anything already by rolling and scooting, but crawling will just make him that much faster.

My first niece!

I haven't had much internet access or time to update this blog, but I just have to announce that my new niece, Ashlyn Makylee, was born on New Years Eve. She's so beautiful! Congrats to Zane, Tara, and big brother Bryson!

Rowan's room

Okay, the second post of today. Rowan's room is the only room that is pretty much decorated, and here are the pictures!

His closet

His changing table morphed into a storage unit for all his cloth diaper stuff!
Flannel star sheets I bought for $1 off craigslist!
Set painted by Grandma Hoffman - Rowan will never forget his name, that's for sure!

Goodbye snow ...

Hello sun! This is what we are leaving behind as we visit Arizona:

Let it snow...

Ugh, it has snowed over a foot in the past week. The first snow was 1/2 foot and this city was not prepared! There were lots of issues with streets not being plowed quick enough, and many people downtown park on the side of the road, so the snow had no where to go after plowed! Not to mention we had an ice storm the same night of the snow, so all the snow is now stuck under a layer of ice. Yuck! I don't see this snow going away until spring. Right now it's 1 degree out. 1 DEGREE! The other day as Ellie and I left in the morning it was below zero. I have some snow pictures that I will try to put up later today or tomorrow. There is also snow predicted 3 times in the coming week. A gigantic thank you to my great friend Autumn who sent me her down jacket to use this winter! If it worked hiking the mountains of Nepal, it definitely works here. Welcome to winter! We can't wait to get to Arizona in a week and a half...

So, I made the brownies from Deceptively Delicious. In case you didn't know, these brownies have spinach and carrots in them. Yep, sounds disgusting. Tara was interested in these as well, so I bit the bullet and began steaming the vegetables. The first thing to mix together is the melted chocolate with the pureed spinach and carrots. As I held the bowl of steaming green spinach soup poised above the bowl of chocolate, I thought "What a waste of good chocolate." It was not a pretty sight! After mixing together all the ingredients (with whole-wheat flour and some flaxseed meal thrown in, these brownies are quite healthy!) I couldn't resist tasting the batter. Hmm, not too bad... The recipe warns not to eat the brownies warm, but to let them cool completely so the spinach has a chance to disappear. Well, of course I couldn't resist at least tasting them straight from the oven. Wow, still not bad! And after they cooled... let's just say Ellie did not resist gobbling her large brownie right up after dinner. I wouldn't say they are the best brownies I have ever had, but I definitely wouldn't think there were vegetables in them! If you like cakey brownies over fudgy (I prefer fudgy, but I'll take my chocolate either way), you'd definitely like them. And if I added frosting, there's no way you would be disappointed. Well, who wants me to bring brownies for their holiday dinner???

Deceptively Delicious

I just added this book, Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, to my Christmas list! I made the chicken nuggets, which weren't too bad, but tonight I made this recipe for mac and cheese and it was great! The only difference is I used whole-wheat pasta. We've been having trouble lately getting Ellie to eat her dinner and she gobbled this right up. She even asked for seconds! Little did she know it was laced with butternut squash... ha ha ha!!!

Home sweet home

We had a great time visiting family for Thanksgiving, but it's great to be home! Besides the fact that we have no food in the house...

The kids were GREAT on the drive up and back. We were most worried about Rowan since he doesn't fall asleep really well in the car, since he's used to sleeping on his stomach. But once I moved back and squished in between the two car seats, he was an angel. Ellie took a nap and watched a movie on the way home, so she was great too.

I just have to say, in complete honesty, Rowan did not cry at all while we were in Iowa! He fussed occasionally, when he was tired, but he never cried. Jason and I really lucked out with him! He now has two bottom teeth and can roll across the floor to get to anything he wants. And he's as smiley as ever.

Ellie was not so well-behaved. Partly because that's just how she is right now, but I think a big part of it was that she ate a lot of junky foods. So did I, but I think I controlled my temper a bit more :) My Dad and I went shopping early morning on Friday, and Ellie was NOT HAPPY to find me missing in the morning. The relatives were entertained though with her songs and stories. She told me a very fascinating story about how she was bit on her bootie at Grandma Knapp's house (a nursing home) by a bad man who was screaming (there really was a man screaming there). She also impressed them with her reading skills. She can read many 3 letter words by sounding them out. Now we just have to teach her the combinations (like th and sh) and tricky sounds (like the silent e).

Jason has only 3 weeks of class left, which means he's super-busy finishing up all his schoolwork. I'm amazed at how disciplined he can be, he starts his papers weeks, even months in advance! I always waited 'til the night before pretty much, but I never had to write over 100 pages in papers. I have only 3 weeks left of watching the two girls during the week. We won't be watching them next semester, mainly because the work is not really worth the extra money. Those girls are hard work! I feel a little bad because the older girl is Ellie's best friend, but we'll have to find a new friend for her. I'll still be taking Ellie to the boy's house on Thursdays, and Ellie loves going there.

It snowed over Thanksgiving, both in Madison and where we were. The snow is gone now, but I'm sure more is to follow soon. Ellie LOVED playing outside in it; we just have to get her some better gloves to play with. And I'm adding long underwear to my Christmas list!

Turkey time!

I know what I am thankful for this year. Food! It's so nice to be able to make yummy, healthy meals easily. In Jordan I had to hunt down ingredients and devise some way to cook them with only a stovetop that was always on high heat. Here is a menu of our tasty meals in the last week:

Parmesean-crusted Tilapia; Spinach salad with blue cheese, candied pecans, and craisins

Turkey burgers and sweet potato fries

Mini meatloaves and broccoli with cheese sauce

Whole-wheat couscous with beans, veggies, and salsa

Whole turkey with rolls and baked acorn squash


Most of these meals we wouldn't have been able to make last year. And we can't wait until the Thanksgiving meal! Too bad Rowan isn't quite ready for food, because his first tooth broke this morning and I'm sure he'd enjoy it!


Rowan gnawing on a teething biscuit:

And how mad he gets when he loses it (this is the only time he cries this hard!):

Flashback

These are from one year ago, November 2006. She was 1 1/2 years old. My how she has changed! One is a repeat, but I believe the first one is new to this blog.

Santa Claus is coming...

Yippee, time to start thinking of Christmas! We pretty much missed out last year, so this year will be fun. We're flying to Arizona Dec 19th through Jan 9th. 3 whole weeks! A bunch of people have asked us for Christmas lists, so here we go:

Rowan
- socks size 6-12 months, 12-18 months
- kleen kanteen sippy cup
- full-size sheets for his futon, any blue or brown colors
- these blankets: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5854569
- Little People sets, we currently have Baby Dino Land and a small zoo one. We'd love to have the nativity set (hard to find) and the Busy Home playset (or any others)
- he really doesn't need many clothes, shoes, or toys as we have lots of hand-me-downs except for long-sleeved tees (not snap at the crotch), any colors in size 18 months. Maybe size 18 month one-piece summer outfits? just leave on the tags in case he's in 3T by then :)

Ellie - some of these could be for Rowan too
- kleen kanteen cup
- size 3T dresses, dressy clothes
- size 9 and 10 shoes (size 10 for summer, 9 for winter)
- music cds, Laurie Berkner, kids songs
- tea set, not plastic if possible
- chapter books to read to her, like Boxcar children
- socks and undies (Undies 3T, socks for size 9 shoes)
- painting smock
- kids digital camera
- play laptop - some sort of educational one
- science toys?
- board games - cariboo, candy land

Jason
- game cube games, especially Zelda- Twilight Princess
- books- Ender's Game series #4-8
- wool socks (he wears size 10 1/2 shoe)
- long john's (to wear under jeans) He wears size 33x30 in pants
- thin waterproof gloves
(He needs all this warm stuff because he's determined to ride his bike to school if possible!)

Kirsten
- cloth napkins - forest green, white or cream
- clothing gift cards
- size 9 cute snowboots
- kleen kanteen cup
- subscriptions to magazines - Real Simple, Everyday Food
- a babysitter in Wisconsin???
- long underwear
- cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld

I'll keep this updated and add more as we think of them!

"I am a dinosaur"

We had a fun Halloween. For about 15 minutes :). Rowan started getting fussy, which makes sense since it was pretty cold and windy outside. Ellie was tired of trick-or-treating after about 20 minutes, so we hardly went to any houses. But she sure liked her candy after!

Oops, nap time over. So much for a long blog!

Rowan's 4 month check-up

He's in good health and growing well! He was 26 inches long and 17 lbs 11 oz. Everyone who saw him today commented on how much he smiles. He really is a happy baby. Ellie came to his appointment with me and the doctor let her play on his computer in the exam room. I warned him, but he thought it was safe since it was logged out. Somehow the computer started talking as she pushed buttons.

I took the kids to get pictures taken at JCPenneys. Boy was it a mistake to go by myself! Waiting alone with two kids is NOT FUN! But the pictures turned out adorable an in 10 days I'll be able to share the code with all of you to see them online :)

Look at what Rowan can do...

Watch out, here he comes!



We had some family visit us this weekend, which was a blast. Ellie had us all busting up with her songs and monologues. She is quite the character! But she does have some kind of cold now and quite cranky. She really didn't sleep much last night (which left me with about 3 hours of sleep. Yuck!).

A couple of weekends ago we went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze with the girls I watch and their parents. The babies rode in carriers on the moms while the two girls had a blast. We brought a pumpkin home and we'll carve it soon. If we set it out now, the raccoon will eat it! Here's a couple pictures of the girls:

Videos of Rowan

Ok, I have not written a blog in a long, long time, but I promise one is coming. To tide you over, here are some new videos of Rowan. Sorry, no Ellie :(

Look what I made!

These are to hang on the wall in Rowan's room, and they match his room theme. I painted them all by hand! I did look at someone else's painted letters online to get an idea of what patterns to use, but I drew and painted them all myself. Now I have the motivation to get his room put together :)

Rowan started sucking his thumb. We'll see if it sticks, because Ellie sucked her thumb for a couple of weeks, but then dropped it. However, Ellie used pacifiers and Rowan doesn't. So, we'll see. He is still sleeping well. He usually sleeps about a 10 hour stretch, eats, and then sleeps for a couple more hours. A couple nights ago he slept for 12 hours straight! I swear this boy is turning out to be just like Bryson (sleeps well, super-mellow, sucks his thumb). Maybe Tara's baby girl will be just like Ellie.

Ellie is so stinkin' smart. The things she says just amaze me. Yesterday she was saying "juice, juice" over and over. Then she came up to me and says "Juice starts with J." We work with her on what sounds letters make and how words are spelled, but we never told her that one, she figured it out on her own. She'll be reading before she's 3; I just know it! The thing is, learning is fun for her. Oh, she's also very tricky. This is a conversation we had recently:

Ellie: I'm going to have trail mix when we get home

Me: Ooh, that sounds yummy

Ellie: I will share with you mommy

Me: Thanks Ellie! Will you give me a white chocolate chip?

Ellie: I won't. But you can have a raisin!

Me: Gee, thanks Ellie.

Ellie: Mommy, I will give you TWO raisins!

She's so nice to share the healthy part and keep the yummy part to herself.

Video

I just watched this video on a friend's myspace page, and it made me get all teary! I wanted to share with all of you.

My 100th post!

First of all, I would like to make a public apology for not being good at keeping in touch with people. I'm horrible at emails and phone calls, and I don't even blog as often as I should. So, sorry to everyone!

Rowan had his 2 month check-up yesterday. It was a couple weeks late with us moving and getting new insurance. Oh, by the way, we get great insurance with Jason being a graduate "employee." It's only thirty-something dollars a month for all four of us, and just about everything is free! So, the doctor billed Rowan as perfectly healthy - 12 1/2 lbs, 24 1/2 inches long. He's just about average in weight and head circumference, but above average in length. I thought he was above average chunky, but I guess not! Although he does wear 6-9 month clothes now. He still sleeps a good part of the day, and can usually only stay awake for about 1 1/2 hours at a time. And a 8-10 hour stretch at night, a quick feeding, and then another 3 hours or so! Boy, if we could be guaranteed that future babies would be as happy as Rowan and sleep as well, we might have a couple more!

Now Ellie, well I guess you could say she is a two-year-old. She definitely has her defiant moments, and it's getting worse with the influence of her new playmate. The two-year-old that I watch has quite the attitude, and Ellie is starting to imitate. I'm hoping that it's just a phase, but for now we are working on "talking nicely" around the house. I'm sick of hearing "Stop it mommy, I don't want to do that!" But 80% of the time, she is as sweet as can be. "Oh, thank you Daddy for making me these cheerios!" And no more shyness around strangers! She is quite outgoing with all of our neighbors. Whenever anyone asks her what her name is, she never says "Ellie," she always says "Elizabeth." I have no idea why, because we never call her Elizabeth. But it works, because everyone understands Elizabeth, but hardly anyone understands when she says Ellie.

Jason has had 2 weeks of classes so far and he likes them. His at-school schedule is great, being at the university for only about 6 hours total, since one of his classes is on-line. So he is here about half of the time I watch the other girls, which is good because the 3-month-old girl is not too keen on being away from mommy! There is a great bike path he takes that goes from our apartments, along the lake, to the university. Jason also found a group on campus that meets on Saturdays to practice Arabic, and our apartment community center has basketball on Sundays.

We have attended the same church for the past two weeks, and so far we like it. We put both kids in the nursery (yes, even Rowan *sniff*) and they seem to like it. The first time we went, Ellie walked right into her classroom, turned around and said, "Mommy, you're coming right back, right?" and when I said yes, she happily went off to play. Amazing!

Oh goodness, I have to go to bed! Rowan stays up late and Ellie wakes up early, which is not a good combination for me. If Rowan was our only, I could sleep in until 9 or 10, but Ellie likes to wake up with the sun.

Craigslist - our new favorite store

Snowsuit for Rowan - $5

Snowsuit for Ellie $5

Down jacket for Jason - $20

TV and stand (attached) - $50


Bike for Jason - $20

Newer bagless vacuum - $15

Bumbo seat for Rowan - $20

We are never moving again!

I am so sorry to disappoint all of you who are waiting for us to come back to Arizona. After everything we've been through and all the money we've spent getting our stuff here, we are staying right here in this apartment forever! Yes, our stuff finally came yesterday. I'll spare you all the details, but in short we had to rent a truck and haul everything into our apartment ourselves. This wasn't completely the fault of the moving company, but partly due to construction on the streets near our house. It was either move it ourselves, or pay them $500 extra to do it. After being fed up with the money and time it was taking, we refused to pay them more.

This decision was almost a disaster. What were we thinking? How were Jason and I going to move all our stuff into our apartment, and watch our kids at the same time? It worked alright at first; Rowan was asleep and Ellie was watching a movie. But really, I'm not very strong. Jason and I moved 4 huge boxes together and by the fourth one, my arms were giving out already. But...nice neighbors to the rescue! One woman sent her husband to help us, at the perfect time because Rowan woke up. One neighbor offered to watch Ellie. In no time, there were 3 other guys helping Jason unload the truck. To top it all off, the original couple invited us to dinner at their place after the truck was empty! We had a great time with them; they have two girls, ages 2 and 1.

Our stuff is finally here!! We are so extremely excited. I finally was able to rock Rowan to sleep this morning instead of walking him. And, we have things to sit on!

Well, we probably will move again. But this time we are selling/giving away all our furniture and just buying more when we get to the new place. We'll probably buy it from craigslist :)

Rowan "talking"

Rowan "talking"

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I have a job!

Well, it didn't take long, and I found a great job for me. When school starts, I will be watching the 2 girls that I posted about before. Since they are close in age with our kids, I'm hoping that they will be great friends. Both of the girls are sweet, although the oldest has a little teenager attitude sometimes. It's so hard not to laugh!

The temperature is coming back up, even thought it's still rainy, so don't worry about our kids being cold. Hey, I can always put them in their snowsuits! The church we visited on Sunday was okay; the service was pretty dull, but the people were super nice. One man even offered us an extra microwave that he had, and he delivered it to our house yesterday! I wish their services were better, but we'll check out more churches.

I keep forgetting to tell Tara to make her jealous - I can get cheese curds (squeeky cheese) with my WIC checks!

No moving truck yet :(

Well, no stuff for us yet. It's uncomfortable to be sitting on the floor all the time, but at least we all have beds of some sort. We bought a toaster oven since we threw out our old one, so we at least have something to cook with. It's amazing what all you can cook in a toaster oven! We've made burgers, biscuits, bratwurst, and corn on the cob, just to name a few examples. Our poor kids though. The high today was 61 degrees and it was raining all day. It still is actually. And none of us have warm clothes. The only kind of warm clothes the kids have are their pajamas, so that's what they wore when we went to the bank today. I'm pretty sure I was the only person with a tank top on when I went to the grocery store. And of course our umbrella is packed in our stuff. Hopefully we'll get to Walmart soon to buy another one, because it's supposed to rain until Thursday or Friday.

I've discovered craigslist.com! For those of you who haven't, it is a website where you can find stuff for sale in your own city, so you can go pick it up instead of having it shipped to you. We're picking up 2 snowsuits tomorrow, one for each kid. And they are only $5 each! I also found a potential new job on the website. Monday we are meeting a family in need of childcare while the wife teaching at the university. It would be about 12 hours a week, and they have 2 girls who are almost exactly the same age as our kids. Apparently the almost 3-year-old girl is quite a chatterbox, so it will be fun to see her together with our own little chatterbox! They also have a 3-month-old daughter. They would come to our apartment, so if the two babies are both fussy at once, Jason will be here most of the time to take Rowan. It's practically the perfect job for me! Hopefully it works out.

I've found a church for us to check out tomorrow morning. If we don't like it, then Jason can pick the next one :)

Just a quick hello from Rowan

In our new home

Well, we've finally made it. Yesterday afternoon we received the keys to our new apartment. It is much nicer than we expected! All the appliances seem newer and there is lots of closet space. We have 1 1/2 bathrooms, and there is a play area in front of our apartment with swings, a sand box, and lots of grass. There seem to be quite a few kids living nearby, and a lot of them seem to be close to Ellie's age. Ellie keeps begging to play outside! The temperature isn't too bad, especially at night.

Our stuff from the moving company isn't here yet, but at least we have somewhere to stay. Grandma Hoffman lent us a blow-up bed and some silverware, so at least we can eat and sleep :) I'll update more as I have time!