Summer Update

I thought that you all might enjoy seeing a couple of updated pictures of Lydia and Hannah. We went to Little Monkey Bizness earlier this morning with a couple of my sorority sisters and their little girls. Hannah and Lydia had a great time playing, and they were worn out by this afternoon.


As for our summer, we have certainly been busy. The girls have taken swimming lessons this summer - that has really been our only scheduled activity. Hannah is a fish in the pool. In fact, her lack of fear has me more nervous than anything. She loves to jump into the pool, whether there is someone there to catch her or not! And Lydia has definitely made progress this summer at the pool as well! She loves to blow bubbles and prefers to spend less and less time in the "baby pool."


We have also had the opportunity to make several trips to Wonderscope and Deanna Rose Farmstead, which are always favorites. And our new favorite activity is going to the library quite regularly. Lydia has grown tired of the books that we have here so it has been fun to pick out new books at the library each week.

We have also enjoyed nature this summer. We will be at my parents in Hiawatha this week to make homemade applesauce from three bushels of apples. I might be crazy by the end of it. The girls also enjoyed picking a few cherries from Grandma and Grandpa's cherry tree and picking blueberries from a local blueberry patch over the July 4th holiday weekend. And we just got a bucket full of sweet corn from my parents this week. We LOVE enjoying all of the fresh fruit and vegetables!

We hope that you have enjoyed your summer as well!

Birthday Bash Weekend

Wow - life has certainly been a whirlwind the last few days (or the last few months as well since I haven't updated our blog since December). Yikes!

But, I thought that I would share some pictures with you from our birthday bash weekend. Hard to believe that Hannah turned two and Brian added thirty years to her age at their birthday on Sunday, April 11th. Since we celebrated Brian's 30th birthday in Shawnee Mission Medical Center after I had Hannah, I thought that I would try to pull off a surprise party for him. And it was certainly a surprise!

We went to Jose Pepper's for dinner and then off to a fun night of bowling with some of our friends and family! Fun was certainly had by all, and we were glad that several people made the trip from Wichita to celebrate with Brian!


Can you tell they are brothers?
On Sunday morning, our nieces Parker and Brecken joined Lydia and Hannah for a fun trip to Deanna Rose Farmstead. We love that place! This was the first time that we had been to the "farm" this year and the first time that Parker and Brecken were able to join us. It was a beautiful morning and the farm was not yet packed with people. We were able to get some cute pictures of the cousins all together. All in all, a great start to Hannah's birthday celebration!


The birthday girl

The cousins (Parker, Lydia, Brecken, Hannah)
On Sunday afternoon, we headed to Garrett Park for Hannah's party. It was a lot of fun to watch the kiddos run around on the equipment and enjoy being outside. Hannah really enjoyed opening her presents - she has all of the dress-up clothes a girl could ever want now. :) All in all - a great weekend for celebrating birthdays!


Hannah modeling her new attire!

Any Guesses?

It has been confirmed - Hannah drives like her mother! :) Yes - Hannah took her Winnie the Pooh car for a drive down our basement stairs about four days before her second birthday.

The situation played out as follows. We were finishing up dinner, and I had just cleaned Hannah up. I let her out of her booster seat and was helping Lydia get cleaned up, cleaning dishes, and loading the dishwasher. All of a sudden, we heard a thump, thump, thump down the stairs. My first thought was that Hannah had simply fallen down the stairs. Leave it to my little daredevil to actually try to drive her car down the stairs. Obviously, it didn't turn out too well for her. But she only had a bruise on her leg to show for it. For being a daredevil, she is at least graceful!

Here is to the next year with my ornery two-year old!

He Gave (And She Gave)

We attended our Christmas Eve service at WFC tonight. It was a wonderful service, and the theme of the message was simply that He gave. God gave us His one and only son, Jesus, as the best gift that we can receive this Christmas season.

But the preschool kiddos also sang before the start of the service tonight. And Lydia gave quite a show as you can see from the attached video. I will warn you that it is a long video, but Lydia certainly gave the audience quite a few laughs. She definitely has a personality all her own and has no fear of being on stage or in front of people.

We hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas season! Enjoy!



NOTE: If the above video does not load well, please click on this link to view the video on YouTube. Thanks!

Christmas Quotables

Again, I apologize for my long delay in posting any new material on the blog. But I had a story that I thought that I should share.

Lydia went to spend two days with Grandpa John and Grandma Becky in Hiawatha. She left on Sunday, and we picked her up on Monday evening. On Sunday, she got to go to "big church" as she called it. She usually goes to her own class at our regular church, but at Grandma and Grandpa's church, she got to go into the church service with all of the adults.

During the church service, they have a children's message. I have been told that Lydia joined the other kiddos fairly willingly at the front of the church. When the pastor asked the children why the Advent candle for that day was pink, Lydia immediately spoke up and said "because my dress is pink."

This response did not surprise me at all - Lydia LOVES anything pink! But the pastor then explained the real reason why the candle was pink and even let Lydia help to light the pink candle.

Yesterday morning as I was helping Lydia get ready, she asked if I knew that she got to light the pink candle at big church in Hiawatha. I told her that I had heard that. I asked her why the candle was pink. I fully expected her to give me the same reason that she gave the pastor on Sunday.

But she surprised me by answering that the candle was pink because it meant joy (which is correct). I asked her why the candle meant joy and her precious 3-year old response was, "Because Santa has joy when he brings me presents from Baby Jesus."

I love that little girl, and how her mind tries to work everything out!

Happy Halloween

 
Ghouls
 
Just Want To
 
Have Fun

Happy Halloween 2009! I thought that I would share a couple of pictures of the girls in their Halloween costumes. We have had a fun week celebrating. Lydia had a small Halloween party at her Children's Day Out program on Tuesday, and we got to sing all sorts of fun Halloween-themed songs at our Kindermusik class on Thursday morning. Then, we all dressed up (Brian and I included) to go to a costume party last night. And tonight, we rounded out the celebrating with a little bit of "trick or treating." It was pretty funny to listen to Lydia go up to each door and proudly announce "Twick or Tweat." I mean really - how can you ever turn down candy to a beautiful little Cinderella princess? Hannah got the most enjoyment from seeing if she could literally eat the candy and the wrapper all at the same time! She was not too pleased that we made her wait until we got back to the house to enjoy a few pieces of candy before bed.

I can't believe that tomorrow will be November already. This fall seems to be going by so fast - perhaps because it hasn't really felt like fall here! Maybe it won't really feel like winter either - well, I can always hope! Also, you might notice the guards that Lydia has on her thumbs in the first picture. Those are actually Thumb Guards that are designed to help her stop sucking her thumb. She has to wear them 24/7 for four weeks. We put them on for the first time on Monday afternoon and so far, so good. Let's hope her habit is officially broken by Thanksgiving. We will certainly be giving thanks that day if that is the case!

Pumpkin Fever

Since yesterday was such a beautiful day (but very windy), we decided to take advantage of the nice weather before it is gone again. After church, we went to grab donuts and then headed to the pumpkin patch for our annual search for the perfect pumpkin. We have gone to different pumpkin patches each of the last three years. Brian and I were actually commenting this year that neither of us had gone to pumpkin patches when we were kids - do you think this is a new trend?

Anyway, we tried out a pumpkin patch near Lawrence called Schaake's Pumpkin Patch . The best part is that admission was free and the hayride out to the pumpkin patches was free as well. So, we hitched a ride on the first hayride that we found and went to find our perfect pumpkins. We have learned from past years that having to carry around huge pumpkins for the rest of the time at the pumpkin patch is not our idea of a great time so we told each of the girls that they could pick out a pumpkin that they could carry - that theory actually worked out pretty well!

As you can tell from the pictures, I think we actually had more fun playing with the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch than we did actually picking the ones we brought home. Lydia also got to try out the pumpkin slingshot, we all attempted the hay bale maze, and the girls ended our trip with getting candy corn painted on their faces. All in all a great fall day!

 

Do you think I can carry this one? At least it has a handle!

 

Hannah - do you think this one is still alive? I don't hear a heartbeat!

 

This one is just my size!

 

A photo with Daddy with three of the four pumpkins that we came home with!