A Rare Moment

When I started this post, I was taking a rare moment in which I was the one relaxing in front of a football game and Will and Anders were upstairs doing something. It was nice while it lasted, except that I feel like crap. I may have a cold and allergies at the same time - all I know is that I cannot stop sneezing and it is making my nose red and my head hurt.

We had a whirl wind weekend with family in town for Will's cousin Sarah's wedding. It was a very nice wedding, Sarah looked gorgeous in her dress. Congratulations to Sarah and Josh! Here are some pictures from the reception, where the kids tore up the dance floor.

This might be my favorite picture from the night. The couple's first dance and what is that in the background? Oh Clara! So cute!

Check out Henry's fancy moves.

Anders also had lots of fancy moves including some kicks...

Some fancy walking...

Dancing a with a cork, while Clara rests a little or maybe that is one of her moves.

And he also included some jumping in his repertoire. It was a fun reception, Pete was a great DJ, and the kids crashed when we got home.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend up at the lake. We had lots of work to do and Anders pitched in.

We had lots of timbers from the timber framing classes taken in the last two summers that needed stacking. If you enlarge the picture you might notice the gloves he has on - we bought some kid-sized work gloves after the trip was over.

We also took some time to go out in the canoe, or 'noo as Anders calls it. He loved it, which was a relief because his first time in a canoe last year consisted of a lot of yelling and crying.

He went "up, up high" many times on his own, which was alarming. Being up high and pointing out other things that are up high is favorite thing for him.

This was so cute. Will and I were working hard to stack wood the last day before we left and we looked up and he was bringing us this 2x4.

Couldn't resist the typical spaghetti face picture.

Oh and one final thing - I have a piece of scrap paper batting around there that says, "honey, no stop it" which is what he said to me when I was washing off his face one day.

Ok, free time is over, Anders just peed on the rug. Dang it!

I Two Now

Anders is two now. Crazy. I took him to his two year appointment today and the doctor was pleased with how much he is talking, the fact that he has been wearing underwear for 4 weeks now (do I dare say he is potty trained?) and with his health. He jumped up to the 5th percentile with a weight of 23 pounds 8 oz and is in the 25th percentile at 33.5 inches. He used to not even be on the charts for weight, so we will take the 5th percentile. While we were at the appointment, he showed the doctor his climbing skills by scaling the exam table. Typical Anders - he also climbs fences, out of his crib, opens the back door now, etc. He keeps us on our toes for sure. So, here are way too many pictures from his birthday celebration (way too many in that it took Blogger two days to load all of these, so if you get worn out looking at the pictures, it seems to be for good reason).

We started the birthday celebrations a few days early with a visit from Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill. Here is Anders helping them put together the easel that Grandpa Bill made for him. It is very cool. Anders likes to fix things and figure out how things work, I won't be surprised to come home to this taken apart some day.

Beautiful artwork by Anders. And no, we did not get a puppy - that is Tighe and he belongs to Josie. Or maybe Bill and Kathie.

Fast forward to the weekend. We drove down Thursday night and spent Friday hanging out at Aunt Carrie, Uncle Rob and Eleanor's house. Anders requested waffles for breakfast (eata faffle) for his birthday so Rob was kind enough to make them for all of on Saturday. Oh and the best part of the weekend was that Anders absolutely refused to sleep in the pack and play - he insisted on sleeping in the "biga bed". It was real fun - we had to give in and let him fall asleep and nap in the bed we were sleeping in and then transfer him to the pack and play. What a nightmare, but thankfully, he was happy to sleep in his crib (with the side down of course to make climbing out easier) when we got home.

After breakfast we gave what may be his most important gift - a new Hawkeye jersey and a another Iowa t-shirt.

Eleanor and Anders on game day/birthday day with their coordinating Ricky Stanzi jerseys.

Before the game we had time to go to the park near Rob and Carrie's for a bit. Anders got some climbing out of his system.

Baby Dee (or is it D) even got in on the action.

Pete ran the general store, while Clara shopped.

After the game, which Iowa won, Anders got his hand in the cake - despite the fact that his Aunt Sarah and I were right there.

This is the cake that his Aunt Sarah made. The tire wasn't messed up when she brought the cake in the house, it still tasted great. We had another cake at the party too - a lovely green and purple angel food cake that Grammie made. I don't think she chose the frosting colors, though, I'm pretty sure Henry had something to do with that. Anyway, I didn't get a picture of it - bummer.

Ok, more park time - this is the birthday party - the picnic shelter we were at was right next to a play ground. Here are Henry and Zach flying and maybe checking out a real airplane, while Drew and Anders rush to a fire.

The park also has some amusement park rides, including this train - or choo-choo train as Anders calls them these days.

The birthday boy.

This is a music-less carousel. The kids loved it, but it was kind of strange to have no music.

Clara seemed to enjoy the elephant.

Drew and Anders teamed up again for some flying.

I love this action shop of Henry.

Eleanor and Rhiannon were very nicely color coordinated with their plane.

It was very late when we finally got a family picture taken. Unfortunately, this was one of the best shots.

The next morning we met everyone in Amana for breakfast. Anders enjoyed the food - especially this piece of toast.

Then we tried for a family photo - I think this one is pretty good considering all the people in it. After that, we left town to spend some time with Aunt Sarah, Uncle Mike and Zach and Drew at their house.

I love this shot of the 3 boys gathered around whatever Anders is looking at.

Anders got a new umbrella from Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Dick. He immediately headed outside with it, so Zach got out his umbrella to join in the fun.

For some reason, Anders decided he could go down this slide sitting down. All other slide rides were taken on his belly, feet first. We ended the day with some more amusement park rides and fire works, which thankfully Anders enjoyed. Then headed home on Monday. It was a fun weekend.

July 4, 2010

We had a lazy, quiet (not counting all the fireworks in our neighborhood) holiday weekend at home. Anders did some biking, with his messenger bag - something he has recently gotten excited about. He and I also went running every day - we did a total of 12 miles, the most I've run in a long time - today a very fit guy caught and passed us and said, "you rock, it took me 7:08 to pass you." I was working quite hard and feeling miserable, but appreciated the compliment.

We got Anders a swimming pool and he spent all weekend in it. It was a nice way to cool off.

More bike riding in the house, notice this bike needs keys to get it started up. Oh and also notice the big boy underwear. We did a lot of potty training this weekend. The most exciting day was the 4th when Anders took off his underwear, for what I thought was a little naked time and wandered off, only to come back to me a few minutes later saying "I poop." When I asked him to show me, it turned out he had peed and pooped in the little toilet! It was crazy. He used the toilet a couple more times that day and proceeded to pee on the floor about 4 times today. Oh well, I think we are making progress - at least he recognized that he was peeing on the floor today.

More pool time - an improvised boat. Actually, that served as his pool last summer.

One of his favorite things to do this weekend was move the water from one place to another.

It was especially exciting to pour water into these boxes and watch the water run out and across the patio.

Gotta make sure you get all the water out.

Oh, we also enjoyed some soccer and the Tour de France, which Anders got really excited about, given his love of bikes, and I finished a knitting project. It took me 3 starts to get this bag right. The pattern is all messed up and my mom had to run to the yarn store in her neighborhood to get me more yarn (thanks Mom), but I finally finished it. I even was able to felt it our front loader, though I didn't couldn't (or didn't) felt it so much that the rows don't show. It seemed like the flap was shrinking faster than the rest of it and the strap is shorter than I was hoping for. Not sure what I will do with it and quite frankly, I don't remember what the sample in the store looked like that inspired me in the first place. Anyway, some before and after pictures are below.

I hope everyone else has a relaxing weekend and escaped the heat somewhat!

The Busy Days of Summer

Father's Day weekend came and went very quickly, just like the rest of the month of June did. We spent the weekend at home, having a quiet weekend in between weekends spent with visits from family. The thing I remember most about that weekend is that Anders really started putting two words together and one of his "sentences" was "Will Outside!" as Will came inside and left Anders outside. It was definitely a command to come back outside and came out as "Wo ousi!" It was funny. He now strings 3 or 4 words together.

While outside, Anders did some work on his bike.

Later in the week, he discovered the flour shaker.

This past weekend was a big weekend with a bridal shower for Will's cousin Sarah (I didn't have the camera), a birthday party for Eleanor who is now 3, and lots of family over.

Uncle Rob provided entertainment and probably hurt his back a bit.

We had pizza and cake to celebrate Eleanor's 3rd birthday. It was tasty and fun.

Anders tried to excavate the patio during the party - he knows I want a deck.

Finally, on Sunday we got a few pictures of the 4 cousins together. It took some doing and I could post a lot of pictures taken before Carrie got this perfect shot. Too bad I washed the rags that Will and I had to use to mop up the huge amount of water deposited in our house during the Friday night deluge. Guess we should have checked the weather before going to dinner and leaving the window open that night.

Anyway, it was a whirlwind weekend, but lots of fun. A taste of what is to come in September when everyone comes for Sarah and Josh's wedding!