Bones are for Toby!

On Thursday, I was having dinner with the kids, my parents, and my mother in law. We started talking about how poorly Ava eats and I made the comment that at least she won't break a bone because all of the calcium she gets from drinking so much milk. Ava thought about this and looked confused. Then she said, "Bones...bones are for Toby! I don't eat bones!"

Birthday Bonanza and other stuff too!

Tomorrow starts a month FULL of birthdays! We have 6 birthdays to celebrate. And half of the birthday's are BIG one's. Dan's sister is turning 30, my mom is turning 50, and Anderson is turning 1! Ava is in heaven though...she keeps talking about what kind of cake everyone is going to have. ;) Birthdays alone will keep us busy this month.



Anderson's latest interests and activities include:

1. learning to walk (he can go about 4 or 5 steps before crashing)
2. eating dog food
3. dumping the dog water bowl (sometimes multiple times a day b/c mommy forgets to put it up!)
4. throwing objects down the stairs
5. turning on the bathtub faucets in mom's bathroom and throwing things into the tub to get wet
6. eating
7. eating crayons and using them to color on walls and floors
8. eating (seriously...the kid is a bottomless pit)
9. cutting teeth ( he has 2 and working on a 3rd)
10. playing with anything that has wheels (he does sound effects too) or pretending that the toy has wheels even if it doesn't
11. tormenting Ava by stealing her cup and snacks, chewing on her doll's
heads and tearing up her "pictures"
12. closing doors (more often than not shutting himself in the room)

And Ava's been up to...

1. learning how to obey her parents!! and ask for forgiveness.
2. becoming completely independent in the bathroom
3. learning to take naps again (we've been successful for a week now!)
4. bullying her brother ( we seriously have the "you can't push/kick/hit your brother" talk 3 times a day)
5. recovering from a bad left ear infection (fever of 103+ for 3 days!)
6. learning to write her name. we've mastered the A but it still kind of looks like a H.
7. finally starting to wake up with a dry pull up!
8. eating a diet of only pancakes, crackers, and milk
9. playing pretend all the time
10. dancing like a ballerina
11. learning to ask for things instead of demanding
12. playing "princess" (she's sleeping "booty", Toby is Cinderella, and I'm the prince)

Riding the carousel at the Children's Museum

"Jesus is Lord!"

Last Sunday we, as usual, were in a rush to leave the house for church. I was carrying Anderson down the stairs and Dan was rounding up Ava to bring her down. Apparently, Ava was not listening very well so Dan told her that the Lord says you need to obey your parents or something like that. Once we are finally all downstairs, Dan went out to start the car and I was putting on everyone's coat. As I was helping Ava with her coat, she looked at me and so sincerely asked, "Mommy, who is the Lord?" It was so sweet and innocent that I had to laugh. I explained to her that Jesus is the Lord. We typically only use the name Jesus so using Lord really confused her. Now she so proudly announces every once in awhile that Jesus is the Lord!

Prayer for a friend

The 5 year old daughter of a girl I lived with in college had a heart transplant this morning. Please keep Adah in your prayers. She is doing well, but has a long road ahead.

I got my own computer!

For Valentine's day, Dan bought me my own laptop computer! What a great husband!

"My tummy is beautiful!"

Dan and I were in the office this afternoon talking/working while Anderson napped and Ava watched cartoons (or rather was supposed to be watching) in our bedroom. Ava walks in to the office and tells us, "my tummy is beautiful!" while holding up her shirt. There is nothing visible so I figure she is just being silly. As she comes closer, I start to smell something that smells like Dan's cologne. Her tummy is "beautiful" because she got into Dan's deodorant and rubbed it all over her stomach! She did smell good, but my 2 year old little girl smelled like a grown man!

I need my own computer!

It feels like it's been forever since I have had a chance to sit down and update my blog. The reason being is that I no longer have use of the computer during the day. Dan started a new position within his company last week and he now works from home! While it is is GREAT to have him home, we are still trying to adjust to a new routine. After being on your own for 2.5 years, you kind of get used to doing things a certain way. It's a good problem to have though! Speaking of Dan's job, it was announced today that he won the consulting excellence award! He deserves this so much and i can't even express how proud I am of him. The best part is that the reward for winning is a trip (usually to Cancun)! The company is not doing the trip this year b/c of the economic trouble right now, but when they take the next trip we'll be going!

Dan and I are finally taking the vacation we wanted to before we had kids this summer. We have booked our 12 day vacation to Hawaii in June! We are both really looking forward to that!

On the kid front, Ava got her first bad report from her teacher today. :( Apparently she had several meltdowns during her 3 hour school day. One was over the birthday cupcakes. There were pink and brown cupcakes to choose from but apparently Ava wanted white so she threw a fit. Some days are very challenging with her! I think some problems would be resolved if she would just take naps...

Anderson has his first tooth!! I was shocked b/c I really thought he would be like Ava and be at least 1. He is starting to stand by himself now so I think he is on target to walk around/by his birthday. It would be fine by me if he took off and walked tomorrow b/c he is wearing holes in the knees of his jeans! His growth has really slowed down. He is not much bigger now at 10 1/2 months than he was at 6 months. He has been wearing the same clothes for the last 4 months so they are really starting to show wear. Hopefully we can get them to last until spring.