Family Photos

Last night we headed over to a local park for our mini photo session with Nicole Welch. She is a member of our moms group and was nice enough to agree to take photos for our group. I was REALLY hoping for at least one shot of the kids together and both smiling! These were better than I had imagined! THANKS!!!





oh and these are just the sneak peek I nabbed from her blog. Can't wait to see the rest!

Hopscotch

9 Months

It took nine long months to cook this little booger and as of today he has been causing me sleepless nights for nine months! Oh how we love him though. So what has he been up to??

- for the last month he was doing a cool army drag type crawl. It wasn't pretty but it was functional. Yesterday he figured out how to do it the "normal" way.
- known around the house as "Fuzzhead" and "Booboo"
- adores being outdoors, riding in the Ergo, funny voices & the bathtub.
- eats almost anything. Loves bananas, beans, melon, cheese & any type of cracker. Not so fond of broccoli or yogurt.

And here he is today. Eating dirt.

My how she's Grown!

Since I'm posting Tulip Time photos. How 'bout one of Leah on each of her three trips to Tulip Time?!

Tulip Time '09

This past weekend was what has become my annual trek back to my hometown of Pella, IA for the annual Tulip Time Festival. It's quite the celebration of Dutch heritage (I'm half Dutch!) and a great opportunity to stuff your guts with great treats, watch some fun parades and have a generally good time!

Being a good mom, I made sure Leah had her fill of vet bollen, poffterjies, stroepwaffels, ice cream, cotton candy and other good stuff. I had a tasty Dutch Spiced Beef Sandwich and Paul enjoyed Pella Bologna with Gouda. I guess it was only fair that I let Leah fill her belly with junk since I insisted on dressing her and Jonah is Dutch costumes for photos!

I think we had a good time. It was great to spend time with family and catch up with some old friends who were in town too!

Leah the Explorer

Last week Tuesday Leah was sick. Poor girl lost her breakfast just as I was ready to haul her out the door to school. I quickly cleaned her up and she said "can we go to school now?" NOPE! I threw my plans for the day out the window and did my best to keep my girl entertained. Our morning project was to make a "treasure box". She covered a plastic grapes container with tissue paper squares, foam letters, stickers & ribbon. I told her she could put her treasure it in. She declared that she didn't have any treasure and needed a map to find it. Someone has been watching too much Dora the Explorer!! So guess what I had to do during nap time?? Manufacture a map and a treasure! I'm glad she can decipher my drawings and that stickers suffice as treasure.




We did some outdoor exploring that day too. I was bummed that I didn't drag the camera along because we spied a heron over at the neighborhood pond and a momma duck and 10 ducklings on our way back!

Water Table

Leah got a water table for her birthday! It's a nifty one that works as a picnic table too when you put the cover on. Oh how I love multitasking toys! We've had some fab weather this week so the water table got put to use. Yes, these pictures are of Jonah. He might like this toy more than Leah does! Oh and he LOVES bowls and cups!






and this is what Leah did when she had enough of the water table.

The Wheels on The Bus

. . . . go round and round. Round and round.

HA! Now it's stuck in your head too! That song has been stuck in my head since Thursday when Jonah and I joined Leah on her first ride on a school bus! (I guess it was Jonah's first ride too!) The big event was party of safety week at preschool for Leah. She's been asking a lot about why she doesn't ride a bus to school so this was a special treat for her. I'm not sure she was entirely thrilled about the actual ride due to not having a seat belt but she said she had fun! Guess it doesn't take much for the three year old set. We'll see how she feels when she has to ride the bus every day!