Christmas tree fun

Maggie loves the Christmas tree! Here she is playing with one of her favorite ornaments- a big red bell!

Great Wolf Lodge weekend

Last weekend we took a little vacation with our friends, Chris, Amy, & Asher to the Great Wolf Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells. The lodge has a huge indoor water park and we reserved a 3 bedroom condo so that could all stay together. We had a great time, despite a bit of a rough start!

We arrived around 9 pm on Friday night, got the kids settled and in bed, talked with Chris & Amy for awhile and went to bed so we could be ready for our big day at the water park. Soon after we got to bed, the 'fun' began. Maggie threw up 3 times during the night! Needless to say, the next morning we were trying to figure out what we should do and when we would leave to make the 3 hour drive home. We decided to let Maggie have a nap at the hotel and let Aaron enjoy the water park for awhile. Maggie perked up after her nap and seemed to be feeling better, so we stayed longer. We had a great time at the water park and Maggie was having fun being carried around and watching the boys, so we ended up staying. We came back to the condo to eat lunch and take naps in the afternoon and then enjoyed the water park for the rest of the evening. They had a story time before bed and they even experienced some 'snow' in the lobby.

On Sunday we spent the morning enjoying a last trip to the water park, got packed up, and then headed to a nearby restaurant for lunch. The food was delivered to your table by a train, which the boys loved! As a grand finale, the daddies took the boys to the attached game room/small indoor amusement park for a quick ride on the "Train coaster". (A small roller coaster that gave a pretty rough ride!) Then we all headed back to Chicago. Just to keep us on our toes, Maggie threw up as we were rounding the corner to our house!


Tim & Aaron had a great time going down the water slide on this tube together!




Amy & Asher share a ride

Chris, Amy, and Asher on the lazy river at the bottom of a big water slide


Aaron had a great time crossing this, with a little help from Amy!



Maggie is sporting her purple polka dot bikini!

Asher and Aaron enjoying some lunch in the condo. It was decorated really cute like a lodge, with all of the furniture looking like logs and twigs.

Maggie took a little nap on her Daddy!

Chris was running down the hallway carrying Asher and Aaron!

Aaron's first movie theater exprience

While we were in Fort Dodge over Thanksgiving, Aaron went to a movie at the theater for the first time! Amy got us all tickets for a free showing of the movie Despicable Me at the Humbolt theater. Aaron loved everything about it- sitting between his cousins, the big movie screen, the popcorn, soda, and candy, and the funny movie! When you ask him what he liked the best, he says "My favorite thing was ALL of it!" He did a really great job watching the movie and stayed pretty quiet until the end. There were a couple of times towards the end of the movie where he was repeating the lines that everyone laughed at over again and then laughing at himself. It was pretty hilarious! We'll look forward to taking Aaron to more movies at the theater!

Maggie's first biter biscuit

Here's a look at Maggie's first experience with a biter biscuit a few weeks ago. She likes to keep us on our toes and is currently refusing to eat baby food most of the time! She's a little lady who knows what she wants and she wants what we are eating!!!

Mr. Handsome

Seriously- how cute is this little guy?!?! Pretty much the cutest little boy I have ever seen!

"Help" in the kitchen

Just like her brother at this age, Maggie loves to climb in and out of the dishwasher!

Maggie is 8 months old!

Maggie is 8 months old today! I hate to admit this, but I didn't realize it until someone else pointed it out to me! Oops- guess I have very little time to sit around watching the days turn on the calendar lately!

Maggie is such a bright spot in our family that it's very difficult to remember what life was like before she joined us! She is such a doll. This is what is going on in Maggie's life at 8 months:

-She is crawling very fast, pulling herself up on everything, standing on her own after steadying herself on something, and starting to take a few steps on her own occasionally.
-She loves to play with toys, especially anything that brother Aaron is playing with (already)!
-Almost everything she touches goes straight into her mouth. Her favorite things to put in her mouth are anything she can find under the kitchen table (she cruises under there to see if Aaron has dropped any food) and any and all shoes!
-Maggie's mouth is starting to fill up with teeth! She has the two front teeth on the bottom, one of her top front teeth, and the other top front tooth and the one right next to it are pushing through right now. You can see another one that is almost ready to cut through as well! We think she's hoping to eat turkey by Thanksgiving!
-She loves to eat food, particularly finger foods. (She's getting really good at her pincer grasp!) Her favorites are puffs, those baby cheese puff things, baby dried fruits, and she loves the Ella's Kitchen brand foods that mix fruits and veggies.
-She loves to laugh and smile, especially at Daddy and Aaron!
-She is ticklish, especially on her neck and inner thighs, and likes to be tickled.
-When you say to Maggie, "How big is Maggie?" she will put her arms up in the air when you say, "SO big."
-Maggie likes to be held and will crawl around behind you when she wants you to pick her up.
-She is a decent sleeper- goes to bed at 7, usually gets up once in the night to eat and often ends up sleeping in our bed after that until about 6 or 6:30. She naps at 9 am for about 30-45 minutes, again at about 12:30 for usually 1 1/2 - 2 hours, and then often again around 4 for about 30 minutes.
-Maggie loves to be around other kids and really gets right in the mix with them.

We love Maggie so much and think that she is the cutest little girl that we've ever seen! Don't you?!


(Maggie loves phones! She is holding mine here.)

Two and a half!

Aaron is celebrating his half birthday today! It's hard to believe that in 6 short months he will be 3 years old already! This seemed like a good occasion for an Aaron update.....

Aaron continues to be VERY active. He loves to run, jump, and climb and excels at these things. He has taken an early interest in sports and can't wait until he can try out some organized sports!

Aaron is getting so big. He weighs around 37 pounds and is wearing 2T/3T pants, 3T/4T shirts, and size 8 1/2 wide shoes. He only wants to wear "nice and comfy" pants and tries to get out of wearing jeans or dress pants. He likes to pick out his own clothes, but we compromise by letting him choose from 2 pairs of pants and then choose from 2 shirts that match.

Aaron still eats his fruits and veggies really well, but has become a bit of a toddler eater with other things. One day he will eat a ton of something and two days later you could feed him the same thing and he might only eat one bite! If allowed (which he is not), he would drink chocolate milk and juice and eat only fruit and veggies. His favorite foods are any kind of fruit, cucumbers, yogurt, chocolate milk, any kind of juice, Jimmy John's sandwiches, chicken nuggets, PB & J sandwiches, and any kind of muffin or donut.

Aaron took an early interest in potty training (about 6 months ago), which totally fizzled out after about a month and the only person potty training was me! He is wearing diapers at this point and we'll probably be thinking about tackling that project fairly soon.

Aaron has really incredible speech and language skills, much to the delight of his mother! He speaks in long sentences (6+ words) and loves to try out new words that he hears from us. I'm always amazed by his vocabulary and don't know where he learns half of it?! He can't say his L sounds or his R sounds yet, but he has recently perfected most of his S blends!

Aaron knows all of his basic colors, can count to 12 (with one to one correspondence up to about 5), can recite his alphabet and knows all of the sounds that the letters say. (He learned this from a LeapFrog dvd at Kate's house called Letter Factory! I didn't even know that he knew all of them until one day he recited all of them to me!) He knows most of his basic shapes and can't wait to get the chance to go to school!

Aaron loves to read books and play outside. His favorite books right now are the Froggy books (Froggy Gets Dressed, Froggy Rides a Bike, etc), Mr. Putter and Tabby, Dr. Seuss (Green Eggs and Ham, The Sneetches, etc.) and song books (Ants Go Marching, Wheels on the Bus, This Little Light, etc.) He does a lot of imaginative play right now and enjoys playing with his tools and play food. Aaron likes to play with 'real' things rather than toys and often putters around with things he finds around the house. He likes to play with play dough and paint with watercolors. He loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and some of his favorite movies are the Toy Story movies, Bugs Life, and Cars. Aaron loves to help in the kitchen and is starting to have some of his own 'jobs' around the house. (Putting recycling in the bins, helping to set the table, helping pick up his toys.)

Aaron is a good listener and helper when he wants to be, but has to spend his fare share of time sitting in time out! He uses his good manners (please, thank you, excuse me, etc.) most of the time without being reminded and is generally very good to his sister! He loves to make her laugh and wants her to be around, even though he already doesn't like it when she tries to get into his toys!

We are very proud of our newly 2 and half year old, Aaron! We love you, Peanut!

Family

We are blessed to have such a wonderful family. Sharing some fall photos from our trip to Iowa!

Pumpkin patch

Amy and I tried to take the kids on the hayride to the pumpkin patch during our visit to the apple orchard, but we were there too early and would have had to wait for a couple of hours. So the kids played in this 'pumpkin patch' instead! This was my attempt at getting that perfect photo! I might as well realize that perfectly posed photos are NEVER going to happen and just embrace action shots! Enjoy some shots of the action!