Sorry no Christmas post cards...yet.

 

Wintertime is here!  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not at all excited about this.  But here on our homestead we're trying to make the best of the situation.  I think I can speak for Colette and the kids, and I think they'd all tell you we like spring and summer much more than winter.  Surprise, surprise.

Thanksgiving day, we ate our thanksgiving meal here in WDM as a family and then after a breif nap we all shuffled off to Waukee for some family bowling.  Brayton and Lauren love bowling and Colette and I do too.  Especially since smoking is no longer an option the bowling alley, it now is an opportunity for some good family time.   We played two games, If memory serves correctly Colette got beat by Lauren both games.  Brayton was very disappointed to get last place each time. Throw in a couple Miller High Life's, some pizza, and good times were enjoyed by all.

The next Saturday, we attended "Jolley Holiday Lights" which is an enormous fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation.  They decorate all of Water Works park in Christmas lights and you pay a little money and get to drive around the park and see all the Christmas lights.  There are several tunnels of lights to drive through and the kids love driving under them and looking up through the sunroof to see the lights going overhead.  Finally at the end of the lights show, there is Santa's workshop.  Our kids are not yet brave enough to go and sit on Santa's lap.  Lauren is deathly afraid of him AND his elves.  She says, "Daddy, I DONT LIKE HIS BEARD!"  Makes me laugh thinking about it....

As of this writing, it's the weekend of December 10th and we're supposed to get a heck of a blizzard tonight.  It snowed a little bit earlier in the day & wasn't terribly cold out yet so I decided to take the kids out sledding for the first time this year.  They really loved it and did a good job.  At least no one broke their arm.

Finally, I've failed again this year to get Christmas cards out.  Why?  Because I'm lazy.  That's the only reason.  So, thanks for the cards you've all sent.  They are taped on the fridge, Merry Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope this post finds everyone well after a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  I had a nice 5 day weekend, spending Wednesday through Sunday with my favorite people in the whole world.  Wednesday we took the opportunity to have our annual family photos taken.  The kids did a great job smiling for their pictures, we made it into a contest to see who could produce the biggest smiles.  Well, I have to tell you they both had lots of smiles and were focused on the camera with minimal influence needed by Colette or I.  This was the best set of photos taken yet.

Thursday, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal prepared by my lovely wife.  She is a wonderful cook, and it was definitely a bad day to be my pants (admittedly, I stole this line)...Later that afternoon, Brayton helped me tear down the old swing set.  He was kind of sad to see it go, but knows I've got plans to build a bigger and better one next spring.  This one was rebuilt from an old neighbors swing set and some of the lumber is approaching 20 years old now, so it was time.

Friday, we spent at the Science Center of Iowa, had a nice picnic, and played lots of card games.  Saturday, my brother Ryan and his family from Omaha came to Des Moines and stayed in a local hotel.  We swam in the pool and ate pizza.  Both our kids were so tired by the end of the evening that at 730 Brayton was begging us to take him home so he could go to bed.  Quite an evening.

Sunday, was our nephew and Godchild Isaac John Meyer's baptism at Holy Trinity Catholic Church.  Colette and I are so honored to be able to be Isaac's Godparents.  We had a wonderful time at Matt & Audra's afterward, seeing family and eating to excess again.  Outstanding is all I can say.

Hope this finds anyone who reads it well, and that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I am certainly fortunate to be able to say I have alot to be thankful for.  I hope I never forget that.

Surgery, Rugby, Soccer, Kites, Bikes, Boats and other stuff - Fall 2010 Update

Wow, what a fall it's been.  I can hardly believe winter is almost here.  Seems like fall has flown by, where does the time go.

We started off the fall with the kids eye surgeries on August 30th.  Both have a condition called strabismus which we tried to correct via eye patching and glasses.  After a few months of that there was limited improvement.  So, the Dr's we were seeing recommended surgery.  Brayton and Lauren were champs all through the process.  We tried to prepare them for it as much as we could.  They were not at all nervous going in for surgery that day.  We had told them they were just going to go take a nap, dressed them in their PJ's and away we went.  Lauren's eyes turned out a little better than Braytons, although she still has to wear glasses.  Brayton's right eye shifted a bit to the outside now, opposite of what it was.  Although he has perfect vision and no longer needs glasses.  We are still being instructed to do eye patching 2 hours a day, but that is a vast improvement over the 8 hours we had to do previously.  I pray we'll get this condition fixed in both kids.  The good news it's highly correctable if caught early enough, and everyone tells us we've got plenty of time.

In September, Colette and I traveled to Aspen, CO to play in the annual Aspen Ruggerfest rugby tournament.  We had a great time with lots of friends.  I think we'll be making that trip again next year.

We spent lots of time doing out door activities this fall.  The weather has been amazingly mild here in Iowa.  Brayton got to play soccer on his 4 yr old team for the first time.  He loves it.  We are now spending more and more time playing 1 on 1 soccer in the back yard.  Lauren really enjoyed going and cheering on her big brother in his matches.  We met lots of new friends too.  I have to say I'm very impressed with the level of organization of youth soccer in West Des Moines.  We'll certainly be back to play more.

The weather also allowed us to spend lots more time on our bikes together.  If you read my Facebook posts you probably know I'm a avid bicycle commuter.  Well, we spend lots of time together on our bikes as a family as well.  We feel really fortunate to have such a well developed bike trail system in West Des Moines.  This gives us the opportunity to do other things as well, like go fishing, visit the various parks around town, or fly kites.  The kids just love being outdoors, and I have to say Colette and I do as well.

In early October, we woke up on a Saturday and I taught the kids how to make paper boats.  They had a ball constructing their own boats.  After the first few they really didn't need that much instruction and did the majority of the work themselves.  We then traveled downtown to the Western Gateway Park and floated our boats down the river.  You'll have to see the video to get an idea of what this really is.

Brayton turned 5 years old on November 8th.  I cannot believe how quickly he has grown.  He is a whiz for his age.  He reads his own books, not memorized either.  The other night Colette brought home 2 new books, ones he's never seen before and he read both of them to his sister.  I only had to step in to help on a word a couple of times.  A couple weeks ago we were at the dentist waiting for Colette to get finished with her check up.  We were in the waiting room, and Brayton was counting the spare change in my pocket.  He could add up all the quarters, dimes, and nickels in his head.  I remember the ladies in the office were shocked when he got to 95 cents picked up a quarter and said "$1.20"...They were a little taken back a boy his age could do this.  He sure loves his numbers and loves adding and subtracting.  He is also becoming quite the card shark, we play UNO all the time as well as other board games.  I think I'm going to try to teach him Chess this winter.  Lastly, he loves punching the heavy bag I put up in the basement, except when it swings back toward him...that 80lb bag can bowl him over if he's not careful.

Lauren is a 3yr old spitting image of her mother.  She is very artsy and loves to paint whenever she can.  She's very trendy and loves to pick out her own clothes for the day.  She seems to have an opinion on almost everything, although that probably makes her more like me than Colette.  She is really enjoying the 3yr old preschool program at St. Francis.  We were a little worried about her starting this fall because she has a tendency to be a little shy around others (the opposite of her brother) but she has done just fine.

We've spent alot of time going to the zoo, parks, bike rides, my friends pizza joint, the sculpture gardens, pumpkin farms, and just about everything there is to do we've tried it.  Next up is to do some heavy duty sledding this winter.

Adventures on a Bicycle

It's Friday night, and on Friday evenings my kiddo's get to spend some 'special' time with Daddy. Especially that I'm leaving for San Francisco tomorrow. That means we usually hop on the bike and do the park tour here in WDM. Anytime we jump on the bike there are a few things we do prior to leaving the house. One of those is everyone goes potty. So we did our thing and jumped on the bike to head to the new park just built about 3 miles west of home.

We proceeded to ride over to the new park, it was about 90 degrees out so it was hot for sure. We got to the new park and played about 5 minutes, when out of nowhere both kids had to do #2. Okay, fine. Walk over to the brand spanking new bathroom, and guess what...Locked. No wipes, no potty, I'm at least a mile from anywhere with a bathroom...I'm in trouble.

Me: "Can you guys hold it a little longer." Lauren: "NO! I gotta go NOW!"

Okay, kids, let's go over to the creek and try do get our business done in the grass by the creek...

Long story short, after lots of trying we had no luck. Which was good, because I had no idea how I was going to wipe their butts...When we turned around to walk the 20 yards back to the park I realized some woman had just arrived with her kid and had been watching me coaching my two while they were both squatting, pants down...Ugg, what do I say? Proceeded to walk up and she says, "Don't worry, I was just there last week." Not exactly sure what that means.

So, we didn't get our business done and the kids started playing again. Two minutes later, Lauren says, "Dad I gotta go poop!" Okay, so lets get back on the bike and ride over to my friends pizza place. That's a good place to go.

After riding about a a mile, we arrived at Tom's pizza place. Tom was gracious enough to let us use his bathroom and we got the job done. Whewwww....

After that, we went to the store and bought 2 loaves of bread and went to feed the fish again, like we always do. What a great Friday night.

Summer 2010 Update

Well, summer is here and before we know it will be gone...Amazing how quickly the time goes. It wasn't too long ago Brayton was in preschool and was upset because he had to take a summer break. In about a month both kids will be in preschool at St. Francis, which they are both looking forward to. Colette and I wonder how Lauren will react to Mommy leaving here there for the first time. It will be the first time she is away from either of us (not including visits to Grandma and Grandpas). Brayton, we're not worried about him. He'd go back tomorrow if he could.

We've been keeping really busy this summer. We got pool passes again this year, and Colette, I, and the kids have certainly gotten our moneys worth out of them. We go to one of the three city water parks at least three times a week. The kids are really enjoying going and we've even gotten them to put their faces in the water a bit and hold their breath. Lauren is much more adventurous than Brayton in the pool. She'll stick her face in and even dunk her head under the water. Brayton not so much. Although he has gotten pretty good at going down the kiddie slides at the pool and he get's a big kick out of that.

We've been pretty lucky this summer to see lots of family. We've been back to see all three sets of grandparents a couple of times, and they've been here in WDM quite a few times too. The kids love seeing all of them, as evidenced in the video of them dancing with Pappa Alan.

Last weekend we made a day trip to Omaha for cousin Maria's birthday party. Everyone was zonked out 10 minutes into the drive home. We are excited for Aunt Mikhael, Maria, and Emily to come on Thursday night and stay until Saturday. We plan on going to the Indianola balloon festival which was a big hit with the kids last year. Uncle Matt and I will take all four kids on Saturday morning while Colette and Mikhael host Audra's baby shower...Not sure what we'll do yet, but it will be fun.

This summer both kids have been taking gymnastics lessons. They look forward to going every week and I can say they have learned a lot. Brayton is getting really good at his somersaults and cartwheels. He can sit on his bottom with his legs wide, put his hands down on the floor and lift himself up into a somersault. They get to do lots of jumping on the trampoline and they really like hanging on the high bars. I took them to the park last week, and Lauren hung on the high bar there for 32 seconds before she dropped. I was amazed.

One of the highlights of my week is on Saturday's I sometimes get to take the kids myself while Colette goes scrapbooking. I usually load them on the bike and we ride all over WDM. We either go to a park and play or to the pools. After that we head over to my friends pizza place and eat some pizza after which we stop by the local convenience store, buy a loaf of bread and go feed the fish at the pond in the Jordan Creek Towne Center. This is really a blast for me and the kids.

The kids got their first taste of fishing this summer as well. One Sunday afternoon, we decided it was time to try this. I had always hesitated taking them because of the boredom factor, but we bought some worms and tried our luck. We went to two local ponds. After about 1/2 hour of trying, I had failed in my fishing duties so Colette gave it a try and managed to snag a small bluegill. The kids had a real thrill getting to touch the fish and feel his scales. We then released him and our fishing day was done.

August 30th is our 7th wedding anniversary. We are celebrating by taking both kids to have their eye surgeries. Both kids have Strabismus and need to have it surgically corrected. What a way to celebrate our anniversary, I am not looking forward to that day. It scares the dickens out of me.

Well, that's about it for now...I'm outta breath.

May 2010 Update

Well, May is here already and the kids have been busy playing outside, going to pre-school on Tuesday's and Thursday's, and helping Mommy and Daddy plant flowers and the rest of the garden.

We began the spring with a trip to Omaha for Emily's 1st birthday party in March. Brayton and Lauren each got to go to Grandma & Grandpa Anderson's by themselves. It was the first time either had been away from Mom & Dad by themselves and they both did well.

In January we noticed Lauren's left eye was starting to get a little bit lazy. We took here to the eye Dr. He prescribed glasses and some patch therapy 4 hours a day. A couple weeks ago, we took Brayton to the eye Dr. for the annual checkup...Guess what, same problem. So, now I have two children in glasses.

I got to play a couple weekends of rugby, which one weekend the kids attended the game. My friend Matt O'Neill spent some time teaching some young boys how to scrum and tackle. Brayton had a ball. He was playing against some pretty stiff competition, one boy (Matt's son Owen) was one year older than Brayton, the other two boys were eight and ten. But like his father he doesn't back down from anyone.

May came and with it was Lauren's third birthday. We had a really fun birthday party, Grandma's & Grandpa's all attended, Ryan & Mikhael, Maria, and Emily came from Omaha. Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra also came over for our party. It was a really fun day, we had a great meal together and got to sing Happy Birthday to Lauren. I think she felt like a pretty special little girl. I hope so.

Last fun story, I love to sing to Lauren at night when it's bedtime. I sing all kinds of different songs, nursery rhymes and such. Tonight, as I was rocking her I sang "Ba Ba Black Sheep," "ABC's," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Jesus Loves Me," and then proceeded to an encore of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," when Lauren stopped me and said "Daddy, you're not very good at that one." My daughter.

Winter Fun

Wanted to put out a little video of some of the winter time fun we've been having. The first frame is Colette, Lauren, and Brayton building a snowman after one of our many snowfalls this winter. For some reason, the past few months Lauren has been really camera shy, we don't know why, but she will even go to the extreme of diving to the carpet when the camera comes out. It's quite funny.

Frame 2 is me playing tic tac toe with Brayton. Colette taught him how to play, and so we thought a game would be fun.

Frame 3 is Lauren climbing up one of the inflatable slides at "Pump It Up" where we attended a friends birthday party.

Lots of fun! Hope you enjoy!

Singing to my daughter...

Tonight I was rocking Lauren and singing to her just prior to putting her down to bed.  Colette and I do this every night for our kids, we read books, sing, and rock, and then we switch kids the next night.  Tonight I had Lauren, tomorrow I get Brayton.

I was singing "Jesus Loves Me" and rocking her.  As I was singing, she reached up and put her hand on my mouth and said "Daddy, stop."  So I stopped, and said "what do you need dear?"

She then reached up and touched my nose.  She said "Daddy, you have a BIG nose."  Emphasis on big was hers...

I said, "Oh, I do?"

She said, "Yes, and mommy has BIG hair." 

Baby Girl Got Glasses

Well, today Lauren got to go see the eye doctor. We had been wondering for some time about her vision. She had always seemed to run into things and had somewhat of a "floating" left eye. After talking to others who noticed the condition because their children had it, Colette scheduled an appointment with Dr. Lock.

Lauren was diagnosed with amblyopia and farsightness in her left eye. Dr. Lock was confident in her diagnosis and prescribed some exercises with an eye patch for one hour per day in addition to her new glasses. We're going to recheck in March to see how her progress is coming.

Make sure next time you see her you tell her how nice her glasses look. She also likes the fact they are pink. I'm glad we got someone to look at it and that we are fortunate to have such a good eye doctor.

Merry Christmas 2009

Hard to believe it's been six months since my last post. I guess we've been busy and I've not been as good about publishing as I should be.

Today is Christmas eve. We started to celebrate this morning with the kids opening a gift from Colette and I at different intervals through out the day. We did this on three separate occasions, that way they got to play a bit with each gift prior to opening the next and we didn't blow the whole thing in one shot.

Brayton got enough Lincoln Logs to build an entire city, as well as a toy globe that I won't be able to adequately describe, he also got a Leap Frog learning computer that has lots of games on it.

Lauren got a set of Disney princess dresses, blouses, and shoes that are Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. She also got a Leap Frog computer, and a Little People Doll house for playing. She especially like dressing up in her new dresses and wore the Cinderella slippers on and off the entire day.

To finish off the evening, we baked some Christmas cookies to leave out for Santa. We were burning a fire in the fireplace and Brayton asked, "How is Santa going to come down the chimney if there's a fire in there?" It amazes me how observant kids can be.

We've been tracking Santa's progress all around the world on www.noradsanta.org . When Brayton found out Santa had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and was on his way to Iowa he decided he better get his pajamas on fast. I've never seen him get ready for bed so fast.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

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June and July Highlights

Amazing that summer has come and is already more than half over. Time just flies, especially when it's summer and you have all kinds of time to spend out doors.

June started off well. In the video, the first clip is Brayton thanking Aunt Judy for his new blanket. Just loves them both and goes to bed with both every night. They are both wearing their tutu's that Colette made for them and I get a kick out of watching Lauren run around. She has this kind of wavy back and forth run, it's hilarious.

We did lots of fun things the past two months. We've been making lots of trips to the Farmers Market on Saturdays. The kids love the bands playing in the street, we get to dance to the music or just sit down and enjoy it too. Plus Colette and I can enjoy a Saturday morning bloody mary or beer of our choice.

4th of July was exciting. We went to the Urbandale parade with Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra. The Iowa National Guard flew in a helicopter, we figured that Gov. Culver would be getting out of it, but he didn't it was just some very nice pilots that let the kids jump into the helicopter and check it out. The kids got lots of candy, which we'll be divying up for some time one piece at at time.

At the end of July we went camping at Mom & Dads, in the back yard. Friday night was interesting enough in the fact the kids didn't get to bed until midnight and then they were up at the break of dawn. Colette and Lauren slept in one tent and they ended up heading inside at about 5am. Brayton and I in the other tent and we stayed out until about 7am. At that point I was unable to keep Brayton down he was ready to get up.

At the end of July we started harvesting our garden. First we picked the green beans, banana peppers, and some jalapenos. When I was cutting them up, I got the bright idea of eating one of the slices of jalapeno. It was so hot, I was coughing, gasping, and my eyes were tearing up. I've never eaten a jalapeno that hot, must be our good soil. Brayton helped to pick the sweet corn a week later, we also picked a couple more peppers, and a bunch of grape tomatoes. At the end of the video you get to see Brayton helping me to husk the corn and the final frames are us eating our bounty at dinner the evening of July 28th.

All the past two months the kids and Colette have been spending almost every warm day at the various swimming pools in town. The kids really love to go, and they are all getting the tans to prove it. We've also been spending quite a bit of time on our bikes. Brayton is getting too big for the bike trailer so we bought a tag along bike that hooks up to mine. Need to get that hooked up and try it.

Wow, what a fun summer!

Rugby, Belly Buzzers, Chows, a Garden, and some ABC's

Hard to believe the month of May is almost gone. It's been a really fun month, with so many activities to talk about, most I won't even be able to write about here...

May started off with Brayton and Lauren going to Grandma Cindy's and Grandpa Gordon's for the weekend so that Daddy could go and play rugby in the All Iowa tournament. We had a great time, the Des Moines Old Boys went 2-1 for the weekend. Actually losing our first game in a couple of years. The third picture is me running with the ball on Sunday against Central College which was basically their football team disguised as a rugby team. The Des Moines Old Boys turned out to be a bit too savvy for these youngsters as we won 54 -10. Nick and I got to play together quite a bit in this game so that was really fun for me (I think Nick had a good time too.).

The next weekend we concentrated on getting our garden in. Brayton was a great help to us, moreso this year than last. Last year the corn got scattered all about and didn't really stay in the rows too well. Brayton also got to help plant the cucumbers, cantaloupe, green beans, peas, tomatoes, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. He got to help me harvest a bunch of asparagus this year too.

Sometime during the month Colette found 2 tu-tus (not sure how to spell tu-tu) at a garage sale. The kids both loved them, especially Lauren. She dances around in her tu-tu almost every day. The arrival of May means lots of outdoor activities and that means we get to wear fun summer clothes and put the kids in funny hats and Lauren in pig tails sometimes. What fun.

May 21st was my 35th birthday. Amazing how the years fly by and I still feel like I should be 25 years old. I suppose someday I'll be 80 and still think in my mind I should be 25.

Our neighbor Jenna Rogers 4th birthday also came in May. She goes to Chow's gymnastics studio for dance and gymnastics lessons. Chow was the coach of the US Women's Olympic Team at the Beijing Olympics last summer and also the coach of Shawn Johnson, a gold and multiple silver medalist. Jenna's folks paid to reserve the entire gym for a Saturday afternoon to have her birthday party (wonder what that cost?) and Brayton got invited. He got to jump on all the trampolines, swing on the rings, do the balance beam, and jump off a high tower (about 6 ft high) into a "pool" of foam blocks. Jenna's dad is the one helping Brayton on the rings. I think he had a great time as attested to by the video. We've thought about enrolling both kids in the programs there (they can start as young as 18 mos), we're still thinking about it but it isn't cheap. I don't think Chow is handing out discounts these days, considering every gymnastics wannabe is moving to West Des Moines to get coached at his gym.

Last but not least, Colette has been trying to teach Lauren her ABC's. She's not the ready performer in front of the camera that Brayton is. She does pretty well when the camera's off. She gets all the way to Q then seems to forget what comes next. In the video she gets to G then decides she's done.

May was a very fun month for us, the kids are really growing up and learning to play well with each other. It's been a good ride, especially since I didn't have any school to worry about. But that changes again next week. Oh well.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Today is Lauren Claire's 2nd birthday. It's very hard to believe just two short years ago we went to the hospital to be blessed with such a wonderful little girl. She is growing up to be daddy's little angel (and sometimes devil).

To start the day, we took Lauren to portrait innovations for her 2 year pictures. Little did we know, she was in no mood to take pictures. After lots of coaxing and a couple packs of smarties (for her and Brayton who actually wanted to have his picture taken today) we got enough decent shots to make the trip worthwhile. The first picture is one of them from this mornings adventure.

After a quick trip to Jordan Creek to play at the park, we came home and ate lunch and got ready for naps. While the kids were napping, Colette baked the duck cake that Lauren had chose as her birthday cake. It actually turned out really well, it looked like a duck coming out of the cake pan, and once Colette got done frosting it really looked like a professionally decorated cake. Good Job Colette!

Lauren was really excited for her cake (and so was Brayton). While the kids were napping, Grandma and Pappa Anderson arrived, and an hour or so later so did Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra. After waking up, I asked Lauren what she wanted for dinner, of course the answer was PIZZA! So we played outside a bit, Colette went and picked up pizza from Nick & Willies and we had a pizza picnic outside. Once the pizza was gone, the kids opened up gifts from Matt and Audra and Colette and I. Brayton was trying to open them himself, I literally had to restrain him. Lauren got lots of fun new toys for her birthday. Matt and Audra brought a shovel, rake, and watering bucket for the sandbox and garden. We combined all the money from Grandpa Gordon and Grandma Cindy, Ryan & Mikhael, Grandma & Grandpa Hansen, and Colette and I to buy Lauren a new play house outside. The kids both had a ball playing in it this afternoon. After pizza and playing we had birthday cake and by 8pm they were both about cashed out.

The first film clip isn't actually from today, but from the other day when Lauren decided she didn't want to eat dinner at the kitchen table. She went into the foyer and proceeded to push the kids table and both little chairs into the kitchen to eat. I turned on the camera and only got a second of her moving the whole table, but the funniest part of the whole video is when I asked Lauren if I could help her, she abruptly replied "NO!" and that has been the new thing lately. She really is learning to speak her mind, with authority.

A few nights ago, I was trying to get Lauren to come to me to rock before putting her in bed. Colette and Brayton were already in Brayton's room and getting ready for bed. Lauren was milling about in the hallway as I was trying to pursuade her to come into her room so we could read books and rock before going to bed. She obviously didn't want anything to do with this, so she kept wandering the hallway stopping to look in the doorway at me. After having enough of this I got a little more stern with my request to her to come in or she was going to begin losing her books (for not obeying daddy). I said, "Lauren, come in here so we can read books and get ready for bed." She walked about four steps into the room, stopped, put her hands on her hips and shouted "WHY!". My oh my, I thought, she's not even two and already we're getting this. She said it in the same tone she said "NO!" in the video clip. It's quite funny really (the way she interjects), but I didn't show my hand to let her know inside I was really laughing.

Spring is in the Air!

Spring is finally here! There's been lots of rain the past few weeks, but the weather has been cooperating enough we've had lots of fun the past month playing outside.

The weekend before Easter we traveled home to see Grandma's and Grandpa's. While we were in Pomeroy, Grandpa Gordon gave Brayton a ride in his new tractor. After starting it up Brayton decided he didn't want to sit in the cab anymore so he and Colette just rode around the block in the bucket.

At the beginning of April, Colette bought some cardboard building blocks off of Craigslist.org. The kids have had lots of fun building cities and tall stacks of blocks. Lauren figured out early on that if she went and got her potty step she could stack an extra block on top before tipping it over. It didn't take long before Brayton picked up this technique and he could get them stacked 5 high. What was really fun was watching the two of them cooperate together to build the big towers and knock them over as the video will attest.

Since we had gone back home to see Grandma's and Grandpa's the weekend prior to Easter so we decided to stay home and go to Living History Farms for an Easter egg hunt. They put on quite an event. They had a Easter egg hunt for little kids where Brayton and Lauren got lots of treats. Living History farms actually ran out of Easter Eggs to put the treats in so they just started dropping the little toys on the groung. There were lots of animals to see including sheep, cows, and turkeys. Brayton thought the sheep would like jelly beans, it was quite funny. And last but not least there were tons and tons and tons of people there. We had a great time and may invite the Grandma's and Grandpa's down next year to attend. Later that evening Joe and Lynette Streck came over to grill out and we had another little Easter Egg hunt in our backyard. Brayton by that time had figured out all the eggs had treats in them and I don't think I've ever seen him move so quickly to gather all the eggs. Also, above are photos of the kids in their Easter best clothes. Brayton got to wear a suit and Lauren got to wear her pretty pretty dress.

The third week of April I decided we were going to build a sandbox for the kids. Went to Lowes, bought the materials and we started to build. I thought it was only going to be a one or two evening project but we had so much fun we stretched it out for almost two weeks. Colette invited the Roemen kids over one day to hand paint the 2x12 beams and they all had a great time painting. Lauren got paint all over her face and one of the kids gave her a nice hand print on her tummy after she stripped down to nothing but her undies. And yes you'll probably notice she likes to wear Brayton's underwear. We can hardly get her to wear her own, I'm uncertain if it's because her's are uncomfortable or if she just wants to wear the same undies as her big brother.

Lastly in the video, we have Brayton pitching a fit. I thought I'd bless all the Grandmas and Grandpas with a crying child just to bring back those wonderful memories.

Finally, though we didn't get any movies we went to our neice Emily's baptism in Omaha at Ryan and Mikhael's on April 26th. Lauren had a great time holding Baby Emily, she even got to help me feed Baby Emily a bottle. This was a big thrill for Lauren. The whole ride home Lauren kept saying "Bring Baby Emily home!" "Bring Baby Emily home!" I wanted to say "Sorry Dear, I hope it will be a few more years before we have another baby in this house!" I've attached a few pictures of Lauren helping Grandma Cindy hold Emily and giving Emily kisses. Lauren has quite the Mommy instinct already.

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Updates from March

I can't believe it's almost April. Until this week the weather has been fairly mild, but as you know with March in like a lamb out like a lion. We are supposed to get snow tomorrow (Saturday). Can't wait until that's all gone, I am ready for spring.

Since it has been so mild out, we got the opportunity to play lots outside. Brayton's cast has not slowed him down a bit. Hard to believe it's been 3 weeks now, he goes to the Dr. on Tuesday to get it removed.

Uncle Nick came down a couple weeks ago and installed a new water heater and water softener for us, he also got to shoot some hoops with Brayton. Brayton has been getting better and better at riding his bike, and Lauren is starting to want to ride as well.

We got the opportunity to go over to Matt and Audra's for an evening barbeque, the kids had a great time playing outside and then as the temperature cooled playing inside. In the video you can hear Brayton running around in circles squealing while Audra and Lauren have fun.

Brayton has been really getting into picking up worms, pretty typical for a little boy. Finally, Grandma & Poppa Anderson came down for the weekend and got lots of play time in with both the kids. Grandpa Anderson also helped Daddy install a new sink and garbage disposal, which turned out to be a much bigger job than I had anticipated.

All in March was a very fun month, and now with the new laptop we have and the fiber optic connection we can upload these videos in just a minute versus the old DSL that took 20 minutes.

Enjoy.

Highlights from the first week of March

One of the side benefits of getting the new camera and having to learn how to compress the video files was that I now have the ability to splice and merge multiple videos into one compilation. As you'll see I've even learned how to add titles! Imagine how good I'll be at this in a few more months. The best part is I can make a 2 or 3 minute movie in the same size file as I could do for a 30 second movie before. Oh the opportunities to forever share the lives of our children...

The first clip is Lauren wanting to go poop, and of course, there's only one potty downstairs. Also, her pants are a little too big so she has plumbers crack.Second is feeding the ducks at the zoo.Third and fourth are playing with Audra and Matt. They came over today and brought Lauren and Brayton new balloons and brought Colette some flowers for her birthday. In the 3rd clip I had hooked Lauren's balloon to the back of her pajamas and she was like a little dog chasing his tail. In the last two clips it's of the kids dancing with Dad, Audra, and Uncle Matt...They have such a ball dancing.

Enjoy.

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A look back...Lauren

Since I've not been very good lately about catching some good photos or publishing any good new video clips I thought tonight I'd take the opportunity to do a brief look back.


This video was taken in September 2007, Lauren was about 4 1/2 months old at the time.


We used to try and try to get her to talk, but she never did much talking or laughing for that matter. Brayton must have spoiled us with his belly laugh. We really had to work hard to get that same laugh out of Lauren. This clip was one of five or so originals. Colette and I worked for about 20 minutes to get Lauen to talk and laugh.


When she did start to talk, as the clip will attest, I think it was because she was tired of sitting in that green bumbo chair.

I also didn't realize we were holding the camera sideways, I think that's something Colette does...Still a great clip. Enjoy.

Maria Was Here...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Seems like we've been so busy with kids, work, school, traveling back home, and oh yeah, basically having someone sick for the past month and a half or better. It seems as if I've hardly had time to do any posting. Well, that's going to change a bit tonight.

Just last week, Feb 7th weekend, we were graced by the presence of little Miss Maria. It was part of our Christmas gift to Ryan and Mikhael. We volunteered to have Maria come to Des Moines for a weekend of fun while Ryan and Mikheal got a final weekend to themselves before baby #2 gets here.


Maria arrived on Thursday afternoon, Mikhael brought her over and stayed for supper. That night we played a little bit and took a bath. This picture is of the kids all getting their teeth brushed and getting rid of those sugar bugs. Maria's little hair doo in the tub reminds me of Poindexter from the old 80's Saturday Night Lives.

After a great night's sleep, the kids all woke up at a decent time. It was a good thing they all slept well because we had a big day planned for them. First item on the agenda after breakfast was to run down to the Science Center. Brayton and Lauren just love the Science Center downtown and we soon found out Maria did too. They got to touch snakes:

Make bubbles:

We also got to build with the giant building blocks, go vegetable shopping at the "farmers Market" and then put the vegetables on the conveyor belt. We got to play with the beach balls in the "physics room", they got to put together the giant legos, and put their hands on a static electricity generator globe.

After all the playing was done, we all sat down and had a nice picnic lunch. Colette had made sandwiches, bananas, yougurt, chips, pears, and of course little rice crispy treats. We then trucked it home and the kids took great naps.

Once everyone was up from their naps, we decided it was time to go to play at a park since it was 55 degrees out and all the snow was melted. The kids had a great time swinging on the swings and playing on the playground equipment.

When we got home, we ate a little supper. Then it was time to make some desert. Colette mixed up some sugar cookie dough, and we let the kids make cookies. Maria was so cute, we let Brayton and Lauren toss some flour on the table and Maria looked at Colette like "can I really do this too?" It was great fun watching all the kids roll out dough and use the little cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. As the picture attests, the kids got quite dirty and we ended up doing baths again Saturday night.

Sunday morning came and we ate our last little breakfast with Maria. Ryan and Mikhael came back and picked her up after lunch at Hy Vee. We were sad to see her go. But we had a great time.