New Toy!

Last weekend, we spent our rainy Sunday afternoon at Rick & Betsy's house. Betsy got out some of the toys that Jacob had outgrown for Noah to play with. Madison and Noah loved the Elmo tool bench so much, they let us take it home. The kids have been obsessed with it ever since. Both kids love dancing to the songs.

Noah is 10 months old!

I can’t believe Noah is already 10 months old! The last ten months has gone so fast, yet it is hard to remember what things were like before he was born. Noah keeps us very busy with his constant exploring, which is a nice way of saying he gets into everything. When he is not crawling, he is cruising, although he seems cautious to stand on his own. He is a monkey and has mastered climbing the stairs. When he wants something, he is very determined to get it, even when we try to divert his attention to something else. He always has a huge smile on his face, and in public, he will flirt with anyone that looks his way. He prefers to drink milk from a sippy cup over a bottle, and he only eats table food. He is definitely not our baby boy anymore…

Beautiful Spring Day!

I was so excited all week for today. Today was our first beautiful day of spring. Mike and I had big plans for the day... raking all the dead grass, cutting back all the plants, and fertilizing the lawn. We also planned to have the kids outside with us all day. The day turned out wonderful! It started slow, and it took us a lot longer to get everything done than we expected BUT what can you expect when you are also watching two kids. The kids LOVED being outside all day. As Madison puts it "Mommy, I am keeping busy." Noah also kept very busy, and it is so nice that I don't have to constantly wonder what room he is crawling off to and what he is getting into. I am looking very forward to more consistent nice weather. Here are some favorite pictures from the day:

Easter

I wasn't so sure if I wanted to write about Easter, because it was a rough day for us. (Madison woke up in the middle of the night with croup.) However, I really enjoyed reading about my friend's Easter, so I decided I can highlight the good parts of the day. This was an exciting Easter, because it was the first time that Madison understood that the Easter bunny hid her basket and she had to look for it. We started out the morning very early at 5:15, but Madison was very excited to search for baskets. We let her find all four of our baskets.

After all the baskets were found, we had a traditional Easter morning breakfast of died hardboiled eggs. As we were getting ready to leave the house for church, Madison begged us to take a nap. This is very unlike her, since she loves going to church. We knew she didn't sleep well because of the coughing and wheezing, so we decided to stay home and let her sleep. She felt much better after more sleep, and we headed out to do our Easter visiting. Our first stop was my Grandma Van Handel'S to drop off a tulip plant. Then we headed over to my parent's house, so the kids could get their Easter baskets. Then we headed over to the extended family party at my Aunt and Uncle's house. There was an Easter Egg hunt, and all the pink eggs were for Madison only. After the Easter Egg hunt, Madison was worn out again, so we ate dinner and headed for home.

Easter Traditions

Today in celebration of Easter we started out the day at an Easter Egg hunt at our local grocery store. Each aisle had an age group assigned to it, and the kids got to run down the aisle and find chocolate eggs. Madison had lots of fun!

In the afternoon, Uncle Mike, Aunt Amy, and Baby Claire came over to visit and brought Easter treats. After dinner, we colored Easter eggs. Madison is looking very forward to finding her Easter basket in the morning. She even begged to go to bed early tonight.

A typical day lately...

So what have our days at home been like lately...

Noah has taken a lot of interest in walking. He pulls himself up on everything, and he pushes around rolly toys. One activity the kids have had a blast doing is Madison will ride this car push toy, and Noah will walk behind it. A lot of the time Madison ends up dragging him around, and neither one of them can stop laughing. We have tried to slow Madison down, so Noah can spend more of the time walking behind the toy.

Both kids actually played on their own at the same time today. I swear that has never happened. Madison was busy making art projects, and Noah started by playing with the farm and soon moved on to dumping out all the toys and pulling out all the books. Boy do they have different personalities!

Happy 31st Anniversary Mom and Dad!

We celebrated Mom and Dad's Anniversary with a family pizza party!