Happy Hearts

Colorado 2009

We spent the week after Christmas in CO at my parent's mountain home.  Every year we make more memories and enjoy the beauty of God's handiwork.  

 

Trent spent way too much time playing his new Wii game... Monster Jam, of course.

 

Yet, he thoroughly enjoyed sledding...

 

  

While he was a little timid with skiing at first...

 

 

  

... he LOVED it after awhile...

 

...and was doing it all by himself at the end!

 

We are now saving our pennies because this ski bum...

 

...is ready for ski school!  We were so proud to see the progress he made this year. 

 

Maggie was definitely NOT interested in skiing or sledding. 

While she gave both a try...

 

... she was much more interested in playing with the snow and on the playground!

 

 

We were thrilled that she was able to stay out in the cold with us without turning blue.  This was a definite first for her and was wonderful to see.

Ryan and my Dad enjoyed 2 days on the slopes, while I enjoyed reading a book by the fire and spending time with my favorite people.

 

 

  

 

  

 

Sledding

Well, I promised these pics before Christmas but it didn't happen.  A few days before Christmas we got a very light covering of snow.  However, it was just enough to go sledding.  Ryan's Great Aunt Rita had sent some money for the kids for Christmas and we picked out some sleds for them.  They got to open them a little early so that they could enjoy the snow.  They had lots of fun and we got a little glimpse of how much they would enjoy CO... or so we thought. 

 

   

Fall Catch Up

I've gotten a tad bit behind in my blogging.  Amidst the dr. appointments, we've done a lot this fall and have enjoyed lots of fun family time together.  Trent and Maggie play together more and more and with that comes more and more fighting/arguing.  Maggie misses her bubby when he is at school and always wants to know when he is coming home.  Trent is doing very well in school (after a little extra discipline at home).  He can write his whole alphabet and is sounding out and spelling lots of words.  He has a lot of maturing to do before he starts Kg so I am very glad that he has an extra year before starting.  Maggie is quite the little "helper" and is as always full of life.  She is enjoying being able to eat lots of yummy food again!  This week we are working on getting her re-potty trained.  You may remember that my sweet girl potty trained herself the week before she turned 2.  However, this last surgery and the lasix and diuretics she's been on have really shot that one out of the water.  We have rearranged her med. schedule with hopes of being able to get her back in panties again.  Today has been a success so far and for that I am sooooo thankful! 

So, take a look at what we have been up to in the last couple months:

Trying their best to keep Ryan from going on his business trip

Maggie's first big time owie (other than surgery).  While Ryan was out of town, she fell off of the bar stool and her ear hit the other bar stool wrung as she came down.  Ouch!!!  She was mighty tough.  This picture doesn't even do it justice.  It looked even worse.  Poor Baby!  It's all healed up now, though.
 

Enjoying some spaghetti!  This girl can eat!

Ryan is so good at coming up with fun things for them to do! He's an amazing Dad.

Carving pumpkins on Halloween.  Trent wasn't very interested.

Maggie wanted a princess pumpkin so Ryan carved a crown.

Princess Cinderella

Trent, the famous golfer

My sweet nephew, Seth Robert, the Rodeo Clown

 

 

My School Boy

There's been so much going on in our lives in the last few weeks that I haven't been able to post about our every day happenings.  So, I'm gonna do my best to get caught up. 

Trent started preschool on Wednesday, Sept 9th.  We've been talking about it for a while now and he has always been excited to go even though I'm not sure he really understood what it would be.  The week before he started school, he got to go meet his teacher and see his classroom.  He was really disappointed that night when we left after 30 minutes and he didn't get to stay for school. 

So, last wednesday, I woke him up way earlier than he's used to getting up and he was so tired.  We snuggled for awhile and then he got dressed and while I was getting some things together, he almost fell back asleep on the couch:

After I got Maggie up and dressed, I, of course, wanted some pictures, but my sleepy kids were not very cooperative. 

After some begging and pleading, they cooperated... well sort of.

 

Once we got in the car and ate some breakfast, he was excited and ready for school.

After, we dropped him off, Maggie was so sad.  She kept asking where her bubby was and all the way home, she sang, "bye, bye bubby, bye bye bubby, bye bye bubby, we'll see again real soon". 

He had a great first day.  In fact, he didn't even want to come home.  His teacher says he has a hard time sitting in his seat but that will get better as the year goes on.  He's a boy, what can I say.  The only thing I can ever get out of him when I ask him what he did at school is, "we played".  Oh great!  Is that what we're paying for?  After going to his open house this week, I got to see what they have really been working on.  I'm so excited to see all that he learns this year.

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

Happy Birthday to my little man!  Trent, I love you so much.  You are growing in to such a big boy and you are a wonderful big brother.  I love your excitement for learning.  You amaze me.  I pray that you will continue to enjoy learning about this world, and that you will learn to love your Creator with your whole heart.

What an amazing 4 years it has been!

Happy 4th Birthday to my handsome golfer!  I love you, bubby.

A Day for Us

Saturday, was a fun day for our family.  It was really Trent's b-day outing, but it was also just a day for us... a day together. 
We had some free tickets to the Omnimax at the Science Center so we started the day by taking the kids to see The Wild Ocean.  They were both completely enamored by the size of the screen and all of the sea life swimming all around them.  The documentary part was a little too P.C. for me but thankfully the kids didn't get it.  They just sat back and enjoyed the show.  After the show, we took a little time to explore the Science Center but it was pretty much all over their heads.  I've always found that place to be boring, but I'm pretty sure that Trent and his daddy will be spending some days there when he gets older:

Trent loved the giant ball maze/sculpture.  Maggie's hospital has a small ball sculpture and it's their favorite thing and now Trent has a marble track at home that he spends hours with.  Never before had he seen one quite this huge!  He was in complete awe!

Maggie Jane... She just did her thing... 

After the Science Center, we headed to the City Garden which is a new found treasure for us.  The City Garden is a water fountain and sculpture park right in downtown St. Louis.  It is amazing.  There are hundreds of fountains for the kids to play in and 3 different "pools" for them to wade in.  It is absolutely beautiful and the kids had a blast!  (It definitely puts the splashground mentioned in the previous post to shame.)



















Trent was definitely NOT happy to be going home

Splashground

We have a favorite park in Ballwin, MO that we like to go to in the hot summer months.  They have a huge playground that the kids love (I hate it because it is impossible to track my kids) and they have a fun little splash area.  We have gone a few times this summer.  Here's some pics from the last two times:

 

Spiny Sea Urchins and All Things Fishy

This week is spent getting ready for Trent's fish birthday party.  That's right, my little man is turning 4 on the 18th.  So hard to believe.  We are having his party early so that we can have the weekend before Maggie's surgery to do some family things and have some down time.  Trent has chosen a fish party which is only natural.  The boy loves monster trucks, golf, and fish.  He reads the "F" encyclopedia just for fun and has memorized almost all of the fish in the book.  We're talking fish called:  humuhumunukunukuapua and common black devil deep sea anglers.  He loves fish.  He had a monster truck party last year so fish party it is.  Maybe golf will be next year.  Who knows.

Anyway, Family Fun Magazine had an article about fun water games to do out side and they had the idea to make sponge balls and use them instead of water balloons.  I love the idea but I'm giving it a little twist.  They are now called "spiny sea urchins" and we are going to have a spiny sea urchin fight.  So, today I have been busy making spiny sea urchins and coming up with other fishy ideas for the big party. 

I bought all of the sponges at Dollar Tree because it takes 3 sponges to make 1 sea urchin.  For anyone interested, here's how you do it:

Cut each sponge in to 5 strips lengthwise.  I used my hubby's utility knife and it worked really well.

Then you take some pretty heavy string and cut a piece about a foot long and lay it on the counter.  Stack the sponge pieces 5 across and 3 high on the string.

Then you tie the string around the sponges as tightly as possible.  (really, you pull it as tightly as you can making your fingers feel like they will be cut in two).  I did a couple good knots and then fluffed them out a little.

Do this about 20 more times and you have enough for a spiny sea urchin fight!  We are going to fill up the baby pool with water and put them in there.  So they can keep re-wetting them.  Because what fun would a dry spiny sea urchin fight be?  I'll let you know how it goes and how long it takes my fingers to heal (just kidding they're not that bad).

Twins???

Never before has the 19 months that separated my children's births seemed so small.  I have never felt like they were too close in age or that it was a difficult age difference.  UNTIL NOW!  Lately, it seems like I have twins.  Not because Trent is acting younger than his age but because Maggie finds it necessary to do everything he's doing.  If he's throwing a fit she throws a fit, if he's whining then she's whining, if he's being loud then she's loud, if he's playing with his favorite set of golf clubs then she needs to play with them as well... you get the point.  She's not just doing all of the bad stuff.  Some of it is that she has grown up soooooo much in the last month.  She is talking non stop and is very easy to understand, she loves to play with her bubby, and she wants to do everything for herself.  The other part of it is that they have just started playing together ALOT and with playing together comes the fighting.  So, anyway, right now it seems like I gave birth to twins and I'm not used to it at all yet.  I have been really impatient and short with them lately.  So, I guess I have to get used to my two amazing kiddos who are learning what it means to be brother and sister.

Monster Jam 2009

This past Saturday was Trent's favorite day of the year...  It was Monster Jam!  I am quite sure that he was more excited on Saturday than he was on Christmas or his birthday.  I know it sounds crazy, but I'm not kidding.  The boy loves monster trucks.  We tried to not talk about it much until after his nap because I knew he would be too excited to take a nap otherwise.  So, we woke him up from his nap and got him dressed and told him where we were going.  I wish I had a picture or video of him at this moment.  He got sooooo excited and while we were waiting to leave, he wanted to watch his monster jam video.  You know, a pre-show warm up.  We hit the road with a couple of his trucks in hand and headed to the restaurant to eat.  Trent was all business and saw no need to eat.   He had places to go and trucks to see.  We were able to convince him to eat and thankfully the restaurant was fast.  I don't think that he would have waited much longer.  After he was done eating, he crawled under the table and started to make his exit.  Apparently, we were taking too long and he didn't want to wait for us.  We all hurried up and got the boy to Monster Jam.  Let me explain his obsession just a little bit:  Trent knows the names of all but maybe 5 trucks and there are probably 40 in the circuit.  He also knows the drivers of almost all of them.  I got online and checked to see who was going to be there and realized that one of his favorite trucks would not be driven by the normal guy.  I told him that Grave Digger was going to be driven by Charlie Pauken instead of Dennis Anderson and then I asked him who Charlie Pauken normally drives.  He then says, "hmmm... let me think.  Oh, I know, Charlie Pauken drives Monster Mutt."  That's a true monster jam fan.

Once we got there, he was in heaven.  Most of his favorite trucks were there and several of his favorite people were there as well.  Uncle Luke, Claire, Lawson, Papa, Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Seth, Seth R., Uncle David, Joe and Grant were all there and this made it an extra special night.  He was completely captivated all night and his favorite truck of the night was Donkey Kong.  He even got a new Donkey Kong hat and he loves it!  I actually enjoy monster jam.  These trucks do amazing things and I do enjoy watching them, but most of the time I watched my favorite little guy.  He gets so excited every time a new race starts or a new truck comes out for freestyle.  Every time they make a jump, his whole body tenses up and he jumps up and down.  I have to say that he would have stayed there forever if we would have let him.  He was not very happy when it was over and he talked about it most of the way home.  I am pretty sure that this will be a yearly tradition for us, and maybe next year we will get there really early and take him to the pit party.  I can't think of anything he would enjoy more.  What can I say, my boy loves monster trucks and I love him!

Monster Jam 2009 Pictures