A Road Trip

We’re at BeBe and Papa’s house. Yes, we made the long trip up to Wisconsin last week week. We left on Wednesday after Samantha’s two-year check up.

The first goal was to get to Uncle Paul and Aunt Jenney’s, normally a 12 hour trip. We actually made it and in not to bad of time either. It was a long day and Samantha was more than ready to get out of her car seat when the day was finished but overall it was a good trip. Blake, of course, slept the most of the way.

Thursday we took it easy coming to BeBe and Papa’s house. We didn’t get up to early and made several stops during the four hour trip.

We came up here because Papa had surgery and is not able to do lifting, etc. It is a very busy time for him and he needed some extra hands. Travis has a bit of time available to help him so it worked out to come up.

Uncle Paul and Aunt Jenney with Ellie and Dane were able to spend a long weekend with us at BeBe and Papa’s house also. Samantha loved spending time with the cousins and it was fun to see her follow Ellie around and imitate her several times. She talked a lot about Dane and they enjoyed each other’s company. More than once though I heard her telling Dane “no” when he was doing something she didn’t think was right.

Uncle Paul brought a Wii game with him and we all enjoyed numerous hours playing bowling, golf, tennis, baseball and boardgames on it. In fact, Travis and Uncle Paul stayed up until 3:00 a.m. Saturday night playing!!!

My Grandma J and her husband, Loren were able to join us for Sunday breakfast and be introduced to Blake and see the other great-grandchildren. I think it may have been quite overwhelming for them and their quiet life to join us for a few hours --the house here wasn’t quiet with the four kids.

Samantha enjoys being here and has asked to see the turkeys numerous amounts of times. We are waiting for the weather to warm up a bit before we spend a lot of time outside, it still feels like winter here!

Blake has been battling some serious gas issues and I’m trying to figure out how I can help him. I changed formula’s hoping that that will help ease his troubles a bit and I am still waiting to see if that will help. We believe he might have caught a slight cold from his sister and we’re praying it doesn’t turn into anything worse. Blake also smiled for the first time on Thursday. He's been practicing it on and off ever since.

Samantha did survive her two year check-up. She continues to be in the 50th percentile for both height and weight. She wasn’t feeling the greatest so seeing the doctor wasn’t on her priority list. Luckily she didn’t have to get a shot and Dr. Carter was very gentle and let her sit on my lap for most of the exam.

And lastly, people may ask what we paid for gas and the highest I believe we paid was $3.59. Outrageous in my book!

Blake trying out the Boppie...


Two of our stops along the way were Starbucks (picture 1) and Caribou Coffee (picture 2)



What we woke up to Sabbath morning...


Papa reading to the grandkids...


Sleeping on BeBe...

One of the highlights of the week was feeding the ducks at the duck pond. I picked up a loaf of bread the the store and we headed off to feed them. Samantha enjoyed throwing the bread for the ducks both in the water and on land. The ducks at the entire loaf!

We spent Wednesday night with Tracy and Cheryl. We first tried out a new restaurant-a Mongolian Barbeque. Both Travis and I had been to them before (Guam has a great one with a killer view if you're ever there:)) but Tracy and Cheryl had not. We deemed it just as good as Guam minus the view. After supper we took a short walk on the walking bridge. It was a gorgeous evening and there were lots of people walking or jogging. We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine.

Samantha continues to be a huge fan of outside. In fact, when she woke up in the middle of the night last night she asked to "play outside". We try to accomodate her as much as possible and varying the activities from jumping on the trampoline to throwing rocks in the stream. We are so thankful she loves being outside!

We got the swing out for Blake this week and he really has enjoyed it. It often puts him to sleep, especially if his sister doesn't push him too hard. We have also discovered that he likes the vibration mode the on the bouncy seat. He continues to really fill out and grow leaps and bounds it seems!

Here is a video of Samantha saying her memory verse...


Feeding the duck...


Enjoying the Mongolian BBQ...


And the walk...


In the swing...


Sleeping so peacefully on mom...

Growing Bigger

We continued to celebrate Samantha's birthday this week. I told Travis we created a birthday animal because she kept on saying "Happy Birthday" and there is no hesitation now when you ask her how old she is.

On her actually birthday we went to the Creative Discovery Museum. It's a special hands-on museum just for kids. She had a blast and if I could guess, I would say she enjoyed the water part best and the music part second.

That evening we opened a few presents that she got in the mail and were able to play with them that evening.

With her turning two it means she gets to change Sabbath Schools. She was really looking forward to hew new Sabbath School and I think she enjoyed it. At this Sabbath School you learn a memory verse (or repeat it after the teacher) and you get stamps on your hand. It made a huge impression on Samantha and so this is our first week of learning our memory verse. She brings her new quarterly to me several times throughout the day so we can say her memory verse. I think it's great. Last week she started to say prayers as she would repeat a prayer after us.

I'm not sure where she got it from but she often says "There you go missy" and tonight after Travis answered the phone "Hey man" she repeated him. Oh, we must be careful what we say!!

Our little guy is growing so fast. At his one month appointment on Friday he weighed 9 lbs and is 21 1/2" long. He seems to be in perfect health and is right on track with growth. I can see he's really filling out and starting to get some fat on him.

Blake has started to make a little noise besides crying and I love to hear him. This week we got out a bouncer chair so he could have a different view point other than just from his bassinet.

We seem to be adjusting to having both kids around. It takes us a bit to get going in the mornings but so far we haven't been late to an appointment (knock on wood).

I apologize for not having pictures. We are in the process of changing out hard drives and my pictures are on the other drive. Maybe we can get them posted later this week.

Samantha got rain boots for her birthday and she couldn't wait to check them out. Here she is playing in the puddles...


Hanging out in the bouncy seat...


The Discovery Museum wasn't so much fun for Blake...


Resting...


Birthday cupcake...


Playing at the Discovery Museum...




Playing with dandelions...

A Birthday Celebration!

Blake continues to do great. He really never cries unless he's got gas or is hungry and you could practically set your clock to him during the day, he generally eats every 3 hours.

He is really starting to put on some weight. We found out today that he weighs 8 lbs, 4 oz and is 21 1/4" long. I knew he was getting bigger because he's growing out of the newborn size diapers. Luckily we're just about out of them.

Several people have asked how Samantha does with him and she hardly every pays him any attention. We did catch her trying to get him to hold her fingers but that's about it. We have to tell her to give him a kiss at bedtime otherwise she just breezes over him.

Samantha has become quite independent. I feel it's great unless I"m in a hurry then I get frustrated with it. She choose to dress herself if possible, take of her pj's, etc. She tries to do anything she can. She has recently accomplished learning how to load and get the DVD to play and turn on her CD in her room. This was a progression of several people showing her different steps and she's now put it all together so she is quite independent.

It's hard to believe our little girl is going to turn two this week! We started the celebration last night (Sunday night) with a small party at our house with a monkey theme as we often call her our monkey and she loves them. I fixed a simple meal for some friends and we celebrated with cake and ice cream. The cake was awesome! We had our friend Maria make it and she came up with the design all by herself. It was delicious chocolate cake with chocolate chips and banana filling. Yuuummmmm! Back to the celebration...we decorated the house with balloons and a couple of monkeys and outside on the deck with a few balloons. We ended the evening on the deck as we gave Samantha a sandbox for her birthday. The girls had a good time playing in it last night and I'm sure they'll be lots more play time with it during the summer months.

We love our daughter so much and are so thankful for her. We laugh at her antics almost daily, especially what she says (she said "yesterday" this week). It's incredible to see her little mind work and put things together. We are excited about the future with her and are thankful God blessed us with her.

Sleeping with Dad...


Such a growing boy...


Trying to get him to hold her finger...


Celebrating her birthday at Sabbath School. Now she gets to go to the next Sabbath School...


Happy Birthday...


Samantha and Kathryn playing in the sandbox...


The birthday group...

Blake's Announcement