She Walks. She Eats.

I have been looking forward to this day for awhile- Marissa took her first steps yesterday! She has been standing up randomly on her own for a few weeks now so we've just been waiting for her to take the plunge.  It was the cats next door that got her to do it last night.


And because I talked to a few of you who got a good laugh out of the gerbil food fiasco, I thought I'd document just a few of the things I have pulled since then from her "jaws of death" as I like to call them (teeth #13 and 14 are breaking through, which is probably why she feels the need to put all this stuff in her mouth- at least that's what I'm hoping anyway!)

-a bag of wipes
-a birthday candle
-sidewalk chalk
-a dandelion
-a roly poly
-a beetle

Do we have a mouse in the house?  Nope, just a Marissa :)

P.S. Shane was pretty excited about her walking too.  We've been talking about how he is learning how to ride his bike and Marissa is learning how to walk and he's been praying for both of those things every night and when I asked him if he was proud of Marissa for walking he said, "Jesus doesn't need to help her walk anymore!!!"

Just Another Day in the Life...

There are lots of cute moments every day, like cuddle time in mom's bed in the morning,

which of course involves kisses.

I put Paco in this cage to clean out his glass one and Marissa was in heaven watching him scale the bars.  (If you are keeping tabs, we did have two, but Pete got sick and died a couple months ago.)  This is her doing her sign for gerbil.

and trying to give him his food we had just gotten from the pet store.  Cute, right?

Not so cute when she tries to eat it herself.  Oh dear.  I was making dinner and it wasn't ready fast enough apparently so while I had my back turned she bit a hole in the bag and went crazy.  Luckily Shane tipped me off before she could eat much (he walked in the kitchen and asked me in a worried voice- "Mommy?  Are you happy?" ha ha).  And you know, sometimes you just have to take that half second to take a picture so you remember to laugh instead of freak out.  (P.S. it is NOT bathing suit weather here, just had to try her new one on ;) )

I did not, however, take a picture of Shane and the entire bottle of corn syrup he accidentally spilled on himself and the kitchen floor while playing "grocery".  Needless to say, they both got baths tonight, and I got a good laugh out of Shane teaching his "boys and girls" how to jump.  "Bend, and jump!!" 

Just another day in the life, folks.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Living the Dream

I have heard several older and wiser people say that the early days of their marriage where they were scrimping and saving on a tight budget are some of their fondest memories. Granted by the time we are in a position to not be scrimping and saving, it won't really qualify as "early days" of our marriage anymore, but I think I still believe them. Because tonight we had corn tortilla pizzas for dinner (can you tell we're getting to the last couple weeks of our loan check;)?),

walked around Home Depot for entertainment,

and used a coupon we just got in the mail to get concrete mixers at Culver's

and you would've thought it was the best day of our kids' lives. As for Josh and I, it is just a treat to have a Friday he's not working or studying all night and we relish them when they happen. And in all honesty, when I do look forward to the day Josh will actually be done with med school and residency, it's not as much about the fact that we'll actually be making money as it is the fact that we'll get to spend more time with Josh. (Thank you Josh, for wanting to go into family medicine!)

The Little Things

    Being a mom of a 1 year old and a 3 year old has its moments.  Sometimes you may even let your daughter pull out a whole box of wipes because the five minutes of peace is totally worth it.

 But when I do get a minute to myself I can't help but think about how cute they are and all the things they do that make me smile.  Like how Shane wants to kiss me and when I tell him he needs to close his mouth he puckers up like this.

Or how Marissa begs to brush her teeth anytime anyone is near the bathroom or says the words

Or how Shane will ask you for something and then give you the response he wants- "Mommy would you like to read this to me?  Say 'sure! I would love to!' " 

Or watching Marissa love on her baby doll

If you have talked to me in the past few weeks you probably know I've been working hard with Shane on getting him to jump off the ground with both feet.  I know, I know, that's old news for most kids his age but he would just jump with one foot and do this kind of gallop thing and he really thought he was jumping.  I knew he was capable of doing it he just has never been good at taking verbal directions and applying it to his body. Poor kid was doomed, anyone who has ever tried to teach me how to bowl knows where he got that from!  Anyway, when he realized he wasn't really jumping it was pretty sad for a few weeks there, we would practice and he would say "I just can't jumpppp.  I have a hard time!  Not today, not tonight, not tomorrow!!"  I tried not to be too much of a drill master but sometimes he was just sick of it and when I would ask him to do it he would sometimes say, "No!  I'm just hiding from jumping!"  But we practiced on steps a lot and pretended that he was a scary monster who would jump off the step and get us and it became fun again.

And all that hard work payed off because tonight he jumped for real!!!  Hallelujah!  We're so proud of you Shane!

The Festivities

With my birthday on Saturday and Marissa's birthday and Easter on Sunday, and Josh actually home, we had a fun filled weekend!  On Saturday we took the kids to two egg hunts.  There was a little one at Walmart and then a big city one in the afternoon. 

Check out all those eggs waiting to be found!  He is usually a "tiptoe through the tulips" kind of boy, but he knew what was at stake here and got quite a few!

Marissa had cracked open an egg at the first egg hunt and figured out in a matter of seconds what was in them so when we had to wait for the start those eggs were taunting her and she was frantically signing "more! more!"  and trying to get to them.  Needless to say they are without of her eyesight at home now :)

"Look at all this loot!"

The Easter bunny was there which thrilled Shane and petrified Marissa.  I have never seen her so scared of something!

That night we dropped the kids off with our friends and went to Birch Run for dinner and a little birthday shopping.  They have the best deep dish Chicago style pizza (for me) and gluten free thin crust for Josh. 

After we picked them up we let Shane stay up and eat cake with us.  He had been talking about it all week!

The next morning the Easter bunny came and we checked out the goods,

then went to church. 

That night we had our friends the Walpoles and Hepworths over for Easter dinner and had a little egg hunt in the backyard for the kids

and cake for Marissa's birthday.

She took longer to get into it then I thought she would (and by that I mean more than 5 seconds...)

but loved it and was even eager to share:)

Happy Birthday Marissa!

My little baby turned 1 yesterday (on Easter)!  She is growing up so fast and we love her so much!  A few things about her at a year:

-We may be in trouble- she is a total flirt and she especially loves men.  She will smile and wave until she gets their attention and has them wrapped around her little finger in 2 seconds. 
-She is a great eater.  She will eat just about anything (of course including dirt and all that kind of stuff too...), her only stipulation is that you mix it up and give her some variety.  Some favorites are avocado, strawberries, blackberries, bananas, and anything we are having for dinner.
-Loves her brother and also enjoys tormenting him.  He loves lining up his cars and she can't resist crashing them, much to his dismay.
-She's getting a little bit closer to walking but I think it still may be a ways off.
-Still nursing but we're working on the weaning now that she can have cow's milk.
- Says mama, dada, and more (ha!), and signs more, eat, drink, milk, all done, book, please, and gerbil.  She tries so hard to say baby but it just comes out "da". 
-Is pretty much done with morning naps but takes a good afternoon one and sleeps great at night.
-Kind of has a mullet at the moment, and has 12 teeth now. 
-Figures out how to do things/get into stuff pretty quickly.
-Gives us the best hugs and cuddles but is not big on kisses. 
-Loves mooching anything off of Dad and if he tries to open his computer on the couch she will climb onto his lap and beg him to watch something. 

Happy birthday Marissa!!  We sure do love you!!!

Life Lately

Nothing too exciting going on here lately but I like to document the day-to-day stuff too, so here goes.  A couple weeks ago we had some really unseasonably warm weather and had a lot of fun outside.

I had fun pulling out some of the summer clothes

And we walked to this little playground a couple blocks away from our house several afternoons.  It has been fun to see the progress Shane has made since last summer!

Josh had grand plans for our yard and filled in most of the dead patches of grass with seed, and then the weather turned last week.  But next week is looking on the up and up so we're hoping it grows.

Speaking of Josh, he has finished 3 weeks of his surgery core and is still alive!  Just kidding (kind of).  He got the luck of getting the attending surgeon who is notorious for ripping into students and eating them alive, but feels like he is incurring his wrath a little bit less every day, which has to mean something good right?  He even gave him a compliment the other day (then said, "just don't let it get to your head!")  He is learning a ton though and getting some good experience.  His alarm goes off before 4 every day (including Saturday) to get to the hospital by 5 to round on patients and is on call at the hospital about one night a week but is usually home for dinner the rest of the nights at least.  The kids soak up all the time they get with him and sure love their daddy.

He got a charcoal grill with some Christmas money and we busted it out for the first time today and had burgers outside for dinner

Along with a little baseball:)

And I ran a half marathon last Saturday with my friend Jamie.  I've run a couple before and have always kind of had the goal of finishing under 2 hours but could never quite do it so I was super excited to finish this one in 1:58:23.  It was perfect running weather and I realized that after doing most of my runs pushing 55+ pounds of kids in the stroller, it felt pretty good to run without that!