Sweetness!

Not the greatest quality as I was taking it while holding her, but it's still cute!

Reading with Daddy

Stefan's favorite time of day is when Daddy comes home from work. The couple of hours between when Daddy gets home and Stefan's bedtime are lots of fun. Stefan hardly leaves his Daddy's side. So sweet. Here is a moment I caught last night.

There are many ways to bring Olivia her passy!

The letter 'S'

We've been working on the letter 'S' so today we did a fun little project. (Since we already had the marshmallows out!)


First, I drew an S for Stefan and he traced it with the glue stick. He needed Mommy's help for this part.



Once the glue was on he stuck the marshmallows on. At the beginning he was having trouble understanding that he needed to follow the blue line and was frustrated that they weren't just sticking anywhere on the page. After a couple of explanations, though, he finally said, "ooohhhh!" He got it and then was very serious until he had every part of the S covered.


Here is Stefan with his finished Project!

Working on counting

We combined some counting practice with small motor skill practice this morning. He had difficulty at first picking up the marshmallows with the pincher, but he quickly got the hang of it.

My Sweetie

Here is little Olivia. She's a bit serious here. I think she was trying to decide if she was going to be ok with the swing. Just for the record, she decided against it;-)

Celebrating our big boy!

This past weekend we had Pizza Night at our house. But this wasn't any ordinary pizza night. No...this was celebrating Stefan being a BIG BOY! And boy did he love the party! Yes, Stefan now no longer uses a pacifier to go to sleep. Now, before you accuse me of being a horrible mother that let her son have a passy as a two year old, let me justify myself. For a long time now, he has only been allowed to have the passy to go to sleep. (Well, most of the time anyway, but let's not go there:-) )

For months we have been discussing the fact that we needed to pull the plug. Quite literally! But Mommy always had an excuse. Can't push any blame on Daddy here, because he was ready to do this months ago. I promise, it was always a really good excuse. But an excuse none the less. First it was moving, and then living in someone elses home, then moving again, then having a baby sister, then... You get the point. Good excuses, right? I'm not really sure why I kept coming up with excuses except that I have a really vivid imagination and expected this to be a traumatic event that would take us years to recover from. I envisioned a distraught boy crying for hours trying to go to sleep; a distraught Mommy crying because she was sick of the crying or because her baby was growing up (or any number of other emotions); and Daddy somewhere in the middle trying to keep said boy in his bed, and said Mommy from running in to rescue her poor child. I really don't know why I thought it would be like this. I'm not really a cryer, and once I've made up my mind about something I don't generally give in to easily (just ask Brian, ha!). But that is what I imagined. Call it pregnancy and post labor hormones maybe. (Please, give me some excuse.)

Anyway, so back to the pacifier. We finally decided that this last week was the week. We nearly got off course when Mommy gave yet another excuse. This time it wasn't for poor Stefan at all, but for poor Mommy. I mean, when we set the date we didn't know Daddy was going to be starting work that week. I tried. I told him it was me that was going to have to listen to the crying at naptime while he was at work blissfully unaware of all the trauma going on at home. I gave quite a number of excuses, and he just looked at me. Yes, he's right. The excuses have to stop. So we did it. We had an official ceremony and said "Bye bye" to the dear old friend. Oh how I wish that I had recorded the little ceremony. But, again, I was expecting trauma, and who wants trauma recorded for future generations to see? However, I was completely unprepared for the response. The conversation between Daddy and Stefan went something like this:

Daddy: Do you realize what an important day this is in your life? You are a big boy now and big boys don't have passy's. (Stefan solemnly nods) Have you ever seen Papi, or Uncle Bob, or Daddy with a passy? No, because they are men and they don't need passy's. (Nod again) We are going to say bye-bye to the passy.

Stefan: Passy all gone?

Daddy: Yes, all gone. I want you to think about it for a moment because this is going to change your life forever. (At this point Mommy is thinking just get this over with, along with the crying that is sure to come).

Stefan: Bye-bye passy.

And he kisses his passy and throws it in the trash. That was it. Nothing else. Not a cry. No mention of it. Went to bed without a peep and has never asked for it since. One night we are crying for it to go to sleep, and the next night no word about it.

So it is that our baby is growing up. No more cute pictures of a sleeping boy with his passy in his mouth. And we are so proud of his accomplishments. His other really big Big Boy accomplishment was that last week was his first full week to go without a diaper except for sleeping. Now that indeed is an accomplishment. So we celebrated. Pizza Night couldn't have been more fun. Stefan got really into the whole party thing and frequently reminded us that passy was all gone or that he was a big boy. Oh yes, he knew exactly why we were celebrating and it was fun to reward him for his accomplishments. We love our sweet growing boy.

So there you have it. The story of passy being "all gone."

1st day of work!

After months of looking for a job and sending in hundreds of applications, we are so thrilled and grateful that the Lord provided Brian a job. Today was his first day as the Scheduler at Rock Valley College. The basic job description is being responsible for scheduling and assigning rooms for all events that are held on the campus. He will be responsible for "setting up" the room on the computer (a special program) with the appropriate equipment and sending the information to the appropriate people so that the rooms are ready for the event. I think I got that right!

We are so thankful for this answer to prayer. God has met all of our needs the past few months, but we are grateful to be leaving the unemployment state behind and for Brian to have a full time job.


Brian after his first day on the job!

Visit to Wisconsin

Today we went to Wisconsin to visit Brian's grandparents. We got to see quite a bit of other family. I got to meet another uncle and several more cousins which was nice. We had a nice time visiting and introducing Grandma and Grandpa to their newest Great-Granddaughter

Lunch with some of the family.

Getting cozy with Great Grandma


And some clowning around!

And now with Great Grandpa. Pretty amazing that there are 93 years between Grandpa and Olivia.

I'm so glad my children are able to know their Great Grandparents.

Happy Bithday!

Happy Birthday!
We love you,
Johanna, Stefan, and Olivia

Olivia's Baby Shower

Last night our church hosted a baby shower for Olivia. It was such a nice time and I was so blessed by the generosity and love showed to me by the ladies. Anouk and Lacey did such a nice job with the decorations and food. They had a French tea party theme and it was so cute. Olivia was a perfect angel the whole time -- she slept right through all the festivities. I am so grateful for all the gifts. A nice mixture of practical and cute! Thank you, Ladies!

Here is the star of the evening in her adorable outfit Auntie Brenda gave her!

Gifts for Olivia!

Yesterday our Life Group met after church. Our church is divided into smaller groups and we meet every other Sunday in place of the evening service. We had lunch together, a time of discussion, and then surprise, surprise they showered little Olivia with gifts. She had quite the welcoming to Life Group! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful church family and were once again blessed by their love for us.

Here's the little princess!

And here is her loot! We were so thankful to get lots of practical things like diapers and wipes! What a blessing!