Happy Birthday!

Wife, mommy, best friend, teacher, nurse, cook, cleaner, etc...Johanna is all this and more to the three of us. We love her and aspire to model the same grace and mercy she has displayed in our home. We hope that today will be a special day for you, Johanna! Happy Birthday!
Love,
Brian, Stefan, and Olivia

Visitors!

We enjoyed a brief visit from Erik and Bethany this weekend. It was great to see the newlyweds. We only wish it could have been a little longer. Here are a couple of shots of them with the kids.

More shots of Olivia!

Because we all know that for every one shot I post, I took (precisely) a gazillion others.

I can't get enough of this smile.

This is for all of you that thought I might have waited too long to start her on solids. Ummm check out the thighs!

The thighs and the giggles. More cuteness than one girl ought to be allowed.

Family picnic

A couple of weekends ago we went on an impromptu family picnic. It was a fun evening, though the mosquitoes were quite pesky. We ate, watched Stefan play on the playground for awhile and then finished off the evening with a Sonic ice cream cone. Compliments of our local library's summer reading program. Olivia got her own too, but Daddy and Mommy shared hers:)

Six Months Old

It is so hard to believe that Olivia is now half way through her first year. Wow. Time has flown. Olivia is such a sweetheart.
She rolls all over the place and can get to nearly anything if she really wants to, but isn't actually crawling yet.
She smiles and giggles and, hands down, her big brother can get the BEST giggles out of her.
Up to this point Olivia has been 100% breastfed. Her entire world will be opening up as we start introducing her to the world of different tastes and textures in food.

Mudpies!

Another one of our fun activities this week was making mudpies. There is definitely a reason why mother's of toddlers don't get manicures done. It wouldn't last more than a day! Anyway, sometimes I wonder at myself, because I was teaching him how to make the mudpies. But he had a blast and eventually was able to make them mostly on his own! It was so cute to watch his face every single time he picked up the bowl and saw the pie firmly in place. It was like it was new every time. My camera wasn't fast enough to catch the "in awe" look, but you get a small idea in the picture in the collage. He felt the need to water the flower afterwards too.

We also talked about squares and circles while we did this. I know. But, I really couldn't help myself.

Playing is learning!

My motto when trying to teach Stefan is that "playing is learning." With a toddler there is so much to learn just by playing. Really, nearly anything can be a learning experience if you are in tune to seeing it and maybe just a little imaginative/creative. What I love is that Stefan is learning without even realizing he is.

The other day we did this great activity/game together. We were given these mini-vehicles (along with some other pre-school type materials--yeah!) from another Mom who no longer needs them. Stefan loves them! Stefan already knows his colors, and is really good at sorting by color or type (airplanes, firetrucks, cars, boats, trains, buses) so we made this into a French game.

On one end of our living room we had the bucket of beans with all the vehicles. On the other end of the room we had a table with the same color bowls. He would reach in and get a vehicle and then run (and I mean run!) across the room to the correct bowl. Before he could go get another one, he had to say the color/vehicle in french. He had a blast! Before we knew it we had spent over an hour together and had not spoken a word of english. Of course many other french words were used besides just the colors and vehicles so this was a great activity. He then spent almost another hour just playing in the beans. Playing in beans or rice is a great sensory activity for toddlers.

VBS Carnival

Last week our church had Vacation Bible School. Brian helped all week, but the kids and I were home. However, on the last night, which was carnival night, the younger kids were invited to come. Stefan loved it!


Trying out cotton candy with Ms. Lacey. That was the only bite he took. He did NOT like it! (Apple didn't fall far from the tree there--neither Brian nor I like it!)

Enjoying some of the games and getting lots of little prizes. He even aimed perfectly and dunked "Uncle" Jeremy (one of our pastors) in the dunk tank. Olivia spent most of the evening in Auntie Jennie's arms and fell right to sleep!

Auntie Donna Recap #2

Stefan really enjoyed Auntie Donna this visit! As he gets older it is really fun watching him develop a bond with people. He definitely picked up really quickly that Auntie Donna would do just about anything he asked. They did lots of playing and reading together. She's a fun Auntie!

While Donna was here we also got to meet up with our good friends, Michael, Liz, Viviane, and Adeline. Brian wasn't able to go to the gardens with us, but he did meet up with us for his lunch break. It was so much fun catching up with them and I'm looking forward to being with Liz and the girls again this week.

Donna's Visit Recap #1

I recently read a blog post titled somthing like, "You know you are a parent of small children when..." This could very well have been the title of our visit to the mall last Tuesday. Since Donna was here we decided to go to a mall a little further away that "just happens" to have a Cheesecake Factory inside and an IKEA right next door. The perfect place for two sisters to spend the day shopping. Oh yes, did I mention we had small children along? For the remainder of this post I will refer to Stefan and Olivia as SC#1 (Stefan) and SC#2 (Olivia).

You know you have Small Children along when...

--You go to a very large mall to shop and you actually don't go in any clothing store or home decor store, or...
-- You DO go in the lego store and spend a lot of time there watching SC#1 building things
--You go to a restaurant and spend your entire time bouncing SC#2 to try to keep her quiet
--You take turns eating/bouncing so that the evil stares of those around you are kept to a minimum
--SC#2 falls off the booth bench when laying there "sleeping" making Mommy feel the evil stares even more (thankfully SC#1 is absorbed in the spinach dip and sour cream!)
--You forgo the dessert because SC#2 can't handle the restaurant any more (um...did I mention it was the Cheesecake Factory. Still regretting that decision-to leave, I mean!)
--You promptly head to McDonalds to get an ice cream cone for SC#1
--You spend 45 minutes (yes, 45!) watching SC#1 play in the playland at the mall
--You pass by all those stores you wanted to go in because you can't stop walking because SC#2 desperately needs to fall asleep and as soon as the stroller stops moving she is liable to start screaming thereby bringing on more evil stares by passersby.

Oh, I do love my children, but it definitely makes sister outings look a little different than they used to. Thankfully, my sister doesn't mind at all, and we had fun nonetheless--and we did go to IKEA, too!

Donna, feel free to add some more "you know" things in the comment section!

W is for Wagon

I knew today was going to be a bit of a rough day. We've had Auntie Donna here all week, and Stefan has thoroughly enjoyed al the extra attention and outings that we have done. Since I knew he would be asking if we were going to go somewhere (since we have been all week), I decided I'd better do an activity. Enter the Mommy-teacher mode:). Here was our little morning activity.



(P.S. a host of pictures to follow of our fun week--but probably not until naptime!)