The new blog

I hope you all like it! I love it. Anyone considering Blogger- do it. It's great.

On to IOWA

Just as I get all the gifts from Christmas put away and the house returns to normal from its chaotic state...

on to Iowa.

What a joy filled weekend to spend with my brother and sister-in-law and their two boys. 

Gramma and Grampa were there too. We were all able to stay at their house and have a relaxing family weekend. Thanks, guys.

Here's Blake, he's 6 months old. Nice new teether, Blake!

There's our Lillian Mae.

Future slugger! Go Twins! All the kids got Twins gear. 

Lillian will look forward to wearing this cute spring hat! How adorable! And it's one where the flower comes off with a clip so she'll be wearing this one all her life.

Maren's showing Blake her new lap top computer! It comes in pink! How appropriate.

Maren enjoying Dustin's train table. She always goes the opposite direction of Dustin though. Then they get to the point where the run into each other and the screaming commences.

Maren thought Spook was silky. She loves silky. Apparently she also thought he was a pillow.

Cool new balls for Blake.

Thank yous!

Can you see that they're related! Perfect skin, blue eyes, button noses - too cute!

Check out those leg rolls. His thighs are massive! And the belly! What a well fed, growing boy. 

Atta boy, Blake. 

Well, hello there. Blake is getting good at the sitting up especially when the view is this nice. They sat and looked at each other for a long time. Lillian took a couple of swats at Blake but they just made goo goo noises at each other. 

I hardly ever look in on Lillian when she's sleeping. We've got a creaky old house and she's got a loud big sister but I snuck down to check on her after a long weekend and it was so fun to see her sleeping.

I told you it was a long weekend. Maren is trying out her new travel pillow that Aunt Darcie made the pillow case for. The we piled in the cars and headed home to MN and WI. 

Can't wait to see the Iowa White's again SOON!

Banana

Lillian is at the point already where she doesn't want to be spoon fed. She doesn't even want Cheerios or puffs. She wants real food. Food like we're eating. Food she can put in her mouth. When I was cutting up banana for her to eat the other day she just wanted the big piece, not the little ones. I thought, well, okay.

Lotion head

Me: "Maren, what's in your hair?"

"I washed it with that stuff." 

She points to the lotion on the top of her dresser. Wow.

Me:  "Okay, let's put on your slippers and go downstairs."

"I washed those too," she says.

Baby hair

Look at Lilly's hair! It's getting long over her ears. It's staying darker and redder. Maren had this much hair at 20 months. 

Tangled

Maren isn't a fan of items in her hair. Not piggies, not barrettes, nothing. Until-

Tangled. Gramma and Grampa took us to see it in the theatre. Now Maren wants braids all around her body. Gramma was able to get a few in.

Campfire Bay Resort

 My best friend, Jess, turned thirty and her loving husband set up a scrapbooking weekend away with our two families. Thanks, Gregg. It was a cold weekend so we didn't really play outside but we took a short walk up to the lodge all together. 

 Upstairs in the nice new lodge there is a big room full of trains and toys. Maren of course found the non-toys, and started DJing the show

On the trip back Maren climbed a mountain.

Then we made brownies for Jess's birthday.

Ate dinner

sang happy birthday and blew out the candles!

 Then it was stories and time for bed. 

What a fun weekend away and mom got a lot of scrapping done :)

Cutest Giraffe

Dad bought me an outfit from Gymboree for Christmas. Unfortunately it was the wrong size and they didn't have my size when mom went in to exchange it. The good news, shopping spree. Mom liked this giraffe outfit. Super cute! How exciting. 

cutest giraffe ever

Dinner Time

Aunt Darcie and Uncle Ryan placed a video on their photo site of Cousin Dustin feeding Cousin Blake. What a good idea! I've let Maren do it before but not with the high chair down like this. While I make dinner this gives Maren something to do. (Note Geena waiting for the spills)

Unfortunately you can't put the food down on her tray because Lilly can reach it.

 So eventually Maren dropped the plate of food as Lilly grabbed hold. Oh well, fun while it lasted...

and very messy

The Aftermath

Argh, so I leave one Sunday afternoon at nap time. When I get home Matt informed me that I was lucky I was gone because I would have killed Maren had I been home. 

The long story - last weekend we painted the bedroom on the main floor and ripped up the carpet, bought a new rug, matching lamps and moved our room to the main floor. This means that the guest room stuff went upstairs to our old room. In the middle of all the moving it was Maren's nap time. She got our old room so we let her sleep in there even though the bed wasn't set up yet so she got to sleep in the futon. The dresser had art supplies in the drawer because we use to put things in there that we didn't want Maren to get to. Well in the new room it was easy. She got to the finger paints. Matt didn't get the camera when he went up to check on all the noise but I got it when she woke up. Here is what the rug looked like:

 

She's lucky she's cute.

After Christmas

A return home. A return to normal. 

A chance to find places for the 101 new things we brought home last night.

Here's Maren in the new outfit she got from Gamma and Gampa. The sweater vest is perfect because Maren gets "hot" a lot. I'm not sure she's hot but she knows if she says that I let her take off a layer.

 Lilly got this outfit from Great Aunt Jeanne and Great Uncle Larry. The jacket is all fuzzy and warm. Thanks you two!

 My sleeping beauty. She comes down from nap and lays on the couch and asks for milk. I went to get it and got a bit side tracked. She had fallen right back to sleep after such an eventful day yesterday.

The next day Lilly sports a new shirt. It says, "My Aunt loves me." She got it from her Great Aunt Cheryl who said she couldn't find any that said "Great" Aunt so she's really helping out Darcie.

Bathing Beauty

These next few entries have phtos I already posted on my old blog site but I never went back and added the blog entry. Here's the stories:

I can't get enough of this little girl. She is very smily and makes for great photos. 

 Even out of the tub this one's a cutie. I can't believe what a coy little look she has in the towel shots.

What a looker! It must be those big blue eyes.

Pancakes

On my mom's side of the family we draw names to exchange gifts. Mike drew Matt's name. Lucky Matt! Most of you know my husband's love of Star Wars. Well check this out:

 Star Wars pancake molds from William Sonoma. Unfortunately they are harder to use than the instructions let on. I may not be making these fancy shaped pancakes ever again.

Maren may have the same love as her father.

Lillian looks on at the fun with her own fun rice rusk to eat!