It's all part of being a mother

First of all, I have to say that my first Mother's Day with two born children was great! I got lovely flowers and a necklace, went to a yummy lunch at La Fogata, and enjoyed having the grandmas (and grandpas too!) over for supper.

But, as a lot of you know, being a mother isn't always easy. Yesterday Landon had such a rough day. He is usually Mr. Independent and will play with his cars, books, and puzzles so well on his own. That was not the case on Saturday. He was so clingy and whiney and nothing seemed to satisfy him for long. I was getting quite frustrated with him until we went outside and he showed me just how thoughtful a 19 month old can be. He likes flowers and wanted to pick some. So luckily we have a lot of yellow flowers throughout our yard :) and he made a 5 dandelion boquet for his daddy. He was very excited to come in and put them in water!

Emerson was in a better mood than her brother thankfully, but sometimes she gets a little too ambitious. She loves baths and got a little too anxious about taking one yesterday. She fell in the bathtub head first while it was filling up, with her clothes on! I thought about taking her picture, but I think she was pretty traumatized! :)

With all of the ups and downs of motherhood, it's pretty exciting to see your children sooo excited about everyday events like picking weeds and taking baths! It definitely makes you appreciate all the little things in life.

Unfortunately, this is the best picture of the kids and me on Mother's Day (not sure how much Emmi loves Mommy in this photo! :) )
Thought this was a cute one of the girls!

On a side note, we got higher speed internet this weekend!!! So hopefully I'll update more with more pictures! :)

Easter weekend and Spring Break

What a huge blessing to be able to spend the last week with my beautiful family! We had a great, tiring week, enjoying the weather outside when we could and playing indoors when we couldn't.

We had a very busy Easter. Steven and Kristina were home for the weekend so we got to spend time with them at dad's retirement party and on Easter. Matt and I were exhausted after church without even going to our parents' houses yet! The kids were great and napped some, but it is hard to keep them entertained from 7:30-11:30 at church. They had 3 Easter egg hunts and luckily for their mom and dad, don't know anything about candy yet! :)

Then, without going over every detail of our week, I'll hit some highlights:

• visiting the park for the first time
• riding the 4-wheeler at the Davis'
• being grouchy kids at the Clarks' :)
• RUNNY NOSES (for both kids now) which equals fussiness
• dinner with the Smiths
• spring pictures with live ducks (Landon was NOT a fan!) :)
• and tonight is Greyson's 2nd birthday party!

It's so amazing to see how much the kids grow and change when you get to spend time with them. They are terrific little guys and their personalities are really coming out. Hope you had a great week as well!

Date Weekend and Egg Hunt

Matt and I had the pleasure of a date weekend this past weekend! We both took personal days on Friday and headed up to Chicago to spend Friday and Saturday. We spent most of the day Friday at the Field Museum (which teachers no longer get discounts at unless you teach in Illinois! ). It was nice taking our time and looking at the exhibits. We didn't have much of a schedule to keep. I will only mention one of the cool things we saw; I won't bore those of you that don't like sciency things! They have a mammoth exhibit on display and inside they had an actual baby woolly mammoth that was 42,000 years old! It was perserved in the ice and snow and still had the skin and some fur on it. It was pretty cool! :)

Then Friday night, we went out to a nice dinner at the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant. They had all kinds of different things on the menu, but I enjoyed it all. Then we went back to the hotel to watch the Purdue/Duke game.

The next day, we slept in, had a nice brunch at the hotel, and walked around the city a bit to "window shop." Afterwards, we left Chicago and stopped at Cabela's on the way home.

We had a really nice time together. We got to talk, hang out just the two of us, and spend $75 in parking! :)

Then when we got back on Sunday, the Frye's hosted an Easter egg hunt for Landon, Emerson, Greyson, Grace, and Tyler. I was a little worried that our kids would have NO IDEA what to do, but surprisingly they both caught on. Landon was looking for the eggs and Emerson would pick them up and drop them in the basket. It was so cute!

Rest In Peace, Dear Friend

The Hahn family cries as we have lost our furry friend of almost 8 years! Logan was hit by a car after school today. He got loose (which he has done many times) and after a few hours he always came back. But tonight instead of Logan scratching at the door to come in for a drink, a stranger came to ring the doorbell. I was home by myself with the kids and Logan was in pretty bad shape. He had several cuts on his face and back leg. So I called mom to come over and watch the kids while I took the dog to the vet. There it was decided that with a collapsed lung and concussion, he should be put down. So with a heavy heart, I agreed and brought him home to be buried in the backyard.

As much as I've complained about the dog in the past few years, I really do miss him and his unconditional love and company! No matter how many times we told him "no" we were too tired to play or didn't want to let him out AGAIN, he always came to lay beside us or barked and wagged his tail when we came home. He was also wonderful with the kids. And they ABSOLUTELY loved him and I'm sure will miss him as well.

So if you could remember us in prayer because although he was a pet, he was part of our family and our first "baby."

Family update

Alright, so it's been awhile since I've posted, nothing too exciting has happened, but I've got a few new pictures so I thought I'd share.

Matt and I are becoming much more aware of the importance of spring break...for everyone's sanity! :) The students start to drive each other nuts, which in turn drives their teacher nuts. And the need for some time apart becomes more aparent! :) But seriously, we do have pretty good classes this year which is a huge blessing since work has become quite stressful with the monetary cuts from the state government in place. :(

Landon is getting so big. He got a new shorter hair cut and is starting to look so much like a little boy and less like a baby. He'll be 18 months at the beginning of April. He LOVES the outdoors and will probably spend hours out there this summer (which could be trouble because he has ghostly white skin! :) ). He is also talking much more frequently and is learning new words all the time. "Emmi", "more," and "please" are some of his new ones!

Landon in his new swim shirt

Emerson is also growing quickly. She'll be 10 months on Tuesday. She crawls so quickly and is becoming more balanced on her feet. She'll stand without holding on for a short time while leaning on something and is soooo curious about everything. Just in the past few weeks we've found uncooked rice and spaghetti, dog food, paper, and apple skin in her mouth! She loves people (from afar!) and is a fighter. There are days when she'll only sleep for 45 minutes all day.

Emerson in her bear coat.

It is so amazing how our little family grows and changes each day. What a wonderful blessing and proof that God DOES answer prayer in His timing!

Swim Lessons

were definitely a success! Landon did great! He loved being in the water, splashing, and didn't even mind being dunked. He was one of the 3-4 kids that didn't cry. Hoorah! Matt said the water was freezing (NW is trying to save money by not heating the pool so much), but Landon didn't even mind the cold water. When he got out, his lips were a little purple though! :) It must've worn him out as well because he came home and about 1/2 hr. later, he was in bed taking a nap. Hopefully the next 4 weeks will go as well.

Sledding

We took the kids out this weekend for their first sledding adventure. Landon had been out in the snow a few times, but this was their first time to go sledding down our backyard hill. I think both kids had a lot of fun. Landon went down by himself and had so much momentum going that he stopped about a foot from the woods on the east side of our house. Emerson and I went down the hill together and since she didn't cry, I say that she had fun! :) Then after our sledding adventure (which is a good workout by the way!) the kids played in the snow a little. Landon really wanted to walk, but with boots one size too big and his snowpants and winter coat on, he struggled! The good news is when he landed on his face in the snow, he tried to get back up and didn't cry. Emerson also had a hard time crawling because of all of the footprints in the snow. It was so uneven that she did several face plants as well! But overall I think the afternoon was a success. We were hoping for long naps, but no luck so by 7:00 they were pretty grouchy and ready for bed (about an hour early). We hope for many more fun days in the snow in the years to come!

Snow Day

Well, with all the snow and wind today, Wa-Nee and Middlebury decided to cancel school. So both Matt and I were home with the kids...Yeah! I had actually planned ahead this time and taken my boots and snowpants home from school just in case school was called off today, but I never got a chance to use them! :(
First of all, it was quite windy and probably too cold to take the kids out anyway. But secondly and most importantly, Landon woke up with a temp. of 100.6! :( Last night we could tell something was a little off because he fell asleep in my arms, which hasn't happened but maybe once since he was a really little guy. Then when he woke up 12 hours later, we knew something wasn't right. He was pretty warm all day, but Tylenol and his 4 hours of napping seemed to help. That was really his only symptom of not being healthy. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be back to his happy self. He ate pretty well and played a little, but we were very thankful to have the day off so there were 2 of us here to take care of the kids.
Emerson is still doing ok so far...but it might not be long until she gets it, since she puts everything in her mouth! :) Oh and a little side note, she tried AGAIN to eat Logan's food...I think that makes 3 times now. That crazy girl!
Hope all is well with you and please pray for a quick recovery for Landon and Emerson to stay healthy.

New haircut

Landon got his first "real" haircut on Wednesday of this week. We'd trimmed it before, but it was getting really long on top and I don't know how to cut that. So he went when Matt had his haircut and was deathly afraid of the scissors at first. He wouldn't let her near his hair with the scissors. But with his favorite snack in hand (maple/cinnamon crunchies), he calmed down and now looks more like a little boy. Plus, the first haircut was free!Emerson is on the move these days. It is amazing how much she's learned in the last month. She can crawl like a pro and almost keep up with Landon and she tries to pull herself up on EVERYTHING! She's not so excited about falling over. She screams bloody murder every time she falls over. Hopefully she'll get used to that. And she can feed herself puffs. It didn't take her near as long as Landon to learn to feed herself. But she's always put everything in her mouth from day 1.

Both kids are getting teeth. Landon's up to almost double digits and Emerson's working on 3 and 4 I think, which means waking up in the middle of the night and Emerson's been waking up between 6 and 6:30 every morning. So Matt and I are getting pretty tired since we're back to not sleeping all night. Thankfully, this stage too will pass.

But I do have to say that my favorite part of the day is coming home from work and seeing Landon run over and Emerson's huge smile!

Christmas Joys

This holiday season has passed by in a blur. I opened numerous gifts, attended multiple family and friend parties, spend time with Steven, Kristina, Nate, and Bo, and feel like I need a vacation! :) I loved every minute of it, but it was very busy. I think everyone will be glad to get back into a routine. The kids for the most part did really well with all of the busyness. Emerson didn't get too overwhelmed and Landon didn't get too tired. They were less than interested in opening any gifts. Emerson enjoyed eating the bows and Landon enjoyed playing with the boxes! Now that they've had some time to recoup, they are loving their new toys.

We were so blessed to have our sister, brother, and brother-in-law all home for almost 2 weeks. We can never get enough of these special people and keep praying that they'll all move closer (hint, hint :) ). But we did enjoy the time we got to spend with them and the help with dirty diapers (KRISTINA only! :) ), feeding, and entertaining the kids.

We also had a blast at the Frye's for New Year's Eve. We had a Euchre and word game tournament. We also played Wii bowling and had some drinks. A lot of us spent the night. We did thinking it would be easier than getting the kids up and taking them home at 2 am. But I think we misjudged that! :) Landon woke up at about 1, but went right back to sleep once we separated him from Emerson. She was a different story though. She's never been a great sleeper. But New Year's Eve was the worst! She woke up about every hour just screaming. I think she didn't like sleeping in the pack and play (it was her first experience with one). So she ended up falling asleep in our bed at about 5 am. Needless to say, Matt and I were exhausted the next day.