easter

what a fun easter this year! we were so lucky to be able to spend it with two of our favorite grandmas, and collin actually "got" the idea of an easter egg hunt. the easter bunny hid eggs all around the house, and by 7:30am, we were in full hunt mode. we spent the rest of the day eating, celebrating mass, and playing teeball in the back yard. thanks so much for visiting us, Grandma "Grupe", and Grandma "Great"!

colorful memories

grandma Thelen came all the way from Michigan to help us color eggs this year! actually, she just put her nutty daughter's mind to rest by staying with us while Jason was out of town. thank you so much for visiting, we had so much fun!

more of grandma's visit

so what do i do when my mom or my mother-in-law visit? drill them with questions about home projects and landscaping, of course! they both have amazingly endless knowledge and great taste. this visit was not any different, and there i was, complaining about my fireplace. sure, it is a stone fireplace that is somewhat unique to this house, but it is also .... orange. just as i was saying how we would have to have the wall knocked down and rebuilt to fix it, my mom simply said "oh i could fix that with some paint and some stain. do you have stain?" um, no.. but two trips to home depot, and twenty-one measly little dollars later, it was a whole new fireplace!! i still cannot believe that we were able to do this, and cannot believe what a difference it makes! i can finally start to visualize how to decorate this room. thank you jeff lewis, er .. thank you, mom!!

we love genie bear

I won't forget this day for a very long time.... the day that reignited my heart-stopping fear of big dogs. As you probably know, our little genie bear was attacked by an unbelievably aggressive big dog today. Since I am writing this post after the incident, I can say that she is slowly getting back to her normal self and is going to be okay, but the bite wounds and scratches are tremendous. I didn't stop having awake-nightmares of it for four days; I didn't think she was going to make it :(. But she did, and we are so thankful, blessed, elated that she is going to be okay!

I won't ever complain about her barking during Collin's nap, or peeing on my favorite rug again!

potty time

Well, I wasn't planning on spending most of my morning in the bathroom. But there we sat, forty-five minutes at a time, three different times. Collin wanted to sit on the potty, and he wanted to sit there until he went. So, we sat... and we chatted. It turns out that I am very glad that I got to spend this time with him. I learned that Zachary saw a bug at school yesterday. He also threw his shoe. Collin counted the freckles between my knee and ankle on my left leg ... he got to 14. We also worked on counting our fingers... counting to five isn't the problem, but it sure can be tricky to do it while putting up your fingers one at a time. I showed Collin how to tricep pushups using the tub railing (he wasn't impressed.) And we sang songs, Old MacDonald was the morning favorite. So, not at all how I planned to spend my morning but I can't complain.

gone fishing

The little man has a new favorite weekend hobby-- fishing in the creek with daddy. Lucky for him, daddy can build one heck of a fishing pole out of sticks, rope, and stones. They began to go so often, and for such a long time that I had to ask what they do out there. 'We talk to the fish', they said, 'Like this -here fishy fishy fishy...'. Very patient daddy, very lucky little man :).

rub-a-dub-dub