Adellyn at 1 year old!

I have been meaning to do this since Adellyn turned a year old 2 weeks ago and I finally got a chance (and the motivation) to sit down and type this up. I feel bad that I have not been as good about updating this blog since she was born, so I thought that I would try to "make up" for it by writing out everything that makes Adellyn who she is at a year old.



At one year old Adellyn is...
-silly. She loves to tickle anyone just to make them laugh.
-loving. She loves to give hugs and kisses to those close to her (and her dolls!) You can consider yourself "in" in her book if you get a hug or kiss from her!
-sneaky/ornery. She pokes or touches things she knows she is not supposed to and then checks to see if you are watching, then giggles when she gets in trouble. She is most guilty of closing my laptop when I'm using it or just pounding on the keys!
-a copy cat. She copies facial expressions and sounds. She also likes to get you to copy her too. (i.e. she opens her mouth to get you to open yours so she can feed you)
-trying to be independent. She does not like to be fed anymore. She will tolerate it for a little while, but so gets upset because she wants to do it herself.

Adellyn loves...
-to eat. We have joked that her nick name should be Mikey. ("Give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything!") Some of her favorite foods are fruit (most any kind), cheese, graham crackers, yogurt, and noodles.
-getting attention from Landen. She picks on him just to get him to play with her. She giggles like crazy when he tickles her even though he gets a little rough.
-to sing and dance. Every toy that plays music is a favorite. She will sit and sway with the music and she plays them over and over again! She also "sings" along with them. She really loves it when I pick her up and dance around the kitchen and sing along with the radio. (I only do that when no one else is around.) ;-)
-to take a bath. She will put her face in the water and blow bubbles and usually throws a fit when it is time to get out.
-going for walks. She really loves to just be outside...but what kid doesn't? This could be a really long winter since both kids love to be outside and the weather will not always be nice enough to go out.

Adellyn does not like...
-to be left in a room alone. In the morning when both kids wake up, Landen can get up and leave the room and Adellyn screams as soon as he leaves because she wants to go too.
-to be surprised. She is pretty jumpy when it comes to sudden noises. I have a Halloween jack-in-the-box that is a black cat in a pumpkin and she was terrified of it until about a week or two before I put it away.
-strangers. She is getting better about not being scared of people doesn't know. She really doesn't not men with a lot of facial hair...Christmas will be interesting both with family and visiting Santa!

Long overdue update and Adellyn's 1st Birthday!

Sept - Oct 09

Once again, two months have flown by without an update. I did sit down and start another post a month ago, but I got called away to eat supper…I suppose that is important…anyway, I never got the motivation back to finish it. A lot has happened in the last two months, so much, I don’t know if I can remember it all, but I’ll give it my best. Elliot and I have been trying to clean up the room I had nick-named “the black hole” (stuff goes in and it doesn’t come out). It was supposed to be an office, but it rarely got used as that…especially since I got my laptop. We are turning that room into a playroom for the kids so we can get the toys out of their room and the living room. It is half done and we have moved some toys in there and got the foam puzzle piece floor to make a softer play area. Elliot is going to build some shelving along one wall to store toys and some of the office things that we can’t put anywhere else. Elliot’s free time has been spent mostly on the shop that he and his parents put in at the vineyard. It is a very big Cleary building that will eventually be a wood working shop and, of course, the winery. Elliot and his dad have been putting in the floor and now they are working on the insulation. They are hoping to have the winery part ready by the time the grapes are ready next year. This year’s batch of grapes are fermenting will hopefully be ready for tasting by harvest next year. At the end of September the kids and I went to North Platte to Railfest. Karen, Troy and Sutton joined us and the boys had a lot of fun playing together. In October, we enjoyed the random nice days we had. One of the highlights was Landen got to help Grandpa Becker drill wheat. I’m not sure who had more fun, Landen or Grandpa! We also went to a pumpkin patch near Hastings and the kids really enjoyed that. I think it will be more fun next year when Adellyn can walk. We had a great Halloween…the weather turned out REALLY nice, especially since it snowed two days before. Landen was Thomas the Train (well the engineer, anyway) and Adellyn was a candy corn. I made both costumes this year and I had a lot of fun doing it. We got a lot of complements on both costumes and everyone was most impressed with Thomas! If I would have realized that before the parade was a costume contest, I would try to get there in time…oh well, there is always next year and maybe Landen will actually WEAR the costume I make! So far this month, we have celebrated Adellyn’s first birthday. Her birthday is actually tomorrow (the 11th), but we celebrated on Sunday so that our brothers could come and also since my parents are leaving for South Padre on Thursday. A couple small things we have done that we are going to continue throughout the winter are going to the library and going to MOPS meeting. I have taken the kids to the library a couple of times and Landen enjoys getting a couple of new books for a while…now I just need to work on getting him to not run around the library when we are there…at least it isn’t usually busy, so we don’t bother people. The MOPS meetings are twice a month, so it is a good opportunity for Landen and Adellyn to get to play with other kids and also a good chance for me to talk to other moms. The women at the church where we meet watch the kids for free during our meeting. That is about all that we have done in the last two months. Of course, the kids are doing new things all the time, so here is what is going on with them.

Landen is talking SO much now. We can understand most of what he says and he repeats a lot of what we say…so we have to be more careful about what we say around him! One of my favorite things he says now is, “I wube you too” as we tuck him into bed! He calls my grandma “Grape Anma.” It’s too cute to try to make him say it right! Landen can also ride his trike now! He likes to ride it in circles on the deck and we sometimes ride up and down the sidewalk in front of the house. I can sent him out to the back yard to play by himself now that we have it fenced in and when I look out to check on him, he is usually riding his trike or “cooking” in the kitchen I found on a garage sale. Landen’s latest thing is to make sure people take their shoes off when they come into our house! He has always been good about taking his shoes off when going into a house and now he checks everyone else’s’ shoes. If you still have your shoes on, he’ll grab your foot and say, “help, help…shoe off” or something like that. I have taught Landen how to put his coat on himself. I learned a trick from Elliot’s cousin who has triplets. You lay the coat on the floor and he stands at the hood and puts his hands into the sleeves and flips the coat over his head. He has gotten so good at it that he positions the coat on the floor himself. He sometimes comes to me with his coat on and wants me to zip it so he can go outside!

Adellyn is also talking quite a bit now. She says: good girl, uh-oh, bye-bye, baby, boo, thank you, hi, tickle tickle (while tickling something and laughing), cup, ki’e cat, coo coo, ma ma, and da da and I think I have heard her say “Landen.” Some of those are just repeated after we say it and there are probably some I forgot about. She says good girl all the time. One time she was saying “good girl, good girl…” as she was spreading food all over her high chair tray and onto the floor…I was thinking, ”nooo, you’re not being a good girl right now!” In the last two months Adellyn has been doing a lot to learn how to walk. She is now a pro at cruising around furniture and climbs on top of, over and through any obstacle she can find. She started standing on her own around the beginning of October and used a pillow to get herself from sitting to standing…and I happened to have the camera handy when she did it. After that, she started walking with the help of a toy or us. One afternoon at the end of October we were outside and Elliot said she took a step and fell down. She didn’t try it again until November 2nd. That day she took 2 steps several different times. The third time she did it, she actually stood up on her own from sitting and then took two steps. Four days later, she took 4 steps while Elliot’s parents were babysitting and then the next day she took 9 steps to me. She has been getting pretty excited about it and tries to go faster than she can keep herself balanced! She should be walking pretty well by Christmas! I am also still nursing Adellyn twice a day…in the morning and just before bed. During the day she drinks whole milk from a sippy cup. She actually wouldn’t take a bottle because the milk wouldn’t come out fast enough, so that ended up being an easy transition. I haven’t decided when to stop nursing for good. We both like the cuddle time, so I guess it will depend on when I run out of milk!

Well, that is long enough for now…I hope I didn’t bore you too much. Enjoy the pictures.

2 funny stories

I have two funny stories that I wanted to share so that I wouldn't forget them.

In our house it is common to have the kids shower with one of us instead of giving them a bath. They love it and it is faster and easier than a bath. Last night, Landen was already in the shower with Elliot and I was standing in the bathroom with Adellyn waiting to hand her in to him. For the fun of it, I set her down on the little potty chair next to the bathtub. At first I left her diaper on, then I thought that I might as well take her diaper off since she was sitting on the potty chair so Elliot wouldn't have to wait for me to take it off when he was ready for her. She sat there and played with the shower curtain for a while and then I noticed that she was actually going potty in the chair! This was so funny to us because Landen has never actually gone potty in it or any toilet! I wouldn't be surprised if I end up potty training them at the same time...Landen just is not that interested and won't sit still long enough when I can convince him to sit on the toilet or potty chair. I keep hoping that one day he will make the connection of what he needs to do when on the toilet.

The other funny story happened today at lunch.
Landen and Adellyn were eating Lil' Crunchies after they had finished the main portion of their lunch and this is a conversation between Landen and I when he wanted more.
Landen: more some
Me: What do you say?
Landen: Say!
Me: No, what do you say when you want something?
Landen: sumpin'
Me: *while laughing, I slapped my leg*
Landen: *dramatically copies me*
-repeat the last four lines with us laughing even harder-
During this conversation with Landen, he nods his head using his full body to really make his point! (if that makes sense)

Sorry so long!

Where did the summer go? We have been pretty busy these last couple of months. July was pretty stressful for my family. Since the summer started out so cool and wet, the wheat was a little slow to turn and then the rain kept my dad out of the field and harvest ran until the middle of July. Landen and I got to ride in the combine with my cousin Jerome and also ride in the semi with my Dad to take a load of wheat to the elevator. Landen was pretty fascinated with the combine. He really liked watching the wheat come out of the auger and unload into the grain cart. He also liked watching the bin empty while unloading into the grain cart and fill up while harvesting. This was just another time that made me think that he will be an engineer someday because I’m sure he was trying to figure out how it all worked! My family is also very involved with the Furnas County fair, which was a little earlier this year than in the past, and wheat harvest ended just barely in time for fair week. I help out with entering exhibits in the open class, so I spent Wednesday in Beaver City. It was really nice since it wasn’t extremely hot this year! That night was family night for the midway, so the kids got to ride a lot of rides. Unfortunately, they were not feeling very well, so I don’t think they had as much fun as I had hoped. I was sick the week before fair with a sore throat and a sinus infection and Elliot and the kids got it the week of fair. They all went to the doctor on that Thursday and both kids had ear infections and Elliot had a sinus infection. I should have kept the kids home, but I look forward to fair week every year, so I drug them to the fair every night. Landen LOVED going down the Super Slide and he also enjoyed some of the kiddie rides. Adellyn also enjoyed the slide and the airplane swing ride. Saturday night of the fair is the demolition derby. We didn’t watch the whole thing, but Landen enjoyed watching the end of it! We took it easy for a few days, then Wednesday we left for a long drive to Ohio for a Nelson family reunion. We took 3 days to get there, spent a day there and took 2 days to get home. I wish we could have stayed longer, but Elliot wasn’t able to take another day off work. On the way there, we stayed in Lawrence, KS with my aunt and uncle, and then stopped again in St. Luis. We stayed in a hotel within walking distance from the arch. We went to the top and the view was awesome at night. We could even see the stadium where the Cardinals were playing (see the pictures). We didn’t really do any sight seeing on the way home, we were just ready to get home and out of the van. We were so glad to have the van with a DVD player! I don’t know if we would have been able to make the trip without it…at least not with our sanity! The kids were really good until we got close to home and they were getting antsy (so were Elliot and I for that matter). Even though it was a long trip, I was so glad to get to see family that I haven’t seen in many years and some that I had never even met before! After that long six days, we stayed home for a while. August 17th we picked our first row of grapes to be turned into wine. Landen helped pick and with every grape he picked he said, “I pick it.” Larry and Elliot would give him a cluster and he would proceed to pull off the grapes one at a time. He had a lot of fun helping. A few days later, the kids and I spent all day at Harlan County camp ground with my Mom, my brother and his wife. Elliot joined that evening for supper along with a lot of friends. It was a great way to end the summer, as it was our last opportunity to go to the lake for the year. I’m hoping that next year we get to spend more time on the lake since the kids will be older and I won’t be nursing. The last weekend of August Elliot and some guys he works with entered a meat smoking/bar-b-q competition in Norton called Smokin’ in the Barn. They smoked brisket, pork ribs, pork butt and whole chicken (Elliot did the brisket in his homemade smoker). They didn’t win anything, but they had fun. This was the first year for the competition and they had 23 teams. I think they are planning to enter it again next year and are already making plans to improve! Elliot found out that of the 19 briskets submitted for judging the top one beat the bottom one by only 9 points (I think there were 100pts possible), so that just shows how close it was…they had no way of finding out where he placed in that, but he wasn’t one of the top 3.

Landen has learned so much this summer. He can now recognize every letter in the alphabet! We are still working on getting them in order, but he doesn’t like it when we sing the alphabet. I guess I will keep trying! He also knows all of his numbers through 9…he can say them in order (with a little help) and recognize them. He is still obsessed with clocks and now every clock is a coo coo clock! He is putting sentences together now. Some of the sentences he has been saying are: “It makes noise!” (every word enunciated perfectly!) “I close the door.” “I fix it.”

A funny conversation we had a couple weeks ago went like this:
Landen (pulling on my hand) in a whiny voice: tress tress (trying to say trains)
Me: say it correctly (he had been saying it right)
Landen (let go, stood up straight and nodded his head while saying): correc-y
I about rolled on the floor laughing!
He has really gotten into Thomas the Tank Engine lately and wanted to watch one of his DVDs. He also has a few books of Thomas and that is all he wants to read now also!

Landen also got his toddler bed this summer. The first couple of nights in it were kind of rough, but he is sleeping in it really well now. Elliot built it and it is only about 8 inches off the floor, so there is no rail and Landen has never fallen out. I did find him with his legs hanging over the edge one night! He likes to jump in it, and had gotten several spankings for jumping. Now, Adellyn likes to climb in it and play up there…I think she feels like a big girl because she just grins when she gets up there. Landen doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he gets up there with her and starts jumping to make her bounce…they are quite a pair!

Adellyn is also growing so fast. At her 9 month check up she weighed 18lbs 4oz (50th percentile), was 27.25 in long (60th percentile) and her head measured 18in (90th percentile). The doctor said that a big head is a good thing! She is crawling everywhere now and follows Landen all around the house. She is also pulling herself up to standing on anything that she can reach. She is just starting to discover “cruising” (walking along the furniture…a crucial step for learning to walk). I have even seen her let go and stand for a few seconds before falling or holding on again. She is not far behind where Landen was at that age, and she is still ahead of the curve! She loves to play the songs on the LeapFrog fridge farm and then she watches and waits for me to clap the beat and then she claps along with me! She also found a new game to play in the highchair; she will throw Cheerios on the floor one at a time, look over the edge for it and say, “uh oooh” and repeat. I just watch and laugh! One time when she was doing that and Landen was in his chair at the table he started saying “oh shit” every time she said “uh oh.” I was glad I was in the other room so he didn’t see me laughing…I hadn’t heard him say that in a long time and I haven’t heard it since. Adellyn is quite the copycat now. She copies faces (I stick out my tongue and she copies) and sounds (she copies Landen coughing and saying “coo coo” among other sounds). The other day we were eating lunch at the Dairy Queen with Elliot and she pointed to his cup and made a sound that sounded like “cuh.” I looked at her and said, “That’s right, that is a cup!” She looked at me and grinned and started bounced herself in the highchair as if she were proud of herself. She is a really good eater! She loves tomatoes! About the only thing I can’t get her to eat is baby food…go figure! She will eat some baby food still, but she would rather have whatever we are eating. Her favorite food is probably yogurt. She gets pretty excited when she sees the yogurt container. I give her lots of finger foods, so she gets pretty messy at meals, but she can feed herself. Today, I went to give her a lick of my popsicle and she took it from me. It wasn’t worth making her scream to get it away from her, so I let her have it. The funny thing is that she was less messy than Landen!

Well, I can see that this is getting very long. Sorry for taking so long between posts…no guarantees, but I will try to be a little better this fall and winter.

Summer!

Where has the time gone? I knew it had been a while since my last post, but I didn’t realize that it had been a month already! (I actually started writing this on June 28 and it obviously took me a week to finish it.) I thought May was busy, but June has been a whirlwind! Landen’s birthday, our anniversary (which are on the same day), father’s day, and Elliot’s birthday make for a lot of things to pack into one month. Not only that, but we still go to my parents’ house on Sunday nights (that is if they are home) and we just try to do things to take advantage of nice days. I also had to take the kids to the doctor at the beginning of June for well child check ups. I take the kids for a walk to get the mail and run errands almost every day. They like riding in the stroller and I get some exercise. We also go to the pool a few times a week.

Here is rundown on what is new with the kids.

Adellyn:
- started crawling on her tummy about June 15. She looked like she was swimming because she would lean over and put one shoulder on the floor, then reach forward with the other arm and stick her butt in the air and push forward with her feet. Then she would lean to the other side and repeat the whole process. As she has been practicing, she has started doing more of an army crawl and even pushing up on her knees and rocking herself. It won’t be long before she takes off crawling!
- recently has started trying to pull herself up. She pulled herself to standing using the laundry basket of toys in the living room on Elliot’s birthday (the 29th)
- has gotten five more teeth in the last month. She now has 4 teeth on top and four on bottom (the last two just broke through this weekend).
- went on her first overnight camping trip on Friday the 26th. My parents were camping in Cambridge and Adellyn and I went up and spent the night and Elliot and Landen came up at noon on Saturday.
- stayed in a hotel for the first time the weekend of the 12th and 13th when we went to Lincoln for a wedding.
- loves to go to the pool (she is more of a water baby than Landen was).
- developing the pincher grasp very well…she pinches whatever skin she can feel while she nurses (and has left marks). She can also pick up Gerber puffs and put then in her mouth. It’s funny to watch her try to pick pieces of bananas because they are slippery and just shoot out of her fingers.
- will sometimes raise her arms for “so big”
- is quite the little chatter box! She always seems to be babbling and has just figured out how to click her tongue.

Landen:
- turned 2 on June 11. We celebrated that night and left for Lincoln/Omaha the next day. We had planned to go to the Henry Doorly zoo on Friday (as part of birthday gift to Landen and because we were so close), but the rain made us change our plans and we went Saturday morning instead. Unfortunately, we forgot about the College World Series when we made our plans and it ended up taking an hour to get parked, but it was worth it to see Landen get so excited to see some of the animals.
- wanted to have his birthday candles relit several times so that he could blow them out
- got a tricycle, Little Tykes basketball hoop, Little Tykes T-ball, clothes, quiet book (that my Grandma made), squirt gun and a patio set just his size!
- went to swimming lessons the week after his birthday. He did really well the first 3 days, but I think he got tired of it and Thursday and Friday he didn’t even want to get in the water. We have gone swimming a few times since then, but I have troubles keeping him in the water because he just wants to run around and explore. I’m hoping that I can get there when there are other kids to play with him so he won’t try to run off as often (and I have other moms to either help run him down or watch Adellyn while I run him down!) I’m probably crazy for even trying to take them both by myself!
- Landen has [finally] figured out how to crawl in and out of his crib. I have mixed feeling about this. It is nice at nap time when I don’t have to go in to get him and he is not as crabby when he gets up since he doesn’t have to wait for me to get him, but it is not so nice when he wakes up a 6:30am before Elliot and I are awake. One morning he went out into the living room and found a chair to push up to the TV and get the bottle of finger nail polish off the top. He then tried to paint his toenails and then moved on to paint the wall in the hallway and spilled on the floor and his pajamas…ah toddlers!
- continues to be observant. He has watched me pump breast milk and has since got into my pump bag and takes out the shield and holds it up to his tummy and makes a sound similar to the pump. Then he’ll look at me and say, “I pump.” I have to try really hard not to laugh as I take it away from him!
- starting to show some interest in potty training. He likes to go in the bathroom when Elliot is in there and take is pants off and sit on his potty chair. We can’t get him to sit long enough to actually do anything, but he has learned how to tuck his pee pee in…so that is a step in the right direction.
- when he hears crying or sees a picture of someone that looks like they are crying he says “her cry” or “I cry.” He has a sensitive side!
- when he doesn’t want the food on his fork or spoon and needs to use it for something else, he will hold the utensil up and start sticking out his tongue like he wants us to lick it off for him. It is pretty fun to watch his tongue.

Sorry this got so long. I’ll post 4th of July pictures later this week (hopefully).

May 2009

We have had a very busy spring so far. The last weekend of April and the first weekend of May we had brandings to go to. Unfortunately the weather was kind of cold and wet. Becker’s, which was the second one, was a little nicer and as you can see in the pictures, we were able to get the kids on the horse. Landen really liked it and didn’t want to get off (although you can’t tell that since he is not smiling in the pictures). The next weekend we had Southern Valley graduation where 2 of my cousins graduated. I also went to a reception in McCook for a student I taught my first year. The weekend of the 16th was Arapahoe’s graduation, but we just went to one reception and not the graduation. We had Landen spend the night with my parent that Friday night since he had not stayed with them since Thanksgiving. It was really nice to have all day Saturday without him to get yard work done. Adellyn also took a really long and peaceful nap! Last weekend was the first weekend in a month that we did not have to go somewhere. We did, however, leave the kids with Connie and Larry last Friday night and we went up the Lexington to a wine tasting at Mac’s Creek with my parents. It was nice to have an evening away from the kids, but they were glad to see us in the morning! In addition to our busy weekends, we have taken advantage of every nice day that we can get. Elliot put a fence up in the backyard this spring to help corral Landen. It makes playing outside more enjoyable for me because I can just sit on the deck with Adellyn and let him play instead of chasing him through the neighbors’ backyards.

We have been taking walks to the vineyard and letting Landen “help” with planting and pruning the vines. We just end up chasing him around, but he has fun. (Speaking of the vineyard, Elliot sent 6 bottles of wine to a competition and 2 of the wines won medals…one gold and one silver.) Landen has also been “helping” me in the garden. We built six raised garden beds and he has had fun digging in them (before I got stuff planted in them). We plan to put sand under the fort part of the swing set so he has his own place to dig.

The kids have been growing and changing a lot in the last month, so in attempt to keep this from getting way to long, I am just going to list some points.
*Landen has really started to expand his vocabulary and has been saying words I didn’t know he knew; recent examples – socks, train, rain, shoes, whale, diaper.
*Calls pin wheels flowers.
*He knows the color blue and sometimes red and green
*Knows the letters B and T (I don’t know why these letter, but it’s a start!)
*He is OBSESSED with clocks…anything that resembles a clock is a clock to Landen
*He loves to help – helps load the washer and unload the dryer, unload the dishwasher, puts dirty diapers in the diaper pail, carries the full bag to the back door, making supper, cleaning up his messes (i.e. spilled milk), watering flower, and he even got a Kleenex to wipe his nose when I asked him to get it because was nursing Adellyn.
*A couple of weeks ago I had to take Landen to the dentist because I noticed a tooth had a spot that looked like a cavity. My dentist said it is a small cavity, but he didn’t want to do anything at this point and to make sure I bush his teeth really good every night. I am supposed to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t get any worse.
*After Landen crawled into the dryer a few times, we found some locks at Target to keep him from opening the door. The morning after I put the lock on, Landen threw a HUGE fit and was not happy about that lock. He still tries to get the dryer door open, but the lock is working great! ☺
*When swinging in the backyard, I have Landen do like on 'Little Einsteins' where they go "pat pat pat pat..." (to the beat of music) and then say "BLASTOFF" (it comes out "off off") Very cute and Landen loves it!
*He likes to salt and pepper his food. Sometimes that is all it takes to get him to eat.
*We are working at getting him to eat better and eat what we eat instead of expensive Gerber meals. We are trying to reserve those for quick meals.
*Friday for breakfast he had Cheerios with milk for the first time. He was so excited about eating his Cheerios like that. I didn’t think he would eat it because he is picky about food, but he ended up eating 2 bowls!

* Adellyn has been rolling circles around the house for a few weeks now. She is pretty good at getting to where she wants to go.
*She has been sitting up on her own for a month now and likes to sit and play with toys or just watch Landen.
* Adellyn absolutely LOVES her brother. He can make her giggle with the littlest noise and she loves it when he tickles her. He likes to push her over and roll her over and she just giggles. He has also given her rides on his tractor (with me closely supervising.)
*Adellyn cut her third tooth and first on top on Thursday. She has been a little fussy and not sleeping very well.
*She is quite a bit different than Landen in that she is pretty content to sit quietly and just watch what is going on around her. She sat really well for graduation. Landen, on the other hand, didn’t even come in the building; he played on the playground with Elliot.
*Adellyn is a lot happier than she was in the first couple of months. She is also better about being passed around and is not as afraid of people she doesn’t know.
*She laughs more than Landen did at 6 months.
*She also “talks” more than Landen did.
*Thankfully, she doesn’t move as much as Landen did; she is active, but not as much as Landen.

We have a couple different travel plans this summer. June 12-14, we are going to go to Lincoln/Omaha. Saturday we have a wedding to go to, so we decided to go up a day early to take the kids to the zoo in Omaha. I can’t wait to see how they (especially Landen) react to everything at the zoo. The first weekend of August we are going to go to Ohio to a Nelson family reunion. We are going to drive and take a couple of days to get there and a couple to get home. I’m hoping we don’t loose our minds on this trip, but I am looking forward to see family that I haven’t seen in years!

Funny story: Last week I took the kids to the grocery store at noon to the Coke truck sale and to get a hamburger. Landen scraped his arm on something, but didn’t notice it at the time. After supper he noticed the scrape on his arm and walked around the rest of the night saying “I got boo boo” and wanting us to kiss it. The weird thing is, I don’t really know where he learned boo boo because I don’t remember teaching him that.

We went to the pool today. Adellyn loved it and was happy to just sit in the floaty as I pulled her around to stay close to Landen. It wasn’t very busy, but the water was great. Landen got bored with the water pretty quick, so we didn’t stay very long…Adellyn and I weren’t really ready to go, oh well. We have all summer to enjoy the pool!

Sorry this got so long. I have a feeling this summer I will not be much better about keeping this updated regularly, so be patient and keep checking!

Easter and more

It's scary how similar these pictures are! They are within a couple weeks of being the same age.



We had a great Easter. On Saturday we went to a baby shower in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to two Easter Egg hunts. The first one was in Arapahoe. Landen wasn't quite sure about it at first, but he quickly figured it out and ended up with about 6 eggs. We went to Beaver City from there and Landen took his nap in the van. He woke up in time to do the egg hunt. He was even less interested in this egg hunt. I think he will have more fun next year and maybe he could show Adellyn how to look for eggs. Sunday we did our own little egg hunt before church and once Landen found the candy inside, he quit looking. We went to my Grandma's house for lunch and spent the afternoon sitting around and playing with the kids. Monday evening we went to Connie and Larry's house for supper and Landen looked for eggs again. He still didn't have much interest in finding them and we ended having to pick up most of them ourselves. He wouldn't carry the basket at any of the egg hunts either.

Landen turned 22 months and Adellyn turned 5 months on Saturday before Easter. I took Adellyn to the doctor for a well baby check on Monday the 20th. She weighed 14lbs 14.5oz and is 25.5in. She grew 1.5in in a month! The doctor was impressed with how strong she is. She wouldn't bend for the doctor when she was looking at her hips! She was also impressed with Adellyn's ability to reach for and grab a toy held in front of her...an advanced skill for a 5 month old! I was watching a baby the same age as Adellyn play with a rattle and his hand-eye coordination was not near as good as Adellyn's, so I can see how my doctor was so impressed. She has been eating rice or mixed grain cereal for a month now and I started giving her sweet potatoes on the 17th of April. I gave her squash the other day, too. She wasn't too crazy about either, but she did eat it with pretty minimal mess! She is funny when she eats, though. She typically sucks her thumb between every bite. On the 19th, she got her second tooth! I think she is going to have a hard time teething like Landen did. The day after she got her first tooth she woke up dry and wouldn't pee all morning and then the next couple of days she ran a low fever and had runnier than normal stool. I was concerned that she had a urinary tract infection, but the symptoms went away on their own. I told the doctor about it at her check up and she wasn't too concerned. She said that Adellyn just might be easy to potty train when she is older! She was also pretty fussy and wouldn't sleep during the day when she got the second tooth. She puts everything in her mouth now. It's funny that as one of my kids is getting out of that stage, the other is getting into it! Adellyn is also rolling pretty good, now. She isn't too ambitious and is content to just lay on the floor (back or tummy), but when she wants a toy, she gets to it one way or another! I have a feeling that she will be crawling soon as well! She will scoot herself forward to get something she wants. It is funny to watch because she puts her head down, pulls her knees up under her and digs her toes into the floor and pushed so she moves forward a little ways. As she continues to get stronger she will figure out how to use her arms to help her.

Landen has been giving me troubles lately. I have been struggling to figure out what to feed him because he doesn't seem to want to eat much of anything. He quit eating macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets. He won't even touch hot dogs (I thought every kid ate hot dogs)! I couldn't even get him to eat apple sauce at supper tonight! He used to love chili soup and the Gerber Grad soups, but now I can't get him to eat more than 2 bites. On Saturday, he ate a good breakfast of Malt-o-meal, but the rest of the day he ate black olives, pretzels, 3/4 of a container of yogurt, Doritos, and 2 mini cupcakes. I really tried to get him to eat some other, more healthy, foods, but he just screamed and fought to get away from me. The screaming is another thing we are struggling with. We know that he screams because he doesn't have the language to tell us what he wants or what is wrong, but we can't figure out how to get him to talk. We try to have him repeat words, but he often refuses to say them. When he is in the mood to say something, we can't understand a word of it. I have been trying to talk to him during the day, but I get tired of one way conversations! On the plus side, he is not kicking and screaming when it comes to bed time and nap time anymore! He has been going to bed pretty willingly the last couple of weeks, so that is a relief!

Last Wednesday, I took the kids to North Platte to spend the day with my cousin, Karen, and her son, Sutton. Sutton is 5 weeks older than Landen, so they had a lot of fun playing together. We hadn't seen them since Adam's wedding in September, so it was great to get together. We went to the Children's Museum and we had the place to ourselves. The boys had so much fun. Landen has been fascinated with clocks lately, so his was thrilled when he found a big wooden clock that he was just his height that he could play with! They also had fun 'picking' apples (see the pictures) and playing with cymbals. This last Saturday I took the kids to Blickenstaff's branding. (branding and working calves for those of you 'city' folks!) It was too cold to let them get out of the van, so I had a friend sit in the van with them while I rode my horse to help gather the cattle. It was an exhausting day because my parents weren't there most of the day to help me with the kids and Elliot stayed home to get caught up on some of his projects. (My parents went to Kearney to see a doctor about my Dad's knee which has been swelling and so sore to the point he can't walk some days. They came in time for supper, so I did get help then.) The Becker branding is this coming week end and I hope that I will get to ride my horse a little longer. I should have more help with the kids, anyway.

We really enjoyed this past week when it was so nice out! My garden had been tilled and we are just waiting to see if the weather is going to stay warm before planting anything; we are getting anxious! We have big gardening plans this year and hope we can find room for all of it. At least our back yard will be fenced in so that I won't have to chase Landen across all of the neighbor's yards! I better quit before this gets any longer. Thanks for checking on us!