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Fun in the Bath

Madeline rarely takes baths in the baby tub anymore, so I wanted to capture a few more pics before the tub gets packed away. She loves playing with the running water and would be happy for ages in the tub if we would let her stay there.

 She started taking the wash cloth and rubbing the sink faucet... perhaps someday I'll have a little helper to aid in cleaning the house? Nah, unlikely!

 When Joseph came downstairs from his shower with dad, she was all smiles. This little girl simply can't get enough of her big brother.

Bath time is always more fun with a friend, though, so these two really enjoy being able to take baths together. It's hard to believe she's almost big enough to sit upright in the big tub without needing the bumbo seat!

Maddie's Milestones

Big changes have happened since early March for miss Maddie! She seems to have turned a major corner, and for the last 10 days has slept all night, from 7:30-8 pm to 6 or 7 am! Hooray! Since sleeping all night, she dropped one and sometimes two naps a day, as she now takes two longer naps each day. Yesterday her morning nap lasted almost 3 hours! While its been tricky adjusting to her new schedule, she's been a really happy baby and that makes for a happy mom!

The weekend after her 6 month birthday marked another new development- she is fully babbling now. She started making the "Ba," "ya" and "ga" sounds, and yesterday she added a very important one to her repertoire ... "Da"! Needless to say, Joe is thrilled that she babbles dada now. No mama in sight, but it is really cute watching her observe us making sounds for her, as she seriously studies our faces and mouths and tries hard to replicate them.

And this little girl loves to eat! So far she's tried apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, peaches, mangos and carrots, and definitely prefers anything over the green veggies. We have given her puffed cereal foods a few times, but she still isn't really sure about them.

pot calling the kettle black

Fun with Frosting (Happy Birthday Great-Papa!)

The weekend after Joseph's birthday, I took the kids to St. Louis so the family there could celebrate his third birthday. My grandfather (mom's dad) was celebrating his 88th birthday on Saturday, Feb. 23rd, so after the kids woke up from their naps, we went over to visit him.

My uncle had been over earlier in the day and brought a lot of cupcakes. Papa (Great Papa to the kiddos) was insistent that we eat some of them, so we were happy to oblige. Joseph's favorite color right now is green, so he was quick to grab one of white cupcakes with green sprinkles.

And he was really pretty happy about this after nap treat!

 Not to deny Madeline of a similar first as her brother, my mom tried to let her taste a bit of frosting. Joseph was just shy of his 6 month birthday during my birthday, back in 2010, and my parents made sure to sneak him a taste of cake and ice cream, so Maddie got the same treatment. She was definitely interested, but since her solid food experience to date (at that time) was rice cereal and oatmeal, I put the brakes on more samples.

Ashley, however, decided to let Mason get a taste of frosting as well. There's no refined sugars or anything bad in that, right? ;) I think she was secretly hoping he'd love it and lick it right off her finger.

In reality, his reaction was rather amusing, and a little off her expectations...

So she tried again, thinking he just wasn't used to it and might like another taste.

Nope. Turns out, Mason isn't a white frosting kind of guy! Bummer. There were some incredible chocolate cupcakes, and after trying a bite of mine, Joseph insisted on one of his own, too!

So glad we were able to get a few good pictures of my parents, the grandkids and Great Papa on such a fun day when Great Papa was in good spirits!

My parents are pretty persistent when it comes to spoiling their grandkids, so my dad opted to try out the chocolate frosting on Mason. Might as well, right?

 The verdict? He loved it! He practically gnawed my dad's finger off, trying to get the last bits of chocolate!

Joseph and Maddie showed off their special love. Maddie is solidly in the phase of enjoying trying to eat everyone's nose. While many don't enjoy the gummy, wet feeling, Joseph can't get enough of her special attention.

If you look closely, he's definitely smiling through the whole assault! I hope someday Madeline realizes just how incredible of an older brother she has!

Snow!

The last few winters have been really quite mild in Kansas. This year the forecast was for about 12-14 inches for the entire season, and before last week, I think we'd had 3 or 4 inches. When we saw they were forecasting 9-15 inches of snow for Thursday, Feb 21st, it didn't seem realistic. Until Thursday morning, when the snow came down in big, fluffy flakes at the rate of 3 inches per hour, for about 3 hours! In no time, the yard looked like this...

 We ended up with 9 inches of snow, more than I can remember in years! We actually couldn't open the door to the patio, and had to push the storm door as the snow was piled higher than the threshold. Joe wasn't feeling great, so I opted to shovel while the kids napped. A neighbor came by and helped with the parts near the street, and it didn't take too long at all. Right after I finished, Joseph woke up from his nap and wanted to play, so we bundled him up and headed back out.

I managed to convince him to make his first ever snow angel, and then we set off trying to build a snow fort, until Molly ran right through it and knocked it down.

I couldn't believe it when the forecast came out for Sunday/Monday, and we learned that there was going to be another big snow storm, and forecasters were again predicting 8-15 inches! Our weather hadn't warmed up much over the weekend, so while the snow had melted a bit, we still had plenty on the yard.

On Monday, the 25th, I opted to run some errands, knowing Tuesday and Wednesday could be ugly for traveling out. The kids were great, and Maddie got the chance to ride in the grocery store shopping cart for the first time ever! She had a great time checking everything and everyone out, and actually seemed upset when I pulled her out and had to put her back into her car seat.

Tuesday morning we woke up to a much different snow storm - this time the wind and warmer temps combined to make it look like it was raining snow, and what resulted was heavy and wet. We were fortunate to only lose our cable/internet service, as many people around KC lost power.

Molly had a bit of a hard time getting out her dog door, which was practically snowed in by this point!

Notice how high the snow is piled up around Joseph's play house? You can't even see the bottom half, where the door is! We got about another 9-10 inches with this storm and since there was at least 5-6 inches left on the yard, it was super deep by the time the snow finally ended. Molly had to leap over the snow as it was almost up to her belly.

Joseph woke up really excited to see all of the snow coming down, and to know that Dad was staying home from work! Super JoJo couldn't wait to get outside to play and help Daddy clear the sidewalk and driveway.

I'm really glad I went shopping for next winter's snow pants this year, as he definitely needed the longer pants for these late winter snow storms! His pants from last year still fit but were a bit short, so I'm glad we had another pair to break in.

Since the idea of playing in deep snow was still fresh in his mind, he was much more agreeable to getting out and being silly. It didn't take long for him to start making snow angels near the house...

He modified it slightly, since he could fall back, sit down, and then plop all the way back.

Joe opted to build a snowman and some columns, since the snow was perfect for building. Joseph tried to help, but was frequently distracted by the snow plows and tractors out clearing the streets and driveways. This snow produced some of the prettiest winter scenes I've seen in years, as the wet snow clung to every tree limb and branch. We were fortunate that we didn't lose any trees or big limbs, as many of our neighbors did.

When Madeline woke up from her nap, she wanted to check out what her big brother and dad were doing.

What do you mean I'm too little to play outside too? I'm pretty sure if we put her down in the snow, it might have just covered her up!

Joe's final product... Unfortunately the columns started to fall over with the high winds by late afternoon. And Joseph got really upset that Joe left his tiger hat on his, ahem, snowman, so we had a snow mound next to the columns.

The next day Joe came home from work early as most of his clients rescheduled. I had given him too much trouble about his snowman building abilities, so he challenged me to build a better snowman. After taking Molly for a great afternoon run around the neighborhood, I did just that.

Joseph woke up just as I was finishing up, and was happy to discover that I repurposed the original snowman into a tunnel with a slide down the slide. It's a good thing we have plenty of warm mittens and hats, as he quickly donned the snow gear and came out to play again!

He was really excited about driving a fire engine through the tunnel. And then left it outside in the tunnel for the next week.

Joseph was really excited to see the new snowman. I made its head two sided, so it looked finish from his room and the street. As it melted away over the last few weeks, he's been sad to see the snowman go.

If and when we move from this house, I will definitely miss days and views like this from our bathroom. It's fun being so high above the other houses, especially when nature provides such fun scenery!

It's been a rare and fun treat to have so much snow this winter, without the horrible ice storms or problems with losing power. With a forecast of 75 degree temps for later this week, I'm happy to see spring appears to be on its way soon though!