Some Cuteness to Share

The kiddos learned to stick out their tongues last week. Colin demonstrates:


Gillian now has enough teeth to qualify as a shark:


Gillian moonlights as an Important Business Baby:


Colin was excited to finally get a turn on the laptop. Gillian can be stingy with sharing sometimes:

Nice Way to Spend a Spring Evening....

On the deck!








I think the lighting was too hard for Daddy to resist!

Project Beard

Michael has been working a ton of extra hours in the past six weeks or so. He has a project that is due, so he gets up at 5:00 am and works until 5:00 pm, comes homes, eats with us, does bath time, helps put the kiddos to bed, cleans up, and relaxes for about 3 seconds, then does it all over again. In order to expedite getting out the door in the morning, Michael decided to stop shaving. It took him about two weeks to get a nice beard grown (after several awful days of itching). Let's just say Sidney Crosby should be jealous.

Here's the beard after about six weeks of growth (and two weeks late for a haircut):


Last night, the beard left us. Michael was due to get a new ID badge for work and really didn't want the beard in the photo for the next five years or so. Unfortunately, the photo equipment was broken at work, so all the shaving was for naught. (Also, if the Pens lose tonight it's ALL Michael's fault).

Building Blocks

Two different kids. Two different personalities. Two different sets of skills. It's so hard to remember sometimes that just because C&G are the same age, that they won't do the same things, the same way, at the same time. A perfect example of this is our current block building prowess.

Gillian is Frank Lloyd Wright in the making (I am trying to tamp down the megalomania though). Seriously, this chic's got talent. The tower in the following picture was completely and totally built by her. Not a scrap of help:


This is what Colin built:


Totally respectable for a 17 month old kiddo. Totally. Just not Frank Lloyd Wright. Poor boy.

I caught a little video the other day of them building blocks. Well, Gillian is constructing and Colin is dumping blocks. Then she bawls him out for dumping the blocks. Then he decides it's more fun to stick his finger in the camera. All action in this video are completely in character for these two monkeys. It's just a perfect example of their dynamic right now.

D'Yeah

This is the face that Colin makes when he says "yeah", or actually, as he says it "D'Yeah" (pretty much everything he says starts with "d'").

Easter Adventures, Better Late Than Never

So, we have not had an easy month. First Colin had a cold (and wheezing), then Gillian had a nasty upper respiratory infection (and wheezing), and then Colin caught the nasty virus (and wheezing). Our apologies on the lack of blogging, but I think we're on the mend now and can resume normal life (and wheezing).

Easter! I had some Spring Break left after making up snow days, so I took the kiddos up to GraGra's house Thursday before Easter. Daddy has been working crazy hours to get a project in, so he had to stay behind to work. Colin and Gillian and I drove up on Thursday morning and they were so good for me in the car. Colin likes to point out trucks, and they each got a smidgen of a nap. We went directly to Great-Grandma and Grandpa's Smith's house for lunch. The kids loved being able to run around their big yard in the sunshine, and Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed their lunch companions, I think!

After lunch we settled into GraGra's house for our visit. On Friday morning we went into DuBois to visit some friends of GraGra's at the hospital. We also visited Noonie and Grandpa Greg. Then we stopped at Kohlhepp's to visit DickieDoo and all his work-buddies. Busy morning!

Gillian was feeling pretty poorly by this point, and we could swear she was wheezing on and off. So, GraGra had a PA-friend check her out. She did have a little fever, but she thought her lungs were clear and she couldn't see her ears for all the wax. Poor baby.

After the kiddos napped, I took them to Grammy Lynn and Grandpa Frank's house for dinner, and Daddy met us there after work! C&G had a fabulous time running around the yard and playing in their new wagon that Grammy and Grandpa got them for Easter. But, by the time we got back to GraGra's house, I was pretty sure Bean was wheezing again. So, Daddy took care of Colin's bedtime, and GraGra and I took B to the ER. It was probably overkill, but the first time Colin had a wheezing episode, I let it get too far and he got REALLY sick and ended up in the hospital. Fool me once, but not twice, I suppose.

Anyway, the trip to the ER was pretty much a bust, in retrospect. The dr. said her ears were clear and she wasn't wheezy. He did send her for an x-ray, which was inconclusive, but perhaps showed something in her right lung. So, he gave her a z-pack and sent us on our way. (As an aside, she was still feeling very badly on the Wednesday after Easter, so we saw our own pediatrician's office. And, YES she was wheezing, and YES she did have an ear infection. The PA didn't know HOW the ER dr saw her ears since they were PACKED with wax. It took about five days of antibiotics and four days of albuterol before she felt better).

Ok, on to the pictures! We finally got some pictures once Daddy came. On Saturday night we had dinner with the Smith family and a little Easter Egg hunt with Sarah and Benjamin.

GraGra and I had made some cream pies from scratch with homemade whipped cream. Gillian totally enjoyed the whipped cream:


Colin totally enjoyed being spoiled rotten by Grandpa Greg:


Gillian was a wicked good egg hunter. She caught on SO fast, had so much focus, and had a keen eye for an egg.



Colin was a good egg hunter too. He totally fooled me because I thought he was paying NO attention to learning how to hunt eggs, but when it was time, he really knew what he was doing! Good boy.


Oh yeah, after the egg hunt, Gillian hung on to her bag of eggs for dear life. She walked around with that thing for like half an hour!


On Sunday morning, the kiddos got up and found their Easter Storage Bins from GraGra and Grandpa (the Bunny left their goodies at our house because he knows how full our car gets!).



We all got ready for church in our spiffy Easter duds. We tried really hard to get a nice picture, but with two tired, sick or getting sick 17 month olds, we did not have much luck. This is what we got:

Eh, not fantastic. Next year.

So, after a (ahem, busy) hour at church, we went to Grammy Lynn and Grandpa Frank's for lunch. We got to visit with Great-Grandma Hannold and the Keisters. The kids again enjoyed playing in the yard and riding in their wagon, well mostly Colin did. Bean was still feeling not-so-great and was a little strange with all the men-folk.

It was a busy, fun, sniffly, wheezy holiday. That seems to be our norm lately.