Smash It!

One thing that I have recently introduced to Joshua is the egg slicer. He uses this to slice his bananas and we also use it for playdough. I don't think he really gets that we are slicing the banana. He just thinks he is crushing it and that is pretty fun. When he thinks of it, he says, "Smash it?" to ask for it. I am hoping he starts to understand slicing and then we can move on to dicing by turning it and slicing it the other way. But for now, it's a good little activity that he enjoys.

Eating With Minnesotans

My sales territory changes periodically.  I mentioned recently how I am losing Illinois and Ohio (except for a couple accounts) and the surrounding states, but in exchange for that I now have Minnesota as well as some midwest states.  The new sales rep, Jay, started in Minnesota last month, and he's now getting up to speed, so we are now going on meetings together.  I was excited about this not only because I think Minnesota is a good territory to have, but also because I have friends and family in Minnesota.  I haven't had Minnesota as my territory in a few years, although I did get to travel there two years ago and was able to take advantage of it by meeting Dad and Deb for dinner.  Now that I'll be going there occasionally again, I hope to be able to do that more often.  Tonight was the first opportunity to do that, so we met at a restaurant called El Rodeo in Maple Grove.  The service was a bit lacking, but the food was good.  I like spicy foods, and Dad does too, but he met his match tonight as he asked for extra hot salsa on his burrito and for his chips.  Midway through the meal he was literally sweating and had to frequently mop the sweat off his face.  I was impressed by his bravery, but I think next time he'll probably just stick with the regular salsa.

Living Like Minnesotans

The gigantic storm we got Monday should be a once-every-five-or-ten-years type of thing.  Instead, it was the second one in three years.  And now, it's the second one in five days, as we got hammered again today.  By this afternoon we had about 10 inches, and snow is still falling and is expected to continue at least a little more through the night, meaning by the time it's done we should have 2 feet of accumulation since last Thursday.  That's crazy.  I need to leave for the airport tomorrow morning in my little car, so I shoveled most of the entire driveway already, but I'll have to finish it late tonight and then probably shovel it again tomorrow morning before I leave.  Here you can see me as I began shoveling the first time.  You can see how deep it is by the wall of snow it made up against where the garage door was.

I'm normally not creative when it comes to thinking about food and treats, but today I decided we should have some snow ice cream.  I found a recipe online and made some for us for dessert.  It was really quite good.  Here Meghan enjoys her bowl of it while Hannah wishes she could have some in bottle form.

Big Shoes to Fill

Clara has gotten all sorts of fun ideas from Joshua (also some not-so-fun ideas). One thing she now likes to do is wear our toy drum on her head, just like him. Another thing that she has recently enjoyed is wearing either my or Jason's shoes around the house. There is something about wearing huge shoes that kids love. Here Clara is walking around the house in one of my clogs.

15 Months

Today Clara turned 15 months old. She seems so much older than she did when she turned one. Her verbal skills have really exploded and she has a lot of words now. She also enjoys independent play more than she previously did and likes kicking balls. We are encouraging her to throw balls, but she's not convinced on that yet. She has gained a little sense of humor and likes being silly and playing with Joshua a lot. She has started to imitate him more. She weighs just over 14 pounds. Here are a lot of the words she says, though I am sure we are leaving some out.

all done                         mama hi bye bye ball apple no poopoo

vitamin grandma grandpa thank you burp banana Hannah gentle

help                             bottle                             hair                             uh-oh                             hat                             more                             orange                             wow

Almost Thwarted

Today we had family night and the plan was to watch a movie. Joshua's favorite show is Veggie Tales, so we rented one on Amazon and were going to play it from Jason's computer on the tv. But we ran into all sorts of problems. First his work laptop didn't have an HDMI outlet. Then his personal laptop kept giving him a flash error when he tried to play it on the web. Then we tried to use the desktop app to play it, but that was synced to my Amazon account and we bought the movie with his. Finally, we were getting to the point where we weren't going to have time to watch it before bed, so we just watched a short one off the DVR. The kids still enjoyed it and we finally got the movie working after they went to bed so we can watch it tomorrow or Monday. It was not the family night I was hoping for, but think in the end, it still was fine.

Best Melting Pot Ever

Tonight was a scheduled date night for us, as it was our delayed Valentine's Day dinner.  As always, Mom and Ron were nice enough to watch the kids to allow us to have a night to ourselves.  We went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot.  We've been there quite a few times, but this time was the best.  For the different fondue courses, you can choose what's in the fondue pot.  We chose a cheese we'd chosen before for the opening course, but for the main course we chose a new cooking style (Mojo instead of Coq au Vin) and for the dessert course we chose a new one (Bananas Foster) and both were outstanding.  The dessert course especially was just phenomenal.  We'll probably choose those same ones next time.  Combining those with the fourth course, the salad, for which we both always choose the California Salad which might be the best salad I've ever eaten anywhere, and with a few signature drinks, and it was easily our best Melting Pot experience.  It was fantastic.

Snow Day!

A couple years ago we had a big snowstorm that resulted in some really deep snow.  That was the only time I can remember us getting a foot or more of snow, so it's a pretty rare event.  But this year we got a nearly identical storm, with another 12 to 14 inches.  It fell very fast this morning, and within a few hours we went from nothing to having at least 10 inches.  When I went to let the dogs outside I found this wall of snow, so I had to shovel a path for them.  I then tackled the driveway.  I thought Joshua would enjoy it, so when he work up from his nap I got him dressed and brought him out with me.  He mostly enjoyed commenting on the amount of snow and trying to find big chunks that he could hold.  He liked eating the snow ("Eat snow!"  Mmmm, yummy!") and then throwing it and watching it smash on the ground.  Of course this was on an area I had already shoveled, but I was enjoying seeing him be that happy, so I didn't mind the re-shoveling. 

A Souvenir Cup Someone Actually Wants

Jason went to Manhattan last weekend. While he was at the game, Kirk got them some drinks. It was a choice between a tiny paper cup or the very large "souvenir" cup so they went with the latter. Normally at events, the souvenir cup isn't really anything you are excited about. It's just a way for the snack stand to charge more for an already overpriced pop. Then you bring it home and you put it with your vast collection of cheap cups you rarely use and probably eventually trash it. This was totally the plan for this cup until Joshua saw it. He loves this cup. Whenever I get him water he now says, "Big Cup" because he wants to drink out of it. (He also wants to drink his milk out of it, but due to increased odds of spilling, only water is allowed in the big cup). Then he looks at it and says "Powercat", "K-State", and then "More Powercat". It has made hydration an incredibly exciting event in his life and I am pretty sure it's the most loved souvenir cup ever.

Big Girl in a High Chair

Hannah has been sitting in her high chair a long time since it reclines for babies and it is a good place for her to be while we eat dinner. But recently she has gotten pretty mad about it because with it reclined she can't see what's going on. She also has gotten a lot stronger. She can't sit yet, but she is definitely getting closer all the time. Between those two things, today we put the chair upright and let her sit in it like a big girl. She was much happier that way. Joshua and Clara entertain each other at most meals and she is now part of the fun. She also got her first tooth this week. She's growing so much and it won't be too long before we try to encourage her to eat with us.

The Mall

Today Clara and I took advantage of Jason having the day off and had our date day for this month. I wasn't really sure what to do because the weather wasn't nice and she is young enough that most places that charge for admission are going to be far from worth it for her. She is basically the opposite of me and is a little extrovert who is totally energized by crowds and people. She also loves walking around without holding hands. So I decided to take her to the Great Mall. It, despite the name, is a pretty non-great mall, but it isn't very crowded so I could let her roam free, but there are still enough people where she got to say hi a lot.

So we started our day by going to Walmart and getting a few things, which she loved. She got to hold her new socks and then hand them to the cashier. She also got to say hi to lots of people (she loves saying hi. As does Joshua.). Then we went to the mall and she was practically drunk with her freedom. She walked and walked and they have this play structure in the middle of the mall she crawled on (which it looked pretty gross, but what can you do) for a long time. She said hi to every single person we saw. Then we went to Panera for lunch where she got a sandwich and a cookie. She also greeted even more people and she ate a ton.

I think she had a good time and the main thing is we spent some good one-on-one time together.

Waffling

Hannah was still showing some symptoms of the flu, so we decided it would be best not to bring her to church and into the nursery.  So Meghan stayed home with her, and I took Joshua and Clara to church with me.  Afterward, I thought it would be fun for us to go out to lunch.  I'm a fan of diner-like restaurants and also of cheap breakfast food.  And there's no place those two things come together quite like a Waffle House.  So after church I drove us to the nearest location.  The kids did really well, and it's apparently a fact that they absolutely love waffles.  They don't even need syrup.  With light butter, they both chowed down more waffles than one would expect they could eat.  I had some blueberry waffles (with syrup), but after they finished off all of theirs and wanted more, I shared mine with them.  The kids were also recipients of some cool hats/coupons.  I say that because they had "FREE WAFFLE" written on them, and you can bring them back and redeem them. Weird.  Waffle House is the kind of place with the restroom right by a booth and with large "No Smoking" placards, but I'm happy with that.  They also don't do "fancy" breakfast things like flavored syrups or juice other than OJ, like IHOP or Denny's might do, and I'm fine with that too.  Give me some low-priced waffles, eggs, and maybe some bacon and a little OJ, and I'm happy.  And so are the kids.

Manhappiness

Since Joanna is soon going to be getting married to Kirk and moving to Houston, I want to be sure to take advantage of opportunities to see her.  We both love K-State and attending games, so I figured we should find a way to go to a basketball game before the season's over.  We actually went to a game in each of her first two years at K-State and hoped to do it every year, but that didn't quite work out.  But we were determined to do it this year, so we'd planned today as the day for the game against Baylor.  It was an evening game, so I drove down in the early afternoon, and we had lunch at Coco Bolo's.  We wanted to walk around Aggieville, but it was really cold and windy, so we mostly stayed inside.  We later drove over to Bramlage and got really good seats for the game.  We met up with Kirk, and we all enjoyed K-State's easy 20-point win over the Bears, which kept us tied with KU and OSU at the top of the conference standings.  Afterward, Joanna and I drove around Manhattan so I could see what had changed and so we'd have a chance to talk some more, and then we went to Kirk's apartment where the three of us got to hang out for awhile before I had to leave for the trek back to Olathe.  It was a fun day, but it makes me a little sad thinking that Joanna's going to be graduating and moving away.  It's been so fun having my little sister as a K-State student and getting to hang out with her.  Hopefully her stay in Houston is a relatively short one and they can move back soon.

Shirt Off!

Here is Joshua playing with his favorite ball (he loves everything about it since his favorite type of ball is a football and he loves Powercats). You might be thinking, "Why isn't he wearing a shirt in the dead of winter?" It's because he loves removing clothing. Especially his shirt. I decided to stop focusing on potty training awhile back because I didn't feel I could give it the time it requires, but he refused to quit and would just take all his clothes off and do it himself so we are doing potty training again. (he is not potty trained yet, but he definitely tells us most of the times he has to go). I hate one-piece pajamas after a kid is not a tiny baby. Yet every night we have to put him in something like this and put it on backwards so he won't be able to unzip it. If we don't, when we go get him in the morning, he is naked. No pajamas, no diaper, nothing.  Luckily Costco sells those pajamas for cheap. However, this is pretty manageable because when he isn't alone, we just tell him he has to wear pants. He accepts that. But he is completely unwilling to wear a shirt about half the time and I don't really care that much so I let it go. Every morning I put a shirt on him when he gets dressed. And most mornings after breakfast, he hides behind the couch and comes back with no shirt and says, "Shirt Off!", completely proud of his accomplishment. If there are buttons on the shirt, he is especially proud. I really work hard to teach my kids how to do things and help them be self-sufficient in an age-appropriate way. It so happens that Joshua also has a fairly independent personality so he really likes doing his own thing so I don't have to work very hard to teach him life skills. I am glad he can remove his clothing. But I would prefer it if he didn't want to do it quite so often.

V-Day

Meghan and I are celebrating Valentine's Day by going out to dinner next weekend.  So tonight Meghan had some creative ideas for how we could celebrate as a family.  She made some heart-shaped homemade pizzas, and she also made some pink hummus, which was a recipe we got from our friend Carla.  It's made from beets, so I was skeptical, but it turned out to be really good.  For dessert she hand-made some cookies, but just enough so we'd each have one (though she made a second one for Clara since her first one was so small).  Hannah wasn't going to eat hers, of course, so I sacrificed and ate it, since someone had to handle that task.  We were trying to limit the kids' sugar before bedtime, or I would have given it to Joshua, as he was extremely excited about getting to eat cookies and then thoroughly enjoyed the one that was his. 

The Flu Lingers

We thought we were done with the flu, but apparently not.  Meghan recovered, but Hannah and Joshua are still not fully well.  Neither is sluggish or acts sick, but both are still having occasional vomiting issues.  For Hannah, it's really only once a day.  Joshua was fine two nights ago, but last night he reverted back to his throw-up-a-couple-times-in-the-middle-of-the-night state.  Again, though, he didn't appear to be ill.  He would cry after he threw up on his carpet, although it wasn't much, and when I would go in there he would cheer up, point at the mess, and declare "More gross".  Yes, Joshua, more gross.  It was only twice tonight, so hopefully it will be the last time.  Here he is in bed early this morning after I put him to bed again.

Fat Tuesday

I had a family night planned around Mardi Gras, but we still weren't feeling the best today, so a lot of my planned activities went by the wayside. One of the things that I did still do was make some colorful playdough (I didn't have blue or purple coloring, so we only did two of the three Mardi Gras colors) for Joshua. He really loves playdough. It's definitely one of his favorite things to do while Clara naps and sometimes he asks to do it twice a day. I have only recently been making my own. I didn't really have a problem with store-bought, until I wanted white for our winter unit we did last month. And then I realized how much nicer the texture is and it's also super easy. So I have decide to make it going forward. It seems to last for quite awhile in a baggie on the counter, but I don't know how long because our colors get mixed before it wears out. Today I gave Joshua some toothpicks to play with too (they are a little sharp, but I felt okay about it) and he really enjoyed that and asked for "more sticks", though I declined to give him more.

Paperboy

I still enjoy the antiquated medium known as the newspaper, so we remain subscribers of the Kansas City Star.  Joshua seems like a smart kid, but despite that he's not yet setting childhood development records by reading, so he derives his enjoyment of the newspaper by retrieving it from the driveway.  On days when Meghan takes the kids for walks around the neighborhood, they usually get the paper.  Specifically, Joshua sees it and yells "Paper!", and Meghan lets him pick it up and carry it to the house.  On Sundays we bring it in on our way into the house after church.  But since we didn't go yesterday, we never ended up getting the paper.  Today's paper was delivered, as expected, so for all of today we had two newspapers at the end of our driveway.  I needed to go buy some supplies tonight for our recovering family, particularly some bananas to appease the young morning crew, so I took Joshua with me.  On the way back in, he was delighted to see two newspapers and declared "Papers!" I let him grab them, including yesterday's large Sunday edition, and here he walks them up to the house, albeit in a distracted manner.

Dad Runs The Show (For A Day)

Since we decided on our new church, we've gone every week to church and Sunday School.  This morning, though, it seemed sickness was starting to make its way into our household, so we decided to stay home.  By mid-morning it was obvious that it was the right decision, as both Hannah and Meghan were suffering from flu-like symptoms.  I was feeling fine, and Clara and Joshua seemed fine, so while Meghan was laying in bed sick trying not to throw up too often, I knew it was going to be a day of being a single dad.  Somehow Meghan does this every time I'm out of town, but it's not as easy for me.  I decided our morning activity could be the safari maze.  I set it up only to be disappointed by the kids' general lack of interest in it.  They would crawl through it briefly and then move on to something else.  I did manage to capture this picture of the two of them interacting in the tunnel, but that was about the only time they seemed to enjoy it.  Oh well.  After lunch we went outside to play in the yard and swing before naptime.  During naptime I went to run an errand and procure dinner.  Since Meghan wasn't going to be making her normal excellent meal, or any meal for that matter, I brought home the next-best thing: Chipotle.  Meghan's not a huge fan like I am, so I took the opportunity to serve a quality Chipotle meal to the non-sick members or our family.  We all enjoyed it.  After putting the kids to bed, I checked on Meghan, who was thankfully doing better, so hopefully she recovers and Hannah feels better and we can all be well again soon.    

Making Progress

We moved into this house over a year ago and getting things the way I want them is a slow process since it often isn't my number one priority. However, I recently finally tackled the master bedroom and now the master bath. These were not major projects, but just a matter of putting a few decor items up and things like that, so it was well worth my time because it makes our house feel much more organized and homier and also since those two rooms are connected, but different colors, it now makes things feel more coordinated. Here I am with some wall-hangings (which are from our old house, but in new frames. I have no idea why I wait so long on these things that only take a very short amount of time) that I recently hung up. I am excited to have these two rooms done. Well actually we are still looking for something to hang in one spot in the bathroom as neither of us are crazy about what's there now. But we do have something there that works now so I am not putting other things on hold while we figure it out. I want to next get some stuff on the wall in the hallway and then I may be done for awhile. Though with three kids always growing, room refreshes (or redos depending on the kid) never seem too far away. I hope to move Clara to her big-girl bed soon, but luckily that is a super tiny room refesh so shouldn't require any purchases and just an hour or two.

Office Mall

Today I went to our business meeting, except it wasn't at a normal place of business, or at least not the type of business my company does.  Our customer needed more office space in their building, but since there wasn't enough, they leased space in a nearby fledgling mall, and that's where our business meeting was today.  So my sales rep Jim and I parked our car in the mall parking lot and walked into an unlabeled entryway amongst the various mall stores.  They had renovated the space to include cubicles and conference rooms, so it was sort of like an office building, but it still felt mall-like, or at least department store-like.  It made for a weird experience, but I applaud them for coming up with a clever solution to their problem.  I'm also pretty sure it was the first time anyone paid me to spend time in a mall.

An Indy Car in Indy

Although I have some favorite sports, I follow pretty much every sport (okay, maybe not cricket or polo, but most), including auto racing.  As a kid I liked watching the Indy 500.  Mario Andretti was my favorite driver and Emerson Fittipaldi was my least favorite.  Tonight I landed in Indianapolis for a meeting tomorrow in southern Indiana, and there was an Indy 500 car on display in the airport.  It was one of Bobby Unser's cars from the 1979 Indy 500.  It was the backup car, not the one used in that race, but he did use it in other races that year.  I didn't exactly swoon over it, but it was still pretty cool to see an actual Indy car up so close. 

Goin' Down to (a very small amount of) the River Jordan

Our new church is a Baptist church. As the name suggests, they are strong believers in baptism since, though it is not in any way related to salvation, it is a way to show obedience to Jesus by following His example. Jason had been baptized by immersion as a teenager, but I never had. I really was nervous to do it because you have to do it in front of the church and I am super shy, but I also felt it was something I wanted to do. So I did it, even though it was very difficult for me, though I did choose to do it on a Wednesday so it was only like maybe a hundred people or so. I would like to say something encouraging like, "A feeling of peace came over me and I wasn't nervous". Except that didn't happen and I was super shaky and nervous. It was pretty quick, though, and when it was over I definitely was glad I did it.

Pet Taxi

Today Alex needed his annual shots, and the dogs really needed their nails trimmed.  We used to be able to trim Terrence's nails when he was a puppy, but when he grew up, it became impossible.  He hates it and protests so much it's not possible to hold him down and then also hold his paw to be able to clip the nails.  Plus he has black nails, so you can't tell where the quick is, which makes it hard not to cut into the quick and have him bleed.  When we used to do it, we had styptic pads handy in case we cut too close.  I had never even heard of styptic pads until then.  Anyway, once it became too much of an ordeal, we decided to have the vet do it.  I don't know how they do it, but they do.  The other problem was that clipping the nails leaves them sharp, and they can snag fabric.  But the vet grinds them instead of clips them, so they are smooth and don't snag.  Natalie probably would be easier than Terrence, but since we have his done at the vet, we have hers done there too.  We also have their anal glands expressed while we're there, but that's probably too gross to discuss here.  So today I brought Terrence and Natalie with me so they could have their nails ground down (and their glands done) while Alex was at his appointment.

A Bouncing Baby Girl

Hannah has gotten to the point where she just seems bored laying down all the time, but she is not able to sit up yet. So that means this is the ideal time to introduce the exersaucer. She seemed to enjoy the new perspective, though she hasn't actually figured out to bounce yet. She was interested in some of the toys. Joshua and Clara were also interested in them, though the novelty wore off pretty fast. I had to tell Joshua that he absolutely is too big to get in it.  Last time we went through this it was questionable, but this time it's too much.  I want this to last for the next several months and that's not going to happen with an almost thirty pounder rocking it, though he is technically under the weight limit.

Super Blackout Har-Bowl

This year for the Super Bowl we felt it would be better to stay at home rather than try to manage our kids at someone else's house.  Hannah and I were the ones most focused on the game and the commercials, while everyone else kind of did their own thing.  Joshua loves music, so when Beyonce performed her halftime show, he couldn't help but break out his dance moves, much to Clara's wonderment.  The game's main storyline, aside from Ray Lewis' impending retirement, was the Harbaugh brothers facing off against each other.  But the unexpected storyline was a power outage at the Superdome that caused a 30-minute delay early in the second half.  Prior to that, Joe Flacco and the Ravens had jumped out to a big lead, and after the delay Colin Kaepernick led the Niners back, but it wasn't enough, and the Ravens won 34-31, seemingly elevating Joe Flacco from a good quarterback to an elite quarterback. 

4 Months

Today Hannah turned four months old. She is such a sweet girl. Jason said she has all the chill of Joshua with none of the seriousness and that's totally accurate. She is super smiley and happy and low key. She has recently gotten extremely vocal, and in a not-coincidental bit of news, we have started putting her in the nursery at church. She rolls both ways easily, though she often is content not to roll. She really is enjoying toys more lately and also seems to be really amused by Terrence. She doesn't reliably laugh at any one thing, but she has definitely laughed at him several times lately. He does kind of have a funny looking face so maybe that is why. We just moved her up to size 6 months clothes. They are bit big in the waist, but she is a tall girl so she needed the length. She has recently become very interested in the world around her and wants to look at people and things all the time. She also is in the delightful phase all babies seem to go through when they are more interested in their surroundings than eating so they spit out their milk all over you while looking around.

The Mitten

Tonight we did family night around the book "The Mitten".

First we read the book. Clara chose not to participate in this part of family night. She was still a little cranky because of her teeth. Joshua and Hannah were on the couch with Jason (you can't see Hannah in the photo but she was there) and Joshua put cardboard animals in a mitten to correspond with what Jason was reading in the book.

Next we made tracks with a truck, similar to the way the animals made tracks in the book. To make our tracks snow-ish, we used shaving cream and white paint. This was also a sensory experience, which is especially great for Clara because she tends to shy away from anything gooey or squishy. We had a fun time together.