Valentine's Day

We had a fabulous Valentine's Day!  Chase and Owen got so many special packages in the mail.  It was like Christmas!  We had dinner and I made pink heart pancakes with our favorite additive-chocolate chips!  We put the boys down for bed and then Jeff prepared crab legs and steak.  It was delicious!  Thanks Honey!

Chase shows off all his stickers from Auntie Kate.  (His pants are off because they got wet when he played outside)

Chase and Owen's pancakes made by Mommy with love.

Chase got a new shirt from Nana and Papa Anderson.  Can you tell he loves it?!

Owen also got a new shirt from Nana and Papa Anderson.  He wasn't so into looking at the camera.  His Lightening McQueen socks are from Mommy and Daddy.

Owen and Chase dig into the chocolates Nana and Papa Berger sent.  Do you see Owen eyeing another piece?

Happy

The boys learned a new word over the weekend.  Happy.  I love it that this word is one they have picked up on. 

Chase loves to stand right in front of me as I'm crouched in front of him.  He puts his hands on my shoulders and jumps up and down over and over while singing, "Happy Happy Happy."  It fills my heart with joy.

Owen smiles up at me with his big brown eyes and says, "Happy," and knows he is happy and loved.

One of Owen's "Happy" faces.

I know they know the meaning because they will show me "sad" with their faces, too.  It's always funny to see them go from a happy face to a sad face because they can't quite wipe the happy off.  It's more of a happy/sad face.  Very cute and very funny.

Saturday Art Time

I have a friend who loves to do art with her kids as much as I do.  She's even more daring and way more creative than I am!  We went to their house for Art Time on Saturday.  It was so much fun!  Alli read  "It Looked Like Spilt Milk", to the kids and then we painted a picture based on the book.  The kids determined what they thought their "spilt milk" looked like.  Here are Owen and Chase cleaning up in the bathroom.

Next they got to paint with shaving cream, something we have not done at our house yet.  Alli is so much fun, she even let them put food coloring in the shaving cream!

Chase spreads his shaving cream around.

Chase, Bennett and Clare play with chaving cream.

Owen gets his hands dirty with yellow shaving cream.

All the kids sit and make a wonderful mess, drive their cars in the shaving cream and get dirty.

Everyone smiles and has fun at art day!

Thanks Alli!

Sledding

Owen getting ready to brave the elements

We were finally able to take the boys sledding because it warmed up (35 degrees!) and we are having a little thaw here in the frozen land of MN.  On Saturday we loaded up the boys, I wore my first pair of snow pants since elementary school, and we drove over to the sledding hill.  There is an actual hill just for sledding here and its great.

When we got to the hill I don't think the boys really understood what we were going to do.  They wanted to run down the hill rather than go on the sleds.  When I looked down the hill I was reminded of my high school days of playing a game, which will remain nameless due to the political incorrectness of it.  Basically, the game was played by throwing a ball to the bottom of the snow hill, sledding down to be the first person to get the ball to be named the winner.  I can not tell you how many bruises I had from that game, the boys in my class were brutal. 

Owen tries to stand on his sled.  Do you see the pink boots?  We only had 3 boots so we borrowed a neighbor girl's pink boots. Cute huh?

Daddy fastens Chase's hat.

                                                          Daddy and Chase get ready to go!

Daddy and Owen get ready to sled!

Getting ready . . . Chase is running down the hill instead of sledding.

Mommy and her boys. Man they look alike in this picture!

Chase and Daddy went first.  They had a great time and when they got to the top Jeff informed me that there were jumps!  I couldn't see them from where I was and was a bit scared.  Owen and I sat on the round saucer and took off.  I was out of control.  We were going so fast and I was laughing and screaming.  We avoided the big bumps but did hit a few.  Jeff said he was worried about us and was thinking that he was going to have to rescue Owen.  Luckily we made it to the bottom and Owen was laughing and smiling.

I took Chase the next time and used my feet to brake, which sent a spray of snow up into our faces.  This was the beginning of the end for Chase.  He smiled and had fun, but was more interested in playing by the tree at the bottom of the hill.  He didn't understand that he had to go to the top of the hill in order to slide.  He thought he could just sit on the sled and go.

Daddy wiped out at the bottom near the tree Chase was obsessed with.

Daddy and Owen get ready for another run.  Can you see Chase in the orange coat at the bottom?

Chase and Owen take time to roll in the snow.

Chase

Chase had fun crawling in the snow.

Daddy pushes Chasey up the hill

Chase sits by the tree while Owen gets his sled to take another run.

Owen pulls his sled all by himself

Jeff and I decided we were out of shape after hauling 2 boys up the big hill.  We started only going up half way because of the distance.  Then we started pushing the boys up the hill while they laid on the sleds. They thought this was great fun.

Jeff started holding Owen up in his arms instead of sitting him on the sled.  Owen's face was just priceless. He was beaming from ear to ear and giggling as he went down the hill with Jeff.

Owen was laying down on his tummy and Jeff gave him a little push and Owen went down all by himself !  It was the cutest thing ever!  His little hat clad head was all smiles as he giggled and landed in my arms.  He got right off his sled, grabbed it and started up the hill.  He drug his sled all the way up the hill and went down 3 more times!  It was precious.  We have a future snow lover on our hand.

Owen is such a big boy!  He pulled his sled up the hill by himself!

Still going up the hill.

Here comes Owey.

This picture is not zoomed in well, but the big black blob at the top is Jeff and the cute little guy on the sled is Owen sledding all by himself!

a closer look at Owen.

All this time Chase is at the bottom of the hill hanging out with the tree whining about wanting to go home.  Ahhhh, such different personalities. :)

We had so much fun!

This is Owen and the small red blob in the middle of the page is his sled. He learned what happens when you let go of the sled.

At the sledding hill.

Owen's pink cheeks after sledding.  Oh he had so much fun!

Candy Hearts

This afternoon I was cooking dinner, Owen was playing at the island and Jeff was walking around the house.  He heard a strange sound coming from the pantry and didn't think anything of it because the light wasn't on and he thought Chase was playing in the dining room.  The noise continued and it sounded a bit like crunching.  He opened the door and there was Chase-looking up at him with a "uh oh, I'm caught" look on his face AND a mouth FULL of candy hearts!  That little stinker was in the pantry, in the dark, stuffing his little mouth full of candy.  That's my boy! :)

-14

This is what my thermometer said on the way to work today.  -14 degrees with NO windchill.  Seriously, why do we live in MN?

Chase clung to me as I ran him into daycare and kept saying "burrrr".

Owen buried his face in my shoulder and tucked his hands between him and I. 

It's too cold here.

Stories and Snippets

This is going to be a totally random post. I am feeling most random lately.  Everything in my brain is jumbled. And I'm in a very funny mood and think these pictures are just hilarious!  I couldn't help but post them. I may have posted them in the past, but like I said, my brain is jumbled.  Chase and Owen are wearing new GAP undies from Heidi. I think the GAP sweater tucked into the GAP undies is worthy of a GAP ad.  What do you think?

Chase. 

Owen and a car-imagine that.

The boys learned a new word last night.  It's "door".

We have an obsession in our house-cars from the movie "Cars". They go to bed with us, they go in the bath, they go in the car, sometimes they go to the mall.  They don't go to daycare any more though.  The boys were to possessive and didn't want to share.  Not only are the boys obsessed, but I would say I am too.  I look for new cars that we don't have every chance I get. I even ordered some off eBay using Jeff's account!  ha ha.

Owen says, "Nana Papa," and then pouts and acts so sad.  He misses them.

The boys like to talk to Nana and Papa on the phone. They think Nana and Papa can see them.  They get their cars and show them to the phone and say, "Nana, Papa, this car."  Then Nana and Papa so nicely pretend they can see the car and comments are made on how cool the car is. 

The boys love to march around the house playing pots and pans or banging whatever they can.

Jeff had a Mama Bear moment a few weeks ago at the mall.  We were playing in the play land area.  There were tons of kids and big kids were terrorizing the little ones.  Jeff was picking up one of the boys when these two big girls went running by and brushed Owen.  Jeff gave the girls a piece of his mind.  It was pretty funny.  Later we found out the mom of these girls was sitting right next to me and heard the whole thing. 

Jeff got me an iPad-I'm super excited.  I love to read manuals and figure things out.  Did you know the iPad doesn't come with a manual?  What?!  It's supposed to be so easy to use that you don't need one. Yeah right.

Did you know I'm a terrible speller?  I mean terrible!

Have a great day!

Gymnastics Videos

This video is of Chase and Owen preparing and ultimately doing the vault gymnastic task.  I love how Jeff is holding on to Chase like you would a dog who is ready to run.  Chase was so ready and couldn't wait to go, can you tell?

 

Owen shows off his skills

This video shows what truly went on at gymnastics.

The Body of Christ

In the initial days that followed my Dad's diagnosis of cancer, I experienced the Body of Christ working in my life like never before.  I'm overwhelmed with the generosity of those who have heard about my Dad and knew I was sick and how they came together to provide prayer, meals, phone calls and much needed words of encouragement for me.  I'm quite in shock actually.  So many meals were given to us and I just cried over the fact the food was there, it was hot and my family was provided for when I did not have it in me to even think about food.  The hands of God were working.

The Body of Christ, what is it?  To me, it's people taking their God given gifts, what they are able to give and giving it in the name of Jesus, as Jesus would have done.  Some people are the feet, others his hands, some his heart, each working in unison to make the entire "body" function.  Hands do not work on their own, they need the entire body to help them work.

I've seen this first hand and marvel at it. I'm truly not even able to put into words the feelings I have and how I've been cared for by so many true and generous friends.  I don't normally blog about my personal life situations but lately have felt the need to. 

Thank you to all of you!  The Body of Christ is true and it is alive!  Praise God.

Gymnastics

We started the boys in gymnastics on January 3rd.  It was something I had been wanting to do with them to get some energy out and encourage social skill development, such as taking turns and waiting in line.  The first session just happened to be the night of a snow storm here (what night hasn't been a snow storm?).  Instead of getting to go home and eat before gymnastics we had to go right there because we sat in traffic so long.  The boys were wild!  I know, those of you who know my children know they are not typically wild children-right?!  So this was a new and uncharted territory for me.  Not only was it new, Jeff wasn't there as we had planned. The night before our kitchen sink had become clogged and we had to call a plumber. He was waiting for the plumber to come and couldn't make it to gymnastics.

We had to skip one session because I was sick, so we only went to 4 sessions. The boys had a blast!  Each Monday night there was snow, making it tricky to get to gymnastics on time.  By the 4th session the boys were starting to feel more comfortable in the warm up circle and were starting to partcipate.  They still ran all over the place while they were supposed to be waiting to do each aparatus.  Boy Jeff and I got good workouts chasing them around.  Owen was the most crazy.  We saw their different personalities really come out!

Chase warms up by making a table.  Owen wouldn't do it more than one time and I missed the first one.

Owen stands on the feet and waits his turn to run down the mat to the vault.  I think this is the first time in gymnastics that I saw him wait his turn.

As you can tell Owen doesn't wait long before taking off.  They were not ready for him so he bolted.  He's so funny!

Here comes Chase racing back from jumping off the vault.  I'm pretty sure his feet are not touching the ground he is running so fast.

This is what Chase and Owen did while the others were waiting their turn in line.  What can I say, my boys have energy.

Chase jumps on the trampoline and loves it!

Mommy and Chase wait for the balance beam.  Actually I'm trying to keep Chase in my arms while he tries to escape.

Chase wants to run off where Owen is.

Chase walks across the balance beam.  He's very good at this.

He's concentrating very hard.

Chase finishes a somersault.

Owen swings on the bar and loves it!

 This was part of an obstacle course.  The boys went through it before we could stop them and then hid inside the red octagon. They loved gymnastics!  Owen watches Chase come through before he takes off to run the course again.

Owen was so independent. He didn't want others to tell him where to go or what to do. If you could get him on an aparatus he was more cautious than Chase and required you to really help him. It's not that he couldn't do the task, he was just nervous about falling off or whatever. If he didn't want to do what was asked, he just ran and ran and ran. He was very difficult to catch!

Chase participated more in the tasks. He really enjoyed each aparatus and seems to be more of a people pleaser in that he would listen to directions and nod his head in understanding and then do what was asked, even if he really wanted to be off running with his brother. He was able to be redirected to the tasks and really wanted to show off his moves. He was less cautious than Owen and flung his body all around, not really worrying about how he could hurt himself. He was quite good, actually.

Denied

I got my first denial when I asked Chase for a hug and a kiss at bed time.  He was truly mad at me and knew the way to show me was to refuse a hug and a kiss.  I may not have gotten them but he sure got smothered with kisses, which made him laugh.  He didn't want to go to bed and was protesting.

On a very unrelated note . . . both boys have their 2 year old molars now.  Chase's last top molar is about half in. They've been working on those for about 6 months now.