Daddy's 31st Birthday and Mommy's 2nd Mother's Day

The Wednesday before last, John celebrated birthday number 31.  Even though it was on a Wednesday night, meaning he had to work - and work late, he still had a good day.  The night before his b-day, our softball team played it's first game (ok, scrimmage) and it was nice to get out and have some fun.  I baked some Monster cookies for John to bring in to work for his birthday and they were a hit.  That evening during John's lunch break we had a nice dinner at his parents' place and we had a stuffed shells/spaghetti dinner followed up with chocolate cake!  We had a very nice time and we were surprised that Megan actually ate some of the noodles with sauce on them!  For gifts, John received a bat and gear bag for softball this summer, DQ gift card, a new lunch box, some mini squirt guns, a mini video recorder and some other stuff.  Thank you!

A couple days later was my Mother's Day weekend!  John worked on Saturday but Megan and I had a great girl's day together.  First we garage saled, went to the park and then strollered to the grocery store.  That wore Megan out so much that she crashed on the way home and took a really long nap before it was time to load up into the car and head up to Michael & Becca's for a Mother's Day barbeque.  It was nice to have a night off from cook we had great company.

On Sunday, John, Megan and I went to the Minnesota Zoo with Kristin, Patrick and Alexa (and about 1/4 of the rest of the families in Minnesota...). Moms got in free that weekend and John and Patrick used a free pass we got from the library. It made for a fun and cheap outing even though it was crowded and a bit chilly and rainy. I think the girls enjoyed it but will enjoy it more and more as they get older since most of the animals were pretty far away. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our outing.


Megan rode many miles up on Daddy's shoulders!

I love you, Mommy!

Alexa loved the whoosh of the water into the tidepool.

These sea horses look like they are growing leaves!

Megan says... "A dog?"

That stroller looks familiar...

Taking a quick run outside during the break in the weather.

Now, this is one big aquarium!

Happy Easter!

I don't know about you, but we had a fabulous Easter.  The weather was unbelievable, especially after what we'd gone through the past week and a half.  John and I both played in Church on Sunday, 8:15 and 10:45 services.  They were gorgeous as usual with the Sanctuary Choir and Festival Orchestras leading the services in the beautifully decorated sanctuary. 

After church we headed straight to the Lewis's.  G&G Lewis had taken Megan home with them after the first church service so Megan got lots of attention from her aunts and uncle before we showed up.  She didn't mind one bit.  Once Kristin showed up with Alexa, Kassidy and Kody we got the real party startd with the Easter egg hunt!

Daddy holds the bucket while Megan tosses egg after egg into it.

 

Megan was doing really well until Alexa started double-fisting the eggs... and until Megan discovered that there were treats inside the eggs.

Next, we all headed down to the playground in our Sunday clothes!  Megan and Alexa loved the slide!

Goofy kid photo for Mama Lewis!

After all this playing, it was time to head to the Gennrich's Easter party at my parents' place for more family and fun outside.  What a beautiful day filled with good food, good weather, laughs and most important - Family!

Megan's One Year Pictures

John and I took Megan to Sear's for her one year pictures several weeks ago.  Below are my favorite pictures.  You can view the entire collection by clicking here.

Pre-Easter April Roundup

Even though Easter was extremely late this year, it still managed to sneak up on us.  The weather was so nice to us earlier in the month and then it got cold and dreary, which really made it seem like Easter was far away.  Our little family went through another round of colds, starting with John who graciously passed it on to Megan and myself - bad coughs and runny noses - not fun.  Despite all that, we still managed to get out and about quite a bit and have some fun.  John and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary at the beginning of the month which started off the busy month.  We had a nice night out to Ruby Tuesday's (with Megan along) and just kept it pretty simple.

Baseball season has officially started.  John had the opportunity to attend one of the 2011 season opening Twins games with his Dad.  He had fun being able to watch baseball outside once again, although it was a low scoring game with little activity.

John's aunt Kathy hosted a Pampered Chef party early in the month.  All us women and girls hopped into Mama Lewis's van for the big trek up to the Andover area.  This was actually my first realy Pampered Chef party even though I have several of their products - very good, just a little pricey :) We had a gorgeous day for the drive and it was especially nice to see Alexa and Megan playing together and with their great-aunts.  Alexa is turning into such a nice little lady.  She even seemed to like the pumpkin bread I made for her!

The day after that we took Megan to get her one year pictures taken.  She actually was pretty crabby this day, both at church and at the appointment, probably due to her teething and the cold coming on.  The pictures turned out well despite everything.

We got several new members to the family.  This month we bought about four or five new fishies for the tank so we've spent lots of time at the pet stores.  One of our older ones that we've had several years died.  Another one we brought home never made it out of the bag!   It swam into the gathering of the plastic bag and wasn't able to get free.  Poor thing, but Megan sure loves alllll of her new roommates.

Another reason we've been out and about so much lately is because I am playing softball with John and the rest of the Hoppers.  So, we've been out looking at and buying cleats, shorts, and a green shirt.  We had one practice before Easter and were supposed to have a game tonight but it got called because of the weather.  I think it will be fun do something recreational like this with my hubby.  I just am really afraid of balls flying at my head and I better swing the bat better in the games than I did at the practice!  I know Megan is really excited to coming to several of Mommy and Daddy's games!

A couple weekends ago, John was actually blessed with a Saturday off.  I made a long to-do list of which we managed to tackle a large part of it including finally getting the new dishwasher put into place, started putting some under-the-cabinet lights up in the kitchen and cleaned out a couple closets.  We had a great family weekend and also stumbled upon a book sale at our library.  When we got there the cost for a bag of books was only $1 (originally $5).  Soon after we started looking they dropped the price down to free!  John is proud of his How to Talk Minnesotan book (but we still donated a couple bucks since we walked away with close to a dozen books.)

My car got a couple fixes in the last few weeks also.  After having my car not start on me on three separate occasions (twice stranding me at Walgreens), I figured it was time to get it looked at.  My Dad knows someone who was able to change the starter for me without it costing too much and I haven't had any problems since!  Shortly after that change was made, my blinker stopped working.  John and my Dad reassured me that there is no such thing as blinker fluid and he called around and got a new flasher plug for only $13.  Easy (and cheap) fix!

Too Cute Tuesday: Megan on the Rocks

Megan at 13 Months

Megan is now a very energetic 13 month old little girl.  She also just celebrated her one year baptism birthday!  Here's what she's been up to lately.

Megan is working on her first sets of molars right now.  All four are working their ways in.  At least one full side of each tooth is showing and I can see the other points just starting to poke through the gums. 

Megan is expressing her love for animals more clearly now.  She gets so excited when she can just pet a cat or dog for a second and will squeal with delight.  At the library she got to pet a great dane, pet another big dog at the pet store and the a cute poodle that our neighbors have.  She still gets excited at her Grandparents' place even though she sees their cats and dogs all the time (and their dogs are always excited to see her too!)  Even just going to the pet store and seeing all the big dog pictures hanging up will get her attention.  (Just to clear the mud, the fish we have are just fine for us and we will not be getting any dogs or cats in the future.)

Because Megan cannot sit still during church and we had a pretty bad church service a couple weeks ago, we gave in and are trying out the church nursery for a couple Sundays.  Otherwise she is all over the pews and we don't get to enjoy the service.  She had a blast because they had tons of new toys to play with and lots of room to run around - not to mention all the chairs she could climb up on!

Megan still remains a picky eater, although she is lots better than she was a month ago.  Some textures she still doesn't care for but she now will eat hot dogs and veggies if they are cooked long enough.  We haven't progressed very far in the transition from bottle to sippy, however, we have gotten to the point where she won't spit the milk out after it reaches her mouth. 

Megan LOVES going to the playground.  My parents have a little playground in the park directly behind their house and when it was really nice last week my mom let her play for hours.  Megan was able to climb the five or so steps up to the landing and then go down the six foot slide pretty much all by herself (just with someone holding her hand while she slid down).  I guess she did that pattern close to a hundred times that day.  Anything outside seems to be a big hit even if it's just throwing rocks or running on the driveway.  Summer should be lots of fun - but remember the sunblock!

Megan is discovering that she can make a lot of new noises.  One of her newest things is plugging her ears when she's riding in the car or just talking.  Her voice and surroundings sound so much different with plugged ears.  We've also done the thing where you move your finger back and forth on her lips while she sings to make some vibrating noises that way too.  She loves that and can do it pretty well herself or else she puts our fingers up to her lips so we do it for her.

Lastly, I've been noticing lately how well Megan associates things with other things.  For instance, we've been training Megan for the Easter egg hunt and she will pick up an Easter egg from one room and run it to the other room where her Easter basket is.  There was a little piece of pink ribbon tied into a bow laying on the floor.  We were sitting on the floor and I handed the ribbon to Megan.  She right away put it to my head.  I know I sometimes put little ponytails and clips in Megan's hair but it still surprised me that she put that connection together.  Also, I was floored the other night when Megan picked up a piece of sheet music off of our bedroom floor and walked across the room and started tugging at the cover of my keyboard. 

Happy It's Spring!

Megan is so happy that she can finally go outside instead of just staring longingly out of the front door.  We had her outside yesterday and today and we have to bribe her to come back into the house!  At first she was trying to eat all of the rocks along the sidewalk but we're teaching her to just throw rocks instead of eating them.  She thinks that throwing the rocks and seeing them land is just the coolest thing.  I just hope she doesn't get too much better at the throwing thing or we will have to find something else to do with them besides trying to set them in the bush (see third picture).  Here are a few pictures we took today after running our errands after church.  I will consider us lucky if we manage to make it through the entire summer with this single pair of sunglasses! 

Too Cute Tuesday: Our Little Daredevil

Megan must get bored with just sitting and rocking on this chair. It's much more thrilling to stand backwards on it and rock really fast! I wonder if Grandpa Lewis was this wild with the rocking chair when he was little?

What's Wrong With This Picture?

More One Year Doings

We heard Alexa making the "ahhh" sound after taking a sip of water while we were eating dinner at Megan's birthday party.  It was so cute and I just couldn't wait to teach it to Megan.  She now is saying "ahhh" after every sip she takes and I think it's just one more incentive for her to drink her water. 

I do love having Megan "help" me in the kitchen, but sometimes it's just more than I can take.  I've asked her to "help" me unpack the dishwasher several times now.  Megan does an ok job of pulling all the silverware out of the holder but then she throws them into the back of the dishwasher.  She also thinks it's fun to climb into the dishwasher.

As Megan and I were taking her birthday presents out of their boxes last weekend she got a piece of tape stuck to her finger.  I wasn't paying attention to her but usoon saw her shaking her finger around for some reason.  I first thought she was doing her "Hot Dog" dance but realized she was just trying to get the piece of tape off her finger!

Megan and I were also feeding her piggy bank with her birthday change.  I started putting some of the smaller coins in and Megan helped me push them down the slot.  When I came across a dollar coin I gave it to her to see what she would do.  To my surprise she stuck it right in the slot and proceeded to do the same with the quarters I handed her.  Nickels were not so easy and took a few tries - guess we just need to keep the bigger coins coming!

Part of Megan's recent teething included many, many dirty and messy diapers.... and diarrhea... even some in the tub.  I stuck her in the tub on Thursday night and instead of sitting down, Megan just paced and all of a sudden she started pooping!  At first I thought I could just clean it out and go on with the bath but before I knew it the whole tub was full... Good thing this was the night Megan decided to put all of her toys in the tub too.  Daddy was home so he was able to hold Megan still while I cleaned out the tub.  She slept well that night!

Megan is starting to get her routine down.  This morning I woke her up, got her dressed and took her downstairs where I put her down in the middle of the room.  She walked right to the garage door and started waving.  What a smart little girl!  She knew it was Grandma and Grandpa Lewis day!