100 Years

My Grandma turned 100 years old last Saturday. Pretty amazing when I stop to think about it. 100 years! She has accomplished a lot in those 100 years. One-room schoolhouse teacher, farmer's wife, mom, grandma, great-grandma, record-keeper, world-traveler, quilt-maker, best raisin cookie maker. As you can imagine, the list goes on and on. My mom and her siblings wrote a book about her life (For the Record) and my cousin Adam put it online.

While I wasn't able to make it to Minnesota for the celebration, I was once again thankful for technology to allow me a chance to get a glimpse at the happenings.

David, Eva, and my mom:

Love those cheeks!
Jacob.
Jeani and Leah.
My cousin Amy and Eva.
My Grandma. David took his phone over so I could I wish her a happy birthday, but I'm not quite sure she understood what she was looking at. Last year, David stopped by my Grandma's while he was traveling to visit a customer. We did a FaceTime visit, but neither one of us thought to take a picture. Glad we got it done this time.

Lesson learned. So, remember how I wrote that the stomach bug only got Aiden? Um, yeah. Wrote too soon. Eric sent me a text on Friday morning to report that Reid too had been plagued. Eric left town that afternoon and suffered through a bad 24 hours in Minneapolis with the same affliction. While I never had it as bad as the rest of them, I didn't feel all that great. Reid seemed to be on the mend on Saturday, but felt bad again on Sunday. He spent a lot of time cuddling with his mama, which I had no complaints about.
Aiden- Under the weather, but still pretty cute.

I got a new treadmill for Christmas! It was delivered on Monday and Eric and I somehow managed to get the treadmill to the basement after we decided that we didn't want to pay for set-up. I finally made some progress last night. Hopefully, I'll finish getting it set up with the long weekend ahead. That and 5 million other things I want to get done.

On Tuesday, we spent some time outside before the next snow storm hit on Wednesday. A common Aiden pose.
Reid fell down right away, which led to this crying-induced red nose. Once he realized he could play with water in the gutter, the pain was forgotten.
Holding Mama's hand. Heart melting.




One of our neighbors walked back to his house while we played outside. It was funny how quickly Reid turned into a shy guy and backed up until he was safely leaning against my legs.

























Cheese!
Um, no. Reid has standards to maintain.




Love those big brown eyes.


Stealthy Mama caught a smile.






Hello? Hello?

The boys helping me with the dishes. More and more they want to be part of the action. After today's snack, I let Reid hold a wrapper. He disappeared for a little bit and I could hear the garbage can in the kitchen open and close. He came back beaming and gave me a huge grin when I correctly guessed that he had thrown it away. Note to self- check the garbage can the next time something is missing.



Reid insisted that he push his chair back to the table.
Then he checked to make sure I hadn't left the water switch on.
Darn, it's off. We'll catch her one of these days.
Eric captured this cute picture of Aiden holding the lion and dolphin from Auntie Jennifer.
While I was cleaning up after supper last night, the boys and Grandma started giggling. Aiden was especially giggling uncontrollably. I'm not quite sure what it was about, but it must have been quite the inside joke.

Eva update:
She loves the blocks! I bet she'll be calculating volume and surface area in no time.

Have a good weekend!

Our Caped Crusaders

First, a little story.

When you have kids, there are certain moments that make being a parent all the more real. Being barfed on in the middle of the night was my moment this week. Aiden woke up crying Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning. When I went to pick him up in their dark nursery, I couldn't tell which way he was facing. Unfortunately, I turned him around to face me just at the wrong time. I quickly scurried down the hall with him to jolt Eric out of bed to help me with the clean-up. We had to change his bedding, which meant we had to wake up Reid too. No photos to go with this story, but imagine:

- two toddlers running around in the middle of the night,

- three pajama changes, because Aiden kept getting sick,

- me trying to chase Aiden down with a bowl so that he would avoid barfing on the floor of our room or on his pajamas,

- Aiden running away from the bowl because he thought I was being silly and wanted to chase him for fun.

Did I mention this was the first day back for my students? They had one tired teacher that day, although I think I hid it pretty well. I must admit I was very tempted to cry for my mommy. Poor Eric was awake even longer than I was because he was trying to get Reid (not Aiden!) back to sleep, but he kept crying when Eric would lay him down. This was the first time either one of them has gotten sick like this. Luckily, Reid avoided throwing up and that night was it for Aiden. Have to earn those parenting stripes somehow, I suppose.

_____________________

Back to more pleasant topics...

I was a tad late getting our Christmas presents sent to my brother's family in Minnesota. Mailing them January 3rd isn't that bad. Right? My dilemma was finding the time to finish everything. Here's a new knitted hat for Eva. (I also sewed her some blocks using some of the fabric that Kelsey picked out for the curtains in Eva's nursery. But, I forgot to take a picture. :( David and Kelsey- Maybe you can send me a picture?)

I had the boys try it on so I could figure out where to attach the ear ties. It was a bit snug on their heads, so hopefully it will be a good fit for Eva.

One of the donkeys from our Nativity set went missing. Found the next day with the pots and pans. I think I remember Aiden playing with it in the kitchen, now that I think about it.
I wanted to be sure to record this. At breakfast, Reid has gotten into the habit of taking fistfuls of Cheerios and mixing them in with his yogurt. Maybe he's trying to tell us that the old Cheerios are a little too plain.

The boys were helping me fold laundry the other night. Some of their bath towels made great capes.




A distress call came our way. A toddler being forced to eat a balanced meal?
That sounds serious. We'll be right there.
I let the boys roam around the laundry room this evening. Big highlight for them to be in a room normally off limits.
Reid's favorite part was banging on the washing machine. I bought the washer and dryer at a cheap scratch-and-dent price back in 2003 when I moved into my condo. Still going strong, despite being used ten-fold since the boys were born.

The boys received a farm animals book for Christmas from either Eric's parents or sister. (I'm sorry I can't remember!) It came with a DVD which the boys loved watching this evening. Bonus: It bought enough time for me to make supper.
Another ride in the car cart at the grocery store.
Helping Daddy load up some Dr. Pepper. The only problem is that if we stopped too long, they tried to escape.
Aiden making the move:
Now, Reid goes for it:
Both at the same time!
Don't worry, Reid. Aiden's got you covered.
Trying to coax smiles in the parking lot. No deal, as we had run over into morning nap time. At least we managed to make it through the grocery store with no meltdowns.

We've had beautiful weather here this week. Nice to be able to let the boys run around outside a little bit.

Finally, one more Christmas gift. My brother, David, received "Ted" for Christmas in 1984. He went everywhere with us through the years and my dad likes to say "That bear's been more places than most people". One of our high school friend's sister started a toy portrait business. When our friend mentioned it on Facebook, I thought that sounded like a neat idea and tried to think of any toys that Aiden and Reid have that I would like to have done. When David "liked" our friend's link posting on Facebook, I realized I should instead get one for him. The box of presents arrived in MN today and the portrait was well-received. That made me happy. I appreciate Kelsey being able to take this picture of Ted without David knowing. Apparently, she had to be extra-stealthy because he kept walking into the room when she was trying to get the picture.

Pretty amazing likeness!

If you're interested, the name of her business is First Friends. (http://firstfriendsportraits.com/). I am so pleased with how it turned out. As Ted's Auntie, I'm pretty sentimental about that bear myself.