Name Master

 My Marie is getting so big! About a month ago she learned how to write her name, all by herself (I wrote the blue letters)! I snagged this paper for scrapbooking since this was the very first time she wrote it. She does great and is really excited to start going to school like her papa. I think that we will skip preschool since we're moving in March and next year she can go to half day kindergarten depending on where we get stationed next.

Marie has also been working on backward somersaults. She can do them down the hill in our front yard, but they are still a little tricky on level ground.

Theodore loved just crawling around on the grass and trying to eat whatever he could find. He wasn't all that cranky, but he mainly uses a binky to prevent him from eating random things.

Hide and Seek (Peek)!

 We love to find things to do outside, so a favorite of ours has been hide and seek. Marie has got the game down, but Claire doesn't always quite get it. Claire doesn't like to hide and Marie prefers to, so they are a great match! Claire is the seeker about 95% of the time.

 Marie has found several good hiding spots--trees, barns, barrels and more!

 Claire doesn't like to sit still and wait for Marie to find her. Sometimes she will just come out on her own or yell, "I'm over here!".

Marie's version of the game would be more appropriately titled 'hide and peek'. This is how Marie likes to count. I had to resort to making her count inside the shed.



Fun Flowers

We planted all sorts of bulbs before the winter and we were so excited when they popped up!

Of course my blogging is about a month behind, so most of those flowers are now long gone. The last picture is the most recent with the annuals that we planted just a week ago!

Our Garden

 This is our garden in the beginning stages. Here we planted some cantaloupe, peas, carrots, broccoli, onions, yellow squash, zucchini, and some giant corn. I mean GIANT! The corn is supposed to reach a height of 20 feet! Unfortunately, the squirrels have been getting them, but we still have some left. We'll see if they survive... In addition to this plot, we planted bell peppers, cucumbers, and egg plant along our back fence. We have some other things scattered amidst plants like baby pumpkins, spaghetti squash, GIANT sunflowers (heads are supposed to be about 2 ft in diameter) and some gourds.

 Here is the most exciting part of our garden so far. This is a giant pumpkin starting to grow. Again, I mean GIANT! This pumpkin seed came from a 900 lb pumpkin! Teddy knew a guy from work who grew giant pumpkins for competitions. We lucked out and he sent us some different giant seeds. So we planted our seeds and eagerly awaited for something to happen. We were not disappointed! After three/four days we had the seed popping out as shown above.

 Two days later it look like this!

And another four days later (total of about 10 days from putting the seed in the dirt) it looked liked this!! It is growing so fast, that we check daily for new leaves! The guy who sent us the seeds fit three adult women INSIDE of his pumpkin! Maybe Marie and Claire will get their opportunity to be Cinderella.

Pa's New Toys

 I got my new camera which is so fun to work with, that I thought Teddy might want a new video camera. I usually take the pictures, he takes the video. So after convincing him that an upgrade would be worth it, he picked out this great new camera! The differences are amazing! Maybe some day we will get around to uploading more videos to youtube... I don't like to put them on the blog because I print the blog out as a hardcover book and videos don't print well... :) So Pa got the Vixia M400 to video our exciting little family! It is amazing how video camcorders have improved over the last couple years!

Pa's other new toy! He has been talking about a street bike off and on for years, but we always thought it would be further in the future. His brother, Tyler is going on a long motorcycle ride across the country this summer, so we figured when would be a better time to get one? So Teddy did some research and we purchased this awesome bike from craigslist! I love getting to ride with him! Our dirt bikes don't carry two people quite as well. After all the kids are asleep, we will sometimes go out for a 10 minute ride around the neighborhood. Teddy has to get some practice before he rides through Canada this summer!

Theodore's Tramp Time

 The girls had been asking for Theodore to jump with them... he can't jump on his own yet, but I thought he might enjoy playing on it.

 He liked playing with leaves and food crumbs on the tramp. If the girls don't jump right next to him, then they can play on the 'jumpoline' at the same time. I wouldn't trust them for a second by themselves with Theodore... I think Claire might be intermittently going deaf. She has a specific sensitivity to the word candy though.

 He liked getting the small bounces from their jumps. After they stopped jumping, he was trying to bounce himself! He was kicking his feet and waving his arms around. He is going to be jumping around with those girls in no time!

 I was taking pictures of Theodore on the tramp, but Marie wanted to make sure that she made it on the camera again as well. She sure is cute!

She looks out for her brother. She was guarding the door so he wouldn't crawl out and fall down.

Go get it Theodore!

 Theodore is crawling like a champ now. He crawls from one end of the house to the other. He keeps me on my toes, but it is helping the girls take better care of their toys. They have learned the hard way that if they leave paper on the floor, it will probably get munched.

 This is his favorite toy! He loves the sound that it makes and will always go for this one first.

 He growing so fast! At his 2 month check-up he weighed 17 lbs! His favorite foods are sweet potatoes and pears. He isn't as big of a fan of bananas. I think he gets that from his Pa.

 This boy is much happier now that he can get from place to place. 

I thought this was a cute picture. Marie likes to play with him until he gets interested in pulling her hair. She doesn't mind if he grabs her cheek or mouth, but if he goes for her eyes or hair, she decides that there are other (less painful) things to do.

Sleepy Claire

 I have been trying to phase the girls out of naps... Marie rarely takes a nap, but Claire sometimes just can't make it through the day. If they take a nap (even a 15 minute nap) then they are terrible to put to bed. Without a nap, they fall asleep while I read them a book! After church, Claire had asked for some snacks while I was getting lunch ready. I gave her some cheese crackers, but I didn't hear the normal rustling of the bag. When it is that quiet, normally it means someone is getting into trouble. I went to check on her, and I found her asleep, propped up on the table with cracker drool hanging from her mouth! She must have known that we like to take Sunday naps.

Another day we were getting ready to go out, so we told Claire to get her shoes. I went to get everything packed up and found Claire passed out on the stairs. Apparently, the idea of climbing up the stairs to get her shoes sounded too exhausting... There are days when she just needs a nap!

My Auctioneer

 For the dessert auction this year, Teddy was asked to be the auctioneer! He practiced his auctioneer's voice for weeks before the event, so he was the real deal! He did a fantastic job and raised lots of money for church camp.

 There were lots of people there, and he even spotted the bidders in the far back corners. He did great!

 Here are some of the deserts that were starting to get lined up when we arrived. There were plenty more added before we started the bidding!

 Teddy even sold a dessert for $105! Marie was walking around the house for a week saying, "Two dollar, two dollar, two-two-two dollar!" It was great fun and great food also.

Before the bidding, we had a potato bar for dinner. We ended up getting some fudge, fudge sauce for ice cream, and we traded some of our fudge for English toffee with some friends. It was yummy!

Photoshop Fun

 Pa made these girls a great new table! He made this table and these chairs from our neighbor's tree stump. It works perfect for them to eat outside!

 Although Theodore doesn't usually eat outside (occasionally he snags a bite of dirt outside), he can feed himself! He doesn't always get it in his mouth, but he is learning more and more things. He also started crawling when he turned 6 months old! I will post more pictures of him chasing down toys later.

 I always make our family Christmas cards with Photoshop Elements. I also use that to center pictures, lighten shadows, etc... but after reading a great tutorial book about all that it can do, I have learned several new tricks. I had no idea about the level of power that program has... a fine replacement for the void of no longer using Matlab in my stay-at-home-mom life.

I found this picture of a heart online and gave Teddy a 'tattoo'. I thought it turned out pretty good! You can see a freckle showing through it too (or a 'mickle' if you ask the girls)! I have learned how to lessen wrinkles, and all sorts of neat stuff!