Big Boy Bike

When Ethan was in Canada Opa and Oma promised him a "big boy bike" for his 3rd birthday. Ethan cashed in that promise last weekend while Opa and Oma were out visiting. After stopping at 4 stores(Apparently there are quite a few more boys buying bikes that girls, because the first couple stores had only girl bikes left) , they were finally able to find the perfect bike for Ethan, a red, Lightning McQueen bike.

First Ethan and Opa had to put the bike together. Ethan was a big help, right Opa?

Here he is showing off his new skills. Opa took the time to teach Ethan how to break and how to turn carefully so he didn't fall. Ethan, Morgan and I now take a walk almost every morning and Ethan rides his bike. He can go so much faster than with the trike or the scooter. He's thoroughly enjoying his big boy bike! Thanks Opa and Oma!

Happy First Birthday Baby Girl!

August 22, 2008

On Saturday, August 22 Morgan turned 1 year old! It is hard to believe that it has been a year since we brought her home. Morgan has filled our home with laughter and energy. The first 8 months of her life she was so mello and easy going, exactly the kind of baby you want for your second. Once she figured out how to move however, she found all the energy she had been saving for the first part of her life. When Morgan is awake she is moving, non-stop. She's not a cuddler and would prefer to explore new surroundings all day. We've already caught her climbing onto Ethan's bed, standing on top of Ethan's little table and climbing onto our patio chairs. She's an adventurous one, a people person, and she knows what she wants. I am excited to see how God uses those personality traits to shape her in the future. Here are a few pictures of the little way we celebrated Morgan this year.

Opa and Oma were in town to help us celebrate Morgan's birthday. Saturday morning she got to open some presents from them and from Uncle Ryan and Auntie Jessica.

Helping Opa put together her new walking toy. Morgan seems to have no interest in walking yet, so hopefully this new stroller will help her along a little bit.

Later that night she opened a couple presents from Daddy, Mommy and Ethan.

Here is the little cake I made for Morgan and the cupcakes I made for the rest of us.

At first, Morgan was a little unsure what we wanted her to do with the cake. We helped her taste some frosting and then she was all about digging in.

Happy Birthday sweet girl. We love you and we can't wait to enjoy another year with you!

Morgan's Morning

BREAKFAST

Miss Morgan continues to keep us on our toes. She decided some time ago that she would really much rather feed herself. She has been eating our food for about 2 months now, but I've managed to still get her to let me feed her some yogurt and oatmeal in the morning. However, that now seems to be a thing of the past. The other morning I let her go at the bowl herself. I turned around when I heard a loud slurping sound. This is what I saw when I turned around.




TIME TO GET DRESSED

Later that same morning I noticed a strange sound....silence. In Morgan's world, silence is not a good thing. I looked for her until I found her in her room.

Our Trip to Minnesota

After having some issues with Blogger the last couple days I am finally getting around to posting about our trip out to the Midwest last week. I know I have a lot of faithful readers out there who have been waiting with great excitement for me to post about our time with them:) So here it goes.

My parents, Kara, Eric, Annika and the 4 of us all stayed with my Grandma, or Grandma great to my kids. We just fit as far as sleeping arrangements go, so we'll have to have a new plan if we grow any more! My Grandma is 80 and in such great shape. She loved to get down on the ground and play with her great grand kids. And she loves to challege us big kids to games of pinocle I know she had a blast getting to know the kids while we were there.

Here is Morgan and Grandma Great playing outside. (There was a smudge on the lens cap, thus the fogginess of the photo.)

Grandma Great with Annika and Morgan. (and yes, Morgan is stealing Annika's binky....again)

Ethan had fun playing games with Grandma Great and playing with all of her cool tractors and trucks.

One of the things Ethan was so excited about seeing in Minnesota were the farms and tractors. My Uncle Virg lives just down the road from Grandma so Ethan visited there almost everyday. He got to ride on the 4 wheeler, see a new baby cow, ride in the tractor and play on some little bikes. One day we also went out to see my Uncle Lloyd's farm and ride on a tractor with him.
We got to see pigs at his farm.

Petting the baby pig.

Morgan's not too sure about the pig. Unlike her brother Morgan is more afraid of animals than people.

One of the big reasons we made our way out to the Midwest was to celebrate the wedding of my cousin Brooke. The kids ended up getting really bad colds while we were out there(Morgan ended up with a double ear infection) and Ethan had a bad fever on the day of the wedding. So we still drug him out to the wedding, but we didn't last too long and therefore didn't get any pictures.

On Saturday my Uncle Virg's wife Fay threw a big 60th birthday party for him. So we got to see all the family again. It was nice to have that time to hang out since our time at the wedding the night before was pretty limited. During the party they organized the rearranging of the JVE rocks. On a hill behind my Uncle's farm are the initials JVE. They are the initials of my great grandfather. About 70 years ago my grandpa, and his brother followed the directions of their older brother Hank and arranged large stones into the shape of their father's initials. They loaded up wagons and pulled the stones up to the hillside. Later that winter Hank died from a ruptured appendix (this was a couple years before the invention of penicillin). So they decided to keep the rocks up there in memory of Hank. The cattle roam up there so they have been rearranging and painting them ever since. I'm told I participated in this once before, but I don't remember, so to me this was my first time. It was great to take part in the memories.

Ethan helped pick up rocks and put them in their place.

Here's Uncle Wes telling us the story (the one I just shared, hopefully I have all the details right!) He's one of the funnier 70(?) year olds I know!

Us up on the hill with the farm in the background. Morgan was back on the farm with Nana, it wouldn't have been a safe place for her!

A look up at the newly painted initials.

Uncle Eric took this picture of Ethan holding the initials in his hand.

In true Midwest fashion the boys (or men I suppose) created their own fun by launching water balloons into a silo, and then later straight up into the air and onto each other lying on the ground. It provided about an hour of entertainment for everyone, even the great grand kids got into it.

We had to get a picture of the two Morgans together. This is my cousin Morgan who is in college. She is such a great young lady, I'm proud to have my Morgan share her name!

On Sunday afternoon we went back to Uncle Lloyd's farm. Here is Ethan with the cows.

We took a picture of the cousins in their wagon. This was especially taken for Annika's Grandpa Jung who sells Caterpillar equipment.

The best picture we got of our two monkeys.

On Monday we headed out to my cousin Jeremy's cabin on a lake. He and his wife Kimber and 4 kids are living in Germany right now and they were out for 2 weeks to see family. They have a beautiful cabin and they were gracious enough to share it with us for the afternoon. We had a great time with all the water toys too!

Jet skiing with daddy.

We took a long boat ride too. All the adults got to try skiing, wake boarding and tubing.

Ethan got out for a tube ride too!

The girls were really good sports. They were just along for the ride. Annika even slept for quite a while.

The last morning we were there Ethan got to go fishing out at the farm. Papa, Daddy and Uncle Virg took him down to the stream to catch some fish. I'm told he caught several and he wasn't afraid to touch them and try to take them off the hook. He loved it!

We had a great time with family. It is such a bummer that we don't live closer, but we feel privileged to be able to create memories with them every few years. Thanks everyone for making our visit so fun!

Camping

Kevin and I decided to take Ethan camping for the first time. Friends of ours wanted to take their son as well, so we made plans to go together. Morgan didn't get to go this time since she would have ended up eating most of the dirt, rocks, sticks etc around our campsite. She stayed home with Papa and Nana. Our friends also have a little girl a couple months older than Morgan that stayed home with her grandparents. It was fun to have a couple days just to have fun with our boys. Their son Lance is a few weeks older than Ethan.

Here the boys are sitting in time out. I'm not sure what they did anymore, but when Ethan saw the picture he remembered that they were both in trouble. I had actually forgotten that I took a picture of them in time out. I thought it was just a cute picture of them by the campfire:) Good thing three years olds don't forget anything.

Ready to head out on a hike. This is actually the cleanest the boys were all weekend. They were covered in dirt and loved every bit of it:)

We camped up at Pinecrest. There is a nice lake for swimming and fishing. There is a trail that goes all the way around the lake, its about a 3 mile hike. We had hoped to make it all the way around the lake, but we ended up just hiking about a mile of it.

The boys did some of their own hiking, but spent a lot of the hike on their daddy's shoulders.

A family pic on our hike.

Ethan and Lance enjoying a snack after our hike.

There were a few other families that we are friends with that were either up for the day or camping with family. We all hung out on the beach for a few hours on Saturday. All five families have one or two boys so there were lots of boys playing with lots of trucks in all the sand. They had a blast!

All in all it was a successful camping trip. We had a blast and so did Ethan. Ethan slept really well both nights, and mommy and daddy did the second night. The first night our considerate neighbors arrived at 11:30, started a campfire at 1:30 and finally went to bed at 2:30 after we asked them to "please go to bed.":)

Canada

Ok, so Lyndsay has been on my case for a few weeks now to recount the events of "the boys" trip to visit my folks. The problem is she has never really taught me how to create a post on her blog. Some may call it censorship while others may feel it is not a husbands place to write on his wife's blog. Whatever the case, here's a few details about our trip.

EJ and I flew up to Edmonton for two reasons: The first was to visit my parents (accomplished) and the second was to win the Herman Bodewitz Classic Golf Tournament (ditto). This was a great time for a little male bonding between father and son. No girls to spoil our fun or to tell us to "grow up" and "act our age". Nope, this was pure, unadulterated man time...except my mom was there too.

For the most part we just chilled around the house, hit golf balls into "the forest" (as EJ calls it), and did a bit of four-wheeling.

For the few weeks leading up to our trip EJ couldn't contain his excitement over the prospect of making a fire with Opa. As this picture shows EJ has very strict standards by which Opa should make a fire and he wasn't afraid to voice his opinion over the job Opa was doing.

Another highlight of the trip was the opportunity for EJ to take Uncle Ryan's quad out by himself and spin 360's through various mud puddles. I'm just kidding Lyndsay. I was with him as we wreaked havoc across the Canadian wilderness. EJ enjoyed the flying mud, blazing down trails, and swallowing whatever insect managed to get in our way.

EJ teaching Uncle Ryan how to play golf (well).

So aside from our family visit, I had the opportunity to play in our 6th annual family golf tournament which my uncles have put together in memory of my Opa. It was a great opportunity to reconnect with family and kick their tails (in a loving way). I'm kidding. Dad, Ryan, my cousin Tom, and I shot a 7-under round to once again get our names engraved on the hallowed trophy. I was debating trying to smuggle the trophy back across the border but from as you can see, hiding a six foot trophy in a carry-on is not an easy task. Well...it's almost six feet.

The Holy Grail.

Overall, we had a great trip and are looking forward to my parents visiting us soon. The girls were glad to have the boys home safe and sound and EJ and I enjoyed the wonderful "family hug" we were able to share when we walked in the door.