Last Day in Texas

The last day of our trip to Texas was packed full of fun stuff.  We had lunch at the Blaschke's where John and Gus were able to show off some of their new moves learned from swim lessons.  We always have a good time with the Blaschkes.

 That evening we had a little party for John since his birthday was only days away.

 Gus and Anders had to be the first to see the gifts and cards.

 John got a cool new helmet to match his cool new bike.

 Over the years I have discovered that John is not much of a cake person.  Just like his momma.  So my mom got him an ice cream cake.

 Then the boys enjoyed some quiet time watching a show with Grandma.  Can you see she is trying to soak in every second with these kids?

Of course we had to try to get a group shot.

 Gus isn't interested...

 Now he is even less interested and Anders is wavering...

 Gus is at least trying.  He wants to get this over with.

 I think Anders is trying to tell me this is taking too long.

 Gus was not interested in taking pictures with Uncle Mark either.  What a goof!

Frog Shirt and Shoes

We received a package in the mail the other day from our dear friends the Blaschkes.  They sent Anders a cute new frog shirt and shoes.  As soon as he saw the shirt he grabbed it out of my hand and brought it to Hans to put on him.  My kid also likes shoes and couldn't wait put them on.

The shoes are super cute. 

  Anders wasn't staying still enough for me to grab a picture so I set him down on our coffee table.  Apparently sitting on the coffee table is only cool when he has gotten up there by himself.

 Gus was feeling a little left out and needed his picture taken.

 The box from the shoes came in handy as well.  John is saying, "You're an imposter!" in his best robot voice.

This was Gus' lightsaber.  What good imaginations.

Anders Turns 1

No more little babies in my house.  My little guy is now 1.  We just went to the doctor for his check-up and he has not grown or gained any weight since his 8 month check-up.  He weighs in at 21 lbs 13 oz and is 29 3/4 inches tall.  At 8 months this put him somewhere in the 90th percentile but at 12 months it puts him in 30th percentile.  No worries here.  He eats like a pig and is extremely active and very happy. 

Anders just plain refuses to walk.  He used to get very upset if you held his hands and tried to walk with him.  Now he will at least do that, but not for too long before dropping to the floor and crawling.  He also hasn't really said anything.  There have been times that we could swear he has repeated a word but he won't ever say it again.  The only thing he does say, and say often, is "Gus," which sounds like "uth".  He usually says this over and over again while trying to wake up Gus from a nap.  This is paired with hitting him over and over again.  Boys.

We were in Texas on his birthday, so we had a little celebration with his godparents from Texas and another family from church.  We also got to see his other godparents/aunt/uncle on our way to and from Texas.  In the next couple of weeks, we will have a birthday celebration with my in-laws.  Birthday celebrations seem to last the whole month around here.

 Anders loved all of his presents, but he was especially taken with the cards. 

 Gus was "reading" to Kathy.  He would turn the page, come over to me and ask, "Mommy, what does this say?"  Then he would take the book back to Kathy and read it to her.  It was very cute.

 Anders wanted the cake.  And the fire.  Not sure which one he was after in that particular moment.

 I'd say this boy is worn out.

Sarah helped clean him up.  Anders loves Sarah.  She is the baby whisperer.  If your kids cry for all of their babysitters, you should get Sarah to come over.  I'm told she even cleans your house after the kids are in bed.  We are trying to convince Sarah to stay with us next summer.

A Blaschke Visit

The Blaschkes are our friends from Texas.  They are also Anders' godparents.  Back when we lived in Denver, Kathy asked if we would like to use their playset for the boys.  This isn't something you want to move around so we were waiting to find a house to buy...and then we moved to Illinois.  While Hans was concerned with other aspects of a house, I always made sure to look at the yard to see if would accommodate a nice sized set.  We settled into our new house, took a vacation and then the Blaschke family came for a visit.  I was very excited to see them and even more excited that we lived in place big enough that we could accommodate all of them.  I should have taken a picture of the set when it was still in pieces on the trailer.  There wasn't room for one more thing.  We found a semi-level space in our yard and went to work.  I actually didn't do any work, but I did feed everyone.  That counts, right?

Just the beginning.  The boys were getting excited.

While they waited Kathy put the slide on the hill and added some water.  This occupied them for quite some time.

John got a little restless and wanted this project finished pronto.  He decided to help dig for the sand box.

Kathy carted dirt around to various low parts of our yard.  -Notice Hans is absent...

Hans' absence in the previous picture was due to the fact that he was taking a break and playing a Wii game with Matthew.  Even though this picture is a bit blurry, I love it for several reasons:

1.  Hans is trying really, really hard to win.

2.  Matthew is laughing at Hans' insane determination

3.  Hannah is trying to figure out what Hans is doing

4.  Gus knows what his dad is doing and is saying to himself, "Oh, Dad.  Give it up."

 John couldn't wait any longer to try it out.

 He loves being in the 'treehouse' part.

Gus would get up to the highest part and then get too scared to come down.  That lasted a couple of days before he figured out that he needed to get down himself because his mom was not going to climb up there every five minutes.  I'm so mean.

Just precious.

 Gus discovered that he liked swinging high and fast in the baby swing.

 I think Mark did this several times.

Gus had so much fun he fell asleep.

Speaking of sleep...

It was a long day of work.

Even Fritz was pooped.  Fritz and Hannah hung out most of the weekend.  I think Fritz still misses Hannah.  She took such good care of him.

Needless to say, all the neighborhood kids end up in our yard now.

Thank you, thank you.

Train Exhibit

We can't be in the vicinity of a train exhibit and not actually go to the train exhibit.  Anders' godmother Kathy told me about the exhibit benefiting the Ronald McDonald house at the Northpark Mall so we all took a trip to Dallas to see what it was all about.  While we were walking through the mall trying to find the trains we saw some school choirs and bands performing various Christmas carols.  The boys had a great time walking through the mall and of course looking at trains.

 This is how we go places these days.

 They actually had some Thomas trains in the exhibit so John was very excited.

 Kathy gave John a lift to see the carnival trains.

 The exhibit was full of miniature replications of various places in the U.S.

 After the trains we had ice cream.  We thought if we gave Gus a cool little spoon he wouldn't eat the bottom of the cone first.

We had John all hyped up to see Santa and then we found out that this particular Santa had a 6 hour waiting list.  Hans felt pretty bad so we decided to buy the boys their favorite Disney characters...Donald and Mickey.  Now Gus does not leave the house without Mickey.

Anders' Baptism

Anders was baptized into Christ on Reformation Sunday, October 31st.  We were so very happy that both sets of godparents could be here for the happy occasion.  We took lots of pictures to mark the special day and by the time we were done I think everyone felt like we just finished taking wedding photos.  Sorry to everyone that had to smile through countless amounts of pictures.

 The whole group

Jake and Ashley are godparents

Mark and Kathy are also godparents. 

Grandma and Grandpa Huebel

Our little family.  It's Gus' naptime, can you tell?

See what I mean when I say we felt like we just took wedding photos?  This was just the tip of the iceberg.

Hans and I were so excited to get the boys suits for this special occasion.

Don't they look cute? And a bit mischievous?

After the service we had everyone over for lunch and entertainment...that entertainment being the boys.  John was so excited to be getting so much attention that he just crashed.  This was before any trick or treating.

It was such a busy day that even Superman had a hard time keeping his eyes open.