Friedel Kids

Van Sickel Christmas 2011

2012-01-02T15:47:00.001-06:00

For Van Sickel Christmas this year, Chris convinced us all to come out to Colorado to him. Though it takes a lot of stuff to take us all out to Colorado for just a couple of days, to stay out in a lodge at a camp where Chris used to work, it was totally worth it. The kids were all excellent travelers across the ridiculously boring state of Nebraska. (We love our portable DVD player!)

I don't even think I included any pictures of opening presents in this post. There was too much awesomeness in our surroundings to bother with picture of presents here!

Getting ready to take a hike.

Pretty in pink

Livi and Grandma walking together

Our family, on a bridge over a mostly frozen stream.

Aidan with his rock he collected from the mountain. He will let you touch the rock if you would like to know what a mountain feels like. :)

Cheesy Livi

Aaron, Justin and Carrie were down the hill beyond the fence collecting firewood. Then the kids were trying to get it up the hill the rest of the way so Chris could cut it to the right size if needed.

"HELP!"
She had worked on getting this one stick up the hill for about ten minutes before she finally gave in and called for help.

It started snowing while we were outside. Just a beautiful perfect fresh snow covering the mountain. We didn't notice til later that the flash on the camera bounced off all the little snowflakes. :)

Mom wanted a family picture so we tried out the timer on our camera. I think it turned out really well. Aaron doesn't even look too winded sprinting to get in the picture. :)

Friedel Christmas 2011

2012-01-02T15:15:00.001-06:00

We celebrated Friedel Christmas at Grammy and Papa's house. Aren't they adorable in their new Christmas outfits Grammy picked out for them.

Quick, fairly decent family photo before opening gifts.

Cool new signs for Aidan's room.

Ella peering into the box of her new Cinderella Castle.

Livi with her new Toddler Cinderella.

Emilie opening the canvas of baby James we got for them. :)

Hard to tell who was more excited about Aidan's new AT AT Walker, Aaron or Aidan. :)

And if we thought it was hard to get a family photo before presents, try taking a picture after presents, 30 minutes past bedtime, with all 5 grand kids and Grammy and Papa. Livi is holding my iPhone just to get her to sit still in the picture, Aidan is holding the iPod to keep Mason sitting in the picture, and Ella just can't figure out how to look at the camera and smile. So here is about the best we got on our camera.

Halloween 2011

2011-10-30T21:30:00.002-05:00

Tonight was trick-or-treating in Urbandale! The kids were so cute and had a lot of fun. Before trick-or-treating, our awesome neighbors, Amy and Ed, invited everyone over for some chili, grilled cheese and pumpkin bars. YUMMY!

After that we came back over and got our costumes on. Here are our Snow Princess, Tiger, and Astronaut:

"Hey, where's my tail?"

They sure are cute, but boy is it hard to get the three of them to look at me and smile nice.

Little Tiger and Daddy

Our handsome little astronaut

Our Tiger

Snow Princess says "Eeeeek!" to someone's Halloween decorations

We asked Mason and Brad and Jenny if they wanted to come over and trick-or-treat with us. Mason was a little monkey and was so cute! He kept saying, "Follow Livi" and was super good at picking just one candy. What a nice little monkey. :)

Howell's Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-15T20:57:00.001-05:00

We finally made it to the Pumpkin Patch this year! I asked the lady sitting across from us on the wagon ride to take our picture. Isn't it so nice that my children are so cooperative and all look and smile at the camera so mommy can have a nice family picture. :P

We rode the pedal go carts again this year, but they weren't quite the hit they were last year. Aidan must have had a bad cart cause he couldn't work it very well and he did great on them last year. Plus it was super busy, so they just rode around once or twice.

They loved the maze though. Aidan loves that there are maps throughout so he could always check and decide where we needed to go next.

And here is Miss Sassy Crabby Pants yelling at me. She was just pure joy for the first 45 minutes of our time there before she started to mellow out a little bit.

We have decided that maybe all we need is a big pile of hay bales or a pool of corn to entertain our kids for hours!

"I'm the king of the world!"

Ella said, "I'm teetering and he's tottering!"

She was pretty excited to ride the "wiggle cars".

The new thing this year was the Corn Cannon. Ella was first to try it (with daddy's help) and hit the big ol' jack-o-lantern up on the silo. She was very excited. Aidan also hit it but was weird about the sound of it as usual and kept trying to cover his ears.

Oh, look! There is a happy little Livi!

After waiting for about 10 minutes while another family did about every combination of pictures of their family at a great photo op set up, I was losing control of the kids and had to move over to a less appealing photo option and this is the best I could get of the three of them. :(

Kinda cute of Livi though.

And a lovely picture of Aidan, taken by Ella!

Meeting Owen Henry

2011-10-03T20:44:00.001-05:00

Last night at 10:39 pm our other new nephew Owen Henry was born! We had been in Cedar Rapids for the breast cancer walk yesterday and since Carrie had been in labor since Saturday afternoon, I thought for sure we would get to meet her baby yesterday. But unfortunately, little Owen was being a slowpoke and did not make his appearance until late last night. So after we dropped Aidan off at school, the girls and I headed back to CR! Had to go meet the little man!

The girls LOVED being able to hold him.

Such a cutie!

She is not excited at all is she? ;)

Little mama Ella taking good care of Owen.

Yep, that's me, proud Aunt Amy!

And proud Papa Van. :)

New family of 3!

I think she likes him a little. :)

Welcome to the family little Owen! So glad we were able to meet you today!

Meeting James Alan

2011-10-03T20:24:00.001-05:00

We were so excited to go to Mediapolis last weekend and meet James! Emilie and Donny sure have a handsome little man. :)

All three of our kids got to hold him, but somehow I only have a picture of Ella holding him. She was pretty happy to get a turn holding the baby!

At one point Livi got a hold of the iPod and was watching the Little Einsteins episode that is on it. Mason is also obsessed with the Little Einsteins, so this is how they were sitting for awhile. Silly little people. :)

The entire Friedel family with our newest addition! :)

The kiddos on their favorite tree at Grammy and Papa's house. It is a hollow log they like to crawl through.

Ella getting another peek at James. :)

The new mommy, daddy and little boy. Such a cutie! So glad we got to meet you and snuggle you James!!!

Princess Party!

2011-09-17T13:03:00.001-05:00

This morning Ella and I went to a Princess Party at Jordan Creek. It was a fundraiser for Children and Families of Iowa sponsored by Panera Bread. I am so thankful my neighbor, Jill, told us about this event. Ella had a lot of fun and it was so great to see her face when she met all the princesses.

There were coloring sheets, princess hats and wands to decorate, little castles to decorate, and princess tattoos.

She got her nails and hair done. Nails were easy, but we tried the line for hair twice and barely got in before they closed it up for the day and the girls just curled her hair quick and stuck a crown on top. Next year I will try to get in the line for hair first, they seemed to be doing a nicer job at the beginning of the day and then Ella will have her pretty princess hair when she meets the princesses. And I will bring something to entertain Ella while we wait in line after line next time. :) Lessons learned.

Belle was the first princess Ella got to meet today. I love her little face. So excited, but a little nervous seeing all the princesses in person.

They gave all the little princesses little autograph books when we walked in the door. And all the Princesses had a glittery pen in the color of their dress to sign their name. How cute is that? Here is Jasmine signing Ella's book.

My favorite Princess today was Sleeping Beauty. Both because my Ella was dressed as Sleeping Beauty but also because this lovely Sleeping Beauty got down and gave my bear a big hug and spent some extra time talking to her and making her feel so special. Ella LOVED it!

Ella and I had a fun time and we were able to support a great organization. Thank you to all the people who donated their time and efforts to make the Princess Party a success. We will be back next year for sure!

Ella goes to Preschool!

2011-09-08T21:57:00.001-05:00

Our little miss Ella went off to her first day of preschool today. She was VERY excited. I was a little nervous just because of how poorly Aidan's first two weeks were at preschool drop off and how sad Ella had been at VBS this summer. But off we went!

What a pretty girl!

Showing off her new backpack. Its purple and has butterflies. Shocking that that is what she picked. ;)

With Miss Christy, the Director at Westview.

Ready to go in her room!

Getting her name-tag from her teacher Miss Shelley.

Backpack in cubby - check!

Off to the kitchen set to play!

One little picture with mom and she said we could go.

Then Ella had a fabulous time and my only problem was dragging Livi out of the classroom because she wanted to stay and play too!

Old Threshers

2011-09-05T13:28:00.001-05:00

This weekend we were able to make it down to the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant. Aaron and I both remember going as kids and thought our kids would enjoy it as well.

Started off with some pony rides:

Then checked out A LOT of old tractors. Aidan wanted to know what year each of the tractors were made.

Livi was walking around with her hands in her pockets. I thought it was kind of funny. :)

Aidan always sticks his fingers in his ears because he hates loud noises and has conditioned his sisters to do the same.

Jail, where these little hoodlums belong. ;) Can you tell that Livi instantly started climbing the bars and wanted to see how high she could get?

At the end of the day the big kids got to drive a tractor. They LOVED it! Ella went with daddy:

Aidan went with Papa:

The kids even got little "licenses" to drive the tractor. It was a very cool thing and very well put together - and FREE! I think it was the highlight of their afternoon. :)

Such a fun afternoon. Thanks to Papa and Grammy for taking us to Old Threshers! And thanks to Paul and Karen for going with us and Karen taking the great pictures of the kids on the tractors and of course this great family photo. :)

Ella's tower

2011-09-02T13:49:00.001-05:00

Ella built a tower out of our awesome blocks this morning and I just had to share. Usually she just kind of places a bunch of blocks next to each other and calls it a tower. Today she called me into the playroom and showed me this:

She did this all by herself, no help from mommy. And I know that it is not a leftover Aidan tower because he did have an AT-ST walker sitting right next to that spot and she had taken it apart and used the blocks for her tower. :) Hope he forgets about the AT-ST walker when he gets home from school. :)

Great work Ella!!!

Livi's newest trick

2011-05-27T15:34:00.001-05:00

She just loves adding tricks to her application for the title "World's Biggest Trouble Maker". My other kids never thought to try using the kitchen drawers as toe holds to climb up to the counter. Oh Livi, what are we going to do with you?!

Tulip Time!

2011-05-27T15:26:00.001-05:00

I am way behind on my blogging. Let's see how far I can get caught up today!

Starting with - Tulip Time!
We had a good day down in Pella earlier in May. We have only been to Tulip Time once before and that was 3 years ago. Either something came up or the weather was horrible the last three years, so we were excited that the weather decided to be nice enough we could go down this year. Grandma Van and her friend Mary Ellen met us down there, which was a lot of help managing the three kids. I don't have a ton of pictures from the day and we weren't even able to stay for the parade this year. Dad had his surgery the very next day so I still needed to get these guys home and then drive to Cedar Rapids. A lot of driving for me in one day, but totally worth it. Pella is just a beautiful town and even more beautiful at Tulip Time!

Easter Morning Scavenger Hunt

2011-04-26T10:42:00.002-05:00

So I found this idea on a blog I read. It already had these cute little clues all put together and was generic enough anyone could use it. I printed it out and hoped the kids would think it was fun. THEY DID!

Aidan and Ella were read a clue by daddy and then raced around Grandma and Grandpa Van's house searching for the next clue. There are 8 clues in all and we ended with the baskets being on Grandma and Grandpa's bed (only place they usually don't wander into!)

So much fun to see their little eyes light up as they figure out the clue and rush to the next location and find it. :) Little Livi sleepy-head was still asleep so she missed out, but will hopefully join the fun next year, because we will definitely have to do that again! :)

Learning to ride a bike

2011-04-14T20:59:00.002-05:00

Aidan has been asking to take his training wheels off and practice riding his bike. I can't do it when home with them by myself as Livi has a tendency to run out into the street. But on a nice daddy stay home day they went out to practice!

This shot cracks me up. He had been looking back at Aaron talking about something instead of paying attention to what he was doing.

He did really well. Can't wait for another nice daddy stay home day so he can practice some more!

Our garden!

2011-04-12T16:16:00.003-05:00

So we are attempting a garden this year. Long, long ago, I vaguely remember helping at least a little with mom's garden, but I really have no clue what we are doing. But we are trying it!

Aaron put together this pretty little raised bed for us because we have learned that we have no soil, only clay in our yard. Aidan was VERY excited to plant our garden. Can you tell? :)

He was with Aaron the whole time working on planting the seeds and held the little box of sticks we used to label where the plants were.

Ella was not quite as interested, but still wanted to plant a few seeds.

Livi did plant one potato, but then kept trying to go to the front yard so she could ride Ella's scooter. Oh this child, such a good listener she is. :( Not opinionated or stubborn or feisty or anything. But she was kind of cute riding the big scooter, so I took a picture.

We'll hopefully keep you updated on our garden's progress, if there is any. Fingers crossed! :)

What happened Livi?

2011-03-09T21:59:00.001-06:00

As we were getting packed up to leave Grandma and Papa Van's house a couple weeks ago, I had taken Livi's high chair off the kitchen chair and put in down on the ground. I was going to get it packed up, but she sometimes likes to sit in it on the ground, so I let her for a little bit. The little weirdo buckled herself in and put the tray on. Still, okay, whatever. Then I hear her saying, "Mom! Mom!". But wasn't too quick to get over to her as she didn't sound very distressed and she had done all the trapping to herself. Papa looks down at her and starts chuckling, as obviously she was in a bit more of a predicament now.

And of course, as any good mom would, I grabbed the camera and took a picture of the funny bunny before setting her free. :)

AT-AT and AT-ST

2011-03-09T10:24:00.001-06:00

The other day, Aidan and Aaron were playing with the blocks. Aaron made this AT-AT Walker. Aidan proceeded to make the AT-ST walker next to it.

He was pretty proud of his AT-ST. :)

The originals have since been knocked down, but a new army of AT-AT and AT-ST walkers have taken their place. All built by Aidan.

Thanks again for the blocks Uncle Chris - As you can see, they are used EVERY DAY!

Livi’s new shoe obsession

2011-03-02T21:33:00.000-06:00

Lately, Livi has been LOVING shoes. First, she decided baby doll needed to try on her little pink boots. She worked for about 10 minutes at getting baby and boots just right. (While she was getting baby dressed, maybe she could have found her some pants.)

Then she started to fancy a pair of high heel dress up shoes.

And finally decided to help big sis put her boots on.

New Scooters!

2011-02-17T20:38:00.001-06:00

Aidan and Ella both got scooters for Christmas from Grammy and Papa Friedel. Since it was so beautiful out today (Des Moines tied its record for warmest Feb. 17 ever at 68 degrees) we decided to go take the scooters out for a spin.

I was so impressed with how sturdy Ella's was. I am a little nervous about her and anything with wheels since the tooth incident, but this scooter seemed really great for her. Very sturdy, cute, pink, and she had a lot of fun with it.

Aidan's was really cool too. At first he would just try to kick once and then hop on and lose his balance. I got him to keep kicking with his one foot to keep going and just work on his balance. I am hoping working on his balance with this will help when we take the training wheels off his bike this spring too. :)

I don't have any pictures, but I had a great time on Aidan's little razor scooter too. He has been talking about fairy tales this week at preschool, including the gingerbread man. So I hopped on his scooter and sped off singing, "run, run, as fast as you can. you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!" They all three thought mommy was pretty funny and of course tried to catch me. Mommy can get going pretty good on it though, so it took a little while to catch me. ;)

Aidan loses his first tooth

2011-02-11T14:34:00.001-06:00

Aidan's lower left front tooth had been loose for a couple of weeks, and it finally came out as we were at Papa Friedel's surprise birthday party. Luckily I had brought the tooth fairy pillow along with us for the weekend. Had to be prepared just in case that tooth finally decided to come out!

Happily showing off his tooth and putting his tooth fairy pillow under his pillow.

He remembered that Ella had gotten 4 quarters for her tooth back in June, so he was expecting 4 quarters as well. Looks like the tooth fairy came through.

He was excited to show off the space where he had lost his tooth to everyone. It was hard for people to tell where the spot was though because the adult tooth has already come halfway in right behind the baby tooth. :)

New telescope!

2011-01-23T19:06:00.001-06:00

Aidan got a nice telescope from Grandma and Grandpa Van Sickel for Christmas. He was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited about this! He keeps asking us to get it out, so we recently did. There is still some learning for mommy and daddy to do to use it the best. But the kids were excited just to look through it at the house number and outdoor light on the house a street away. Aaron would get the telescope set to the right position to see it, and then the kids would climb up to look and put their hand down on it and tilt the telescope out of position.
We have The Des Moines Astronomical Society and Aaron actually has a co-worker I believe that is a part of it. They have public nights in the spring, summer, and fall where you can go and listen to a lecture and look through their telescope or bring your own. I think we are planning on trying out the public nights and getting some expert help. :)

But for now - tons of fun at home!

Sledding!

2011-01-11T14:06:00.001-06:00

While at Grammy and Papa Friedel's the kids had the opportunity to do a little sledding. Aidan and Ella had a blast. And Livi didn't seem to mind it too much. She rode down with both Aidan and Ella. It was super cute. Papa was in charge at the top of the hill and gave the kids a little push to get them going. Daddy was at the bottom of the hill making sure they didn't end up in the trees.

When Livi had had enough of the sledding, she just kind of stood and watched big brother and sister. Here she is pointing and saying "Ella" cause big sis was at the top of the hill.

Aidan kept diving out of the sled to stop himself before he got to the bottom. Aaron kept telling him he should just ride it out. So Aidan hopped up, put his foot on the sled, tried to push off...

...and dive into the sled to get himself going again. It was such a boy thing, I had to laugh and was so happy I got a couple pictures of it.

North Pole Express

2011-01-11T13:47:00.003-06:00

Back in December the big kids went down to Grammy and Papa's and got to ride on the North Pole Express. I heard that they liked making an ornament and picking out a train ornament for our tree. Aidan liked talking to Santa, but as you can tell by Ella's face, she was not so excited about it. The big hit of the trip was playing with the trains though. You can see Aidan in the bottom center controlling the trains. Maybe by next Christmas Olivia won't be as destructive and Aidan can get a fun new train set.

The kids love watching the movie or reading the book The Polar Express, so it is super fun for them to get to go on their own Polar Express. :)

Salt Dough Ornaments

2011-01-10T22:39:00.001-06:00

We had a lot of fun making some salt dough ornaments for everyone as a little Christmas gift.

Aidan and Ella enjoyed mixing the dough (what good teamwork!)

Livi decided she needed to do some work also, so she jumped right in and copied what big brother and big sister were doing.

In the end we had some beautiful trees, angels, stars and snowflakes to give to family and friends to hang on their Christmas trees. :)

*I did this post using Windows Live Writer – this is new to me, but seems like it gives me more formatting options, so hopefully I can play around with it and figure it out!

Minivan Express

2010-12-20T21:30:00.001-06:00

Another successful year of the Minivan Express tonight. Our town has something called Jolly Holiday Lights where there are just a ton of light displays sponsored by local businesses. Our $7 admission goes to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation. So not only did we see a ton of awesome lights in one place, we supported a great foundation in a small little way.

Here the kids are rocking out to The Polar Express soundtrack. Ella was really getting into it, Livi and Aidan have a bunch of popcorn and Christmas marshmallows stuffed in their mouths.

I made Aaron take a picture of me and the two big kids once we made it through the park. Livi fell asleep right before we got there and missed the whole thing. Oh well, maybe she will make it next year. :)

Two words: Trouble. Maker.

2010-10-31T20:01:00.002-05:00

Our Yodas

2010-10-30T22:22:00.001-05:00

Just a little trip down memory lane for everyone. :)

Halloween 2010

2010-10-30T21:20:00.001-05:00

What a fun night we had! We love our new neighborhood. Tons of kids and families walking around trick-or-treating. Tons of houses with their lights on passing out candy. Everyone was so nice and the weather was absolutely perfect.

We made Olivia into Yoda, cause I think it is the cutest toddler costume ever. Toddlers have the perfect walk to be Yoda. :)

Excited we got Yoda, Fancy Nancy and Mr. Paleontologist to all sit down for a picture with smiles on their faces. :) A rare occurance indeed.

Aidan was our paleontologist for the evening. He wore his safari hat, khaki pants, a button down khaki shirt I found at goodwill, and I did a little iron-on to this shirt this afternoon, it says, "I Dig Dinosaurs" and has a picture of a dinosaur. He LOVES it. Makes a mama happy. He also has his paleontologist tools in his pockets and carried his brachiosaurus around with him tonight.
His trick was a joke: What is louder than a dinosaur? Two dinosaurs!

This is the absolute best picture ever! I love my sassy little Ella! I mean, Fancy Nancy. She had talked about wanting to be a princess, but she wanted to wear her tutu I had made her, so we came up with this Fancy Nancy costume. I love it! Poor thing realized that fancy shoes aren't always the most comfortable though and her feet started hurting, so I got to carry her around the last few houses.
I did not prepare Ella with a trick because I did not think she would remember one, but she came up with her own joke that she told each person right away: What does Fancy Nancy do? She colors. Good job Ella! ;)

Olivia walked around the end of our cul de sac to the houses we knew, and then we dropped her off with daddy at home to help pass out candy. She was less than pleased I guess, so poor Aaron had to pass out candy and deal with a grumpy Livi. Aidan, Ella and I had a good time walking around and they did a great job telling their jokes. Ella kept asking when we were going to get in the van and drive to Halloween, because that is what we have always done. :) I kept telling her we don't have to do that anymore because our new neighborhood actually does Halloween! So fun!

Oh, and I started this thing in my neighborhood this year that I saw on some blogs. It is called being "Booed" You can read more about it here. It has been so fun this week seeing more signs go up in people's windows or doors that they have been "booed". Such a fun tradition, and so happy we now live in a place that is fun enough to enjoy it!

Naughty little monkey

2010-10-08T07:43:00.001-05:00

Livi decided it was appropriate to climb INTO the water table yesterday afternoon. And being a good mommy, I took pictures of the little monkey before I corrected her and put her feet back on the ground. :)

Our afternoon with art

2010-10-03T22:24:00.001-05:00

This afternoon our friends wanted to go explore the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Des Moines. We decided to tag along with them and check it out. The kids had fun running around with each other. They would all run ahead to the next sculpture, stand there looking at it (Aidan seemed to always have his hands clasped behind his back) and discussing it, until the parents caught up and then they would run to the next one. I wonder what our little art critics had to say about the sculptures, too bad we were too slow to hear what they had to say.

The one I took this pictures at is called Nomade and is basically a 3 story human form made out of letters. I had each of the kids find the first letter of their name and took their picture by it. Olivia was so cute because she just happened to wander over to an "O" and peek through it. :)

Aidan and Ella's room

2010-09-19T21:25:00.003-05:00

Aidan and Ella's room before we moved in

So I think I am finally ready to share Aidan and Ella's room in the new house. We just did some work in there today adjusting the beds and hanging the new awesome books slings Grammy made for them.

We raised the beds a little so we can utilize the space under the beds for maybe some baskets for storage. Aidan and Ella think they make pretty fun hiding places and cozy nooks though also. :)

Ella's book sling. I am LOVING these. Thanks again for making them Jane! Aren't you impressed - we already have them up! :)

Aidan's side of the room. He was too infatuated with his books and book sling to leave his bed while I took the picture. :)

The whole room:

Yay! Another room looking good!

1st Day of Preschool!

2010-09-08T12:52:00.001-05:00

He was slightly more excited to be turning 5 today than about going to preschool, but there still was a lot of excitement about going to school today. :) He even humored mommy by posing for a few pictures in front of the house.

And while walking in to preschool.

And while one of his teachers showed him where his cubby was.

After he put his backpack in his cubby he was directed to the bathroom to wash his hands and then he could go into the classroom. I asked him if he wanted us to walk him in to his class and he said no, so he gave me a hug and kiss and walked down the hall and into the room by himself. What a big boy! He is 5 now ya know. ;)

Totally random but totally cute girls

2010-09-01T15:29:00.001-05:00

I don't think I have posted for awhile. Here are a couple cute pictures of the girls from this month!

Livi dumped all the balls out of this tub and then made herself nice and cozy!

Livi had climbed up into the chair (by herself) and was trying to put her shoes on because daddy had just put his shoes on and gone outside. She likes to climb, but I had never seen her climb up on the kitchen chairs before. Ella came and sat by her so I snapped this cute photo.

Ella was watching a movie from her rocking chair. Livi grabbed a book and went on over to sit in Ella's lap. I wouldn't think they would both fit on the chair, but they made it work and seemed very happy about it. Too cute. :)

New Sandbox!

2010-08-19T19:24:00.001-05:00

For awhile now we have been talking about making a sandbox for the kids in the backyard. All three of them LOVE playing in the sand. So much to Aaron's dismay, I made him go buy the wood yesterday and get 'er done! We decided to make it 8x8, which I know is huge, but we do have a big yard with nothing in it right now, and three little ones sharing the sandbox so we just went for it. It looked HUGE when he put it together in the garage, but seemed just right in the backyard.

So far there are 40 bags of sand in it, and it could probably use about 10 more, but this is good for now.

The kids were watching us from inside as we loaded it up with sand. I went in to tell them they could come out and couldn't find them. I came back out just in time to see them coming around the side of the house holding their new sand rakes I had sitting in the garage. They were pretty excited to get in that sandbox I guess!

I wish I had more pictures of them playing in it this afternoon, but I don't. But as you can tell from the plethora of toys, they certainly enjoyed their new sandbox! Didn't Aaron do a nice job?! :)

A bird is going to eat my rock!

2010-07-29T21:58:00.001-05:00

Great title right? That is what Aidan was yelling at me this afternoon. You see that rock he is holding? Think a bird is going to eat that huge thing? It is the size of a bird!

Okay, I will back up a little. We went to a park this morning. Aidan found this big rock somewhere. I should have made him leave it, but it was not part of the landscaping, just a random large rock. And he LOVES rocks, so I let him keep it.

We get home and he brings it in the house and plops it on my nice cream colored chair. I say that the rock needs to live outside, and not be put on the furniture. He starts yelling that it can't go outside because birds will eat it. I am dumbfounded. I try to reason with him that no bird is going to eat that huge rock. He yells at me that birds do eat rocks, grandma told him so!

He yells at me telling me I am wrong and stomps outside. with his rock and his lunchable I was trying to get him to eat. He sits on the back deck sulking. I call my mom to find out what the story is behind this outburst. She tells me that he saw some birds alongside the road eating rocks and asked what they were doing. She explained about birds needing the rocks to help break down their food. I asked if she could please explain to him the size of the rocks these birds are eating and that they are NOT going to eat his rock which is roughly, 3 inches wide by 6 inches long and 2-3 inches thick. I take the phone outside to find that he is SITTING on the rock to protect it from these savage birds that eat giant rocks.

Grandma and Aidan have a little chat. And as she tells him exactly what I have already told him, he starts to actually believe his rock will be safe and pulls it out from underneath himself.

So, good thing grandma was available to be reached by phone because apparently mommy is not very believable. Crisis comes to an end. :)

Yogurt/Pudding fun

2010-07-27T21:58:00.001-05:00

The other day I was going to feed Livi some chocolate pudding. She has become very opinionated lately and wanted to feed herself. Which is fine, I need to let go and let her learn. But it is so hard when you know the end result is going to be this:

(Oh, and one of her siblings didn't finish their banana yogurt so she mixed that in with her pudding as well.)

Yeah, she got put in the kitchen sink and hosed off head to toe after this. :)

Water fun

2010-07-13T20:41:00.001-05:00

Since I am still a little nervous about taking all three to a pool by myself, especially not knowing the layout of the pools down here, we spend a lot of time playing in our own "splash pad". I just fill up our little plastic pool, a couple of buckets, throw in some funnels, cups, paint brushes and let them, well, SPLASH!

Aidan got his dump truck out and Livi wanted to take a ride. It was really cute. He did a good job being careful with her.

Ella trying to handle the super soaker daddy borrowed from Uncle Brad.

Our newest addition to the splash pad. Hopscotch! This was only $5 at Target and if just the right height of sprinkler for these guys.

Livi and Ella LOVE painting with the water and paint brushes. Mostly the driveway and sidewalks, but sometimes Ella like to "paint" my toenails for me too.

Soggy Fourth

2010-07-07T16:13:00.001-05:00

The weekend of the fourth was a bit of fun around here. Not with the traditional fireworks and parade, those were all delayed soggy events, so we did not partake. But a neighbor had a birthday party with a huge bounce house we got to enjoy.

Then Aaron found this little toad in our garage, Aidan wanted to pick him up. :) Here he is cornering the little fella:

Success! Followed by some hand washing. And no Nan, no frogs found their way into his pockets or my washing machine. Not yet at least!

The only bright spot in the weather of Sunday and Monday. A beautiful full rainbow.

I am glad I got the picture when I did. I went outside again about 5 minutes later and it was gone.
Hope everyone else had a good, yet, soggy weekend!

What am I going to do with this child?!

2010-06-21T21:11:00.001-05:00

I should have just left well enough alone. Everyone was playing nicely inside. Then I open my big dumb mouth and tell the kids I will take them for a little walk. Sounds innocent enough right? Taking a little stroll with the family before bedtime.

Apparently not for us. I told the kids we were just going to walk, no bikes. Trying to avoid any repeat of last weeks events with Ella. Nope, Aidan goes running down the street, Ella running right behind. Aaron yells for them to stop. Ella obeys, Aidan keeps running. Ella starts up running again, trips over who knows what, and lands flat on her face AGAIN! One week after she falls and loses her tooth. So we all run back and check on Ella's status as she is bleeding from several areas of her face. Ended up with a big scratch right by her eye, and lots of little scratches on her forehead and red marks (sure to be bruises) around her eye. A cut on the corner of her mouth and the scab where her tooth used to be busted open and bleeding a ton. I don't think the other tooth got knocked at all, but we are off to the dentist for our one week check from getting her other tooth pulled in the morning, so pray she doesn't find anything loose that I didn't.

Ella is our little daredevil, and I always kind of worried about her falling, but just imagined it being cuts and scrapes that will heal in a few days. Now that she has lost a tooth, I am fearful of everything she does. I know it is just a baby tooth. But my little girl has to go the next 4 years without a tooth. That is way different than a few days with a scratch.

But what can I do? I can't stop her from riding her trike. I can't make her ride in a stroller everywhere or carry her around. She is two and needs to run and jump and play. And now I will be that nervous mama that I never was and never wanted to be. So let's just pray she becomes a little less clumsy and a lot more coordinated and scratches her legs and arms, and leaves her face alone!

Little Bear's Lost Tooth

2010-06-15T21:13:00.001-05:00

Most of you have already heard the story, but I will tell it again for anyone who hasn't.
Monday evening we were out hanging in our driveway talking to the neighbors. Neighbors all went home and Aaron took off on his bike with Aidan and Ella on their bike and trike. They just went to the end of our street and turned around to come back. On the way back Ella caught her foot on the wheel of her no pedal radio flyer trike. Fell forward over the handlebars hitting her face on the sidewalk. Aaron drops his bike and picks her up to bring her back home. Get him a towel to help stop the bleeding. Mommy then takes over because daddy doesn't like the blood or seeing his little girl hurting. I take a look inside her mouth and was horrified to see the tooth knocked loose.

Make Aaron call first nurse to figure out what we should do. We have no dentist down here yet, and no pediatrician down here yet. First Nurse tells us to just pull it out so she doesn't choke on it while she sleeps. I want a different opinion so we figure out where urgent care is down here. I take her over to Mercy Urgent Care. Doctor is not helpful at all. Barely looks her over to make sure she is okay, tells me they will call at pediatric dentist in the morning and get us an appointment. I spend the rest of the evening feeling sick to my stomach wondering if there was something more I could have done to save her tooth and trying to get Ella, who is now overtired, mouth hurting, and hungry but unable to chew anything or drink much, to go to sleep. Finally around 10:30 she gives in and passes out.

Aaron sees that his dentist opens at 7:30 so calls them to see if they will see a 2 yr old with a loose tooth. They sad they will see her at 8:40. So Aaron stays home with the other two and I take Ella to the dentist. They were sooooo nice to her and she was soooooo brave! Hopefully this will not scar her experience of the dentist forever! They took a look and said that the tooth will indeed need to come out. They put a little numbing stuff on her gum, then gave her a shot of some other numbing stuff. Then pulled the tooth. She squirmed and whimpered just a little when the needle when it and when they pulled the tooth. The hygienist and dentist were very impressed with how brave a little girl she was.

She sat on my lap and I held the gauze while we waited for it to stop bleeding. She got to go pick out a prize from their treasure chest. They told her she could pick one out to take home to brother too. She picked a pretty silver bracelet for herself and a dinosaur for Aidan.

We stopped at Target on the way home and stocked up on popsicles, pudding, ice cream and yogurt, anything soft and cold that she likes to make sure she had something she could eat. I am still a little nervous about the other top front tooth. I don't think it is very loose, but the dentist wants to see her next Tuesday to make sure it is tightened back up in its socket. So I guess I am just trying to be cautious with what she is eating and not giving her things she needs to bite off with her front teeth.

Here is Ella right before we went to the dentist:

And then right before bed tonight:

She has been such a trooper! She is not phased even a little. I don't even think she understands what happened. She just saw her pictures that are in this post and asked what was under her nose. And before bed I remembered to go grab my old tooth fairy pillow and put her tooth in it and tried to explain the tooth fairy to our 2 1/2 year old.

So we move on, hope that the other front tooth holds tight and figure out the going rate from the tooth fairy for a tooth!

The children this week

2010-06-11T21:41:00.003-05:00

We started this week with Aidan staying in Cedar Rapids with Grandma and Papa Van. Monday soon turned into phone calls to the doctor to try to get them to look at his leg. He had been bitten by something Friday afternoon at the park and it just kept swelling, was hot to the touch and was starting to bother him when he walked. We were able to get in Monday afternoon, but that meant Aidan and grandma needed to drive from CR to Ames, and I needed to meet them up there. It turned out to be a spider bite that was slowly getting better with the help of some benedryl we had been giving him, but the doctor also gave him some antibiotics just to be safe and prevent any staph infection. His leg is much better today, a week after the bite. The bite mark is still there with just a little bit of red around it. Hopefully he does not get bit by that spider again, and hopefully he doesn't follow Peter Parker's fate.

Olivia was having a little treat of pudding on Monday. She was NOT liking me feeding her with the spoon, so she grabbed it and finished it off herself. My baby is growing!!!!

Ella, who NEVER takes a nap unless she falls asleep in the car, told me she was tired. She says this sometimes, but never actually falls asleep. I told her she could go lay down. I look over not two minutes later and she has asleep, on a cushion in this little house that we have. Sooooo cute. I was mean and woke her up though. If she naps even a little bit, she is up til 10:00 or later. She seemed fine with her 5 minute re-charge though. :)

Crazy storm cloud approaching on Thursday.

Our big boy, with his new big boy summer hair cut. Done by daddy this morning. I think it turned out pretty good and am happy that he won't be so sweaty this summer with his big mop of hair. (Don't worry Carrie, it will be long grown back by the wedding!) He doesn't actually like it very much and keeps asking if his hair is growing back yet. I told him not to worry. As fast as his hair grows it will probably be back to normal in two weeks!

Funny Story

2010-06-09T21:07:00.002-05:00

At least looking back on it it is funny. Aidan has just come home from spending a couple of fun days with Grandma and Grandpa Van. Unfortunately he has been making some very bad choices since we got home. Bossing his sister, disobeying mom and dad, etc.

Well, at some point he decided he is going to go outside. We say no, as it was about 2 minutes until we were going to get them ready for bed. This turned into a huge screaming fit by Aidan and his sandals needing to be put on top the fridge where he can't reach. He still fought Aaron and tried to get a chair to climb up, but finally gave up. He went up to his room, we thought to try to calm himself down.

Nope! He comes down about 2 minutes later with socks on his feet, stands on the stair landing and says, "You can't stop me now!" and runs to the mudroom to find his tennis shoes.

We try really hard to stifle our laughter at our bold little hooligan. Luckily his tennis shoes are still packed in the duffel bag from his adventure. He tries to put on his boots. Mommy then puts him in timeout in the corner of the mudroom, and he screams for awhile before finally calming down.

Ahhh, the joys of parenthood. I had to share his little outburst and problem solving skills with you all though. :)

Aaron's bench!

2010-06-06T19:53:00.001-05:00

I am so excited to share this with you all. This is Aaron's first woodworking project and I think he did a great job! I have always liked the Pottery Barn collection, but no way am I paying that much for a bench and a shelf. Somewhere along the lines I found the blog, Knock-Off Wood. This lady is a genius! Makes and shares plans for all kinds of furniture. Gives you step by step directions even down to the exact cut you will need to make for each of yours boards. Aaron was loving the site too and decided to take on a project. Since we actually have a mudroom area in our new house, he decided to tackle this bench first.

I think it looks beautiful. I can't believe it is his first project. He has even already asked me what I want him to build next! So even though there were several lessons learned through this project, he must like this whole building thing a little bit. :)

I need to find much prettier baskets or bins, because our sad looking blue canvas ones are just not doing this bench justice right now!

What do you think?

We've got ourselves a climber!

2010-05-27T21:58:00.001-05:00

See that child sitting on the couch? Would you like to take a guess HOW she got onto the couch?

Yes, that is right. She waited til mommy left the room to help another child, climbed up on the little denim and brown chairs arm. then onto the end table (knocking over the lamp), over the couches armrest and pillow and onto the couch.

The child tries to climb EVERYTHING! Oh dear - as if we weren't in trouble with all these little monkeys before!

Little updates

2010-05-25T21:17:00.001-05:00

Oh Ella, my Ella. How I love you. She went to visit Grandma and Papa Van last week for a few days, and though it was very quiet around here without her and Aidan bickering, we missed our sassy, giggly little miss.

Imagine this little cutie above, but with pink sunglasses with star sparkles walking around Target today. Yes, she wore her sunglasses the whole time we were in Target. :)

Ella actually has two new skills. I am proud to say she is a fully potty trained little girl now. She runs to the bathroom yelling, "Mama, I got to go potty!". I am so excited about this! She has not had an accident in the past 7 days, except for one time when Grandma tried to carry her upstairs to her little pink potty and she wanted to do it herself. And then today she ran in and went potty all by herself cause mommy was on the phone and she didn't tell me. But forgot to pull her pants down. But I don't think those count. ;) Yeah Ella!

She is also LOVING doing puzzles. Two weeks ago she could have cared less and could barely put together a four piece puzzle. She started showing some interest before going to Cedar Rapids, and was putting together 6 and 9 piece puzzles. But she had a lot of fun putting together 24/25 piece puzzles at grandma and papa's house so I have been getting different ones out for her here. She loves it. She will sit and work on it until she gets the whole thing put together and is getting better and better. I LOVE that my kids love puzzles so much.

While Ella was putting her puzzle together Aidan was helping Livi on her new little bike she got for her birthday. They were having a lot of fun!

I hope everything made sense in this post. I nursed Livi for the last time last night so I am celebrating with a little mudslide tonight and am starting to feel the effects. :) 5 1/2 years of being pregnant or nursing the kids certainly has earned me this yummy little treat, right? ;)

Aidan's eyes

2010-05-20T20:56:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update from Aidan's eye doctor appointment today. Since we have been going he has only been able to read the largest "E" on the chart when using only his right eye. Today, he was able to read several letters on the next size smaller. He read all of the straight line letters (Z and N) and got a few more (P, S, F, A) and guessed at V (he said Y) and G (he said O). But all of it was so very exciting for me to hear! It has been so disheartening to go in every month and have him not be able to see or read anything smaller than the big E. So to hear him reading all of those letters was just pure joy. I know it is a baby step, but it is a baby step in the right direction and all those hours he is putting in with wearing his patch are really paying off!!!

So it was just perfect timing that after the appointment we were off to see Hubble at the IMAX which was his reward for completing his first chart for wearing his patch. He loved the movie, though he was asking questions about every two minutes. Not much about the planets he knows, and hard for a 4 yr. old to understand galaxies, and nebulas, and dying stars, and black holes and all the other cool stuff that Hubble can see. I can hardly understand it all to explain it to him! But we had a good night out together. Now we need to find a new "prize" for when he completes his next patch chart!

Happy Birthday Olivia!!!!

2010-05-19T21:11:00.002-05:00

With Ella off visiting Grandma and Papa Van for a couple days, and Daddy and Aidan off to the library tonight, Livi and I had a little photo shoot. She was just looking so cute with her new dress from Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenny and new barrette. :)

Happy Birthday little bunny! We LOVE you!!!!!!

Olivia's birthday party! Part 1

2010-05-16T20:50:00.002-05:00

Today we celebrated Olivia's birthday with our families! Her birthday is actually Wednesday but Aidan had graduation from preschool today so we combined it all so our families would only need to travel once. Plus, today was supposed to be her due date, little stinker just made us wait three extra days to meet our little cutie.

I found her outfit at Target and had to get it. You can't see it in the pictures, but it has a little bunny on it and flowers and says "Cutest of the bunch" - which she is! And she is our little bunny. And she is almost 1!!!!

Awesome birthday cake made by Aunt Em!

Sitting in front of all her loot. ;)

This is how present opening went. Aidan and Ella opened all her presents while she looked on from behind the rocking chair. What a little peanut!

More to come!

Ya leave the room for a minute...

2010-05-06T21:46:00.002-05:00

...and come back to find that big brother and sister had put baby sister in the bouncy seat that was waiting to be put away in the closet. She has not sat in this thing for like 7 months.

"Mom, what are they doing to me?"

But she apparently didn't mind. She still fits in it and they had covered her with the attached blanket and had the vibrating turned on. So for Livi I guess it was just a cozy little seat that had toys attached. I am just wondering, did she climb into it herself, or did one of the big kids somehow put her in it? It was just quite the funny scene when I walked back into Olivia's room.

Livi in the tunnel

2010-05-06T21:44:00.000-05:00

And always with that silly tongue. :)

Olivia's 10 month pictures

2010-04-18T21:49:00.004-05:00

Again, a terrible mom. Here are Olivia's 10 month pictures. (And yes, I do know the child turns 11 months old tomorrow!)

She is just so cute. Of course she is still about the same size. She did have another weight check last Tuesday and she had actually gained 4 ounces! So she is up to 15 lbs. 2 oz. Her height was 27 1/4 inches or something like that, so she has gained almost 2 inches apparently. So that put her back on the charts for height, just barely. :)
The doc was still worried about her growth so he wanted to test her urine. Which meant that the poor baby had to have a catheter. But really, it was only for about a minute. So I just reminded myself that we had to deal with Aidan's catheter after his surgery for 2 full weeks, so 1 minute was nothing and she was fine. No UTI's, not diabetic, not whatever else he was checking for. He finally admitted that she might just be a shrimp.

She was NOT digging on her headband at all.

Check out the crazy hair after she took the headband off though!

But check out that smile! :)

Little helpers

2010-04-11T21:22:00.001-05:00

Aidan was such a bear today. His one shining moment of good was when he walked around the living room with Olivia. She thought it was so fun that big brother was helping her steer her walker. If left to her own devices she would just go straight until she ran into something and then get stuck and quit. But she got lots of walking practice with Aidan helping. :)

And then of course Ella had to join in the fun.

Later this afternoon we were lounging in the living room and this is how we found Olivia:

I thought she had crawled over to the basket with her books in it. Nope, hadn't made it that far. Just went over to Ella's rocking chair and climbed right on up. Sat there like she owned the place. Such a little monkey. Then she climbed on a box and then the stairs, and then..... I so have my hands full!

One room done!

2010-04-11T21:00:00.001-05:00

Well, I have one room done. The kids bathroom. Not the most exciting room, but I thought I would try to share the rooms when I got them put together.

Before:

After:

I love the shower curtain. I thought it was fun with bright colors that matched the kids hooded towels they already had, and it was pretty gender neutral. The kids picked out the frog bath mat the other day at Target and I got some new hand towels that match as well.

So our little monster, butterfly and frog have a fresh new bathroom!

Olivia climbs the stairs!

2010-04-04T22:03:00.001-05:00

Sorry about this collage. I could not get it to go in the order I wanted and didn't feel like piddling around with it manually, so just try to follow the numbers around the collage! :)

1. She has been climbing the three steps onto the landing the past couple of days, but today she made it to the second step on the big set of stairs. We decided to cheer her on and see how far she could go!
2. Close-up of one tough little climber!
3. Not very happy that no one is just picking her up and taking her upstairs.
4. Aidan put one of his wooden planets on a step to entice her to keep climbing.
5. Her cheerleaders at the top of the steps.
6. Almost there!
7. "I made it, now pick me up mommy!"
8. Yeah Livi! Now you can get your much deserved mommy loves. :)

A good day

2010-04-04T21:36:00.001-05:00

We had an excellent day together as a family. We were terrible and didn't make it to church this morning. We got scared away because of what the parking situation was going to be at our church after we would drive the half hour to get there. We did do our Easter baskets and cheer on Miss Livi as she climbed ALL THE WAY UPSTAIRS! Then we had a good lunch together (amazingly I cooked a ham, some cheesy mashed potatoes, corn and garlic bread sticks). Then went for a walk/bike ride around the new neighborhood and over to the Pirate Park. When we got home the kids watched Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (well, Aidan did, Ella fell asleep on the chair). Had some homemade pizza, talked to all the grandparents on the phone and went to play outside. Excellent family day!

Some updates

2010-04-02T21:56:00.001-05:00

We are LOVING our new house! We have only been here a week but it already just feels like home. The kids are loving their new driveway - three cars wide provide lots of space for bike riding and large chalk murals!

Ella sometimes gets going too fast and tries to go in too small a circle and tips over, but she is a tough cookie. There is also the obstacle of not hitting a crawling Olivia as she moves around checking stuff out.

While we were out enjoying the beautiful morning yesterday, our new little neighbors came over to visit with their grandpa. The little girl, Lucy, told her grandpa she wanted to come over and say hi. She is three and adorable!!! Her grandpa told me that he watches the kiddos on Thursday and they were waiting for the garbage man, Mark, to come. Lucy had made him some brownies as he has been gone for the past couple of weeks because of a shoulder surgery. So now, I know more about my new garbage man than I ever thought I would know! I saw him stop and get out and talk to that family when he came on his rounds and she did give him his brownies. We are totally going to have to go hang out with them on Thursdays so we can meet Mark too! The kids will love that!

Another revelation this week is that Olivia has figure out the bottom two stairs. I went upstairs to do laundry or something and went to come back down, only to find her sitting on the landing waiting for me. So she has mastered getting up those bottom two steps. What a big girl! Following mommy is a pretty big incentive for her to figure out those steps. :)

Lastly, our realtor brought us some fun gifts yesterday as well. She brought the kids a new bubble machine and bubbles (which is awesome because our other one broke and I threw it away before the move). And for the family she had a ceramic bowl made that says "The Friedels" and our new address, and then is filled with microwave popcorn and M&Ms. How fun is that?!!!!!!

I think that is it for now! Hoping those warm temps come back soon because we are loving checking out all the new parks! (So far we have "pirate ship park", "spiderweb park", "baseball park" and "yellow park". We are trying to name them all and move away from our "Aidan park" which is what both of the big kids wanted to find was a new "Aidan park")

We've Moved!

2010-03-28T21:16:00.002-05:00

Well, moving day has come and gone. What a couple of days it has been! We are slowly getting everything unpacked in the new place. We got all the furniture moved over on Friday and a lot of boxes and totes. But I think while we were away from the Ankeny house the boxes and totes reproduced and multiplied. It took four trips with the Penske truck along with several van and car loads full. But we made it. All was done in Ankeny by 4:30 - that is an hour and a half to spare! Nothing like cutting it close when we needed to be out by 6:00 p.m.!

Olivia is checking out Aidan's balloon and car while Papa Van reattaches the legs to the couch. Can you believe that balloon has been alive since St. Patrick's Day?!

Olivia and Ella playing with the boxes.

Yes, this is a photo of our THREE car garage, completely filled with all of our junk to sort through.

Better get back to it!

Thank you to all of our family who helped us move to our new home. We are loving it already. We have only been here 2 days and it already feels like home.
We have met three neighbors already, and there are tons of kids in the neighborhood. Saw Aaron's co-worker that also lives on the street behind us and he told us about the bike trail and the park nearby (Aidan was very excited to hear about the park!). And then one of the neighbors I had met came over after dinner with a vase of pretty pink daisies and a note card with all of her contact info and names of her family - including their dogs! I now know more people in this neighborhood then I did in 6 years in our old neighborhood.

Olivia is 9 months

2010-03-17T22:06:00.003-05:00

Let's just ignore the fact the Olivia is going to be 10 months in two more days. Here are her 9 month photos! I know, I am so on the ball aren't I? But ya know, since she hasn't gained any weight in the past 4 months, she honestly looks the same, her hair just gets a tiny bit longer each month. :)

Photographing a 9 month old is lots of fun. You put them right where you want them.. and then they crawl away.

And then they notice mommy has a camera and want to get it.
And then you finally get a few good shots. See, she has not grown. Still just a little bit bigger than the bear. :)

But oh, those eyes and that little toothless grin - LOVE IT!

Tongue out, trying to escape from me again.

I know it looks like a pouty face, but really she was making noises with her lips. She likes practicing all her different noises she can make. :)

So until next time...you know in two days, when she turns 10 months! (if I am on the ball) :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2010-03-17T21:35:00.001-05:00

This week, Aidan and Ella are enjoying spring break with Grandma and Papa Van in Cedar Rapids. Mom was so kind to take them this week so I could get some packing done before the move next week.

Today was a super special adventure day as they got to ride on a float in the St. Patrick's Day parade! How fun is that?! Thanks to mom's connections with Camp Fire they all three were able to ride on the float. I hear that Aidan was very excited and waved the whole time, shouting out, "Happy St. Patrick's Day!". Ella, as you can see in the pictures, was much more subdued. They said she just seemed very sleepy, but never fell asleep along the parade route. Just kind of quietly took it all in. Too bad the Cedar Rapidians did not get to see our smiley happy bear.

Showing off his shamrock tattoo.

So glad my little leprechauns are having so much fun with Grandma and Papa.

Khaki's glasses

2010-03-15T21:38:00.001-05:00

Khaki has a new pair of glasses! I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but as I was researching a different way to patch Aidan's eye, I saw a lot of programs that sold stuffed animals with glasses. And the stuffed animals would get a patch to match the child's. So smart!

But Aidan already has two special friends, Khaki and Shorty. Khaki happens to come from the Build A Bear Workshop. I knew they sold sunglasses for the bears, but was hoping that they also sold real glasses. They did! Aidan was able to choose between "Harry Potter" glasses and these brown ones that were shaped more like his. You can see he chose the brown rectangular ones so Khaki could look like him. After we got home he said he wants to go back and get the Harry Potter ones for Shorty so he can be as handsome as Khaki and himself. :)

During patch time today I had Aidan use some markers and color a patch for himself and one for Khaki. So he was pretty excited to put his patch on today. I read somewhere in my research that a parent put a little bit of lotion on the skin before applying the patch so it wouldn't adhere to thoroughly. We tried it and it still stuck just fine and did not hurt him a bit to take off (YAY!!!!). I was so scared to put a patch on him the last two days because I did not want to rip it off his poor little face at the end of the hour. But I know it needs to be done, so I am glad this little lotion trick worked until we can get the reusable fleece patch we ordered. :)

Today he only asked once to take the patch off. I just said it wasn't time yet and he left it alone for the rest of the hour. He was very happy that Khaki was wearing a patch and glasses just like him. So happy that I thought to check for glasses at Build A Bear. They were only $4 and I had a coupon - so worth it to help my little guy!

Olivia and Aidan updates

2010-03-12T22:35:00.002-06:00

Olivia had her weight check and check for her ear infection. Good news is that her ears were all cleared up and looking good. Bad news was she has actually lost 2 ounces in the past three weeks. I was looking through her baby book stuff tonight and she was 14 lbs 14 oz at her 6 month check AND at her 9 month check. And then today she was down to 14 lbs. 12 oz. So we now have to go back every month to get her weight checked.

Now I used to like the kids pediatrician. And still do, mostly. But I was a little sad that he didn't tell me to get Aidan's eyes checked when I voiced my concern at his 3 year check. So I am a little bit of a protective mother bear when I go into the check-ups with him now. So today, when he was thinking out loud and mentioning things like cystic fibrosis and some other ones I don't remember now, and saying, "well, she doesn't look emaciated", makes the mama bear very defensive!

I think she is just a tiny peanut. I am a little concerned that she has not gained any weight and actually lost 2 ounces in 3 weeks, but was just not super thrilled with his use of the word emaciated and just casually mentioning cystic fibrosis. But, I am not the doctor, I am just the mama bear (or I guess mama bunny in Olivia's case :) ). So we will keep feeding her just like we are, hoping she will start liking finger foods and go back in for a weight check in a month.

On to Aidan. We went and picked up some patches at Target today. I was a little anxious to how he would react to them, but need to go ahead and start - so I tried it this afternoon. I bought some dinosaur and shark stickers for him to decorate his patches as they are just a plain beige thing that looks like a band-aid. He chose a dinosaur sticker and put it on. We put the patch on and he decided he would like to color. Get all the markers and paper out, after a minute of trying to peek out of the patched eye he said he was all done. I kept upbeat and said that Dr. Hansen said he needed to wear his pirate patch for an hour each day. He said, "let's just try it for one minute". I said, "how about 5?" So he agreed. He colored some planets and the sun. He kept trying to move his glasses around to make it easier to see. I kept distracting him and getting him to focus his attention on his drawing and what else he needed to add to his universe. At one point he did jump up and say he wanted to see what his patch looked like on. So he ran upstairs to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I thought I was going to have to help him get around, as he says he can only see blurs when he is only looking through his right eye. But he had no problems walking around, so I was at least a little encouraged by that. We went back down to do some more coloring. Aunt Carrie was stopping by to visit this afternoon so that was another great distraction and he wanted to leave his patch on to show her.

In the end we had an entire universe, complete with all planets (including the dwarf planets), asteroids, comets, space station, space shuttle, astronauts, sun. satellites, lines showing the orbits, other galaxies, and stars. He had also made it the entire hour with the patch on. So we took it off. Sooooooooooo much worse than ripping off a band-aid. Because it is stickier, and on the sensitive eye area. And ripped out a bunch of eyebrow hairs.

So now I am on a search for the best alternative to these adhesive patches. There are several companies that make a cloth patch that can go over the glasses and eye. Just trying to figure out which is the best one. Which can get it here fastest (or at the very least guarantee it gets to this address before we move - two weeks from today!) Does anyone know anyone that has had a child with amblyopia that had to patch and got one of the reusable cloth patches? I would love to have some guidance and which company makes the best ones.

This mama needs a drink - or a nice long bath in my new bubble tub at the new house!

Aidan update

2010-03-11T18:26:00.001-06:00

Just a quick update on Aidan. He had his second check-up with the eye doctor this afternoon. He is just such a big boy now. I am still amazed when he just climbs up into the big chair at the eye doctor (and at Great Clips today!). And then the doctor starts doing the exam and my heart sinks as Aidan tells the doctor even the biggest letters on the screen are still blurry for him with just his right eye.

So, this time the doctor is ordering an even stronger prescription for his right eye and we are supposed to patch his left eye for an hour a day to really make that right eye start working. Aidan seems excited to put the patch on and be like a pirate now, we'll see how it is when reality hits.

So that is where we are with his eyes. Hoping that he does as well with the patching as he has with the glasses, but unlike the glasses, everything is going to be blurry. So trying to think of activities he can be doing that it won't bother him as much for that hour. :)

Will have Olivia's weight check and ear check tomorrow, so have those updates tomorrow evening!

Some new things

2010-02-24T20:38:00.001-06:00

One new thing: WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After 8 months of trying to keep the house spotless with three small children (IMPOSSIBLE!) and cleaning the house for countless showings, some with last minute notice (including the eventual buyers) - we have sold the house. The inspection is next Tuesday, so still praying that all goes well with that. And the closing is on March 26, so that means we have 30 days to find a new house that we love. That's doable right? :)

Second thing: Miss Olivia had her 9 month check yesterday. As the doc was checking her ears he was like, oh, she has an ear infection. Oh, a double ear infection. I was like "say what?!" See, my kids don't get sick. I have never purchased antibiotics for any of the kids. We get little colds, we have had the flu, but never something that requires medicine. Poor little bunny had bad ears and we didn't even know! She has had a runny nose the last couple weeks, but that is all! No fever, no fussing, no messing with her ears. The doc did say that if she was older the ears weren't bad enough to get medicine, but since she is still young and tiny for her age he wanted to treat it.

So that brings me to the second surprise of her check-up. She was 25 1/2 inches for height, which put her just under the 5th % , and she was 14 lbs. 14 oz, which was not even on the chart! I have a baby who is off the charts on the SMALL side this time. I guess Ella was always just average, and Aidan usually hung out around the 75-90% so he was never off the charts big. But what a little peanut the little bunny is!!!!! Doc wants her to start eating more food and nursing less, so we'll do that. He says to "chunk her up". I think she just wants to stay tiny for mommy so I can enjoy having a little baby for just a little longer. And so she can stay in her cozy warm car seat/carrier since we don't have a winter coat for a little person!

Here are some fun pictures from the last week:

Olivia pulling off the DVDs from the shelf. She seems pretty pleased with herself. :)

Ella came into the kitchen and was sitting just like Olivia. It was so cute I had to try to get a picture. Nice face Livi.

Giving Livi some loves.

Aidan and Ella were giving each other hugs and kisses yesterday. This is Aidan reacting to Ella's "slobbery kisses"

A weekend in pictures

2010-02-07T20:46:00.003-06:00

1. Ella was loving on Mason and making him smile, as she does with everyone! :)

2. Olivia also trying to love on Mason, he is not sure what to do with these girl cousins!

3. Grammy reading to Ella and Aidan today.

4. Olivia having fun with Papa. And aren't you LOVING her new headband as much as I do?!!!!!

5. Again, Olivia trying to get to Mason. This was at Hickory Park on Saturday. We were sitting at a corner and those cute babies sitting there got a LOT of attention from passers-by!

6. Most of my family making homemade pizza at Brad and Jenny's house. We were going to host everyone at our house, but got a call that a realtor wanted to show the house at dinner time so thankfully Brad and Jenny let us come over to their place!

7. Mason and Olivia. Mason has grown so much since last we saw him! I was curious to see how much he weighed now so we got out our digital scale and did the very scientific test of weighing me holding him and then weighing just myself and subtracting, and the little man was 14.2 pounds! I had done the same thing with Olivia a couple days ago and she was only at 15 pounds! They are about 3 1/2 months apart - Mason is quickly gaining on you Livi!!!!!

For Uncle Chris

2010-01-27T21:25:00.002-06:00

Uncle Chris thinks he is just so funny. He keeps trying to dress the children in Hawkeye gear. This is what he got Olivia for Christmas. I tried to be a good person and let her wear it (yesterday, when we weren't leaving the house and no one would see her in the yucky black and gold) ;)

And here is Miss Ella, lining up cars just as Aidan likes to do. She told me she was making a choo-choo.

Snow Fort

2010-01-21T20:52:00.000-06:00

It was finally warm enough to play outside! Last week I went out with the kids and dug a little path in the snow for them. But Aaron took it to a whole new level on Saturday. He made a whole tunnel for them to crawl through and then built up a wall around it. They thought it was super fun! Here are a few pictures of their fun in the snow.

Olivia is 8 months old!

2010-01-19T20:48:00.003-06:00

Can you believe it? I actually took her pictures and am blogging about it ON her 8 month birthday?! I know, good mommy today. :)

You can see below how well the photo shoot started. Not so easy to photograph a little mobile baby that wants to crawl over to mommy.

But I did manage to get a few good shots. I forgot to include her awesome Olivia blanket in last month's pictures, but I remembered today. She looks so sweet and innocent in this picture I think.

There is our big girl. I can't believe she is already 8 months old! She has just started crawling, and now she is all over the place. At first she would just crawl a few feet over to something new that she was interested in. But the past couple of days she will go to different rooms looking for new things, looking for brother or sister, or mommy. She has been so much more content now that she is able to really explore and see new things, under her own power. Now we just have to get used to having the gate shut all the time again!

Her tongue is always twisted in her mouth when she smiles. She has been trying out new and different babbling sounds lately. She eats baby food twice a day, but nothing very thick. I give her Cheerios occassionally, but she mostly just plays with them. Which is fine, work on that pincer grasp!

I LOVE watching her get excited. If she is sitting she starts giggling and flailing her arms and legs. It is so cute. And when I pick her up now, sometimes she gives big hugs by squeezing me around the neck. LOVE IT!

I don't know if you can tell in these pictures very well, but the poor bunny has several little bruises on her forehead and cheek from her new found mobility. It is hard being a new crawler and puller-upper! Oh yeah, that is her other new thing. Pulling herself up onto EVERYTHING. She even cruises along the couch a little bit now. Only a matter of time....

Happy 8 months little Livi! We love you!!!!

I am in trouble now!

2010-01-11T21:00:00.002-06:00

That's right folks. She is a crawler now. We now have three mobile children in this house. I should just call ahead to sixth floor Mary Greeley and get my room reserved now! (sixth floor is the psychiatric unit for anyone that doesn't know) ;)

Random cuteness

2010-01-11T20:47:00.002-06:00

The other day we had Ella's car seat inside because of some switching between the van and car. Ella pulled her car seat over to the train table, plopped down, kicked her feet up, grabbed the controller and started up the Geo Trax. It was hilarious!

So I lost another kid. When I went into the kitchen Olivia was in the middle of the room. A minute later I heard her start fussing. I go back into the living room to see what she needs. Could not find her. She fussed again and I followed the noise to here.

She has crawled over to the train table, and then somehow underneath it. Obviously got stuck and couldn't figure out how to get back out. What a sweetie.

All three of our little peeps drumming away on Grandma Van's tin canisters. They were really going to town. Hope they didn't put too many dents in them mom!

How handsome is he?!!!!

2010-01-06T15:35:00.002-06:00

Seriously, he is so cute in his new glasses. When we got home from playgroup today there was a message saying that his glasses were in! So we regrouped and got our hat and coats and gloves, etc. back on and headed back into the snow storm to go get the glasses. Sadly I got stuck at the end of the driveway, but eventually dug my way out and we went to get the glasses. Got to talk to the doctor real quick while we were there. Still don't think I completely understand how Aidan's eyes work or don't work, but I was a little frazzled after my driveway experience. Anyway, we go back in 4 weeks to see how the glasses are helping him.
He is super excited about them, which is awesome. He has only tried to take them off once, but he has said how much better he can see now. So far so good! I think I will still be needing some prayers for patience though so keep sending those our way!

New Header

2010-01-05T22:03:00.002-06:00

Fellow Bloggers,

Do you like my new header? Do you want to know how I did it? Do you use Picasa and Blogger? If you answered yes to all of those questions go check out this awesome tutorial I came across. Seriously, I don't think I can go back to just a plain jane header. I am loving this!!!!!!! And it was so easy. If you decide to make a new header, let me know, I can't wait to see what everyone else creates!

Everyone else,

Even though words like Picasa and Blogger don't mean anything to you, isn't my new header cute? Those Friedel Kids, gotta love 'em!

Ella's first hair cut!

2010-01-03T20:19:00.001-06:00

So I finally got up the courage to try to cut Ella's hair. It was just all different lengths and starting to look pretty scraggly at the ends. So today we sat down in the kitchen and went to work. I think it turned out pretty cute. Just turned on Dinosaur Train on the kitchen tv and started clipping. Still needs a little work, but we will take care of that tomorrow. What do you think so far?

Olivia is 7 months old!

2010-01-02T22:17:00.002-06:00

Okay, okay, I know I am late with taking these pictures, but she is still 7 months (yes it is closer to 7 1/2 but lets just pretend here okay!)

Little bunny is turning into a much happier little girl. She can play by herself for longer stretches of time, but of course needs someone to be in the same room as her. Lucky there are two other munchkins around here to help keep her happy! She is doing good eating her baby food and baby cereal now, but she is definitely a fruit girl. She likes sweet potatoes, but when I try carrots or squash now, she sticks her nose up and fusses. Guess we will have to keep trying with that. She won't try to drink out of a sippy cup, so again, will need to work on that.

But just look how cute she is!

I had to share the pictures of my "helpers" today. I didn't get nearly as many pictures of Olivia as I usually do during her photo sessions because 1) I had two other monkeys that wanted to be in the pictures, 2) Olivia is a mover and a shaker now. She was all over the blanket. She doesn't quite crawl yet (though she moved forward two "steps" tonight!) but she does reach, lay down, sit back up, roll, etc. and gets around, though she doesn't exactly have a particular destination yet. She is just content to be in a new space and exploring what she finds there!

And yes, today she had been pulling herself to stand on EVERYTHING! We just moved the train table back to the living room this afternoon and she keeps finding her way over to it and standing up. Little monkey. However, if she is closer to the Little People farm, she somehow keeps it balanced well enough to use it as a prop for standing. Oh little bunny, mommy is not ready!

Dress Up!

2010-01-01T21:46:00.001-06:00

Tonight we pulled out our new dress-up clothes. I had bought them all on after-Halloween clearance and had planned on using them as Christmas gifts, but I guess just waited til New Year's to pull them out! They had a ton of fun with the new costumes. Aidan even asked Aaron, right before he left the room at bedtime, if we could play dress up again tomorrow. You will have to click on the picture to enlarge it and see some of Ella's expressions. Sorry most of the collage is Ella, she was just being the most photogenic I guess!

If you can't tell, we have a cowboy, a clown, a zebra (headband with mane and ears and a tail), and Little Red Riding Hood. :) Hope everyone had a Happy New Year's Eve and Day! Welcome 2010!

Dinosaurs Galore!

2009-12-31T14:32:00.002-06:00

So Ella's big present was a dollhouse, and Aidan's was....

...a Dinosaur play land!
He calls it his Cretaceous jungle. We added some shoe boxes for mountains and I happened to have a big green piece of fabric to drape over it. He has been LOVING it!

My best friend also sent him a big box of new dinosaurs to add to his collection. Last night he made a big line of dinosaurs across the living room. He now has 36 dinosaurs I think. We bought two buckets to store them in today at Walmart. He wanted two, partially because he thought they wouldn't all fit in one, and partially so he could separate them. You know, carnivores in one, herbivores in the other. ;)

The Dollhouse

2009-12-30T21:55:00.003-06:00

Our little wooden family finally has a home! I finally finished the dollhouse for Ella. I think it turned out pretty cute.

You can click on the picture below to enlarge it and see the details better.

I made little picture frames for the living room wall using tiny popsicle sticks. I made them so I could slip in a new picture at the kids get older. I had a brainstorm yesterday and wanted to put magnetic primer on the back wall of the tiny living room so we could decorate the walls with different magnets. But the cheapest one I could find was $13 and I obviously needed just a tiny bit, and am too cheap to splurge like that. At least until I think of another project I could use the primer for (or I raid my crafty friend Nan's stash - surely she has some somewhere!)

Aidan was looking at the dollhouse this afternoon and saw the pictures in the dollhouse and looked at the same pictures on our living room wall and tried to arrange the furniture to match our living room. So cute!

She was loving it this afternoon and evening. Which of course makes me super happy. She likes to pass out the adorable little wooden people to their corresponding actual person. :)

I call this project a success! What do you think?

Our boy's eyes

2009-12-30T20:47:00.002-06:00

Will soon be sporting a new pair of glasses.

Aidan went to the eye doctor this afternoon because of some concerns I have had with his right eye crossing. Aaron and I were lucky enough to both be able to go to the appointment as my mom and sister were able to watch the girls. I was super glad Aaron was able to go to also, because as it turns out, we needed to pick out some frames for Aidan and I think I would have been nervous deciding something like that myself.

Anyway, I should back up a little. Aidan was a SUPER AWESOME TERRIFIC patient at the eye doctor (minus the part where they put the drops in, but I can't say I blame him there). We were there doing different eye tests or waiting for a total of 2 hours and he was so wonderful the ENTIRE time. He sat on my lap or Aaron's lap and did his best following directions from the assistant and then the doctor. As he was doing all the tests it became so sadly obvious that he can apparently barely see with his right eye. He could read the tiniest print with his left eye, but when they covered the left he could not read a thing with his right eye, not even when they put the largest letter up on the screen. Then they would uncover his left eye to right something down and he would be like "Oh, its a "T"!"

It was so hard to hear exactly how bad the right eye is. Apparently it is a perfectly healthy eye, but just never learned to work properly because the left eye just always overcompensated for it. The condition is called amblyopia, or more commonly lazy eye. So Aidan picked out some cute little glasses and seems excited about them. We will get them in 7-10 days so I guess we will really see how he feels about them then. Especially since it is going to feel really funny for him as of course they are supposed to help the right eye start working. We have thought of many more questions about how exactly the glasses are supposed to work after we left, so we will have to ask when we go back in to get the glasses. After 4 weeks of wearing the glasses we will go back in and the doctor will check and see how they are working or if we need to talk about patching the left eye to make the right eye learn to work.

So, not great news, but not horrible news either. The eye is healthy, just need to teach it to work. I am mostly just mad at myself for not trusting my instincts. I noticed right before he turned three that his right eye occasionally crossed to the middle, but no one else saw it so I just thought I was imagining things. And his pediatrician seemed to think nothing of it when I mentioned at his three year check, but then when I was still concerned this year at his 4 year check the doctor was like, "Oh get that looked at because the eye could die!" Thanks doc. Thanks for that info last year. Oh well. We caught it and we are going to treat it and get that right eye working!!!! Please pray for Aidan's and our patience as we work through all the fun that must lie ahead in working with a 4 year old and glasses and possibly patches. :)

Christmas Morning

2009-12-25T22:17:00.002-06:00

Last night, Aidan and Ella bid farewell to their elf Sixer. We checked Santa's location on the NORAD website (I think he was in Indiana - getting close!). Put the reindeer food out on the lawn, picked out a cookie and some milk for Santa. Wrote Santa a note. Opened up their packages with their new jammies in them. Brushed teeth, and then crashed. I mean, completely crashed. No naps, and up two hours past their bedtime, did not move a muscle once their heads hit their pillow. Which would be the only night this week that has happened, mind you. I just now, at 10:15 got Ella to stay in bed tonight.

But anyhow, on to brighter things. Aidan came and woke me up this morning asking if he could go see if Santa had come. So down we all went (minus Olivia, who had been up from 5-7 and finally gone back to sleep) to the fireplace in the family room. You can see Aidan's excited expression in the middle picture. Aidan always leaves Santa a note and Santa leaves him a note in return. The bottom left picture is Aaron reading the note from Santa. The rest of the pictures are some of the fun gifts Santa left for the kids.

Aidan and Ella watching Rudolph this morning, cuddled under their new blankets from Great-Grandma and sitting with their new friends, Moose, Pig and of course Baby.

The next two are pictures too cute not to share. Ella can get the biggest giggles out of Olivia. Even more than mommy. They had a good time playing together this morning.

I hope everyone had a safe and very
Merry Christmas!

Friedel Family Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T21:48:00.002-06:00

With the impending snow/ice storm we decided to head down to Mediapolis on Tuesday afternoon to beat the storm. No storms down here folks! Just windy, chilly and a little rainy. There were a few flakes flying through the sky today, but nothing really to speak of. Sounds like we will be digging out the driveway to get up it on Sunday though!

Aaron had discovered that NORAD had a Santa tracker on their website so we followed Santa throughout the day on (my favorite Christmas present) the laptop. We were watching when he visited the International Space Station. Aidan thought that was pretty cool.

The entire Friedel family after church on Christmas Eve.

Some favorite presents: some pretty plates for Amy, a new basketball hoop for Aidan, a teddy bear made by Grammy for Olivia, a baby doll care center for Ella, and of course the PS3 for Aaron.

And I just had to share this picture of Livi and her BLUE eyes. So pretty. And of course I LOVE LOVE LOVE her flowerband!!!! Need to go find some more outfits she can wear it with!

Adorable children

2009-12-25T19:20:00.001-06:00

Here is a collage of my attempts to get a picture of these cute kids in their super awesome Christmas outfits right before we went to church last night. As you can see, it went as is typical. Aidan will give me a cheesy grin. Ella looks to Aidan to see what his expression is. And since it was Olivia's first time wearing shoes, she was totally engrossed in those. But aren't they cute?

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T23:09:00.001-06:00

Little Family

2009-12-21T09:10:00.002-06:00

Literally. Here is out family in miniature. Our super awesome friend Mindy made these adorable little people for Ella's new dollhouse. A few weeks ago I had put it out there on Facebook that I was wondering if I had any talented friends who would like to paint some little peg people for the dollhouse I am making Ella for Christmas. Mindy answered my call for help! I just gave her a basket full of goodies (paint, glue, wooden spools, wooden doll heads, etc.) and she did a totally awesome job!!!! I cannot thank her enough for taking the time to make these precious little figures for Ella.

See, there is me and Aaron in the bottom left, a Grandma and Papa in the top right, and then Aidan (in full Cardinals attire, complete with a Pujols jersey), Ella and Olivia. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now to finish the home for them to live in!
(don't worry, it is almost complete. I took this picture before I started. I do realize that Christmas is only a couple days away. We are making a trek to Hobby Lobby today to get the rest of our dollhouse supplies and finish it up tonight! Pictures of the finished dollhouse to come!)

Aidan's Christmas Concert

2009-12-19T10:18:00.002-06:00

Yesterday Aidan had his preschool Christmas program. It was so fun to see our little man up there with all his new friends singing all the new songs he has learned. We were so proud of him. You could tell he was a little nervous because he had his hands up by his mouth at the beginning, which is what he does when he is feeling shy. But he overcame that quickly and did an awesome job belting out the songs. I could very clearly hear him during most of the songs, but none more so than Feliz Navidad. :)

Here is Aidan and all his friends, ready to begin. He is in the middle row, second from left.

"God loves my father, and he loves me too!"

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells!"

After the program we were invited back to his preschool room to have a birthday party for Jesus. We had cookies and milk and the teachers gave each of the children a little gift bag. Aidan was very excited about the play dough, candy and new cup with the baby Jesus on it.

Here is a picture of Aidan with his teachers:

Minivan Express

2009-12-13T22:39:00.002-06:00

Tonight we took a ride on the Minivan Express! You can go over to the other blog to read all about our adventure. Sorry I am not rewriting it all over here, I am getting a little sleepy and will be heading to bed very soon. But I wanted to share some extra pictures of the kids over here. They had A LOT of fun!!!!!!

The super cute Friedel Kids after their adventure this evening.

Feeding baby

2009-12-12T21:37:00.001-06:00

What do you think? Think Ella watches everything that mommy does with Olivia and copies it with her own baby?
This is how we found her the other night. Sitting in a chair, with her baby doll in Olivia's high chair, feeding her from a little bowl with one of her tea party spoons. Also notice all the toys she has placed so nicely for baby on the tray. While the rest of us are eating our meal, Olivia always has a few toys on her tray to keep her entertained. Ella pays close attention doesn't she! She is such a good little mama! :)

Ella loves her Papa...

2009-12-12T21:32:00.002-06:00

...and I think the feeling is mutual. :)

Polar Express afternoon

2009-12-09T22:46:00.002-06:00

My blogging friend shared this activity and I knew I had to do it for Aidan and Ella. Aidan LOVES Polar Express. So today as we were snowed in (by 15 inches of snow!) I thought it would be the perfect surprise after rest time. I set up their little chairs in a row to be a train. Which oddly enough Aidan had done the same thing this morning, only he had chairs from the kitchen and some toys in his train line which spanned the whole living room. I set out the movie, the book, a couple of cookies we made yesterday, and had some chocolate milk waiting for them. I also put the bells that Aidan got last year from riding the Polar Express under their seats as a special surprise. Every time Aidan moved in his chair he was like, "where is that bell coming from?". He finally figured it out and held onto his bell the rest of the movie. It was a very fun and special way to spend our snowy afternoon. :)

Too funny!

2009-12-07T22:43:00.003-06:00

The other day Aidan and Olivia were hanging out together on the floor. Aidan was showing her pictures of Ella when she was little. Aidan was being such a great big brother I went and grabbed the camera. I got a really cute picture of the two of them:

But I kept taking pictures thinking I could maybe get all three of them together as Ella was also wondering around. But instead I capture the evolution of big brother noticing that little sister is VERY stinky:

(click on the picture to blow it up full size to really see the expressions on Aidan's face. Priceless!)

HOW?

2009-12-01T08:45:00.002-06:00

Last night at midnight I awoke to the sounds of my Ella Bear crying and whimpering "baby". Only the sounds didn't sound like they were coming from her room. They sounded like they were coming up through the vent, as if she were downstairs in the office. She has not done that before, but I sat there listening and trying to figure out what could be happening. Did she see the light from the computer monitor and get all the way down to the office? I heard her cry through the vent again so I hopped up and went into her room. No Ella! No Ella in her bed, no Ella in the room. I went running downstairs and checked the kitchen and living room. No Ella. Ran down to the office and family room, no Ella. While downstairs I heard her cry out for baby again. Running back upstairs to her room. Still no Ella. Where on earth is my bear???!!! She cried out one more time for her baby and the sound came from UNDER her bed! So I grabbed the little bear by her feet and pulled her out from under her bed and put her back under her covers after cuddling for a little bit as she appeared a bit shaky. So all is well, Ella is fine, slept the rest of the night.

But could someone please explain to me HOW she got all the way under that bed with those two cushions blocking the way?

LOVE THIS GIRL!

2009-11-24T19:10:00.001-06:00

Just some fun

2009-11-23T15:14:00.002-06:00

Just a couple fun pictures from the last week.

Look at Olivia's facial expression while the two big ones are loving on her:

Fluffy hair after her first kitchen sink bath (at Grandma and Papa Van's house):

First sink bath at home and LOVING it! Loves to splash!

Daddy/Uncle Aaron with Mason and Olivia:

Week long birthday

2009-11-23T14:47:00.002-06:00

Our little Ella Bear is 2! Her birthday was of course officially on the 20th, but she basically had a week-long celebration. It started with her birthday party at Grandma and Papa Van's house last Sunday. Aunt Carrie, Justin, Grammy and Papa Friedel, and Aunt Em were all able to come to the party. We had such a good time. Aunt Emilie of course made the awesome cake. Ella wasn't so sure of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to her and climbed up into my arms until the song was done, then hopped right back down to blow out her candles. She loved all her presents: puzzles, clothing, baby doll, tea party set, dishes, and minivan. Thank you everyone!

On her actual birthday we went down and had lunch with Daddy at Red Robin. They sang "Happy Birthday" to her and she got a yummy ice cream sundae. After we dropped Daddy off at work we went back to the mall and she made her new friend Ginger at Build-A-Bear Workshop. The workers there also sang "Happy Birthday" to her. We went and played in the children's play area at Jordan Creek before heading home. Sadly I have no pictures of the actual day except on my cell phone. :(

On Saturday night we went over to Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenny's for yet another birthday celebration. Aunt Jenny made her a yummy funfetti cake and got her a special 2 year-old candle. As this was the 4th "Happy Birthday" that was sung to her she just kind of made faces at us out of the corner of her eye, and she did a good job blowing out her candle (with a little help from daddy).

Thank you so much everyone for helping make Ella's second birthday so special!

A sneak peak...

2009-11-21T22:03:00.005-06:00

...at how adorable our kids are going to be at Christmas this year! Grammy Friedel found each of the kids an adorable outfit. This evening we went over to Brad and Jenny's and Grammy and Papa took a picture with their four grand kids in their fancy new outfits. I don't have any of those pictures on my camera so you will have to wait til later to see the whole crew in their super cuteness, but I did get a few shots of the ADORABLE headband and flower clip made by one of Aaron's friends from back home in Mediapolis. Her name is Tricia and she has been making these awesome headbands for her little girl, and then people started telling her she should sell some of her beautiful creations. So she is! She sells some in a boutique down in Burlington called Belle's Boutique and she also opened her own shop on Etsy.com called Frills and Flowers. (just click on Frills and Flowers and it will take you there!)

She can make custom headbands or clips to match your little girl's outfit. Any of my friends out there with little girls, go check out her website on etsy. I love the ones Grammy had her make to match the girl's Christmas outfits. I love that she put a little piece of fleece on the inside of Ella's clip to help it stay in her baby fine hair. And I love that Olivia's headband is made of some sort of soft silky nylon. It is so soft and looks SOOOOOOO pretty.

What do you guys think?

Seriously talented lady - go check her out!

Olivia's 6 month pictures

2009-11-21T14:58:00.002-06:00

Miss Olivia is now 6 month's old. She sits very well on her own, and scoots herself in a circle when she is laying on her tummy. She can roll over both ways, but does not do it very often. Her facial expression is usually gumming on her lower lip like in the top left photo, or sticking her tongue out of the right side of her mouth like in the middle left photo. She loves to be held and interacting with her big brother and sister. Ella can make her giggle better than anyone else. We still need to work on our bedtime routine and sleeping through the night, but at least she only gets up once a night!

Here are some photos of our beautiful bunny:

Her faces crack me up!

I asked Aaron to come in and take a few photos of me and Livi.

And here is a behind the scenes look at our set-up for the photo shoot. :)

Happy Half Birthday Olivia!

Thanksgiving Countdown

2009-11-16T22:48:00.002-06:00

I just blogged about this at my other site, but for those who don't read Simple.Messy.FUN! I had to share a few things that Aidan is thankful for. Today's addition is quite fun "for Ella pooping in the toilet". It is so fun to see what he comes up with each day that he is thankful for!

Yeah Ella!

2009-11-09T21:29:00.000-06:00

So I know about a month and a half ago Ella had her two or three potty training accomplishments and since then, maybe just once or twice. But tonight as we were getting ready for bed, her diaper was dry. We asked her if she needed to potty. "Yeah!" and runs into the bathroom, comes back about 45 seconds later and says "I potty!". I go check and she did! What a smart little bear.

Sorry I keep sharing her potty training successes. She is just a year and a half ahead of when I finally got Aidan trained so I am just super excited for any little success she has!!!

Another comparison

2009-11-07T20:50:00.003-06:00

Just for fun, here is another comparison of the kids at around 6 months of age. It is hard to do guessing games as they wore more gender specific colors as they got older, but here they are:

Olivia

Ella

Aidan

Apparently both Aidan and Ella were sitting by themselves at this age but Olivia still sits with the assistance of the boppy. She can sit for a long time, I am just not completely confident in her skills yet, so she has the boppy to keep her safe. And who am I kidding, Ella was getting ready to crawl at this age.

Little stinker.

So who do you think looks like who?

Cyclone Volleyball

2009-11-05T22:21:00.003-06:00

Last night we went up to Ames and to watch the #8 ranked ISU volleyball team take on #2 ranked Texas. The Cyclones played great and won the match in game 5. It was AWESOME!!!!!! Such a great game and the kids seemed to have a good time as well.

Here are our little Cyclones waiting for Daddy to get the tickets. It was a little chilly and the line for tickets was super long, so I took the kiddos up to wait in the entry while Aaron got us the tickets. :)

Both Aidan and Ella had tattoos on their faces. You can see a little bit of Ella's Cy tattoo in this picture. They loved it!

And here is Aidan showing his off. :)

Me and Ella. By about the third game Ella was really getting into it. She was much more smiley than this picture, clapping, cheering and pounding on the seats like the band was doing.

Aidan and his friend Jayden went and grabbed Cy for a picture while he was coming up the steps by us.

Tons of fans rushed the court after they won. It was so FUN!!!!!!!!!
Definitely some Hilton Magic last night!
GO CYCLONES!!!!!

Halloween Party

2009-10-28T20:21:00.003-05:00

We had so much fun today at our play group's Halloween party. We dressed up, ate pizza, made spider hats, decorated cupcakes and ate them, took a group picture, made footprint ghosts, and topped the afternoon off with a pinata. Oh, and of course took some dirt cups (Oreo, chocolate pudding and gummy worms) home for a snack for later. Thanks for a great afternoon everyone!

Dr. Ella, taking care of babies, and modeling the spider hat.

Aidan showing off his ghost footprint.

Cute little ladybug.

After finishing their cupcakes, they proceeded to use their knives to lick up every last bit of frosting before mommy took the plates away.

Aidan took some good swings at the pinata.

Ella looks like she thought it was a javelin contest. She did hold it the right way and took a good whack at it.

Spirits in the Gardens 2009

2009-10-25T22:05:00.002-05:00

This afternoon we went up to Reiman Gardens to enjoy their Spirits in the Gardens. We have done it the past couple of years and think it is kind of fun. They have several mascots (Cubbie Bear, Smyles - from the Ames library) handing out candy to the kiddos. Then there are a few games (bean bag toss), a craft room, popcorn and cider, and the creepy crawly stations. We tried them all out. It ended up being a pretty nice day and I am glad we were able to go.

I felt bad I didn't really have a costume for Olivia. Luckily we have some bunny ears for our little bunny!

I wish I had this in better focus, he is just so cute! He was running through the little hay bale maze so this passing shot was amazing to get in the first place. :)

Ella was not a big fan of all the mascots, but she was more than happy to take candy out of the bowls their helpers had! She even got so into the whole taking the candy out of another bowl or bag that she mistakenly tried to take some candy out of another little kids bag that his dad was holding. Oh dear. She had Aaron carry her around while we walked by the mascots, but Aidan was giving them high fives and hugs. Must be that 2 yr old age - does NOT like mascots, as Aidan was the exact same way two years ago.