Magic Moments

Being the responsible parent that I am, I left Aiden's snow toys in the yard from last time we got a few flakes. Consequently, during last night's snowfall they got buried and I wasn't about to go hunting for them. So, when Aiden wanted to play in the snow I had to get creative (I suppose when we live in an actual neighborhood I'll have to be more conscious of our yard not looking like a toy box). A squirt bottle, some water, and some food coloring was all it took for some serious entertainment for this three year old. Aiden "painted" the snow and worked on his rainbow masterpiece for more than an hour. The pictures don't really tell a very good story...but believe me, your kid will love it. After that we were both tuckered out so hot cocoa and a Veggie Tales episode it was. We had dinner with Daddy, celebrated Sage's 1/4 Birthday, and now Aiden is in bed and I'm headed there myself. Today was a good day! It finally felt like Minnesota. I had...

The plow has yet to show up so we really are snowbound and it's SO cozy! I've been waiting for a winter storm like this! It's pictures like this one that I'm really going to miss when we move. There is nothing like a pretty snowfall in the country.

One the eve of his three month birthday Sage giggled! Yes, that's right! He gave us the cutest little baby giggle and squeal! Tom was holding him and lifting him up and down and Sage thought it was the greatest thing ever! There is nothing like watching your baby develop the capacity for emotions that stir up happiness and laughter. God is such an amazing creator! Tomorrow Sage and the rest of us will celebrate with 1/4 of a birthday cake. I know I'll be a day late on this, but I forgot to pick up frosting at the store and we want to be able to celebrate with Daddy, but I don't think Sage will mind too much. I just can't believe my sweet Sage is three months! I certainly don't miss the waking every 2 hours in the night, but I don't want this age to slip away. He is just too precious!

How many times have I imparted consequences on my Aiden when I should have given them to myself? How many times do I stop and think about where Aiden's attitude is coming from before I start in on the changes he needs to make. It hit me square in the nose the other day that so often Aiden is a reflection of the way I have acted. He picks up and absorbs the things I say, the way I say them, and the things I do. Listening to my three year old tell me, "Mama! Good grief! I'm just so irritated at you!" was a slap in the face. He got that and all the other unhappy things he says straight from me. I knew that I needed to work on him (and me) from the inside out. Aiden knows the verse 2 Thes. 3:13 "As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good." So we talked about this verse and to enforce a heart change I simply cut a heart out of a piece of paper and told Aiden that every time I "caught" him doing something good I was going to give him a...

Eat your heart out, ladies, cause this cute little hunky baby is mine...all MINE! :) Oh, my sweet baby Sage. I just can't get enough of him most days. He melts my heart. This past week he rolled over. He hasn't done it since so I think it might have been a fluke, but he's been working on rolling for quite some time and he is very, very close. When Aiden rolled over I was so excited! I declared him a baby genius and called Tom right away. When I saw Sage roll over I was almost horrified. I said, "Sage! Stop learning to do things! Please! You are too big for your britches. Just stay a baby forever!!!" Sage watches Aiden all the time and is just itching to keep up with him. The bouncy seat is on it's way out because Sage HATES to recline in it and he is very good at pulling himself up into seated position. I'm afraid that he is going to flip that thing over one day very soon. And the Bumbo (which may be the most overrated baby "necessity...

This is what Saturday looked like at our house. To be honest, when this fort was being built I was cringing on the inside. WHAT A MESS! I hate messes (which will shock you since my house is far from clean) and Tom and Aiden seem to love them. I could not ruin their fun so I had to take a trip down memory lane to remember how fun it was as a child to build forts. As Tom and Aiden built this fort I realized that I didn't have any of the standard fort making supplies. Card tables make the best support structures for blanket forts and clothes pins are a must have to hold the blankets together and for making tunnels. We don't have a card table and the only clothes pins I had were my grandmothers antique ones that don't actually snap. Luckily, Tom engineered this structure and it was good enough for our three year old. Those two spent the better part of the day in that fort reading books and even having a quiet time. I never imagined that our Saturdays would be spent maki...

My cousin is getting married and for her Wedding Shower the guests were asked to bring some advice. After almost 9 years of marriage I'm not even close to having it all figured out. Relationships are such puzzles and the pieces have to fit together well during a multitude of circumstances. Marriage is a dance...it's like swaying back and forth always looking for the balance or the center. And if you are two completely opposite people, finding your resting point is sometimes tricky. This list is not exhaustive and it's not philosophical. These are just little, everyday type things that make our house run smoothly. Some of these tidbits have been shared with me and some things I've figured out by way of self discovery. 1. When I was getting married my Grandma A. and my mom both told me that if I was running late with dinner to simply set the table. That way the hubby would think that dinner was soon to be ready. (To be honest, my Grandfather is a patient man. ...

Aiden is my great pretender. He just pretends, and pretends, and pretends his day away and I love it. I love listening to him play and I sometimes laugh out loud at the conversations his "men" have. If he isn't playing with his knights and pirates, then you can find him dressed up. Lately he's been playing the part of a cowboy. I made him a sad little makeshift cow awhile back, but what kind of a cowboy doesn't have a horse? I was just waiting for an excuse to buy him this and Valentine's was the perfect time. Aiden usually doesn't go downstairs without me in the morning but on Valentine's Day I woke up to Aiden standing by my bed dressed in his cowboy ensemble (garage sale cowboy boots and a cowboy hat from Texas Roadhouse...ya gotta love it!). He said, "Mama! I went exploring and somebody got me a horse!" After that Tom and I laid in bed while Aiden galloped around our room on his horse. If you push the horse's ear he will w...

(It's just im possible to get a good picture of a 2 month old and a three year old) My heart is full today! I just love Valentine's Day. Maybe it's because the signature colors are pink and red (my favorite), or maybe because it involves chocolate (my favorite), or maybe because it's an excuse to be sappy and spread the love a little bit (my favorite)....whatever the reason I LOVE it. And I've given myself permission to love it. I don't care one little iota about it being a Hallmark Holiday. In our house, we celebrate. Besides, it's the middle of winter and we have nothing better to do. The only tradition Tom and I have is that we write each other a love letter. We do this for every anniversary and sometimes birthdays too. In college when we were too poor for presents this is how we acknowledged the day and the tradition has stuck. Unfortunately I only have letters dating back to 2008ish because the binder containing letters from 2003-2007ish is no...

Untitled from Jenny on Vimeo .

1. Friday is pizza night at our house! (or at least it will be if Tom ever gets home with the pizza sauce I forgot to buy at the store) 2. Fridays are extra great when Tom is going to be home for the weekend! 3. Fun Friday for today meant a play date with our good friends Sarah, Mason, and Avery and a trip to the library. 4. Yesterday we went to the Zoo for tot time with our friends Steph and Dieter. Thanks, Steph, for discovering this! We had a very fun time! 5. We have no weekend plans and that feels wonderful! 6. That's all!

When we first moved to Minnesota people always talked about going "Up North." In fact, one of my first blog posts I wrote after moving to Minnesota was about where "Up North" actually was. If I told people that we were going to the cabin for the weekend they would always ask, "Is it Up North?" I learned to just respond with "yes" because if I went into detail about where the cabin exactly was people's eyes would kind of glaze over. After thinking about it for sometime I finally deduced that "Up North" wasn't one specific place, but more of a description of the culture. I decided that "Up North" could be most anywhere in Minnesota as long as it was a place on a lake where you wore your bathing suit most of the time, where it was ok to be dirty, where your floors would be sandy, where you would find fishing bait in your fridge, where you would stay up late by the fire and get up early to fish, where you would take a...

This little boy... ...lost his blanket privileges last night. This morning I discovered he had turned himself around an entire 45 degrees in his bed. We are headed to the store to buy a Halo Sleep Sack.

My sweet little Sage really is just the sweetest. He turned 10 weeks old today and we celebrated by going to his 2 month check up. He weighed in at 11 lbs and 13 ounces and was 23.25 inches long. At birth he was 20.25 inches long and I have a really hard time believing he's grown 3 inches in length...but I suppose it is hard to get an accurate measure on a curled up little baby. He has moved from newborn to baby and I grow more in love with him every day if that's possible. He loves to smile, has mastered mimicking "ah-goo" and is captivated by Aiden. He's still my snuggle bug and I hope that never changes. He is easily comforted, likes morning naps, and still doesn't really like his paci even though we've tried a variety of kinds to cure his night time fussies. Sage is a beef cake! He holds his head very well (except on the video I posted of him in his bumbo...he's not a fan of that seat) and I continue to find that during the course of the n...

This is my current favorite song. And yes, I'll be cheesy enough to say that this song makes me think of Tom. When I think back through our whole life...before we met all the way up until now, this song is just perfect for us. I really do think I've loved him for a thousand years. (Just for the record, I'm out of the loop and I had no idea this was on the Twilight Soundtrack. I just heard it on the radio for the first time yesterday.) The funny thing is that a couple weeks ago Tom told me that Christina Perri's song "Arms" reminded him of me (and after hearing that song I totally agree. Tom could have written those words...he says things like that all the time). We're just a couple of saps.

Aiden wanted to play school with Sage today. If Aiden can teach Sage everything he knows that would make things so much easier for me...as long as Aiden doesn't teach him how to get into mischief. Sage wasn't super thrilled about being in school, but he'll get there soon enough. :) Untitled from Jenny on Vimeo .

...but these two are more than enough. ;)

I was at my bible study on a Wed. morning in September. It was the first time our group had met and our leader asked us to introduce ourselves and tell the group about a hobby we had. And one by one we all said our names and since most of us were moms the answer I heard over and over again was, "I'm a mom. I don't have a hobby because I don't have any free time." I was so saddened by this answer and then I realized that my answer was exactly the same! What was even more awful was that my second child hadn't even been born yet. If I didn't have a hobby with just one kid what was going to happen when I had two babies to take care of? I walked away from that meeting wondering what in the world was wrong with me? Who the heck was I anyway? What had I become? I used to be somebody! I used to have hobbies! I like to read, decorate my house, roller blade, swim, and go out with my husband. I love to learn. I'm well educated. And not only do I not have a...

It's been a Ho-Hum sort of day. It's been just a run-of-the-mill, everyday life, day-in day-out kind of day....like most are. But, I really like run-of-the-mill so I'm ok with that. However run-of-the-mill doesn't make good blogging material. I'm blogging only because I'm still committed to this everyday thing and this is a post that only grandparents will find interesting...and that is a stretch. :) That's ok though. Mostly I blog for myself for memories sake. Here is the run down of the day: 1. Aiden and I did preschool this morning. The subject matter was patterns. He gets it. 2. At breakfast I discovered that Aiden knew more about Moses than I thought...he must be listening to something being said at Cubbies and Sunday school. Tom rented The Prince of Egypt and they watched it while I was at work. I love that movie so I'm hoping to have a chance to watch it soon. 3. Sage took a bottle from Tom. While I was gone (for 3 hours) Tom said Sage wa...