A bunch of highlights March 31, 2007

Ellie and Thomas are decorating bunny bags for church. We decorated and filled the bags and donated them. It was a little difficult at the beginning for Ellie to be generous and give away all of the loot in the bags. But, once she colored her bag, she was very proud and exclaimed, “Some child is going to love this!” Thomas preferred to eat the crayons and really had no clue what he was really doing, except learning to not eat crayons.

Ellie is getting ready to go to ballet class. I’m not sure if you can see how muscular she is in this picture. But, she is, very muscular. WOW! And, she just loves Ms. Lisa and her ballet class.
You have to turn your head, because I can’t rotate on this thing. Anyway, here is Thomas after enjoying a donut! What a lovable mess!

Today, we went to the zoo. The weather was beautiful! And, here is one of Spring’s first flowers.
A goose at the zoo….who came very close and was very disappointed to not find food.
And, here is Thomas…out of the stroller. We are trying to teach him to stay with us. He did ok for a few minutes before trying to run off. He had several tantrums after finding himself back in the stroller. Overall, we are doing very well. I’m really fighting the urge to rant about some silly things that have been going on, but I’m resisting the urge. I’m looking forward to Holy Week and Andy’s Spring Break!

March 29, 2007

March 25, 2007

and some more.. March 25, 2007

I’ve typed a couple long posts in the last couple of days that were lost in cyber space somewhere. ugh. But, here is some scrapbooking….

More scrapbooking March 15, 2007

anniversary, baptism, birthday, zoo, etc. March 14, 2007

I am not patient tonight to move these pics around so I’m doing this in random order and I’ll post more at the end….

We’ve been so busy, but it has been fun! Let’s start with the baptism. Sunday, our niece, Mary Therese Ekblad was baptized.

Here is a picture of Thomas from May 2006. I have been practicing Photoshop. What do you think?

Ellie and Thomas and I went to the zoo today. Ellie’s favorite animals were the lions, but I didn’t take a picture of them. But, I did get a picture of this camel that Ellie named Alice. The weather was beautiful and we had so much fun. I’m so happy to be able to share these days.
Later this afternoon, Ellie, Thomas and I played outside. I took this picture and wanted to post it here because it is a pic of Thomas not in a stroller. When we are out in public he spends a lot of time in the stroller because he is a wild one. When he isn’t in the stroller, he runs wild. It is frustrating because I would love for him to be able to walk around and explore. But, he runs, fast. And, I have to watch Ellie too. So, anyway, I have lots (too many) pictures of Thomas in a stroller. But, here he is out. And, we actually got to play outside for a bit before he started taking off. I gave him a couple of chances, but then we came in the house. Ugh…fearless and relentless is how Thomas is. It is a good thing he is soooo adorable. My heart just melts when I look at him. Oh, and he is healthy! Yay!

Here is a pic of Ellie that Di took. She did some editing with photoshop. It is such a beautiful picture that I just wanted to share.

Other stuff:

Happy 2nd birthday to Caleb! We celebrated at Jungle Java last week. I was a little nervous because I thought for sure that we were going to bring another virus home. But, we didn’t. Of course, the kids walked into our house and went right to the bath.

My Aunt Laura is starting her stem cell transplant. Please pray for her if you are reading this. I am going to try to visit tomorrow after Andy gets home from work. They don’t allow little children for fear of infection. That’s probably good because it would just bring up more questions for Ellie.

Ellie went through a little materialistic phase. She kept asking for everything she would see in every store we went too. It was kind of cute, but it got old. So, we had quite a discussion about money. I let her know that if all of this stuff was important to her, then we would have to come up with more money. And, that would require me going back to work. So, we went over all of the repercussions of that and she chose for me to stay home. Yay! Now, she occasionally gets upset thinking that I may go back to work. Oh, and she still talks about death a lot. I guess that is somewhat normal for this age, so we’re just answering her questions as they come up.

I was able to visit my brother finally. I was able to spend about an hour and a half with him and I really enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to him meeting my kids.

Lastly, Happy 40th anniversary Mom and Dad! Congratulations!!! They are celebrating with a much needed vacation. The weather has been nice for them and I think they are relaxing.

This post has been brought to you by the letter "E" March 4, 2007

Ok, so it isn’t a huge deal to many, but it is exciting to us. Ellie has written her first letter. Well, she has made a straight line (and called it an I or the number 1) and circles (the letter )O). BUt those seemed like accidents..this was the letter E. And, I know that it is crazy to take pictures of it. But, I can post it on my blog! I’m proud! And, she is my first child. Will I take a picture of Thomas’ first “T”…..I hope so!!!

Thomas is on the mend. He hasn’t vomitted today but still has diarrhea. Ugh..can’t wait to say bye bye to these winter sickies.

The sickies are back March 2, 2007