My Valentine(s).

I wanted to take one moment this February 24 to express a word of love for my main squeeze! You know that:

"You are the best thing...You are the best thing...You are the best
thing...that's ever heappened to me."

I am so thankful for you, the wonderful husband God has blessed me with; and though this year may bring great change, there's no one else I'd rather take the journey with.

I also had to include this photo of "my boys" resting in a wonderful Sunday afternoon on Valentine's Weekend. Aren't they sweet!

p.s. thanks, babe for the tulips...they're my fav!

eleven months.

Today, our little Ella Grace is eleven months old! She is such a joy to our family and deserves a little time in the spot light.

Ella is weighing in at 20 lbs. and is around 28 inches long. At her 9 month appointment, she was just above the 50th percentile for weight, just below the 50th percentile for height, and the 90th percentile for head circumference (must be her big brains). She's been crawling for over two months, and is working on her walking skills. She loves to walk around holding on to either one or both of your hands, and has even let go a couple of times to take about 2-3 steps independently. Though they are more like step-falls. She is still very smiley and sweet, but has discovered she has very great needs (e.g. a toy, sippy, fork, etc.) and that these needs deserve to be met in prompt order. Ella loves music (great dance moves), her brother, and storytime at the library. Most recently, she has also discovered how much she needs and loves Daddy, and even cries when he leaves for work (if she is up, and ususally she is not). Her few words, when she can get one in, include ella, uh-oh, momma, and moo (if that's a word). She is sporting 4 teeth (ok, correct that, 6 teeth...poor second born) and loves to eat whatever is in front of her, especially fruit, spaghetti, and carpet fuzz!

Oh yeah, she is also bea-u-ti-ful...in my not so humble, very biased opinion.

Hoops

Recently Nathan's basketball hoop was resurrected from the (unfinished) basement. Nathan loves to shoot hoops, and often asks us to come and tell him "good shot". Daddy has been working on his form, and this spring they will start ball-handling and rebounding drills. Ella gets excited about it too, just as she does for all things Nathan is excited about. Right now she is working on fitting the entire basketball in her mouth.

How FAR will we GO?

This past week we loaded up the kids in Taurus and went on a "work-trip" (as coined by Nathan) to Fargo, ND. Matt's work in the Twin Cities is getting slow, and they have asked him if he would like to transfer to Fargo. Although we would hate to move away from friends and family (I finally just started calling this home), career wise it would be a good experience for Matt; He would get to actually do "engineering" work instead of spinning his wheels doing field work. The trip went well, Matt liked all the engineers/technicians in the smaller Fargo office, and now we are just seeking what God's will would be for our family.

The highlight for Nathan & Ella was the hotel pool and the "dinosaur play area" in the mall. Ella especially enjoyed her first time wearing an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny polka-dot swimsuit

Baptised.

We are so fortunate for our wonderful family, and especially grateful that Nathan & Ella have so many cousins. This weekend we were able to take a trip to Canby, MN to see our wonderful family. Uncle Mike & Aunt Brenda were finally able to move into their new house, so what better way to break it in then with a full-family sleep-over!

Nathan, at 2 1/2, was still fully able to appreciate baby Kendon's toys. I especially like Kendon's little smirk.

Do we have a Future Farmer of America on our hands?

Cousin Katlyn loved to wear mommy's beads.

Baby Kendon enjoying a restful moment with Papa.

The most important reason we all gathered together was to celebrate Kendon's baptism on Sunday morning.

Nathan sat in front of us...by Papa & Nana of course.

The man of the hour, Kendon Michael, in his traditional baptismal outfit.

After church we got a photo of all the cousins...kind of.

left to right: Kaila & Ben (Uncle Mike's niece and nephew), Nathan, Ella, Maya, & Sleeping Beauty, aka Katlyn.

us

Funny story: The Monday night after we returned from Canby, Nathan got out of bed around 9:30 p.m. saying he had to use the potty. He had already peed in his diaper, but was able to squeeze out a couple drops and promptly asked for a fruit snack. (His reward of choice for using the potty). It was late, but Matt agreed and said he may have one. He handed Nathan an all-white SpiderMan fruit snack. Nathan took the fruit snack, looked up at Matt, and whispered "baptised". Since Kendon was wearing a white suit when he got baptised, Nathan now thinks that white things are baptised! I love his childish sense of logic.