Splish Splash

I had to make a blog with our current bath pictures.  I love bath time.  They are so independent in the bath and mommy can sit and watch.  Most of the time, we sing songs and play little games.  Alex is a fish, but will tell me when his fingers are "winkly" and it is time to get out of the tub.  Just recently he has started to put his head under the faucet to wash his hair.  He has never been too afraid of the water, or anything for that matter.  I remember in his baby swim class, he must have been six months, I put him under the water and he would come up and get the water out of his eyes like it was no big deal.  In this way, he is very easy going.  He got these new silly faces from my parents for his birthday.  He loves to make different faces, make them characters with names.  "This one is the mommy and this one is the daddy."  Is something I hear quite often.  He will make another one and say, "This is my baby, Aiden".  I love to listen to his imagination.  I wonder what he will be one day.  He has some of the craziest stories.  He always has a good laugh in him.  I don't usually let them splash in the tub because I am sitting right next to them and don't want to get all wet.  I let them have about 20 seconds at the very end of good splashing as I hide behind the door.  Aiden is the best splasher.  Alex can give it a good fight too, but he usually get silly.  It's all business with Aiden.  Enjoy a few "appropriate" pictures from bath time!

Is This Winter?

This was actually a couple of weeks ago, but it was gorgeous outside!  We took a family walk up to the "big" park in our town.  Alex and Aiden both loved the walk and the park.  Sometimes I feel silly because I am pushing an empty wagon or stroller, but I am glad it is there when we need it.  I miss the days of summer when the days are longer and it is easier for the boys to get worn out.  They both slept soundly this night. 

 

Every time Alex rides the See Saw, we have to sing, "See-saw, Up and Down, Alex is going to Our Town.  See-Saw side to side, Alex is going for a ride.  See-Saw, bumpty bump, Alex is getting ready to jump".  Our version of our old ECFE song.  But, he loves it and I love watching the anticipation in his face as the "jump" comes.  I love these moments. 

Aiden is going to be my playground swinger.  He loves to swing on the swings and thinks it is absolutely hilarious most of the time.  Of course we have to sing songs and play around with it too, but he giggles and oh boy, do I love those giggles!

Aiden's new favorite games?  To chase or be chased and Peek-A-Boo.  What better than a combination of the two?

He just recently started to love the slide.  He is fearless, just like his brother.  These boys are going to give me a heart attack.  If you are wondering, in this next picture, Aiden decided he wanted to walk down the slide and Daddy is saying, "No, No, Sit-Down, Aiden".  Be still my heart.

Alex loves to count to see how fast he can get across these moving things.  I refuse to count for him because I don't want to encourage this since he could easily fall.  What a wuss am I?  But, he counts.  It's okay though, he is a good counter but the pace of the counting changes every time. 

I have a feeling we will be spending many of our days/nights at the park.  My boys are park junkies. I love this weather and am so looking forward to more of it.

Family Ties

On Friday a couple of weeks ago, Andy and I were talking about the future of our cars.  My Buick Rainier was about on its last leg.  It was stalling a lot, the air conditioning wasn't working and it needed a few other things "tuned".  So, we decided that he was going to go and look at new vehicles on Saturday.  Talk about last minute.  We also decided it would not be a good idea for me to go.  Why?  The first reason, I always find something that I get my heart set on and we would probably start arguing if it didn't turn out.  Second, it would probably be a longer day for the boys because it wouldn't be ANY fun for them.  And, the third reason being I am not a negotiator on any level.  If they were selling the car for $12,000, I probably would have chimed in and said, "How about $12,500, you did a nice job of explaining everything to us after all".  So, the boys and I went to the zoo with Eva and Emily Hoppe and Andy took my dad with him to look at new vehicles.   They ended up finding a mini van that was perfect for our family.  It is not fancy or have a lot of bells and whistles, but it does what we need it to do for our family.  Get from point A to point B, safely.  I have to admit, I feel like I lost any "cool" factor I had going for me, but the car works nicely.  Andy did a great job of negotiating and working out all the fine details.  Again, another time when his strength has helped our family.  I definitely would not have been able to do everything he did that day and end up with a car.  Thank goodness for him!  And, we are so lucky to have my dad.  He helped a lot with his connections to the dealership and his knowledge about buying a car.  If you knew him, you would know that a vehicle doesn't last too long with him before he purchases a newer or different truck.  I love that I didn't have to do much with this at all!

After 10 hours of them looking and all the paperwork, we went back to my parents house for some pizza and fruit.  

Here is Aiden eating some of that fruit.  He's not usually this messy.  

My happy little boy.

The view from my parent's deck. 

Grandpa and Alex watching the sunset and bunnies in the yard.

The boys on St. Patrick's Day.  Thanks for the socks, Grandpa and Grandma!  You would swear my youngest is Irish, but it is just the hair.  There is no Irish in that one!

 

On Sunday of this weekend, Uncle Pete was home from Texas for a quick visit.  Alex was beyond happy to spend quality time with his Uncle.  They, along with Uncle Luke, ran around the yard wrestling and playing TBall, which quickly turned into football. 

Aiden was enjoying spending time with Grandpa, walking around and exploring the great outdoors!

Haha..I had to add this.  My brothers had just got back from a trip to Las Vegas to visit my cousin, Frankie, for his birthday.  Luke was suckered into buying these fashionable sun glasses by a friend.  They are Gucci.  

Here is his "Gucci" smile...

Here is his real smile!

Wagon rides from Uncle Luke are the best!

We didn't miss a chance to get us all together for a family picture.  We may not all be looking at the camera, but at least we all made it into the picture, right?

Going for a walk on the trail.

Finding Grandpa's tractor was a special surprise on our walk!

One of Aiden's new favorite things.  He will pull your arms until you throw him. 

What else would we do in the yard, but wrestle??

Aiden was petting Bambi.  

 

This is where Grandpa hid during an intense game of Hide and Go Seek.

Well, Uncle Pete, it was sure fun having you home.  Even if only for a couple of hours.  When we were getting ready to leave for the day, Alex started crying and said he didn't want to leave Uncle Pete.  It breaks my heart.  He is so innocent and he loves his Uncle so much.  I am glad Pete is finding success and happiness in his career.  I wish him nothing but the best and love him very much!

We're Going to the ZOo, ZoO, ZOO

Winter turned to summer fast this year.  And, I am not complaining.  Both our husbands were busy so my friend, Eva, and I packed up our three little ones and headed for the Zoo.  Andy was shopping for a new car for us, so Eva volunteered to drive.  Besides Aiden trying to steal Emily's bottle a few times, the drive went very well.  Seeing these three play together, gets me excited for the future.

They will be good friends, our kids. 

  Sam and Eva have turned into some of mine and Andy's best friends.  No matter what we are doing, we always have a wonderful time with them and the thing I remember most about our times together is laughter.  We get out with the kids and we get out without them. I feel like friendship has changed for me over the years.  At my current stage, it is more about quality of friendship rather than quantity of friends.  Sam and Eva are high quality friends for us.  They are people you can count on to be there for you, no matter what.  No drama.  I love that.  Anywho...

My littlest man loved being rolled around in the stroller.  The prairie dogs were a highlight for him.

Little Ms. Emily was also content and happy in her wheels.

Well, I had a side by side stroller for wheeling around both the boys.  I found it incredibly difficult to get through tight spaces when shopping or in crowds.  So, we "splurged" with our tax money and bought a sit and stand stroller.  I love it.  I will still use the other stroller for long walks outdoors though. 

I am so happy our summer picnics are back!

Friends.

Mr. Aiden decided to spill his water all over himself.  So, he was sporting the diaper for the last part of the trip to the zoo.  He looks comfortable though, no?

Brothers.

We had a great time at the ZOo, ZoO, ZOO!

Winter is a Time to Celebrate!

February turned out to be a busy month for us.  We all managed to get sick and health-ly make it to family birthday parties.

On our way to Joe's birthday party, Andy and I were talking about some of our favorite memories of Joe.  All the babysitting, how Joe introduced Andy to some of the Johnson sayings, the times they came down to Winona for the weekends to visit, the time Joe and Grace went down to Waseca with us for fireworks, and for me my favorite memory.  The night in February when I spent the night at my Grandpa and Grandma Johnson's.  Gracie was there too and I still remember my Grandma telling us that we had a new cousin, Joe.  Joe is one of the kindest human beings and I am so proud to call him my Godson.  When Andy and I started dating, Joe was three years old.  The age of Alex.  That is crazy to me.

Aiden enjoyed running around and having Grace and Maia chase him at Joe's birthday party.

 

My boys played so nicely with the four "little's" of the Johnson cousins.

We also celebrated our niece, Rachel's birthday party.  This was not even a month ago and it was cold.  The kids really wanted to go sledding, because-well...winter has not been so "winter-like" around here so they haven't been able to go yet. 

Alex's first run down the hill with Rachel and he found out fast why icy snow isn't fun to sled on. Right then and there was a perfect example of how Andy tends to under-react and I tend to, well, overreact (sometimes).

As Alex is walking towards me (from quite a distance away) and his image is becoming clearer, all I see is red on the right side of his face.  I look at Andy like, "What the heck?"  Andy says, "He's fine, come on Alex, let's go sledding again!"  Are you kidding me right now?  I say, "Um, we're going in and cleaning that up".  My sister-in-law, Kristen, put it perfectly later saying that they, like us, have a good balance in our relationship. Somewhere between over-reacting and under-reacting we are balancing it out and parenting.  I couldn't find a better partner in Andy.

Alex learned all about Star Wars and it was so nice that he could go off with his cousins and play.  We had a great time.  It is always fun getting together with family. 

We are so blessed!

Happy Birthday Rachel and Joe!