Amen

Today we spent much of the day out and about. I am pumped because we went to Sherwin-williams and bought some paint for our dinning room and down stairs bathroom. I think some fresh paint will really finish things off and add a nice punch of color. When we moved into this house most of the walls where white and slowly but surely we have worked on changing the look with wallpaper and paint. We also ate lunch at perkins and I found it cute that Rose E was singing to herself and dancing while we waited for our food. She also got her first taste of french fries and boy did she ever like that! I also thought it was cute that Walter reminded us to say a prayer before we ate. Speaking of praying, tonight when I said Rose E's good night prayer she ended with "amen." She is copying so much now! This evening when we went for our walk she imitated the sound of dogs barking and also likes to imitate us when we cough and clear our throats.

These little hands!

Last week I was looking at these tiny little hands and they all of the sudden seemed a little bit bigger and it was just mind boggling to me how fast she is growing and changing. In this picture she was goofing around with her Daddy. Oh how she loves that Daddy of hers. When he is at work she will sometimes look around and call "daddy, daddy" and when he walks through the door she just lights up and says "daddy!"

Back to the subject of her hands, she has now started to hand me things and push things out of her way.

My goofs!

A couple of silly pictures of my goofs! For Walter it's all about the tag! Since he has been really little he has found comfort in his tag when he is tired (these days it's hard to get enough sleep in this boy, especially now that he doesn't nap, I've found that if he goes to bed after 8:30 p.m he is tired the next day because he usually wakes up at the same time every morning regardless of what time he falls asleep). Last night he fell asleep at 9:00 p.m so he was feeling that little tag all day long. The trouble is that a lot of the companies are now going tagless (which is good for me since I am starting to get allergic to mine but bad for him) maybee I'll just have to start cutting mine out and sewing them onto his clothes! Even though Walter was a bit tired we still had a fun day. He found a bucket full of bugs, reptiles and fish today and played with them for most of the day! We also brought out a tonka truck (I was blown away because he hadn't played with it in months and said "look Mama it say Tonka.") Anyway, he sorted the animals and then pretended that the truck was his friend Cyrus's and that Cyrus was delivering insects, turtles, frogs and a cat to Papa and Grandma's house (I'm sure they would be thrilled to have all of those animals visit there house)! Rose E then had fun signing each animal and dumping them out of the container. We also went outside, since we had another nice day, we found a small dry patch on our driveway to draw with chalk. Walter loved it. It was also cute today as I was getting him ready for bed he closed his eyes and said "who turned off the lights!"

Rose E was making this silly face all day long and it would make me laugh. I snapped it of her making it while crawling she has been crawling since December and boy is she ever fast! Today her new word was "buzz" (you can probably guess what we talked about all day long). This morning when I came into her room she couldn't wait to sign to me that she noticed the flowers on her walls (her wallpaper). I wonder how many times in a day they make me smile or laugh!

A sign of hope!

We had a 57 degree day today! Woohoo a sign of hope after all. I took the kids for a long walk this afternoon, Walter was on the hunt for tracks made out of mud and snow and was able to find quite a few (bunny, dog, people, cars, etc.) while Rose E was on the hunt for squirrels but didn't see any. Walter also has been very interested in road signs lately so we had to stop at everyone and have an in depth discussion about it. He is getting to know what a lot of them say or mean. When we got home we ventured out to our burried "playground" in our yard. Walter's swing was still too buried and the slide still had snow coming up it but Rose E was able to get a push in hers. As long as I was in front of her where she could see me she was thrilled! She is turning into our little chatter box! She is saying "shoe," "egg," "eye" "whats that", "Walter","hi", Daddy" and lots more now. Both kids have been into singing too. Walter likes to make-up his own songs especially ones about trains. Rose E has been doing the motions and trying to sing lullabies. Although, a few days ago I heard her singing to herself "la la la la".

I also decided to add this picture of Walter. This morning we helped him set-up this race car puzzle and boy did he ever have lots of fun playing with it! He had a car for himself, a car for me and then vehicles that belonged to people who weren't here. The other race cars where Cale and Kirsten's (his cousins), Uncle Matt drove the firetruck, Papa drove the ambulance, and Auntie Jenny drove the tow truck. Then he would come up with different situations such as a broken battery during a race and these people all came to his rescue. It was very cute. This boy has quite the imagination! When we where all done playing he said "mama you happy?"(he has been talking about feelings lately after listening to a story at story hour about feelings at the library, I have to smile because now when he gets in trouble he will say "mama me sorry me not want mama to be angry!")

Little tinker

Walter played a little game with Rose E today where he took her from room to room and let her touch things as he told her in great detail what they where. He had just finished telling her about the horse when I took the picture. She then had a blast pulling herself up on it and rocking it. Walter has gotten a kick out of the little games she has been playing lately. At meal times she has been taking her bib off as soon as I put it on her and Walter will say "you tinker(stinker) then she laughs. If Walter is standing next to her crib when she is in it lately she has been patting and pulling on his hair and before I know it we are all giggling. Rose E has also started to imitate the coo coo clock and now everytime she hears a clock she says coo coo, coo coo. Her word of the day was "fish" today. She has been working hard on that "shh" sound and noticed a fish on her sippy cup and proudly said "fish!"

Cars and Trains it doesn't get any better than that!

Cars and Trains it doesn't get any better than that for this boy. Walter spent a long time playing with his "race track" in the dinning room today and when it was all done he assigned cars for each of us to play with and then of course he made a train layout in the middle.

Speaking of the dinning room today at lunch he crossed his spoon over his fork and said "look Mama that a cross for Jesus." Then I said why do we think of Jesus when we see a cross and he said because "he died." It was also cute today because he was paging through his drawing book and asking me to read what he had drawn on different days and when on a page that didn't say anything he said "Mama draw words" so I said what do you want me to write? He said "xyz."

Lastly, I had to snap a picture of him after he built his 35 piece puzzle today of Thomas. He was thrilled to see the end result.

Snow, snow and more snow

Well on this April fools day we woke-up to six more inches of the white stuff (I wish I could say April fools day but no such luck). At this rate it feels like we are still going to have snow for the fourth of July! Yesterday was suppose to be the last day for the snowmobilers on the trails but since most of the trails are still ride able they have extended the date. Jeff and I have been taking the kids for walks almost every night after supper lately and last night was a cold one. We are so ready for spring! Walter wanted to bring some toy boats with him but decided it was too hard to carry them in his mittens so I said we would leave them at home and he could have them when we got back then as we where leaving I heard him say "bye boats love you too." Then we had the kids pretty bundled up but there was a bit of a wind with a little bit of snow and every time a gust of wind would come Rose E would scold it with a coo.

A few weeks ago it was cute because when we got back from one of our walks Rose E saw a squirrel in the yard and signed is it a dog?!? We signed squirrel and now every time we go outside she signs that she is on the look out for squirrels.

This morning I went to snap some shots of the kids but my memory card was all used up but it was cute anyway because Rose E kept looking at the camera and saying "cheese" with a big smile and Walter kept suggesting that I put the wrong kind of batteries in it. Everyday it seems that Rose E is picking-up new words, it is sooo exciting. Her attention span is getting longer too. Today I brought out a leap frog toy that counts and teaches colors and both of the kids where entertained by it for a long time. Rose E is also starting to show more interest in books like her brother. She has certain times of the day for books and one of them is when I change her diaper, it is cute because she will sometimes sign what kind of book she wants (one with doggy's, kittys, flowers, etc). I never knew of a kid who likes books as much as her brother though. He can sit for hours and read. Lately his favorite books have been Froggy books, Curious George (which he is turning into with all of the questions he has been asking lately), Richard Scarry books and of course Train books. Speaking of trains, today I brought out the paints and he painted his usual, train tracks and when I asked if he was going to paint the trains too he said "the trains are sleeping in their train shed"(what a character)!