First Haircut

A boy should not need to tuck his hair behind his ears...it shouldn't get stuck inside the collar of his shirt...and even if he has amazingly long eyelashes, his hair shouldn't get tangled in them. All three of these were becoming very true of Jack's toupee, so we decided it was time for a trim.

 He doesn't like being sprayed with a water bottle anymore than Jon does. But he loved being spraying in the mouth with it!

 I had a hard time "borrowing" it later to spray his hair down again.

 The ratatat kid sat pretty still!

 With entertainment...from daddy, grandpa, and grandma.

The finished product of the afternoon = Two decent looking guys!

They match enough to clash.

I can't think of anything profound to say about this post. Except that I am aware of how incredibly blessed I am to have a husband that loves being a dad, works from home, seizes short breaks to read to or wrestle with Jack, and doesn't sit distant and watch his son grow and learn. Happy house.

Whirlwind to Wisconsin

We are still working on getting along with our relatives, so we agreed to an intensive weekend of riding in a large van together to find more differences to work on. Unfortunately we didn't find that many. Turns out that all of us like to make a lot of stops, all of us like to make up excuses for losing the alphabet game, all of us like to eat, all of us like to talk about the swimming pool and never go swimming, all of us like leg room, all of us like to listen to G.K. Chesterton short stories, and we all like pretty music. Differences - Jack likes to shriek to solve boredom, Josiah doesn't like it. Jack like to climb over the seats of the van, Josiah likes to lay on them. I'd like to drive the pretty white "dream car" 12 passenger van, my dad actually does it. (but he did let me carry the keys, unlock the doors, and pull it up to the front of the hotel by myself!)

Jack's favorite toy in the car...

 

My dad said that he was the only one covered by insurance to drive, but if that was the only reason then why did he ask what happened to the last 12 passenger I drove long distance? It wasn't my fault it had to stay just north of the Mexican border! 

 

I was in the car. And I tried really hard to be good.

Kim was in the car, and she didn't try really hard to be good. See the bunny fingers?

Jack really wanted to drive. Really bad. I don't blame him. I did too.

Josiah - "Mom, there is a pain right here. I think it needs more food."

Ok, so here is the real reason we went. I have two lovely grandparents in Wisconsin that Kim and I and our new boys hadn't seen in many moons. We went to visit, meet and greet. This is Grandma Ganzer. People call her the Queen because she looks (and acts :)) like Queen Elizabeth.

My dad and his dad. Dad pulled up pictures on his ipad to show off the 7 grandkids that weren't with us.

Jack bounced around like a loosed spring. He played fetch, climbed on the cooler, looked under the beds, found out he could fit behind the refrigerator, and got stuck.

 

This is the closest any of us got to actually swimming. I got up at 8 and went to read my Bible by the pool and wait for it to open at 8:30. At 8:30 I stuck my feet in and it was freezing, so I walked back to our room just in time to find Jack ready to come join me. He wouldn't have liked the temperature either, but he did look really cute.
(swimsuit supplied by Aunt Katrina)

We went through pictures of both of our weddings and first years of being married.

Jack was good and very curious.

On the way home I tried to teach him how to blink when his picture was being taken. His first lesson went tolerably well.

 

Leaving Thursday night and returning by Sunday night was a really fast trip, but very worth it and full of memories! I think we all learned how to get along better too, except Daniel. He bought me a caramel but he still beat me at the alphabet game.

Rev up the engines!

Grandma taught Jack how to drive this week. First he had to learn which button was the horn, where to put his feet, how to turn the wheel, and how to close the door. Good thing Grandma kept steering so he could focus without looking up :)

 

He asked her if she could push him to Canada so he could ask Papa why he hadn't commented on the blog lately, but then Papa suddenly caught up with little replies and comments, so Jack was happy. (so was Grandma - that is a long way to walk bent over!)

Sweet stress

Valentine's Day. A day to plan surprises for Jon. I get to plan what we do because he gets to plan what we do for our anniversary 2 weeks later. We decided this was fair and would save money if he wasn't allowed to buy chocolate or flowers until they were on clearance. This year had an added twist - teething-no-nap-ten-month-old-covered-in-unknown-rashes (we ended up at the walk in clinic the next morning to find out what they were) and 5 month-in-process-of-growing-baby-that-feels-like-I-swallowed-a-brick-it-sits-so-low-and-heavy. I like them both a lot but between the two of them I nearly threw in the towel on Valentine's Day plans. Sunday night we had been planning on taking Jack to a free babysitting night that Kim and Daniel's small group was offering to everyone in the church, but not knowing if he was contagious or not my parents offered to babysit him at home and spare the other children. :) Jon and I took them up on it and went ice skating on the outdoor ice terrace downtown. It was lovely, and though I picked the wrong couple to be the ones we did see a couple get engaged. I so called it.

 I knew Jon would love new laces in his sketchers, so I got him some for a surprise.

 Don't they look energetic? It took him a while to notice (I really don't know what could have taken so long!) but he seemed genuinely...speechless, pleased, humored...

 Eggplant parmesan for dinner - a new recipe with it baked instead of fried may have increased my enjoyment of eggplant!

Eventually (around 8:00) I think we ate dinner. It was yummy. The dessert was a flan with nutella sauce and fresh strawberries. Unfortunately I didn't notice the temperature for baking was written in celsius on the recipe! 2 hours later instead of 20 minutes, our dessert was finally pudding like. That suited my day just right. Every bit was scrumptious, and it gave more time to talk while we waited for it! I guess my lesson of the day was that all the days between holidays are actually my favorite ones to be with my husband and son. I get kinda over-the-top-ambitious when I start planning up ideas. Next year I'll make a red heart valentine and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Or not...I'll probably forget and try all over again!

Conspiracy

 

I don't know who taught Jack how to wink...but this was the composed response he gave to my wish to get out the car - Something like "Gotchya covered, Mom." 5 minutes later he called a stop to refresh his coffee. Such a clever kid!

Double surprise!

 I really love this family from our church. This morning we got a special treat of having their two youngest kids come visit for an hour or two. What I love about these people is that each child in their family has a beautifully unique and very stunning personality. From the eldest that sings like gold and loves to read -- the mothering second born that chooses to be vegetarian -- the loving third born that self-professed has "a lot of energy" and gives percentage chances on his likelihood of doing something or getting dessert -- the quietly, buzzing fourth born that likes to tramp around in his cowboy boots, get stuck in mud, and play with legos -- to the bonnie blue eyed doll that came two weeks after Jack last spring, they all entertain and make me smile every time I am with them. Their dad encourages my husband and is easy to talk to, and their mom indulges all of my parenting questions and shares stories and love with me. We are blessed.

 Jack was posing until he discovered the curtain behind him...

 

 Trying to teach her the finer points of legos

 Everyone needs a friend with longer arms to help retrieve cars :)