Happy Easter, Happy Birthday!

Easter weekend began with Oma and Opa arriving Wednesday night. Thursday, Oma and Opa watched the boys and at night we colored eggs with Luke. 

Friday, we headed to the cities to shop and the boys had well visits. (I'll post stats from the dr. later)

Saturday was the annual egg hunt at a nearby church. This is the church where Gerrit will attend preschool in the fall. Just like last year, Gerrit was timid when it was time to look for eggs and Emmit didn't quite know what was going on. Oma and Opa helped them out. Adam was battling a cold, so he would have preferred staying home, but was a trooper and joined us. Once the boys found their eggs, Gerrit opened them to find the prizes inside. Opa told Gerrit to blow on the egg when he couldn't get it opened (left, top photo).

 

I guess when you wake up 4, you act like you are 15! This is what Gerrit did with the pillows when I tried to wake him up for church.

Easter started off early with breakfast at church followed by a beautiful service. At least I think it was, I was pretty busy trying to keep Emmit from screaming (his new way to communicating). 
Following the service, we took a few pictures up front by the Easter garden. Adam didn't feel like getting a family photo and turns out, we did not get one at all! He promised Mother's day we'd get one. Gerrit's little head is peeking over the pulpit in the top right photo.


{Gerrit looks like he played in dirt but it really is chocolate muffin he ground his knees in at breakfast!}

We had our own little egg hunt in the yard before lunch. Gerrit was not shy at all this time around! Emmit wasn't sure whether he could touch the grass and eventually gave in because he wanted the egg. Gerrit helped Emmit out by finding all the eggs in the yard and putting some in his bucket. Emmit enjoyed the eggs so much, he continued to play with them inside - even after he got his Easter basket full of toys! Guess all he needed was a few plastic eggs.

The table looked great before dinner. I forgot to take a picture of the guests when everyone was seated! Travis, Dahlen's, and Bill and Tricia (friends Adam stayed with in France) joined us for dinner. I must admit, dinner tasted pretty good! I even made Tiramisu which even Nick said tasted good!

We took a few pictures outside before Gerrit was allowed to change his clothes. He had his picture taken with Opa and his new golf bag. {Friday Opa and Gerrit went to Dick's Sporting Goods looking for golf tees and a chair for Emmit and Gerrit walked out sportin' the new bag! That's what we get for letting the 2 of them in the store by themselves!}

We ended the day with Gerrit's birthday celebration. He had recieved a few gifts all weekend which helped keep him happy until the 'big day'. He was a bit surprised by the size of the stack of gifts that were all for him! He wanted a football helmet shaped cake...so I attempted and it sort of looked like one. It coordinated with his football birthday shirt. He loved all of his gifts and I learned that in the future, assemble the Playmobil gifts before giving them to him - it was hard for him to wait until it was put together! 

Adam had to leave because he had a meeting 6 hours away on Monday so he missed out on the cake celebration with Langley's. Dave, Pam and Logan stopped by for leftovers and cake which was a great way to end the day. 

I was jealous of ZM because they did not have school on Monday and I could've used a day a to relax. Luckily Oma and Opa were around on Monday so I did not have to play single mother.

Gerrit loved having a day at home to play with his new gifts, and go golfing with Opa, Luke and Paul. Reality set in when I had to wake him Tuesday to return to our normal schedule.

Spring Has Sprung?

With the weather starting to get nice, we have been outside a lot.  Part of me is bummed that I can't get stuff done inside but then I remember, all that house stuff will get done - in due time. 

Surprised to see the golf stuff out? 

Nope! 

Surprised to see Gerrit having the proper grip - yep. 

Look fast, because he does not do that often.

Surprised to see the basketballs?

Nope!

Emmit gets upset when he does not get the ball he wants - its usually the men's size that he wants (which is the biggest basketball!).

With the hoop lowered, Gerrit is pretty consistant at making baskets. Adam is not a fan of the lower hoop so he made Gerrit a deal and brought out the 'indoor' hoop (Gerrit's Fisher Price hoop) outside so they each have their own!

It has been fun watching Emmit discover the outside world. For a while he would not leave the cement and would grunt and point when the ball went on the grass. I love watching him copy Gerrit - or try to copy him.

I was battling a nasty cold last week which I so kindly gave to the boys. So now we are back to wiping drippy noses and praying that croup doesn't come back in the middle of the night.
We need warm weather to stick around long enough to open the windows and air out the house! Too bad we are looking at getting more snow this week!

A Bug and a Stove

We've been battling a little bug in the house - not an insect, but some sort of illness. The boys had it over the weekend, I had it Monday and Adam Tues/Wed. We are now all back to normal (we hope).

Since Sunday, we've also been without a stove! Adam moved the stove and fridge to finish the floor but with the illnesses things have been on hold. So its been dinners that can be made in the micro around here. Last night I stopped at the grocery store and had to read the mac and cheese box to see if it could be made in the micro! Had to do the easy mac!! Hopefully tonight or this weekend things will be back in order in more ways than one! 

The floor looks awesome and Adam has done a great job! What was suppose to be a little weekend project over President's weekend has turned into something much more time consuming but we are happy with the results!!

Spring Break

For spring break I wanted to go somewhere warm but the thought of bringing the boys and staying in a hotel room didn't sound much like a vacation, so I stayed home. I did a lot of laundry and actually some sewing.

I took the boys to MOA for a day. We saw some characters from the upcoming movie Cars 2 as well as a stop at the Lego store and a few other fun places.

Here is one of my sewing projects - little reversible pants for Emmit. I loved how they turned out, I made a second pair. I made something special for Gerrit (he hasn't received it yet) so I won't talk about it yet. I made a bib too which was a prototype and I think I'll give that one another whirl when I have time. I will definitely make more pants for Emmit, I just need to wait for him to grow as well as find some more fun fabric!

The New Playroom

This was (and still is) a familiar site of Gerrit playing:

And now we get this site:

Maybe we should decorate this area and call it 'the playroom'.
You definitely have to watch where you walk when you go up or down the stairs - you never know what toys will be on the step!

Seeing I had the camera out I got a few other shots of Emmit today:

This one is my favorite:

Dr. Birr's Assistant

Adam explains his day with Gerrit:
It's been a big week for snowmelt which means long days in the field collecting samples.  Today I got a call that we were having some issues with a couple of our monitoring stations.  Despite being a Saturday, you don't get many opportunities to collect these 'edge-of-field' samples so I decided I needed to make some site visits.  I asked Gerrit if he'd be interested in going into the 'field' to help daddy to which he responded quite enthusiastically.  In all we visited 3 sites and he had a blast.  He was a big help and I was amazed how he picked up on stuff such as where the water was coming from and which direction it was flowing.  Of course the fields are wet with a lot of mud which is not a good combination with a 4 year old.  He had been playing around the puddle in the upper left hand corner for some time and the temptation was too great.  I heard a 'plunk' and looked up to see him falling in.  He quickly jumped out and said "I'm o.k., I'm o.k. daddy!"  At the last site the farm cooperator was out doing chores so Gerrit got to meet him.  He was pretty excited to meet a farmer.  On the drive home he said that he wanted to be farmer and listed a litany of animals he wants to raise.  It was a lot of fun spending time in the field with Gerrit and seeing his enthusiasm.  Perhaps these sites will be the subject of his dissertation some day...

 

Words of Wisdom

Gerrit has been known to talk in his sleep. This morning when Adam was waking Gerrit up, Gerrit said:

"We should wear lots of underwear". 

We realized he was not fully awake but I thought I'd see if he'd respond so I asked him why.

His response:

"So then we can poop in each of them."