Birthday Cake

Last week was my birthday. I turned 34. It was rather anticlimactic for me because I've been thinking I'm 34 ever since Ben turned 34 in March. Ha! My sister had the day off, so we got to hang out which was fun. Sharing a birthday with someone can be tricky, so it's nice when many of your likes/dislikes are the same. And over the years, we have frequently had strawberry cake for our birthday because we both like it. So this year, I decided to make a cake. I must say, it was kind of nice to just make a cake, spread on the frosting, and be done. No special homemade frosting that I have to tint five different colors and then decorate for two hours. Just done! And it tasted good too. I wasn't the only one who thought so...

This little girl liked it so much, she decided to wear some!

She is definitely no longer a baby.

And oh my, she is a happy girl. Especially with yummy cake.

When you have a cutie pie like this (and 2 others who thankfully are better at keeping the cake off their faces), you don't count the years - you just count the blessings.

This and That {Mid March to Mid April}

Back in March, there was a Kids Expo that we went to. The tickets were cheap, and this guy was going to be there...

Bob the Builder!

(Wyatt's favorite show at the time)

Here they are waiting for Bob to come out.

First glimpse of Bob

The show was not that exciting. Bob basically did some hand motions to a recorded sing-a-long. I think the kids were more interested in the free animal crackers we got at one of the booths, which they'd started snacking on while we waited for the show to start. It only lasted about 15 minutes too. At least the tickets were cheap :)

So we checked out the rest of the Expo. Ben convinced this clown to juggle with him. I think it had been several years since Ben did this, but he did pretty good!

On a nice night in March we walked down to the park to feed the ducks. I attempted to get a picture of the three kiddos together. Piper and Lila were willing to look my way.

Wyatt wasn't so cooperative! Oh well, on to the playground...

Posing for me on top of the large climbing rock.

Is that a smile?

Now, that's more like it!

Piper took a turn too (with Daddy holding on for safety).

Such a happy girl.

One last time climbing the rock before we headed home.

Random pic of Wyatt playing on Ben's iPad. For awhile he was really into the game "Where's My Water?" where you have to make a path for the water to get down to a crocodile in the bathtub. It is a fun and challenging game. I don't know that he was all that great at it, but he sure did enjoy playing it. (I think he's moved on to Angry Birds now.)

Easter eggs I filled and then sent in the mail to my nieces and nephews.

At a friend's birthday party.

The party was bug-themed, and the kids each got a bug catcher then had to find the bugs in the backyard. Thankfully, the bugs were the plastic variety! :)

Lila with her bug catcher and bug hat she made.

Piper made a new friend at the party.

First time to wear pigtails.

Too cute!!

I ran a sanitize cycle in the washing machine. The kids were fascinated by the foaming bubbles swirling around!

Celebrating Wyatt's first successful use of the toilet (going #2) with some ice cream at Braum's!

Easter 2012

The kids waiting after church for the egg hunt to commence.

Piper and Kelsey

Even though our other dog, Maggie, is more friendly with people in general, Kelsey is way more tolerant of Piper's attention. Piper calls her "doggy". She will sometimes say "Maa-ee" for Maggie, but usually just refers to both of them as doggy.

Going down a slide with Aunt Janina.

Piper and her friend, Molly

In April we went to an indoor Safari park for some friends' birthday. Here Lila is riding a "zebra" (mechanical animal). Wyatt went to the party too, but he wasn't brave enough to ride the animals (I think there were 3 choices).

Here's a wide view of the place. Besides the animals, there was also a small train to ride and some fun play place areas to climb around in. In the back there was a few miniature golf holes too, but my kids weren't interested in that.

Birthday twins each got their own cake!

Wyatt was willing to ride on the train -- but only if I went with him!

Piper stayed home with Aunt Janina since Ben was out of town that weekend.

I made a chart for Wyatt once he had going potty on the toilet down pretty good. I told him when he had it all filled out, he could have this outside toy. He loves to play in the dirt, so he was excited about this. About halfway through the chart, I had to tell him he needed at least 4 smiley faces in order to get it. An X was for potty, a smiley face was for #2. The whole point of this chart was to get him more comfortable going #2, and I was worried he was going to fill the whole thing with Xs! I think by the end he had 6 smiley faces. It was just the motivation he needed to be "trained". He has done really well since then. (This pic was taken April 17th.) He has had a few accidents, but they usually only happen when he's unwilling to stop whatever he's doing and go to the bathroom. Overall, he has done great though. I must admit back in January, I never thought we'd get to this point. I really, really hope he is my toughest potty-trainer because he was tough! :) Through all of this, Piper can now say "potty" (paw-ee), so hopefully she will remember Wyatt's example when it gets to be her turn :)

Catching Up

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything! I guess the end of the school year kept me too busy. It has been busy around here, but hopefully I can catch up this summer. For now, I thought I'd share some of our current, everyday life by sharing some pictures I took fairly recently on my phone.

Piper loves to sit in this little rocking chair. She has started to "read" books on her own. She will also sit in Ben's or my lap with a book, and we will speed read it :)

Another favorite activity: putting on Mom's shoes!!

All three kids getting along so nicely, a rare occurrence. Wyatt and Piper were listening to Lila read. She is very good at reading... Ben and I can no longer spell out words to try and talk in code! Piper is a little mimic. If you are laying on the floor on your tummy, she will do the same.

Peek-a-boo over the end of the sofa with Mom.

Wyatt still enjoys building with blocks. In general, he doesn't have too long of an attention span with very many things, but he probably lasts the longest with blocks. Here he wanted me to take a picture of his creations. Usually he tells me they are robots or some type of gun that shoots water or fire. It is hard to capture a natural smile on him, so I'm bummed I didn't get his face in focus but it was still a keeper :) We must have gone to the grocery store that morning because that's where he got the orange stickers.

Piper understands how to play hide-n-seek -- she isn't very good at it yet -- but she gets that hiding is fun. She frequently hides under her bed if we are in her room (whether we are playing the game or not).

About to go enjoy our first swim of the summer at Aunt Janina's pool.

Our most current news is that Lila lost her first tooth! It has been loose for a couple weeks, but this weekend she had the Wii remote cord in her mouth (I don't know why) and when she pulled it out, she inadvertently popped our her tooth! I guess it's a modern recreation of the ole "tie a string to a doorknob" method! :) More pics to come on what the tooth fairy brought her!

Piper making funny faces at me at breakfast.

Dressing up like a princess. Ahh, the joys of a carefree, play-most-of-the-day summer!

Spring Break 2012

This year for Spring Break, we drove to Alabama to visit Grandpa and Grandma Brandt. My mom has suffered a lot this year with back pain, which means they hadn't been able to travel as much as previous years. So we thought we'd take advantage of Lila's week off of school to go visit them. We started the trip early and ate breakfast in the car. I rode in the back to help the kids with their food.

Lila was excited for the trip to begin (some of these pictures were taken on my phone, as you can tell with this one.)

I was a little concerned about how Piper would do eating in the car, but she held onto her plastic tray with one hand and ate with the other. She was a pro!

After breakfast, we busted out the travel bag. I pack different activities - books to read, coloring books, travel games, etc. They only see these on long trips, so they're usually excited about them. Of course, we also had videos to watch (which interested Wyatt more than books.)

Piper did really well in the car for so long. I think it helped that she now faces forward in her car seat. But, she was still excited to be able to move around a bit when we stopped for gas or to eat. Here she's finding fun things in the front seat.

We got to Grandma and Grandpa's house after dinner. Of course, one of the first things to do is check out all the toys. It was a blast from the past for me, as most of the toys were ones I played with when I was little. Do you recognize these, Janina?

One day we went down to my Dad's office. His coworkers wanted to see how the kids had grown. I snapped this picture of Lila in the yard before we left.

Lila and Wyatt wasted no time in finding the markers to draw on Grandpa's board. Piper thought it looked like fun too, but fortunately she couldn't quite reach!

On the way inside, Wyatt picked all the "flowers" in the grass by the building, so he carried this bouquet around the whole time.

Wearing Grandpa's hard hat.

Me and Piper in my dad's office.

After that, we stopped at the bowling alley on the army base to bowl a game. Lila and Wyatt both really enjoyed this. (It had been awhile since we bowled... the last time Wyatt was more interested in running around than bowling.)

They used this fun dinosaur slide to bowl. And the bumper rails :)

Grandpa had Piper duty. She wasn't willing to sit still for long, so she and Grandpa went on a tour all over the building. Ben and I bowled too. I would have taken a picture of the scoreboard but (1) the scores were not impressive and (2) the automated machine messed up once and our turns got mixed up so the scores weren't really accurate anyway.

Then Grandpa even let them play a game of skee ball. Lila had the hang of it, but I don't think she got any higher than the 20 pt. hole.

Back at home, we colored while Daddy and Piper took an afternoon nap.

Grandma colored too.

We also watched some Tom & Jerry cartoons. This was possibly the kids' favorite thing to do that week. It was fun to watch THEM watch the video... they giggled and laughed every time, no matter that they'd seen it five times already.

The weather got really nice and warm while we were there. Piper loves to be outside, so Grandpa put up a gate on the deck so she could roam around out there without us fearing she'd fall down the stairs.

"Whatcha got in there, Lila?"

Lila had some bird seed in an old butter tub, and she was sprinkling it down on the yard below.

Watching Wyatt down below (where the sand box was.)

One day Grandpa got out the riding lawn mower and gave the kids a ride.

Then one day we went to the Children's museum, which we'd never been to before. It was really nice!! The best part was Biscuit's Backyard - a room with all kinds of play stations for the kids. It was set up kind of like a little town with a front porch and garden (with veggies and flowers you could "pick"). There was also a chicken coop, where you could check under the chickens for eggs.

This was Wyatt's favorite part... the water trough full of rubber ducks and magnetic fish (with a fishing pole you could use to catch them). Next to that was Biscuit's dog house. You know Biscuit... the puppy in the early reader books!

Here was the barn where you could hoist the hay up to the loft (demonstrated by Ben). Next to the barn was Lily the Cow (which you could pretend to milk or climb on). In the middle of the room, where Grandpa is sitting, was a table with smaller toys and puzzles.

All of the kids loved the water, of course!

Daddy: "Let's race Lila. Ready, set... go!"

"Hey! Mine didn't even move!"

Lila thought that was pretty funny as you can tell.

Here Piper was trying to figure out how to push both carts.

Lila and Wyatt playing in the grocery store

And right next to that was a post office

Piper liked pushing the buttons on the cash register.

After 45 minutes, the employees force everyone to leave Biscuit's backyard for 15 minutes so they can sanitize everything. I think this is also the only way to get people to see the rest of the museum :) This wagon was right outside Biscuit's room.

Grandpa and Wyatt figured out how to make the large instruments play together.

In another room, we found some over-sized blocks. What are the big blocks for, you wonder?

Why, for the big kids of course!! :)

Yep, they had oversized tinker toys too.

Lila and I also caught the end of a story told by the talking tree (which I think the moving eyes and lips would have probably scared Piper, ha ha... she was still with the others at the blocks though).

Back at Grandma's house, Piper tries out all of her small chairs to find just the right one!

We decided it was warm enough to bring out the little water table.

It was a big hit.

Piper held her own with the big kids and made sure she didn't get squeezed out from the water fun.

Being the shortest - and closest to the water - she didn't take long to get all wet either!

One day we played with sidewalk chalk.

Grandpa offered to let the kids steer the lawnmower, but after climbing up, Wyatt changed his mind.

Lila didn't have any reservations though! She drove off with Grandpa for a short ride.

Meanwhile, Wyatt played in the sandbox. This picture sums up Wyatt right now: fist full of dandelions, big truck and a sandbox. Little boy heaven.

Our last morning there, Piper shared some of her Cheerios with Grandma while we were loading up the car.

Mmm, aren't they good, Grandma?

On the way home, there was more fun in the front seat when we stopped for gas.

And finally, one by one, they dropped off to sleep. George did double duty and helped prop up Wyatt's head.