fear not, we are alive and well!

People are starting to wonder if we're alive and okay over here so I figured I should probably post a quick update.  Quick review of the last few months:

December

The rest of December was wonderful.  We spent two weeks around Christmas/New Year's with both sides of our family.  James adores both sets of grandparents so he was extremely happy the whole time we were traveling - except maybe the long car rides but to be fair, none of us enjoyed that.

First time in the full snow suit!

Snow fun!

Playing with his cousin Grayson.

Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa Steffens!

James and Grayson again - Grayson is a little over a year older than James and ALSO tall for his age.  It's amazing how close they are in size.

Playtime with Uncle Clay

January

Included our second (and third) throw-up sessions from James.  Thankfully it was literally only two times and he recovered pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, he passed it on to me and I spent an entire day in bed, sleeping.  No exaggeration, I slept almost the entire day and I felt TERRIBLE.  Thankfully Brian was able to stay home that day (Friday) and I had the weekend to recover as well. One of those times that it makes it really hard being so far from our parents and close family members who we know would so willingly help out at the drop of a hat.  We also took James to the zoo for the first time, he seemed to enjoy it (he fell asleep in the car within minutes of leaving) but they didn't have a lot of animals out since it was still so cold.  We're looking forward to going back when it's warmer!

Playing with Daddy -in case it wasn't obvious ;)

Zoo!

I can't hear you! Who teaches him this stuff?!

"I'm Awesome" - in case you guys didn't already know

February

Passed as they always do in the Midwest - with us wishing spring would get here already because we're all SO sick of being stuck inside.  We visited story time at the library a lot this month!

Brought the snow inside!

:)

Dad, dad, I have to tell you a secret..

More fun in the snow!

One time I was outside grilling and James locked me out of the house (thankfully I was able to get back in easily through the garage).

Cool superman

:)

TWINS

Ready to work, mom!

March

Started off with his 18 month appt, he was 34" tall (93rd percentile) and 27.5 lbs (86th). Very pumped for no more shots until 4 years old!  Brian's sister Alli and her husband Matt came to visit and James just hated all the attention ;-)  And we took a trip up to MN later in the month to go snowboarding - first time in THREE YEARS! It was MAGICAL.  Next stop: Colorado.  Someday, hopefully!

18 month appt!

<3

My day, every day.  Always fighting for my attention - James is actually sitting on me here

Discovering

This was a first and Callie is CLEARLY not happy about it

Activity board we made for James!

Brian wired up LEDs to switches - he's so handy :)

And that brings us up to now.  Well, we got the bittersweet experience of buying a brand new car!  My car (Monte Carlo) needed another costly fix and we just put a good chunk of money into in December. Instead of fixing it again, we put the money towards a new car instead since we planned to get a bigger one eventually.  We ended up with a Chevy Equinox and absolutely love it for the four days we've had it! =)  It will REALLY be nice having all the extra space for traveling to IL and MN because sitting in the backseat of the tiny Ford Focus with James just plain sucked.  I'm a little sad to get rid of the car I've had for nearly ten years, but excited to have a really nice vehicle with more space.

Some James updates:

Toddler: James will be 20 months at the end of this month!  He is very much showing his age, too.  Wanting to be very independent, but of course still wants us to watch and cheer for everything he's doing.  Along with the independence thing, he's also really pushing boundaries.  He repeatedly does things he knows he's not supposed to do, so he hears "no" A LOT.  We've started doing time-out for short periods which will hopefully help with that a little bit. Thankfully he doesn't really throw tantrums yet *knocks on wood*.

Talking: I can finally say that James has truly started talking! He can say: hi, more, up, ball, book, almost has bye-bye down completely, and a few others. It makes me smile every time he says something, it's so fun to hear his little voice!  He's starting to pick up words very quickly right now, too!

Smarty-pants: despite it taking him awhile to verbalize it, he really does know a lot. Among many other things, he knows shapes and can match them up.  He knows colors and can point to them when asked. He LOVES stacking things and is shockingly good at balancing them (see below).

He had ZERO help from me, I looked up and this is what I saw

Outdoors: He LOVES exploring outside and watching the neighbor kids play.  I'm really looking forward to spending a lot of time outside with him this summer.  I have some fun ideas for us to do (that I stole from other websites- ha!).

Climbing: In things, on top of things, up things, you name it, he tries it.

Climbing  outside of

Climbing in

Climbing on

Apparently he was very hungry, that or hunting for the chocolate ones :)

 Other than that, things have been good.  Spring is here and the grass is turning green!  The nicer weather is especially good for Brian who is training to run Dam to Dam again this year (this will be his second time).  In the past it has always been a 20k race (12.4 miles) but this year it is a full half-marathon (13.1 miles) and it will be the farthest he's ever run!

We have some fun trips planned over the next few months so I'm really looking forward to those and having the new car to take them in!

Love,
-K