Easter Fun

Time to decorate Easter eggs!!
Start with some drawing.
Then jump to the dunking/dyeing. Go, girls, go!
Eggs.
All the Easter eggs.
Daddy hid them all.
Where did they go?
Ooo...found one!
Here you go, Daddy.
There's another.
And another.
We found them all!
On an semi-related note, we celebrated Easter with the Habluetzel's and another couple. We had a potluck, of sorts. This is the smoked chicken we contributed. Doesn't it look pretty? Well done, Tyler.

Odds and Ends

This is Asher's dream. He has access to food whenever he wants but he isn't tied down to a chair. He worked this system up himself and I think we'll have to watch him closely so that he doesn't do it again. Stinker.
Addilyn and Asher enjoying a book together.
There's a story that goes with this but unfortunately I only know a little of it since I was out of the house when this happened. I know that they were swaddled and couldn't get out (and didn't seem too upset about that).
This is what I found when I got home. They are watching Sesame Street while all swaddled. They stayed that way for almost a half and hour. Crazies.
Grandpa and Grandma B brought Addilyn a tutu when they visited last month. It goes with almost anything.
This is the outfit that it was originally intended to go with. She's dancing with her camera.
I'm not exactly sure what's going on in this picture but it makes me happy.
It's official...none of my children like peas. We even tried them first with Elias and he still didn't like them. Neither Tyler or I really like peas so I guess it makes sense.
They were feeding each other cereal. Addilyn would feed him some from his pile and then Asher would feed her some from her's. It was pretty cute.
She has special powers when it comes to Asher. She can get him to eat when we can't (some of the time at least). She can also teach him words when he won't even try with us.
The End.

First Feeding

Elias had his first solid food recently. Actually it was on Asher's birthday. He did really well...much better than his brother and sister did on their first tries.
First taste.
"Hey, let me try that."
Success. Well done, little one.

A video of the first few bites. Enjoy!

Asher's Birthday Continued

Here are some videos of the birthday fun.

6 Months

Hello world! Elias is 6 months old today. Hooray! He's broken through his first tooth too. Actually he got his first tooth almost a week and a half ago but I have to fight for the computer lately (Tyler's semester is getting busy) so I hadn't gotten such information publicized yet. If you look very closely you can kind of, sort of see said tooth.

Other news: Elias likes to play. (I guess all babies like to play but I have pictures of him playing.) Here he's checking out the dinosaur's tail. Explore, my little scientist.

"Rawr!!" Now try out that new tooth. Yes, you're much scarier than the T-Rex ever was, I'm sure.

He's so excited to play and interact. I guess it's probably a third child thing; he's just excited that someone is paying attention to him. Cutie!

Playing with a truck.

Super cutie!!

Half a year old and maybe even getting close to crawling. He's already started rocking on all fours. That's way sooner than either his brother or sister. I'll have to post a picture of video of said rocking whenever I can get one; he's pretty camera shy and always stops whenever I get the camera out. Stinker.

Anyway, happy half birthday, Elias!!

Asher's Birthday

Asher turned 2 (at the beginning of the month)! Here's an account of his big day. In the morning he woke up and ate some Cap'n Crunch. Breakfast of champions!
After breakfast he got to open one gift. Starting to rip...
"Oooo...choo choo!"
Checking out his new Thomas train. Pretty exciting!
Setting up the new track and checking out what you can get to go with it. Ooo; ahh!
Later that night he got to open the rest of his gifts and talk to the Johnson clan via Skype.
Finally, the Habluetzel's came over and we had some cake (gluten-free, soy free, vegan cake...doesn't that sound exciting?).
Enjoying his first Red Velvet cake (and second taste of cake ever).
The destruction.

Spring Break

Our spring break was pretty relaxed. Mostly Tyler studied and read and the kids and I did our normal things. There were a couple of days, though, where we ventured out for some trips. Our first trip was downtown to see the Chicago River dyed green. This was actually the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day because that's the day they dye and have their parade. They do this every year so we were excited to be able to see it while we are here.

Elias all bundled up for our walk.

Asher was watching for a train. He was super excited everytime one went by.

Our second trip was to Indiana and Michigan. That made two new states for each of the kids and one new state for me (Indiana). Our first stop (after Chipotle and Chick-Fil-A) was to the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, IN. The weather was nice so the kids got to get out and run around which was very needed. Addilyn was checking out a ladybug.

Elias hung out in his stroller some more.

Then Asher and Addilyn chased some squirrels. It was pretty indicative of the differences between boys and girls: Asher chased just to see the squirrel run; Addilyn chased and yelled, "Squirrel, come back; I want a hug!"

Diddy on the Notre Dame campus.

Addilyn climbed a tree (and she wasn't even prompted to do so by her Daddy).

Look how high she got!

After we had our fill of Notre Dame, we headed out to see Lake Michigan and some sand dunes. We headed to Benton Harbor, MI. The sand had migrated over the winter so the playground (and some of the parking lot) was almost covered. We decided to just play in the dunes instead.

Climbing a dune.

Sticking her feet in the lake.

The wind off the water was pretty cool so Asher got cold. Some cuddling with Daddy seemed to help.

Walking in the sand. And lots of Spring Break fun was had by all.