Parker - 3 years old!!!

Love the green smoothie uni-brow and stache

Lov'n the snow

Lov'n the warmth even better

This year Parker really understood what a birthday was. It was so fun to see his eyes light up when he realized everyone was singing to HIM!! When I asked him what kind of a cake he wanted he said, "White and green." He didn't mind I got a little carried away with color.

He must have really liked the cake because he hardly ever uses his hands to eat

At his 3 year check up he was 37 in and 32lbs.

Parker has been talking more. In public, I'm reminded that I know two languages, English and Parkerese. I do a lot of translating, but I think he is getting clearer, and his vocab is increasing. Sometimes his words are a little off like when he calls band aids - rubber bands, or apple sauce - sauce sauce sauce, or a magnifying glass - sun glass. It has been really fun knowing what he says.

Parker has started to like books more and more. Some of his favorites are his Frog and Toad and Curious George books, Are You My Mother?, and Danny and the Dinosaur. He could sit and listen to story after story if I let him. We recently got a Dr Seuss collection book from the library. I read him, If I Ran The Zoo, It was a rather long story, and I thought it was weird, but when I got done he said, "That was a fun story."

He know about half of the alphabet by sight. I sing the ABC song every time he washes his hands, but for the most part he just stares at me.

He can now consistently to count to 2 and occasionally 3 (I know brilliant). I recently started singing 5 Little Monkeys with him, and he fell in love with it so maybe we'll make some progress with numbers soon.

He knows a few colors - Black, White, and Orange. For the longest time I wondered if he wasn't colorblind, because he always got black and white right, but he called everything else pink. We got a game for Christmas that required him to match colors, and he could do that fine so I decided that wasn't the reason for his color confusion.

Parker loves Play do, cars, trains, blocks, Lego's and puzzles.

We also started playing some games together. He has a firm grasp of turning taking and is starting to understand following the rules of the games. The games we play are simple, and I often alter the rules so he can play with little help.

Now that it is getting warmer I'm reminded once again of his LOVE for rocks and sticks. I think our house is slowly filling up with them.

He is AFRAID of heights - a few weeks ago we were in the church parking lot and he started walking over a storm drain and literally froze with fear as he was over it. It was so funny, hopefully he didn't see me laughing as he was struggling with this fear.

He has spider radar and can find the smallest spider. He will then come running to tell me to kill it. Luckily usually the ones he notices are so small even I can tackle them.

Parker loves to play at the playground. He loves to climb, slide, swing, and jump. However it is always more fun when another kid is there. Often we are the only ones there and it gets pretty boring after awhile. We go a few times a week. I works out well that I'm training for a 1/2 marathon and only find it fair that we stop and play at the park during my runs.

On a typical day Parker will eat: a bowl of oatmeal, a banana, a bowl of apple sauce, a whole peanut butter and honey sandwich, an apple, one bite of dinner (unless it is pizza in which case he will eat 2 pieces) and 3-4 glasses of milk.

He is also potty training - it is going good. He is to a point where he will tell me when he needs to go, but still needs/wants help in the bathroom. The problems are going poop in the potty, and going when he is playing outside. I finally found a way to explain the difference between pee and poop to him. He would always say, "I poop again." whenever he would go, but he would only pee in the toilet. Well yesterday I started calling pee - yellow poop, and poop - brown or big poop. I think that will help. He has been really good about going pee, he even has days of no accidents. I haven't tackled night training yet, but he's often fine for nap time, so I'm hopeful for night training.

Parker is 3 and with that comes a lot of frustrations as well. For discipline He responds well to timeouts and counting to 3.

Max - 9 & 10 Months

(No . . . he isn't close to walking I had to strategically place the truck next to the wall so it wouldn't get away from him)

Both these kids love baths

Green smoothy - YUM!!!

At nine months I brought Max to the doctors. At the doctor's appointment they had me feel out a developmental questionnaire. I was instructed to stop when I got to 3 NO's. Well the first three questions were: Does he get to sitting position? -NO, Does he pull himself to standing position? - NO, and Does he say Ma Ma and Da Da (Not necessarily with proper association)? - NO. I'm not sure what the question after that were, because I was done according to their instructions.

Then the Resident training with my doctor came in to check Max out. She got his measurements and at the end showed me his chart. She indicated that she was a little worried because he seemed to have leveled off on growing. I don't remember what the measurements were, but he was in the 5th and 3rd percentiles for weight and height. She wasn't too worried about it, but said it is something they would keep an eye on, but then when she showed the numbers to the actual doctor she ordered that I bring Max in for a weight check in 6 weeks. I'm not too worried about his weight. I find comfort in his rolls of fat. He is REALLY short, but I think that is just a reflection of his 5'1" mom and 5'5" dad.

A week after the appointment Max was saying Ma Ma and Da Da, and getting to both sitting and standing on his own. Also in the last month he has started climbing stairs, doing a more standard crawling, and cruising along the furniture. He has also gone from 2 teeth to 5 with one more to follow shortly.

It is a riot watching Max and Parker wrestle. Surprisingly Max holds his own against Parker, and usually is on top.

He seems somewhat picky when it comes to food. He will pick out what he doesn't like and throw it on the ground. I did introduce him to peanut butter recently which he, like his mom and brother, seems to LOVE.

End of an Era

In 2003 Troy bought a car that if you would have asked me at the time was OK. It was a 93 Subaru Impreza. There is hardly anything fancy about it, it doesn't even have AWD. We met later that year and the car has been apart of us since then. About 3 years ago the car hit 200,000 miles. I told Troy we should sell it, and by something else that was newer and would be reliable. We have been a one car family for a number of years so having a reliable car is important. After I thought about it awhile we decided that since our Subaru had only been in the shop 3 times since owning it we would just keep driving it until it needed something serious, and then we would just sell it. In the mean time we have been saving for our next car. Well we finally decided the car was NEVER going to die so we decided that we would replace it when we needed something bigger then we would get a van or something like that. Well a few weeks ago we had a family member that was in need of a cheap yet reliable car, so we decided it was as good a time as any to sell our trusty little Subaru.

I'm really going to miss:

*The gas mileage

*Virtually repair free

*Bragging rights that we are driving a car with over 225,000 miles

Upon looking at cars I feel we were blessed to find a good deal on a 2006 Chrysler Town and Country. It has a lot of bells and whistles, and low miles. It was also less then we had saved up so now we have some money in our next car fund. I'm still getting used to the fact that I am now a van mom. We had a little over a week overlap where we owned both cars, and I kept finding reasons to drive the Subaru around. After we brought it home Troy said we sure do have a thing with going from having little to no space to an abundance of space. When we bought our home almost 3 years ago we went from a little, 700 sq/ft, 1 bedroom apartment to our 2000 sq/ft 4 bedroom home. Well now we have gone from our cramped little compact car to our spacious mini van.

When we got done looking at vans we ended up going to a Big Lots and bought a large storage container, and a full size ironing board. When Troy went out to put them in the car he came back to tell me he was afraid they weren't going to fit in our car. They were too long for the trunk and with both kids in the back there wasn't room in the little 1/2 space left. We finally got creative and put the storage container in front passenger seat. I got the 1/2 space in the back, and the ironing board was carefully placed running the length of the car, between me and the door. I though it was ironic how we had been looking at vehicles where we could have easily carried this load times 3, and here we were smashed in our little Subaru.

We are really going to miss our Subaru, and I'm still thrown off when I look in the garage and don't see our trusty Subaru. It will however be nice to have more space when we go camping or even just get groceries. Hopefully in 9 years I will like this van as much as I've grown to love our Subaru.

My Parker Bragging Momment & Potty Training

Parker has had quite the monumental day today . . .

1st - He said his first unassisted prayer:
After I gave him his lunch today, I heard Parker say, "Mommy, Daddy, Baby Max, Jesus Christ, Amen" I asked him if he just prayed and he said "Yes"

2nd - He woke up dry from his nap:
I decided one week ago today to start potty training Parker. Until a few days ago I was putting a diaper on him at nap time. So far nap time has resulted in a load of laundry needing to be done. Today he woke up and hadn't wet his pants. YIPEE!!!

We have been at potty training since last Wednesday. I originally was going to wait until I was done with school, but was feeling motivated last Wednesday so we kicked off the experience by buying some underwear. Since that time I have decided to take a somewhat casual approach. When we are home he wears underwear, but if we go out I put a diaper on him. However getting him to want to wear underwear afterwards is harder than when he just wears underwear so I may decide tokeep him in underwear except at night, and while he is being watched when I'm at school.

Right now I just have him sit on the potty every hour or hour and a half and most of the time he goes. I haven't been brave enough to see if he will go on his own. I might just keep doing what I'm doing for a few more weeks, and then start allowing him time to fail and hopefully learn to tell me when he needs to go. I'm guessing I'll need to tweek my reward system when that happens.

His reward system is rather pathetic, but it is working so I feel ok about it. If he sits on the potty he gets to use toilet paper, and then make bubbles with his hands (aka wash his hands). I also cheer for him, which I think makes his day. Yesterday I had school, so he was in a diaper until 4pm. He was in a rather crumby mood most of the day. I'm guessing the joy he feels from the praises he gets for going on the potty carrys over to play time too.

Max - 8 Months!!!

In the last month the following have happened:

*He got his second tooth.

*Got really mobile (mostly via rolling, but he will scoot forward as well)

*Celebrated his first Christmas
*Started sharing a room with Parker
*Has gotten pretty good at feeding himself finger foods (He can down a whole banana)*Likes to play with toys (His favorite is a bouncy ball dinosaur thing he got from Grandma Rueckert for Christmas)

His sleeping schedule has pretty much normalized he is now sleeping from about 8pm or 9pm until 6am or 7am. He then takes a two hour morning nap, and a 1 hour afternoon nap. Part of me wishes he would take his long nap in the afternoon when Parker naps, and part of me like the one-on-one time I get with Parker during that time.

It seems like he is starting to slim a little. I suspect he is MUCH shorter then the average, because I can put 6 month sleepers on him and they fit him just fine. He weighs around 18 lbs. We'll get an "official" weight next month.

He sucks a Binky when he is in bed, but when that isn't available he quickly employs his thumb.

Max is such a GEM. I'm so happy he is my son!

Troy's Cross Country Ski Trip

Troy's family makes a yearly trip up to some yurts (similar to a tent, but a lot sturdier) near Evanston, WY each year. This year since I'm nursing Max, I stayed home, but Troy went.

The whole clan - you can see the yurt on the right

The trip requires a few mile trek to the yurts. Troy's family cross country skies. I'm sure you could snow shoe, but if you have tried both you know cross country skiing is much less work. Troy's family ALWAYS gets there in the dark so once they get to the yurt it is dinner, games, a little night skiing and then off to bed. The next day is the fun day where they find a nice hill and attempt over and over again to do a train with all that are attending. Usually they end in a tangled mess of skies, legs, and an occasional head.


This year there wasn't much snow, but there was enough to enjoy the trip. The ironic part if it snowed the morning after Troy got home. It would have been so nice to have some fresh snow for the trip, but this is just another example of god's sense of humor.

Christmas 2011

This Christmas was fun. We celebrated it out at Troy's parent's house. Due to some scheduling issues we ended going out to Troy's parents to celebrate everything one day earlier than usual. We had the spiritual Christmas on the 23rd. It was great as always. This year two of Troy's siblings lead the discussion. They did a great job, and made me think about two things: 1- What makes a gift special, and 2 - What everyday gifts have God given to me?

They then had their traditional hockey game on the ice in their backyard. I choose to stay inside and finish wrapping gifts, and getting other things ready for Christmas. It would have been nice to go out, but I just felt like I had so much to do that I wouldn't have enjoyed it.

The next morning (Dec 24th) was our Christmas. The tree was packed and family was abundant. Parker was fun this year, however he got tired of unwrapping present. We had to attack the pile in shifts. Next year the plan is one big gift (the goal is a swing set) and a few small things.

The "loot" before the madness began

Max with his stocking (no he didn't get a flashlight, but it did work great as a teething toy)

Parker with his stocking

Parker had a Mater Teeth sucker in his stocking

Some of Parker's top picks:

Bright Builders (Shhh - - Santa found these at the thrift store)

Curious George DVD

Max was as cute as usual, and just sat on the couch and watch all the action while sucking on his Binky. I was surprised he was so content, because I didn't nurse him when he woke up, but I guess with everything going on (and his Binky) he was content.


After a fun day out at Troy's parents we returned home. Christmas morning we woke up and treated like any other morning. We went to church and then went to my family's Christmas party that night.

This year was the year of big gifts for me so. Which made it nice, because then I was able to help the kids with their gifts. I did have a little to open on Christmas, but my biggest gift came a few days after Christmas. We have been wanting a upright freezer for a while, and I had saved a little money for one, but was still short so we decided to spend some of our Christmas money making up the difference and bought one.

In the end the wrapping and the packaging were a hit. One of Parker's gift was actually just a box filled with packaging pillows. He loved every minute of popping the pillows.

Parker insisted on climbing in this box. It is hard to see, but it was only about 3 inches wide.

Max enjoying the wrapping paper

Max crawled under the tree. I thought it was a fitting place as he is the GREATEST gift I was give this year.