A Beautiful Day

This was Saturday's sunrise. Michael took the picture after coming in and telling me to look at it (and me rolling over, groaning and going back to sleep!) I was up with Annisia at 12am, 1am and 1:30am Saturday...crawled back into bed each time, then coughed for 1/2 hour before dozing off again. Then she'd start to cough and cry...poor girl. SO! To make a short story long, Michael enjoyed the sunrise with Annisia. Isn't the moon cool?

Here's our sweet bunkin enjoying some sun. I knew these head bands would come in handy. I put one on Annisia one Sunday, and she just looked like she ought to be wearing leg warmers and doing step aerobics! Yesterday, though, it worked great as an ear muff. It was breezy, and she is fighting an ear infection.

Jonathan disappeared around the front of the house at one point. I found him climbing on these rocks in the front of our house. He's quite a climber. Then he'd slide down the rock into the snow. He was having quite a blast.

Home, Home on the Range

Well, Annisia is still not feeling too hot. I took her to the pediatrician yesterday and her chest was still clear but she was beginning to get an ear infection. So she's on meds for that. Something new for me. Jonathan has never gotten an ear infection. Annisia is really quite mellow...wants to be held a LOT. Hates to have her nose wiped. Wants to have lots of baths and never get out of the tub. Wants to play with all her brother's toys...which he won't allow. So we wait until he goes to Gramma's for the day (like yesterday), and she has free rein! (hee, hee.. sneaky, aren't we?!)

So today, while Annisia napped, Jonathan and I went outside. I LOVE having a baby monitor. Ours is a video one, so I can "look in on her" from anywhere! Today is one of those "Home, Home on the Range" days...where the skies are not cloudy all day, and the antelope run through our front and back yards and Jonathan gets to yell at them, "Bzziu, bzziu! Get out of here!" I was helping him get his sandbox loader tractor back to his sandbox (so "the antelope won't get it", as they were standing only 20 feet from it, gasp!). I glanced up and saw these two birds on our wireless computer dish thing (can you tell I am not a geek?!). A beautiful little blue bird who a few minutes later did this in the sky flutter thing with another blue bird. And a house finch who has a nest in one of our front fir trees.
The birds flew off over the front yard, and I was hoping to see if I could get a picture of the "in the sky flutter thing", so I went around to the front too. Jonathan wanted to see too, and ran after me. He discovered these snow drifts remaining in our front yard. By now, they have settled and hardened, so it was great fun for him to run on them.
This pic didn't turn out the best, but you can see the little spot of grass in the right lower corner. Those are big rocks from digging for our addition's foundation there in the foreground. Jonathan is standing on a drift that's close to 3 feet tall.
And here, he's running out from the "hole" by the tree. This is a tree we had to dig out and replant when we added on. I think it's going to make it!

We went back into the back yard and Jonathan started playing in his sand box. All of a sudden, he said, "There's the moon!" And, sure enough, there was the faint quarter moon...not an easy thing to see in our bright blue WY skies. Jonathan said, "It's all wrapped up in love, Mommy." (I think because he couldn't see the whole thing, he thinks something is covering up part of it?) "I like to be all wrapped up in love too, Mommy." Melts my heart!

Then we came in the house for lunch. I don't understand why Jonathan only weighs 27.5#. He ate: a 1 piece of bread PBJ sandwich, a piece of cheese, 8 black grapes, 1/4 cup peas, 6 Fritos, and 6 oz whole milk! Then, when he's full, he usually says, "Mommy, I'm fat! Daddy's full, I'm fat!"

Sunrise, Sleeping Beauties, Cranes

This was Easter morning at sunrise. Saturday was a day of melting so we got some pretty good icicles growing.

Here's my sweet Annisia. She's had such a cold recently that I have been putting her in her car seat to sleep...bedtime and naps. It's the only way she can sleep and breathe at the same time...an important thing to be able to do, don't you think?! Our pediatrician suggests not giving multi-symptom medicines (PediaCare, Little Colds, etc.) to children under 3, so we are giving her Tylenol for any fever or pain, saline up the nose to help clear sinuses, and running a cool mist humidifier during sleep time. She is still playing and crawling, but she wants to be held a little more than usual these days.

And here's Jonathan, sound asleep. He loves his new pillowcase from Joyce, my "Washington mom". It has all sorts of trucks and tractors on it...what could be better for a little boy?! And he loves his quilt from my mom and sisters...the other side of it has 9 embroidered blocks. I've taken to covering him with it and reminding him he's all wrapped up in love. He likes that!

Today, while Annisia slept, Jonathan and I built a gate for his loader tractor to go through. Then, he dismantled that while I was reading. The next thing I knew, he had built this "tall crane". "Don't knock it over, Mommy!"

Jonathan the rancher

One day, I swept the kitchen. (yes, it happens occasionally!) Jonathan asked for the dustpan when I was done. He asked for it to be connected to his loader tractor, so Loren (the workers were staying with us) found him a leather string and hooked it up. Jonathan was telling me all about it, saying a word I couldn't figure out...something like "arener". I thought it was the sound the loader made or something, and kept saying "yes, the loader goes "arrrerr". Then he said "Papa drives the loader in the arena." And the light came on! Oh! It's an "Arena-er" for dragging the riding arena at Gramma and Papa's. He couldn't be corrected...Loren kept trying to tell him it was called a chain drag, but Jonathan knows better. It's an "arena-er". What a clever child! He also knows Gramma drives a Kawasaki mule, and Papa's is a Kubota. All this from a 2 1/2 year old!

Snow time

Jonathan wanted to go outside yesterday and wanted me to join him. So I bundled up Annisia, set her in the stroller, and went out. I shoveled the walks while Jonathan helped with his hoe. He likes to help, can you tell?

Annisia just had a good time. She wasn't concerned at all with the chilly wind or the snow blowing in her face when I shoveled into the wind.

And then it was time for Jonathan to give Annisia a ride on the deck. A good time was had by all...

Annisia's crawling!

Well, Annisia is officially crawling.

She seems to enjoy getting around. Do I? Hmmm...it certainly makes life interesting. Jonathan thinks it's cool sometimes, but not if it means he has to defend his toys more often!

So, do you see the little tongue thing she's doing about 5 seconds into the video and again at about 22 seconds? Looks like a little lizard, doesn't she? I wonder what that's all about... It makes me laugh every time I watch the video.

Fixing, Hiding, Chewing, and Riding

Jonathan is hard at work fixing our deck table. He's quite serious about all of this "carpentering". Notice his tongue is out (evidence of a concentrating carpenter), he's wearing his hard hat (evidence of a safe carpenter), and he's using a wrench (evidence of a carpenter who is willing to try anything to fix what's broken!) Pay no attention to the hammer on the floor (evidence of a carpenter who really doesn't take very good care of his tools) and his Pooh truck parked very close (evidence of a carpenter who has a very short attention span and may need a quick getaway!)

Sunday morning, Jonathan decided it would be fun to hide in Daddy's bathrooom cabinet while wearing Daddy's robe tie around his neck. I think this is the first time he has actually accomodated me when I said, "Smile!" It's such a cute grin, don't you think? Oh, and never mind the tools strewn carelessly on the bathroom floor (evidence of a typical 2 1/2 year old flitting from activity to activity.)

Annisia looks so sweet in the cordouroy dress and matching tights from my dear friend, Debbie. She thought the horses were pretty neat, but the Legos were better to chew on.

"Mommy, I want to ride on you!" Jonathan loves to jump on us and get rides. It's a good thing he only weighs about 26#! Here's one of those rare photos of Mommy. Ladies, remember to have your husbands get pics of you with the kids sometimes!

Motorcycle, Loader Tractor, and Go-Go Car

Look what Daddy found buried in the snow! Jonathan was SO excited...if you click on the pic to enlarge it, you can sort of see his big eyes and oooh mouth. It was so fun to see his reaction...just pure joy that his toy was under all that snow.

Daddy got part of the deck cleared then needed to leave for work. Jonathan had about a 2 foot corridor the length of the deck to play on. That's one way to keep him where I can see him! He came to the living room door and said, "I want my loader tractor, Mommy! Then I can scoop snow." So I dressed for shoveling and got to work. I knew right where his loader tractor was, but had to dig it out from under 4 feet of snow. His thrill was worth it!

That afternoon, Daddy cleared the rest of the deck off. Look what else he found. A go-go car! That's what Jonathan calls it. Here he's trying to pull it out...lots of effort and grunting, but Daddy had to help in the end.

Let it Snow!

Here's the results of the latest snowstorm. This is the south side of our home. You can't really tell, but there is a 3-4 foot drift all along the decks. The windows were covered in snow for 2 days as it was blowing so hard. It took most of the day these pics were taken for the snow to fall off the windows.

This is the north side of the house. We usually get some fairly large drifting here as our prevailing wind is from the north. But these are the largest I have seen since living here.

This is our south deck by the back door. You can see where the railing is supposed to be on the left side of the picture. There's a chair, a kids car, a wagon and a grill covered, part of the reason the drifting was so high.

One small step for Jonathan, one large step for kidkind. Sorry, my first impression when I saw this pic was that Jonathan looked like an astronaut! Anyways, the purpose of the pic is to show the snowdrift (to the right). Michael had to work pretty hard to clear the sidewalk. The snow was actually about another foot above Jonathan's head here where he's standing.