Progress Reports

I originally started the blog to not only keep our family and friends up to date on our lives, but also to keep a record of what my kids where doing as they grew up. Every mother with older children reminds us younger women to "write things down because you will forget them". That is exactly what I am doing---so here we go on weeks worth of 'notes'.

Sadie waiting for the chocolate chip cookies to be done. We make chocolate chip cookies about once a week (my family loves them) and Sadie sits and watches until they are done. When I took this pic, she was pointing at them and saying, "one, two, cookie, one, two, cookie". Not really great counting, but she's only 18 mos!

My mother-in-law sent a package to the kids last week and inside was some jewelry for Sadie. Sadie loves all things girlie---shoes, handbags, jewelry, makeup, etc

I took these pics of her looking at herself in the mirror.....this was her first impression!

And then this!

Sadie loves to pray. I took this picture of how she usually holds her hands when we pray at dinner. Wyatt always comments on it because he thinks it's so funny. But awhile ago, we held hands around the table and prayed and she loved it. At every meal, she now holds out her hands to hold ours and doesn't let go when we are done praying. It's just precious! She'll even hold out her hands to pray in the middle of a meal--she just loves to hold hands around the table. (Not so much when we are walking through a store).

We see this face on an almost hourly basis! A few more things to note about Sadie. She is talking all the time and now stringing two words together. She'll say 'please' and 'thank you' unprompted and just yesterday, her and Wyatt had an entire conversation. I had asked her to go take her shoes off by the front door and she didn't obey. Wyatt said to her, "Sadie, you need to obey Mommy." She looked at him and said, "No." Wyatt said, "Sadie (in a motherly tone), yes you do. Do you want me to take your shoes off for you?" to which she replied, "Yeah". He took them off and she goes, "Tank Ooo". It was so great watching them interact without me!

She also hates waking up from her nap if Wyatt is still sleeping. She'll start crying if he's still in bed and on a number of occasions, she has gone upstairs and started knocking on the door to wake him up. So frustrating, but also great to see their sibling bond growing.


Now on to Wyatt. I have to say that he has become such a great big brother to Sadie. He is always trying to help her when she's frustrated and play with her. I think it's mostly due to the fact that Sadie can now talk to Wyatt so they both understand what is going on and she seems to get frustrated much less.

Here is his latest accomplishment....he can write his own name!! I'm not sure what age kids learn this since he's my first, but we've been working on our letters and he loves to color and draw. Now that he can write his name we've been working on other words and he can write Mom, Dad, and Sadie on occasion. But he has perfected his name and writes it everywhere. So proud!

One of his other favorite things to do is play with his cars. He has had some of these cars for almost two years and just keeps adding to the collection. He knows the manufacturer of many of them and is always asking me when we are driving down the road, "What kind of car is that Mommy?" In fact, one day he asked and it was a Mercedes. When I told him, he said, "That sounds like 'Sadie's' !" I love the way kids' minds work!

When he leaves a room, you'll find cars lined up like this........or this.....
..or this.

And not only does he remember what kind of car they are, but he'll recognize them on the road. When my parents were in town, they had a rental car--a Chrysler Sebring. The week after they left, Wyatt saw one on the road (different color) and said, "It's just like Pops' rental car". I barely recognized it. But his mind is like a lock-box , especially when it comes to cars.

Another thing Wyatt has caught on to....asking me if things are "On Sale". He'll pick up something at the store and say, "Mommy, is this on sale?" which equals, "can we get this?" He has learned that I rarely buy anything that isn't on sale, so he first asks to see if it is on sale. When it's not, he'll put it right back and say, "Well maybe we can get it when it's on sale."

Goodbye....for now

I am so far behind on posting things, so I'm trying to take a good chunk of time this weekend and get caught up. I still haven't posted about the rest of the week with my sister Lindsay here, so even though it's now been several weeks since she left, I am going to catch up.

Let me start by saying that my kids absolutely love visitors. Each morning when they woke up they would ask if they could wake Lindsay up and after she said it was okay, the kids would have her come upstairs and ask her to read what seemed like every book on their bookshelf. My kids can't get enough of reading books (more about that in the next post) and sucked Lindsay right in with their, "Just one more book Linds?" I know she's going to kill me for posting this, but here she is right after waking up reading books to the kids in our bedroom.

The day before she had to leave we headed to her Alma Mater, Miami University (aka Miami of Ohio). She loves her Alma Mater and has convinced Wyatt that he's going to play hockey there someday. So when we decided to make the 2-hour trip down there, Wyatt was so excited. I'm not sure what he thought visiting a college would be like and I was a bit worried that he'd be disappointed. But our first stop was the bookstore where Lindsay bought the kids new Miami gear, so Wyatt was impressed right away.

A few pics from our day on campus---it really is one of the most beautiful campuses.

Wyatt in front of one of the dorms on campus (he insisted he be the only one in this picture)---aren't the buildings just beautiful??

The big excitement of the day was getting to go to the "Goggin". Lindsay has educated Wyatt on the Goggin Ice Arena where the Redhawks play hockey and he's heard about this place ever since he could talk. But they just built a new Goggin, so we were all excited to see it.

Wyatt had been asking all day if we could go inside the Goggin and we weren't sure if it would even be open. But thankfully not only was it open but they were having hockey practice. Wyatt stood at the window watching for what seemed like forever.
Meanwhile, Sadie was playing at the drinking fountain the entire time...if you click on the picture you can see all the beads of water in her hair!

A few more pics before Lindsay left....this one taken by Wyatt...pretty good despite the fact that he could barely hold her camera b/c it's so much bigger than my little point 'n click.

Lindsay and the kids in their Miami t-shirts.
The week went much too quickly and she is preparing to leave for New Zealand in 10 days. It was definitely the most difficult goodbye we've had, but I'm sure the time will go fast and we are so excited for what God has planned for her and the people she'll be working with in NZ!!! (You can follow her on her journey through her blog on my sidebar.)

One last note---after Lindsay left I heard Wyatt saying, "We like Miami better than Wisconsin, right Mom?" We've been trying to undo this one!

Wisconsin Fans

After hearing that our kids were recognizing Ohio State's mascot and logo everywhere, my family decided to outift them as proper Wisconsinites!

Hurricane Ike

I never thought living in Columbus, OH that we would need to be concerned with hurricanes. But on Sunday, the remains of Hurricane Ike blew through Columbus with incredibly high winds. We were under a high wind advisory, which really meant nothing to most of us except probably no golf or sailing! As the kids napped Sunday afternoon and I was working on stuff around the house, the noise of the wind in the trees just got louder and louder. Wyatt woke up from his nap when the power went out around 3:30pm as his fan shut off (the kids both sleep with fans on in their rooms for 'white noise'). I thought it wouldn't be a big deal and the power would quickly return, so we went outside to watch the windstorm. Matt came home about 15 minutes later from doing some work and said the coffee shop he was at also lost power. We heard later in the evening that over half of Columbus was without power.


My biggest concern at this point was the food in my refridgerator and freezer. I had just gone shopping on Saturday with our entire food budget until Matt was to get paid next---last time I ever do that! My neighbor informed me that the food should be okay as long as we don't open the doors for up to 24 hours....surely we would have our power back on by then. We went and got some food for dinner on sunday night at a fast food restaurant (all the groceries stores near us were also without power) and spent the evening sitting by candlelight.


We woke up Monday morning still without power......to make a long story short, we were without power until Tuesday evening. And we are thankful because there are people in Columbus who are still without power. Schools have been closed all week and many businesses are still closed. We went to Panera monday morning to get some bagels and also to plug in our cell phones and charge them--and it seems everyone else in the city had the same idea! It was packed.


By Monday afternoon it was appearing that we wouldn't have power anytime soon, so I began to try and salvage our food. But every place in the city had signs up that said, "NO ICE--SOLD OUT". Thankfully we had a few friends with power so they took some of our food to their freezers and refrigerators.


It's amazing how much we rely on electricity--no microwaves, no TVs, no hair dryer, no oven or stove, nothing cold or hot--everything is room temp, no air conditioning, etc.


When the kids and I went to the park on Monday morning, it was just crazy to see the destruction. This is just a glimpse of what we saw.......

it's hard to tell in this pic, but this tree snapped halfway up and the top portion was just hanging there this tree also took down the fence behind it and collapsed in the parking lot...you might have to click on it to see it up close

trees like this were everywhere around the city...just snapped off right in the middle

if you look closely, you can see how this tree even pulled up the curb with it and the concrete cracked all around the roots
We are thankful to be with electricity now....especially since many people are still without. I have much to catch up on but thought I should post this first to give you an idea of why I have been MIA!

A little bit more

My parents left to head home on Saturday morning and my sister Lindsay got here Saturday afternoon. It's been great having family around and the kids are loving it---it will be a tough adjustment once it's just the four of us again.
Unfortunately, I completely spaced on taking pictures last week while my parents were here. We had a great time shopping, going to the park, swimming at the pool, going out for ice cream, going on walks, etc and once they left, I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of it! But I learned my lesson and am making up for it this week. My sister Lindsay is here for the week and we are really trying to soak up each minute with her--especially since we won't see her for a year and a half once she leaves. She is moving to New Zealand to be on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and work with the students at the University of Wellington--a great opportunity for her, but really sad for us! I haven't really wrapped my brain around this one yet and I'm sure I'll have a hard time adjusting to life without her here (just adjusting to a 17-hour time change will be difficult!)
Today was a rainy day here in C-bus, so we decided to run errands. As previously posted, Sadie broke out iPod and I had to take it in to see if it was at all salvageable. They had a little section at the Apple store that was "Just for Kids". Of course, their plan is to get kids hooked on their computers so that they beg and beg for one (and I'm sure it works since I would love one myself). Wyatt and Sadie were just excited to be able to touch the computers (since they aren't allowed to play with ours) and 'pretend' to send emails. As Wyatt said, "Mommy, I just have to send a quick email, ok?" I can't imagine who he heard that from!

Lindsay and Wyatt started to play a game on this computer and both got sucked in.......although I have to admit that it is very user friendly...love the serious faces.

We are really going to miss her when she's gone!!

Sadie figured things out all fine on her own....Miss Independent...she had no idea how to use the mouse, but certainly knew how to 'look the part'.

A Taste of Home

My parents arrived here this weekend for the week and my kids could not be more thrilled. They were up early in the morning and constantly asking, "When are Nani and Pops coming?" And I'm sure I'll have much more to post later in the week, but for now, I'll let you see just how much my kids are enjoying their time with Nani and Pops.

It's hear again!!!!

Saturday was one of my favorite days of the year....the beginning of college football!!! I could sit all day and watch college football games--and likely would if I had no kids to take care of. But it was especially fun being so close to a Big Ten school again. Matt and I grew up in Madison and every saturday that the Badgers had a home football game, the town just came alive and there was excitement everywhere. We have definitely missed that and after just one game, we are loving being so close to the action again. (No, we are not Buckeye fans for those of you who were concerned.) But the tailgating here does rival that in Madison. The stadium holds over 100,000 people and there are many people who tailgate that don't even have tickets. And to make it even more exciting, we live about 1.5 miles from the stadium, so the action was definitely noted by our place. And yes, the Buckeyes did win. But more importantly, so did the Badgers! We will be following the Badgers throughout the year, although I'm having to work on it with my kids--especially Sadie. Whenever we see Ohio State 'gear', Wyatt now says, "We don't care for the Buckeyes, do we Mommy?" but Sadie sees it and yells out "Buckeye!". I'm trying to convince myself that she's saying "Bucky" for "Bucky Badger" (the WI mascot) but her speech is becoming quite clear and I don't think that's what she means. We definitely need to get some more Wisconsin gear in our house so that she knows the difference!!