Megan's 2nd Birthday

This past weekend our little "Meggers" turned 2. Due to the weather we opted to have a party inside at Bonker's. We invited our family and friends in the area for a couple hours of pizza, cake, and fun. I believe all kids and some parents got naps in later in the day.


Here is Megan with our babysitter Taunia and her husband John. Megan enjoys her time and loves to play with John.


We tried to get the kids to eat some pizza in-between the playing - we were more successful when it came to cake time.

Here is Megan, Theo, and Lily in the 3 and under area. Megan enjoyed throwing the blocks at BJ.



Megan is trying to convince Theo to play a little bit more with the blocks.


Our little engineer at work. Building the blocks, then promptly kicked them over when she got out.

This was the cake that Megan picked out. It was either Cars or Rapunzel, tough choices for a 2 year old.

Megan did not quite figure out the blowing of the candle but was very happy about things.

Cupcakes and frosting - it doesn't get much better than this.



We couldn't dish things out fast enough. As you can see, all the kids were back for the cake part.


Megan started opening presents once she had been wiped down from her frosting.
She is pretty excited about these gardening tools. I think I'll have another helper this spring for the flowers.

She has the unwrapping of presents down.

This backpack was probably her favorite gift. As you can see she is in motion - I had a hard time getting a picture of her as she was just running back and forth with the backpack.


Megan at 2 Years:

• sleeping in a toddler bed
• loves to read books now, favorite is "Sleep baby Sleep"
• Still loves her sister and wants to be with her all the time
• Still fights with her sister and wants to play with everything she has
• Blankie and Baby Bear are still favorites
• Can out eat some adults at a meal
• Loves to play outside
• Is learning new words everyday
• Loves to wrestle with her Dad
• Goes through the motions of "potty" before baths
• Throws and excellent fit when things don't go her way
• Gives the best hugs

Bowling & Valentines Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all you love birds out there and hopeless romantics. This was the photo we took for Tim this morning. The girls have their coordinating Valentine's Day outfits on. It's actually a decent photos so we had to show it off.


On Sunday the Slenker Family had this great idea of lets go bowling with the kids......


Abby showing off her bowling shoes. They barely went down to her size, but we was pretty excited about them.


Tim is showing Abby how the whole bowling thing worked. The kids had the bumpers, the adults could still get gutter balls.

Abby's first attempt on her own.



After we got a couple balls stuck from not making it down the lane they gave us this little helping device, so here is Megan bowling.


She was so excited and clapping every time, it was quite entertaining.

This was Megan when she got a spare, I love the little pose!


Abby didn't think she needed the helping tool so she was bowling on her own. She actually did pretty good, those bumpers though are pretty handy.


The final score of the first game. The played a 2nd game and Landen came back and beat the girls.

Week of Snow - and finally a snowman!

This week of snow has been quite an event. It was a lot of "quality time" with the girls since we couldn't go anywhere, but we survived, and truly it wasn't that bad. Tim finally made it home from Shreveport, LA on Saturday evening due to his weather dilemmas. He got home and promptly decided we could make a snowman.


Megan was excited about big clumps of snow.


Abby was too, as they were snowballs.

Then Megan decided she should be eating the snow.....

You can see how high our snow is piled up, and some of it has melted already!



Here's Tim hard at work on the bottom snowball. You couldn't roll the snow, so he shoveled it.


"But Daddy, we want to make a snow castle!"

Abby was trying to make a snow angel, but due to the sun and snow melting then freezing she wasn't heavy enough to break the ice.

Yep - that is the top of our mailbox.

The finished product - yes it's a girlie snowman of course.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Redeker family. Ernie Redeker - our long time neighbor at my parents house passed away this past Friday. I have many memories of Ernie.

Really wishing we had a snow blower......

This is the view when I opened the garage, doesn't look to rough right at the garage, but trust me, it got deeper.


So the shoveling begins...


Just a view with a comparison to my shovel, great week for Tim to be out of town.

So the truck can get out of the garage now....

But I'm not too sure where I would go.....I swear there is a street out there. Until the city graces us with their plow I think we are stuck at home. The snow is higher than the clearance on the truck.

Gracie isn't enjoying the snow that much.

Thanks to my neighbor Frank who helped me shovel the driveway. I might try the other half later today, maybe not too.

Snow!

This past week I was in Atlanta - avoiding all the snow that Columbia was hammered with. With that also came some traveling complications - but if you know anything about my travel experiences in the past, it's just standard procedure for me.


Here's a picture out on the back deck - you actually probably need to add about 2 more inches of snow on top of that to round out the weekend.


On Saturday night I actually finished Megan's quilt (and washed it and it survived) so here is Abby giving the quilt to Megan - because it is from her - I was just the labor to put it all together. Megan has had it with her pretty much since then, it even had to come to church with us on Sunday. I am very happy with how it turned out. I am learning a couple tricks of the trade with the whole quilting bit, but still have a long ways to go. I have yet to even take on any of the hand quilting part (other than binding), I am more of a quilt by machine in straight lines type of quilter currently.


Here's a better view. I really love the colors and how the green boarder brings it all together.

This week we are at home and will hopefully have another weekend at home. Tim had to work this past Saturday and Megan has a mean cough that will hopefully go away and not be shared. If anyone has any ideas on ways to help with the cold, please email me! We tried some honey this morning and have already done the cool mist/vicks warm mist humidifiers as well.

Weekend Projects

This past week along with the snow and canceled school we were plagued with a couple sick girls (not that you can tell from the below photos though) so we spent most of the weekend at home. So with that I started a couple new projects - you know, with all my free time :)

Here was my helper, who was a little too helpful so had to be put down with for a nap so I could get things actually done.


Project #1 - Abby thought Megan needed her own quilt so she would stop wanting her Grandma Papke quilt. Abby and I went to the quilt store and she picked out this pack of squares to make into a quilt (very simple sewing, which I loved). She also helped me pick out some fabrics for a couple other projects, but as I know my sister-in-law reads this I will not be posting any photos until after they receive them. But Abby was very helpful as usual, and can't wait to give Megan her quilt, which if you ask her "It's from me, but Mommy had to make it."

Here is the almost finished product. I still need to do the actual quilting and put the binding on. The binding will be the same green as the small stopping I put on around the squares. I thought it helped the colors pop a little bit. I'm pretty happy with how it looks - Abby says it has too many flowers. But it's a little crazy, and so is Megan sometimes.

Based on the expected weather we might be having another weekend at home, which is fine, we have plenty to do.

Let It Snow

The snow finally arrived on Monday so when Tim got home from work and a quick dinner the shoveling and sledding began.


Abby wasn't so much in to the shoveling. She wanted to make a snow man but it was to powdery so she settled for small snow balls and making snow angels in our yard and for our neighbors.

Megan was content to help shovel - and walk through big piles of snow, which created more shoveling. Last year she didn't really get to enjoy the snow only being 10/11 months old but this year she is all over it.

After the shoveling the sledding began. Last year Abby was a little afraid of sledding, but this year with fearless Megan to lead the way they are all about sledding and had a great time.


An action shot at the bottom of the hill - all smiles!

Then Tim surprised me with some roses - 11 years ago we had our first date. I think the girls were just as surprised and as excited as I was to see them as Tim hates buying flowers for anything. Abby and Megan spent about 5 minutes just smelling them and then helped me get them in a vase. Hard to believe 11 years has gone by this fast.