Big kid beds!

Ben & Maddie got their first bed today -- bunk beds -- and they are both sleeping in the top bunk (at least that's the plan...still waiting for them to fall asleep!). Amazing that we made it to 3 1/2 with cribs.

From 2012-08-13

Summer swimming!

Boy, I've been lax about posting to my blog this summer! part of it is that we haven't been using our big camera - just the iphone cameras and those are hard to upload to this blog. But today I took the big camera out to the lake and got the kids to pose for a picture before we went to the beach. Here they are...

From 2012-08-04

Tumbling

Today was Ben & Maddie's final tumbling class - the only one that parents get to attend. So, of course, we took lots of pictures!

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

From 2012-05-19

Finally a swing I don't have to push!

Such a cutie!

Over the years, we've gotten so many cute photos of Maddie. But I'm just amazed at this one because I took it with my iphone!

From 2012-04-29

Personal foray back to 1940

The release of the 1940 census records on April 2nd prompted me to dig into my family history a bit. After all, my parents were both born in 1940 -- just a couple months after the census takers would've knocked on my grandparents' doors. I wondered what life was like for my two, very pregnant, grandmothers. I knew one family was poor, the other quite well off, but the census records showed me just how different their lives were.

I published a story in today's paper about my little adventure back in time.

Here's the Census form where I found part of the Sylwester family (see the first line). My grandfather and great-grandfather were on the page before:

From 1940 Census

And some pics...

My grandfather, Erv Wolff holding my mother in summer 1940:

From 1940 Census

My father in the middle, with his older sister (left) and an unidentified cousin, probably in about 1942 or 1943, I'm guessing:

From 1940 Census

Happy Easter 2012!

Photos from Easter...

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

From 2012-04-08

Potty training

We've finally made serious progress on the potty training front. Ben has been wearing underwear during the day -- full time -- for almost two weeks now, without any accidents. And the first thing he does every morning is run to his closet to get clothes and underwear.

Maddie is a bit more reluctant. She was insisting on diapers all the time until last week when I gave her an extra incentive. I gave Ben a wrapped present -- a book about trucks that he had been wanting -- and told him it was because he had gone a whole week wearing underwear without accidents. He was thrilled, of course.

Maddie started crying and ran upstairs and came back down with a pair of underwear, insisting that I put it on her. She thought that by simply putting on underwear, she would get a present, too.

It took awhile, but eventually I got her to understand that she needed to go a week wearing underwear and then she'd get a present, too. So the next day, she was quick to get some underwear and she did a pretty good job all week. A couple accidents, but mostly dry.

So yesterday they both got a small present and they were super excited.

The hard part is nap time. We want them to be in a diaper or Pullup for nap and that kind of derails the whole underwear thing. Most days we have a bit of a battle to get them back into underwear after nap. Ugh.

Ice cream!

I stole an idea from our ECFE class to make a homemade and cheap ice cream play set for Ben & Maddie.

From 2012-03-25

The set consists of:
1) Pompoms as ice cream (from JoAnn)
2) A cleaned-up ice cream tub
3) Cheap plastic scoops (from Walmart)
4) Cheap plastic bowls (from Walmart)
5) "cones" made out of brown construction paper

From 2012-03-25

From 2012-03-25

Spring is here! (we sorta skipped winter, I guess)

It's been so awesome having the kids outside yesterday and today!

Yesterday was the moms of multiples garage sale, so I not only unloaded a ton of our old stuff, but also got a few new things.

The big purchase was two scooters. Ben & Maddie tried them out right away yesterday afternoon -- including their new bike helmets.

From 2012-03-03

From 2012-03-03

And here's Maddie wearing one of the two fire chief hats I got them (Ben is really into fire trucks)

From 2012-03-03

I also got Ben a play tractor with a trailer. The thing is pretty big and he fell in love with it instantly. This morning he nearly had a meltdown cause Maddie tried to play with it. For Maddie I got a play cash register (with money!). Yesterday she kept opening it up and then pulling out a piece of money and divvied them up between me, Ben and Jamey.

And I found this picture from awhile ago -- whenever we got that last snow. I took the kids out sledding and they wanted hot chocolate when they came in. However, they don't really want the hot chocolate they want the marshmallows. So I just gave them each a small bowl of marshmallows and then sat like this on a two-tiered step stool next to our fridge.

From 2012-03-03