Viva Las Vegas

Grant and I just got back from sunny Las Vegas. We had such a wonderful time. I thought that I would be dying to come home and would never want to go back. This was not the case. We did a whole lot of nothing while we were there. No schedule, no responsibilities, no problems. Well I guess the only problem was figuring out how to eat without taking a loan out, but we worked it out. Eat twice a day and say, "oh well we are on vacation." I can't say enough how relaxing it was. We would wake up eat, wander around, take a nap, eat, and wander around more. The only disappointments were I didn't get enough time in at the pool and we weren't able to make it to a show (G.G. I'll explain later). The highlight was getting to gamble with my "sister from the change of life, Lynn" aka a complete stranger. She gave me $500 to play with and I was up until 4 am having fun playing with her and her money. I got it up to around $3000 but I never really counted it. Then yes, it was lost and no, I wouldn't have kept it even it I'd walked away. fun time. Grant had a good time also. He came back a winner. Oh, the most memorable part, the breakfast burritos on the buffet... unbelievable. We were able to focus on one another completely for 4 full days. It felt like we were on our honeymoon again.

Our room at The Mirage.

Fun with Mark

The Kids and I went up to Mark and Brenn's place on Lake Shafer. It was so much fun. They had a hillbilly wedding then we went boating. It was really nice and relaxing. Not to mention a good change of scenery. Josiah wanted to go fast and Lillian wasn't very sure on what was going on. As you can see they didn't last long.This picture totally cracks me up.

concentrating on driving....

.... and he's gone.

Lights out for Lillian too.

She was out even while we were trying to get her off the boat.

Thanks Mark, Brenn, John, and Christine.

A little boy's dream

Josiah loves getting to hang out with Uncle Todd. He has the coolest and most tractors around. Todd picked Josiah up last Sunday and took him around to the Hancock County farm fest. Jojo had fun riding in Uncle Todd's "monster truck."

It has been fun spending so much time with the Hellers. We feel so blessed to have people around that love our kids just as much as we do!

Happy Birthday Lillian!

Well, I can't believe out little girl is 1 year old! It truly seems like yesterday that we welcomed her into our world. Lillian has just been so sweet and easy going that we really do feel very blessed. I am so excited to see what this next year holds for her. It has been so fun to watch to Josiah grow up. It makes me even more anxious to see what kind of little person that Lillian is going to become. I think that she is going to remain sweet natured, but I do see her stubbornness starting to emerge. I'm waiting for her to take an interest in babies and girly stuff. We are also still awaiting for her official first word. I guess I should also mention we can't wait for her to grow some hair! This coming year is going to be so fun because it's going to be filled with a lot more "first".

She didn't really dive in

but she kept eating and eating and eating ...

Grant's cousin, Kaylenn, this is too cute

Aunt Erin (cuz by marriage)

I thought her setup was so cute!

Museum

I'm going to do my museum post before Lillian's birthday pictures start to come in. We went to the ICM today with Grandpa John. It was so fun. Grandpa does such a good job spending a lot of time with each kid. We explored two areas we had never been in before. One was the microscope lab. Josiah and Lillian both had fun looking in the scopes. Lillian fell asleep while I was actually strapping her in her car seat. Thanks Grandpa John! The guy said Josiah was one of the youngest scientist he has had in there.

These pics are from last month when we went with Amanda.

Our friend Amanda and her cutie pie, Reese.

Josiah was playing in his room the other day and out of the blue, "where is baby Reese?"

Orchard 2009

We made our annual first visit to the orchard this week. The kids had a fabulous time. The weather was perfect, the carmel apples were good, and there were no bees! The kids loved running through the orchard. It's always a good time. Nothing says autumn is on it's way like an ice cold apple slushie!

Jensen's first orchard visit!

a BIG week

We had two major milestones happen in our this week. Lillian is now walking and Josiah is potty training! Lillian woke up on Thursday morning and decided she wanted to walk. I could tell from her determination that day that there was no turning back. She has a really cute walk. Her feet turn in some so she was tripping on her own feet. Well, she figured out that if she walked with her legs far apart her feet won't touch. It is so cute to see her toddle along. I'm hoping her feet will correct themselves as she gets better at walking.

When I dropped her off at the nursery in church I let them know that she had started walking. The worker(who I call the Nursery Nazi)said," Ok, she won't go to the "walkers" room until about a month after her birthday. When I picked her up the lady(NN) said, "I can't believe she's only been walking since Thursday. She's really getting around. You might want to send her to the "walkers" room around her birthday."

It feels that she is getting too big too fast. Luckily, she'll still let me hold her tight and snuggle her. I really am excited for her to get around even faster though. She's going to look so cute in her birthday dress walking around her party!

So a week ago Sunday we decided to see if Jojo was ready for the toilet. Grant went to work, Lillian was at Christine's, so it was just Josiah and I. I took his diaper off and told him it was the last time he was going to wear a diaper. I didn't mean it until I said it. Then I thought,oh my gosh, this really could be the last one. So anyway, the morning was going so well, but after his nap he only had two accidents the rest of the day. Then last Monday he had two accidents in the morning and those were that last ones he had for a whole week!!

His clean streak ended last night while he was outside playing by himself. Of course, it had to be a poopy at that. He just stopped and I could tell something was wrong. I asked him and he yelled, " I pooped!" He walked back to me so funny because he was so uncomfortable. He was slightly upset and asked for dry pants.

I think this is funny. When he poops on the toilet he tells me to leave and then sits there and reads. Then he'll yell for me. Or one time I heard him moving around and he was standing there, "wiping my bottom."

I can't believe how smooth it has been going. I'm so proud of him. It kind of makes me sad though because he's a big boy and not my baby in diapers. I love seeing his little bum in his whitey tighties though.

This is another fuzzy picture that makes me laugh. He was running and jumping at me as I snapped the shot. I didn't even know that I got a picture until I checked my camera. This would be a fun one to photoshop and turn into an evil alien.