Jacob and Samuel

This past weekend, my brother Mike brought his family up from South Carolina to have his 4 -week old twins baptized. Jeremy and I were asked to be the Godparents. Jake and Sam are adorable and look completely different from one another. They were superstars and didn't even cry when Fr. Jay dumped the water over their head. I found out later that he had used warm water. What a great idea!! After the baptism, there was a party at my parent's house with Kelly's whole family too. Carter and Leah played the whole day with their cousins and now can't stop talking about them!

Here's a shot of the whole group.

Happy Easter!!!

I love Easter! So many reasons to celebrate. Explaining Easter to kids can be a bit challenging. It's not as simple as Christmas, for example. The resurection concept is a bit tricky, but we did the best we could. As they get older, I'm sure it will become more clear.

Easter morning, we woke up and headed downstairs for the Easter basket hunt....Leah carried Carter's "lambies" along with her. We gave them some hints on where the Easter Bunny had hidden them and it didn't take long before they were eating chocolate for breakfast!!!

Carter found his basket first and Leah wasn't far behind. Carter was most excited about the loader and the new plastic yard tools. Yes - a new shovel!!!! Leah loved the chocolate, especially the peanut butter cups. On a side note, when we were kids, the Easter Bunny only brought candy for our baskets. Jeremy had a different experience, saying he remembers getting socks and other items along with the candy. Now, the bunny includes little toys. It's a good time to be a kid!

Behind the chair...Way to go Carter! That Easter Bunny is too tricky.

Leah's was under the blanket in the family room, mixed in with the other toys. She loved the Dora kite. Hopefully Spring will arrive soon!!!


We went to church with Grandma and Grandpa Williams, Uncle Matt and Uncle Joe's family. We usually sit in the crying room at our church, but we attempted to all sit together in the main church this time. They were so good..the cereal and sippy cups definitely helped. They have never been so well behaved - an Easter miracle!!! It was nice to all be together.

Afterwards, we relaxed at Grandma's house and cooked lunch while Uncle Matt prepped for the Egg Hunt.....


The kids were really excited. The eggs held candy and a few special eggs even had coins for their piggy banks.

Here's Carter showing his find. (and no, I didn't let him wear striped sweat pants to church.. in order to get him in his dress clothes Easter morning, I had to promise he could change as soon as we got to Grandma's house). Lately, he's all about play clothes.


Madeleine and Carter opened their eggs and traded their favorite goodies.

Next, hide-and-seek. Leah and Kate are shown here searching for Carter. Turn around Leah, he's in the closet!!


While we were finishing up the cooking, the kids headed out to play in the snow. They dug a snow tunnel with some help from the Dads, Uncle Matt and Grandpa - what fun!!!

In the afternoon, we ventured over to G-ma and Pop-pop's house. The kids had baskets waiting for them and Leah loved the bubbles and Carter got a truck shirt.

More hunting! Lydia helped Leah search while I snapped some photos. I love this picture - she was so excited.

Aunt Kelly with Carter

We wrapped up the day with a fantastic dinner and yummy desert with the Kler family.

It was a wonderful Easter Sunday, including lots of family, good conversation and chocolate! What's better than that!

Easter Egg Decorating

We decorated eggs on Good Friday with the Kler cousins over G-ma and Pop-Pop's house. I had hard boiled a dozen and I'm not sure any of them came home without a crack. Leah's technique was not very gentle and most eggs were tossed between colors several times. Leah started out with a cruise around the house on one of Pop-pop's latest Ebay finds.

Let the decorating begin!!! We had a traditional decorating kit, a sponge paint kit from G-ma and the extra spectacular Spider-Man kit from Crawford. So, there was lots of dunking. Leah first wanted all the eggs to be pink. Then, eggs that were already colored, she moved to other colors for a second dunk. And don't bother with the stickers... she'd just peel them off and throw the egg into a new color.


Crawford loves to pretend he's Spider Man and often speaks with a super-hero voice. Here he is shooting a web. Look out!

Jeremy and Carter came from work a bit later. Occasionally on a Friday, Carter gets to go to work with Daddy and check out all the construction equipment. This is quite a big deal to him. He lays out his clothes the night before and comes in early in the morning to wake up Daddy saying "It's time to go to work Dad"....it's sort of like Christmas. He usually gets treats from the girls in the office and spends time driving all the toy trucks and tractors around the building. Jeremy claims to be able to get work done while he's there. Anyhow, G-ma saved Carter some eggs so he could decorate when he got there. His favorite was orange.

Everyone got in on it. Maggie sponge painted some really nice ones and Pop-pop helped too!! I think the adults had just as much fun.


Now, we're all set for the Easter Bunny!

Dr. Hertz, the pediatrician

Today, Leah went to her 2 year checkup with Dr. Hertz. He's been our pediatrician since Carter was born and the kids are crazy about him. It's reassuring since I feel like we're there so often. She's been a little leary during our last few trips because we saw other doctors during sick visits and she's at an age where she can remember getting shots. So, today's visit started out a little rough....Leah refused to stand on the scale and kept asking me to put her clothes back on after getting her ready for her exam. We finally got her weighed on the infant scale and we read some books while waiting for Dr. Hertz. This seemed to settle her.

Dr. Hertz knocked a few minutes later, and then hid behind the door surprising them. He played with her stuffed bunny rabbit and talked to Carter about how Leah's been doing. When asking Carter, do you have any questions for me about Leah, Carter confessed that she's been having trouble cleaning up her toys and that she's not big like him yet. I was trying not to laugh while listening to their very serious conversation. He encouraged Carter to lead by example and that soon she would learn to clean up after herself. He agreed. I'm not optimistic.

I asked lots of questions as I usually do and my biggest concern was Leah's habit of sucking her fingers. He said there are things you can try but there's unfortunately not much that works. By 5 or 6 she'll probably stop on her own. That's at least 3 years away, which seems like forever. The biggest concern is her teeth which the dentist will have to keep an eye on. He examined her and said she's healthy and doing great! He was glad she's talking so well and that she likes to run and climb. It's so good to get a clean report. One pointer he gave me was to wait until Jeremy gets home from work to have dinner. I sort of wondered if Jeremy called ahead or something. He's trying to encourage families to eat meals together when possible. I explained that we do our best to wait, but sometimes Pregnant Mommy gets hungry! We'll try harder to wait for Dad though...it's good advice. We'll see Dr. Hertz next in June when the baby's born....hard to believe it's only 3 months away!! While leaving the office through the lobby, she said goodbye to Nemo in the fishtank and told him she'd see him another day. Leah assumes every fish is Nemo.

Leah Turned TWO!!

Here are a few photos of Leah from last summer. I couldn't find a newborn picture on my computer. I'll try to add one later.


March 15th - As my dad would say to us when we were little, "It was a great day when you were born!". That always got our birthday off to a good start. The morning was great. Jeremy and Carter regularly go out to breakfast Saturday mornings at a local diner. Leah (along with Mom) was just waking up when they got home and they brought her blueberry pancakes and ham!! Yum. She ate her breakfast and we let her open a few presents. Carter was anxious to "help".

Leah loved her Little Mermaid ball. Carter has a similar one that's Curious George. I let them play in the house with them b/c they're so light and they hopefully won't break anything. The ball was probably her favorite gift....it's been played with constantly since Saturday morning.

We practiced blowing out candles all week....she was geared up for the big day. Her actual birthday was Saturday and the family party was Sunday so she had two opportunities to blow out candles. At her 1st birthday, she really hammed it up during the happy birthday song, smiling for the camera. However, this year, even with just the four of us on Saturday, she was climbing under the table when we started singing...Oh, now that I think about it, perhaps it was her mom's beautiful singing voice that made her duck for cover.

I made brownies Saturday and we just spent the day hanging out with Leah. She had so much fun. It's like she knew it was her special day. Sunday, we had lots of family over for a party and Carter and Leah helped me decorate the cake in the morning. I must say this was a bit frustrating, as I think their decorating skills were better than mine. Decorating cakes definitely tests my patience or lack there of. Nonetheless, the kids had fun and it still tasted ok. There were 8 cousins at the party so it was a bit hectic, especially since most were boys (lots of physical contact). Jeremy built a fire outside and the dads and grandpas hung out around the fire while the kids dug up the yard. Crawford and Trenton even brought their own shovels! Looks like we'll be re-seeding this spring. :-) It's a big mess now that all the snow is thawing. We had the kids table in the dining room during mealtime. It got much quieter when we served the lasagna, although they may have been more excited about the juice boxes!.

We moved onto cake afterwards. Again, Leah hid under the table while we sang.

but then.....she got her cupcake!!!

and dug right in!!!

This is her sweetheart cousin, Madeleine, giving the birthday girl a hug...so cute!! She was given lots of great gifts at the party and especially loved the dresses. She'll be all set for spring and summer.

Happy Birthday Leah!!

We love you!

Weathering the Storm

I was convinced to start this blog because the family was locked in all weekend due to the blizzard that hit Cleveland. My friends Kristy, Tara and Michelle have been blogging about their lives recently and I always enjoy reading their stories.  I'm not so good about emailing pictures regularly and I think this might be a way to keep everyone current on what's going on.  

It started Friday afternoon around 4pm and did not let up until 11pm on Saturday night. I've never seen so much snow in my life, which is sort of hard to believe because I grew up in the snow belt. Saturday started out slow with lots of coffee and Jeremy showing the kids monster trucks on youtube. One of their favorite things is watching construction and monster trucks, Leah included. After spending the morning inside looking out the window hoping for a slow down, we fed them and put Leah to bed. Carter wouldn't sleep so he and Jeremy went out to start a campfire, as if our neighbors don't already think we're crazy!

   He had to dig down into the snow to find the fire pit and he even cheated and used a starter log to get it going. Believe it or not, it burned all day. At one point, Carter was drinking hot chocolate, with marshmallows of course, and Dad was enjoying a beer laying in a snow pile. They had a lot of fun and made the most of the day. 

By late afternoon, we were determined to get out of the house.  We went out to dinner at one of only 3 restaurants we could find open in a five mile radius.  On the way home, we drove through town and instead of seeing other cars, we saw a pack of snowmobilers which was pretty cool. There were a few kids snowboarding down the big hill in town as well. We made it home thanks to my mother in law's AWD pilot. The snow finally stopped as we headed to bed.  Thank goodness Sunday brought sunshine and clear skies. Now let's just hope the big melt doesn't flood anyone's home!!