Trying to sleep

My parents arrived the day after we did.  Actually they pulled up to my Nana's house while the girls were outside in the snow.  As you can imagine, after flying for 24 hours from Saudi Arabia, they were very tired.  Unfortunately for them, they had a house full of 18 people (including 5 grandkids) waiting to greet them, so they wouldn't be resting anytime soon.

Except for my Dad.  Not sure how, but somehow he managed to fall asleep amid this chaos:

And the kids were not ok with it.  They covered him with legos:

Then Erin was done with being polite, and took matters into her own hands, talking in his ear:

getting in his face:

and finally just opening his eyes herself:

What better way to wake up than to find yourself covered in toys and kids crawling all over you!

Cold. Cold. Cold.

We went to Calgary in January for my sister's wedding.  I was so excited for the girls to play in the snow and experience a true Canadian winter.  I had big plans of going sledding, skating & building snowmen.  Unfortunately we were there for the coldest week of the entire winter and almost the entire week was -30C.  Too cold.  The weatherman announced one day that exposed flesh would freeze in 5 minutes.  As it turns out, I've become a major wimp.  Just going out to the car was unbearable!  

The first day we were there was cold, but the really cold front hadn't come through yet. As we headed off to church that morning Erin was on the verge of tears and announced: "I don't ever want to go outside in Canada ever again!"  I felt her pain.  Too bad for both of us, that was before it got unbearably cold.

Sunday afternoon I bundled them up and sent them outside to play in the snow.  Both girls were miserable as they discovered that it took 10 minutes to get dressed in 2 pairs of socks, tights under your pants, snow pants, a t-shirt under your sweatshirt, a big poofy jacket, 2 hats, gloves under your waterproof mittens, and a scarf.  By this time they were hot, sweaty, and couldn't move.  They were thrilled (not).  I sent them outside (even though Erin swore she'd never go outside in Canada ever again), while I, on the other hand, enjoyed watching them play from the warm, cozy indoors!  Someone had to prepare the hot chocolate, right?

Once they got outside they actually had a great time.  It was fun to watch them discover and enjoy the snow.

 

They actually had a great time and thank goodness for Aunt Heather who wasn't too wimpy to go outside to play!

 

These were taken a few days later when it really had become unbearably cold.  Isaac was all bundled up to make the distance from the house to the preheated car.

 

All About Mike

I realize that Mike doesn't get enough attention on this blog.  He really is apart of our lives; we just don't get to see much of him lately as he's in the home stretch of grad school. 

Right now Mike is finishing up his fifth year of graduate school.  He's getting prepared to graduate with his PhD in May, which makes this semester a busy one.  He is set to defend his dissertation on March 6th.  His research has focused on developing a model to improve the profitability of state lottery games.  Professors in his department are impressed with his work, and he's enjoyed the project.  Not everyone gets to write their dissertation on their own original idea, or on an idea that is particularly interesting to them, but Mike has been lucky in that he came up with the idea and has actually enjoyed his research. 

He has spent much of January interviewing for jobs.  He's been traveling a lot - Chicago, Washington DC, and Canada in January alone.  As for now, we are just playing the waiting game, but will keep you posted as we hear back from jobs.  No news yet.

On top of this, Mike is also teaching this semester.  The class is Agricultural Economics 330, which is a Financial Management class.  There are 150 students in the class, so he is busy helping students, planning lectures and creating slides for each lecture.  He's enjoying it, but it keeps him busier than he expected. 

Mike is also teaching a few piano students this semester, although I'm glad that he finally decided to cut back on students in order to focus on schoolwork and job hunting.  We don't see any more of him as a result, but I'm glad he isn't stretched so thin.  He recently got called to play the piano in the primary at church (again!).  He loves it and is good with the kids.  He's also the 11-yr old Scout leader, which he's really excited about too.

Grad school hasn't been a cake walk for any of us, but I'm glad we're doing it.  As things start to wind down, I just feel grateful for the role that each of us play in our family and how everything fits together to make our family function.  Mike is really good at balancing school and family life, and has worked really hard to achieve this goal to provide a future for our family.  I can't wait for the next phase of that future to begin! :)

All about Isaac

I wish I could stop Isaac from growing up.  As I get older I'm realizing how quickly these kids really do grow up and I just want to cherish every single moment with them (and as you can see, I'm turning into an old lady myself since I say things like this now!).  Honestly though, I can't believe that Isaac is already 8 months old (and next week will be 9 months!).

I can't get enough of how his little face lights up when he sees me.  There is something really magical to me about Isaac's smile in particular.  I predict him to be a people person because it's obvious that the people in his life mean a lot to him and he loves to interact with others. 

I love his curiosity about the world around him.  I love watching his little face right after he wakes up and his eyes wander the room to find out what has happened in his little world since he fell asleep.  I love watching him explore the house and his surroundings on his hands and knees.  He gets distracted by every thing he sees and enjoys this new found mobility, as he realizes that he is capable of exploring his little world on his own.  I love his little independent nature.

  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Isaac crawling because my camera is broken.  Hope to be able to post some soon!  These pictures of him in December when he was 7 months

Life lately

Life has been busy lately.  Sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode from the stress of just trying to survive each day, but these kiddos make it all worth it.  I am trying to just cherish every moment with them because they aren't going to be little forever.  I really might go crazy in the process, but it will be worth it! :)
Here is what we have been up to....

The girls got a donut maker for Christmas from Grandma & Opa.  We've had fun experimenting with different donuts and toppings.  The girls love it!

Isaac started crawling in January/February and is all over the place now

The girls love bath time together.  I let them have a bat in my bathtub, with lots of bubbles!