Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Easter

Easter festivities included two egg dying parties and a couple of egg hunts as well.  Love these pics of Maya.  She loves to paint and decorate. 



Lots o' cousins at Steph's house
 Giant egg hunt at our friends' house.

oh to be a kid!:)



Ranch Easter egg hunt for the cousins.  Joyce, Amanda, and I hid the eggs.  As they get older, the area they have to search gets bigger.  It was kinda fun finding hiding places.
Yes, we repurposed Maya's dance recital dress as her Easter dress.  That works, right!?

Marco & Maya













Joe & Greer

Jacob had his own egg hunt in Grammy's house. :)


Happy Easter!

Dance Recital

Sorry if this is picture overload.  Maya danced to "Waltzing Matilda" and Gabi tap-danced to "You've Got a Friend in Me".  They had so much fun and did a great job. Special thanks to our "ranch family" who came to support them. :)








Being silly before the performance!









FINALE



Spring Break

For most of Spring Break we just hung around the house and played.  Joe took almost the entire week off and was able to help his parents with some ranch tasks.  On Thursday morning we drove to Billings for a mini-vacation.  Jacob had an appointment with an ENT specialist that morning.  At his 9 month appointment, the Pediatrician was concerned that he wasn't making many sounds (dada, mama, etc.)  So, we had his hearing checked and the audiologist thought he might have fluid in his middle ear.  Sure enough, the ENT doctor confirmed this and recommended that he get tubes put in his ear drums.  We thought we might have to make another trip to Billings, but amazingly she was able to do it the next day!

So, Jacob and I left for the hospital very early Friday morning and left Joe and the girls to hang out.  Jacob was soooooo silly with the nurses, doctors, and everyone else he came in contact with.  He is such a flirt.  I took this picture right before they took him back to do the procedure.

They did put him under using general anesthesia, but the procedure was very quick and he was in my arms less than 20 minutes later.  He was VERY grumpy and any hint of flirting with the nurses was long gone.  The short time that he was gone was so stressful.  I don't know how parents do it when their kids have to undergo much more invasive surgeries.  We were released from the hospital shortly thereafter and told to just go about our day!

Sooooo.....we went skiing!  Jacob was a trooper and the doctor said the altitude would actually help his ears.  Joe took the girls up while buddy and I hung out at the lodge.  After lunch, I took the girls for the rest of the afternoon.  Here's Jacob in pretty good spirits for just having a minor surgery!




 I'm very happy to report that Maya can ski by herself now!  She took an hour and a half lesson and came out a pro!  Red Lodge has the best lessons!  Both girls learned so much there!  Probably because they're like private lessons because there are no crowds (unlike Colorado where it is chaos.)
Silly Maya

Gabi now skis jumps and trees!


Maya in her lesson


Can you see Gabi in the trees?
 The hotel that we stayed at had a very fun swimming pool, but unfortunately with 2 adults and 3 kids that want to swim, there are no hands left to take pictures. :)  We got our fill of eating out and Costco!  Jacob also loved the mirror in the hotel room and gave himself lots of kisses.

We also bought a cute pop-up camper while we were in Billings.  We are already planning lots of little camping trips this summer.  It will be lots of fun.

Jacob...10 Months

We have this big set of tunnels and tents that we usually pull out on rainy/snowy days.  I knew once Jacob learned how to crawl, he would have a blast in them and I was right.

I found this picture of Maya from when she was the same age as Jacob!  They look about the same except for the curly/straight hair, don't you think!? Cute little sly smiles.  :)


We have been new couch shopping for what seems like forever.  We even got desperate enough to pack 3 kids around furniture stores in Sheridan on a Saturday morning.  We all fell in love with the couch below (especially the girls!), but of course it didn't come in the color we want. And so it continues... :(

Because they were such great kids in the furniture stores, we took them to Kendrick Park and they had a blast.  Jacob loves to swing!


To save our trim, doors, cabinets, walls, etc. from Jacob's wild man driving in his scooter around our house, we duct taped padding around the edges.  I thought the duct tape was fitting.  He can fly in that thing!

We all took a ride in Grammy Joyce's new "buggy" (side by side) to check on the cows one day.

Jacob received his first official haircut from a stylist (I wasn't too happy with Joe just buzzing him.)  He did great but sure was wiggly.  I don't know how she cut his hair straight!

Gio was "Happy Camper" last week and wanted Jacob to come to school so his classmates could meet his baby cousin.  His classmates were so cute and Gio did a great job talking about Jacob and answering questions. :)