Happy 1st Birthday Anna! (tomorrow)

Thank you God for giving us this...

smiley,

thrill-seeking,

curious,

tag-along,

sometimes serious,

clothes loving,

friendly...hmmm....

There we go. friendly,

precious,

Little daughter and sister!

It has been such a delight to raise our little Annie for the past year. She has added so much adventure and sweetness to our lives and we can't wait to see her personality blossom as she grows. Personally, I love the age/stage she is coming into. Already since the last time I posted a week ago, she started saying da-da (for daddy or doggie) and ma-ma, pointing to objects, signing "All-done" and "More" and is walking more sure footedly. Amazing!

Fall 2011

Hey everyone. Just thought we'd update about what we've been up to lately.

In early September, we took the train to visit my parents in Montana. It was a very fun trip. Here's Justin and the girls inside our little fort we made in our train car.

Just an average day around the house. The girls "helping" me with the laundry.

Making apple pie, yum. Smells like fall! And now, some videos of Anna...

Anna taking a few steps and also saying "Be-be" (baby). This is her only word & she says it a lot.

Anna shaking her head yes and no. She does this cute lip smacking kiss which we couldn't get her to do for the camera.

Anna growling with Justin and Nora. She does this a lot.

I can't believe she's going to turn 1 years old next Saturday already. This last year has flown by.

Birthday Girl (Belated) and other summer fun

Here's our little 3 year old on her birthday. Her friend Sophie invited her over for a dress up tea party on her special day. We had a party this past Saturday with family to celebrate too!

Nora has been having fun with all her new birthday presents. Here she is painting on her new easle. We are still remodeling our sunroom, but it is progressing slowly but surely and we are enjoying it on these more mild summer days.

On hotter summer days we've been going to the local pool. In fact, we haven't even gotten a kiddie pool for our house yet, so we've been filling up tubs of water and turning the sprinkler on. The girls love it-they don't know what they're missing!

It's been fun watching the girls start to interact more. Sometimes they play really well together, with Anna talking baby talk, smiling, and laughing back at Nora. And sometimes Anna is the unwilling victim of Nora's games. Here Anna is Nora's wiggly patient. Anna loves to suck on Nora's doctor tools while Nora gives her a check-up.

In late July, we went on a little mini-vacation. We stayed at the house next to Justin's grandpa's house on his lake with Justin's cousin's family. We spent hours down by the lake swimming and also, Justin taught Nora how to fish. Wait, is that...yes that is Grandpa Jeff fishing with a Tinkerbelle pole.

Justin and Anna swimming.

Nora was outnumbered with boy cousins her age, Benjamin and Ethan, so she joined right in to their muddy building and water fight activities.

Here's Anna and her little cousin, Juliet, playing at the children's museum.

Uncle Jon not letting Nora off the dock until she said the password. She thought that was so funny!

And as promised, here is our bathroom remodel reveal.

Enjoying Summer

Well these loaded a little out of order for some reason, but here's what we've been up to this late spring and summer.

Justin and Nora working in the yard. We had some trees cut down and are clearing a spot to build a new garage. We were planning to remodel the kitchen next, but decided we will do the garage first and hopefully park our cars in it by this winter! Hooray! And since we can of course never just focus on one project at a time, our sun room is also a side project that we will give some love to as time permits.

On May 20th, I believe, Justin opened his own office in La Crosse. Here is the lobby.

Here's my little athlete. Anna is 8 months, as of yesterday and quite the busy bee. She is sitting by herself, crawling (up the stairs I might add), and pulling herself up to standing while holding on to objects. She's just starting to take a few steps while holding on-like she will move from the coffee table to the couch and back. She is also eating lots of finger foods. She's looking a little bigger to me, but she's still a peanut.

This last weekend, we did a Fourth of July family parade at a local Festival called Riverfest. We did this parade last year and won first place for group entries. This year, we won 3rd place. It was really hot, but the kid's did pretty well. We did the parade with our friends the Schicks and Crammonds. Here's the kids and a few dads-Anna is in the stroller with the red hat-looking at all the older kids, if you can't tell.

Ah, and here is our spring/early summer project at it's worst. The bathroom is finished now, but I didn't have an after picture so I'll have to take one and show you next time. But basically from March to June this was our baby-we tiled the floor and sink, got a new vanity, new toilet, painted, and installed wainscoting. We love the results. Stay tuned for pictures....

Happy Spring!

Sorry, I only have time for a quick update. Here's a few pictures of the girls.

We started Anna on solids recently, per recommendation of her pediatrition since she is in the 3rd percentile for weight. She has tried bananas, avocados, applesauce, and pears. She likes them all, except applesauce! Though, Anna's favorite thing to eat is her bib!

Here are the girls hanging out! I just missed a smile from Anna-instead she looks shocked!

In other news, I am very busy this spring doing my online scoring job for a company called Pearson. I try to work in all my spare moments like naps and when the girls go to bed at night, but I'm defnitely not getting as many hours in with 2 kiddos as I did last year. I will be doing that until the end of May as I just got an offer to score another project! Woohoo!

Justin will be moving out of the office he has been working in with his financial advisor mentor and into his own office some time in May. He started leasing a building in La Crosse in April but it is being remodeled currently. We are searching for furnishings for that in the meantime.

Our family and our whole church team's weekends have been filled lately with doing finishing touches on our church building and getting set to open on May 8th. It's neat to see something we've been working on over the last 2+ years finally come to fruition. I will have to take and post pictures soon! I am working with my friend Beth to coordinate the church's nursery.

On the side, when we find extra pockets of time, we are attempting to remodel our bathroom. Progress has been very slow as you can see from above that we are more than a little busy right now, but it will get done in time. I will include before, during, and after pictures when it's done.

Happy Valentine's Day! Lots of pictures!!!

Well, well. Our life is finally starting to calm down, so I though I'd catch you all up on what we're doing through pictures.

Miss Anna Mae is a calm and happy, happy baby who is letting us actually get some sleep at night. Here's one of our sweetie's smiles.

In mid-January, my mom, uncle and brother Sam came and helped us move almost all our furniture. Thank You!!! Unfortunately, the day we picked to move a one of the chilliest days of the winter. Double Thank You!!! Never again will we move in the winter with little children. There's a reason people don't do that!!!

All of us in our new living room!

On January 20th, Kipton Holmen was born. Megan Holmen was my maid-of-honor. Here is Anna "meeting" Kipton.

Megan and I had Nora and Emma and now Anna and Kipton both about 12 weeks apart from each other respectively. Our friend Beth is also down to the week in line with us from her first pregnancy to her second little boy who is due in March. Here are the big sisters with thier mommies and little siblings.

Amidst all the stress of moving and unpacking, we took some time out to make these delicious 3 layer popsicles. Nora thoroughly enjoyed making and eating these.

On February 6th, a historic day for Wisconsinites and all Packer fans alike, we hosted a Superbowl party at our new house and were quite glad with the result. Go Pack!

All the kids in their Packer gear. Anna is on the far right with her crying friend, Eli who is Lance and Chrissy Klessig's son. Lance was Justin's best man.

Now more Anna. We are starting to come up with nicknames for her. One is "Gabby" since she constantly babbles. She loves to tell this Cat in the Hat all about her day. In fact she was babbling so loud the other day that Justin heard her while he was taking a shower upstairs. We also call her "Mimi"-well Nora started that because she heard her friend call his sister that. But it's catching. Also Nora calls Anna "Mr. Piecey" Not sure why...

This is a classic Anna these days. She sucks on these 2 fingers when she sleeps or anytime she's not gabbing really. She is almost 3 1/2 months (Woah!)

And this is classic Nora these days. As she says all the time, "I'm your great helper, mommy!" She's so modest...no, but she really is a great helper-here's she's pushing down the toast while I made eggs. She will be 2 1/2 tomorrow!

And finally, finally we have a yard to play in. Justin took Nora out yesterday to play in the snow. It was a very warm winter day so she had a blast. They sledded and made snow angels and this snowman. It was so warm that about an hour after they came in, the snowman's head fell of from melting. Oh well, we have no complaints about winter caving into spring in this household!

Making progress

With holidays, the house, and 2 kids we've been busy, busy, busy lately. Here are some "during" pictures of us working on the house. I will try to do before and afters sometime to show the difference in each room as we finish them. Above is our bedroom-look we found nice maple floors when we ripped up the carpet. They were in great condition and are being refinished on Friday.

We also pulled up the carpet on the stairs, living room and dining area, and in an upstairs bedroom. The linoleum you see at the base of these stairs, we pulled up on Sunday so now that is the same maple floors that is in our bedroom. In addition, we've deep cleaned a lot of the house including the basement, painted, and are lining up new carpet to be installed. Justin and his dad are installing some leftover hardwood from Justin's dad in the dining room on Saturday (and maybe my new/used sink-also leftover from Justin's dad) So by the end of next week, everything but the bathroom, kitchen, and basement should have a totally new look. Woohoo!

We are still spending most days and nights at our apartment in Onalaska, but we've slept a few nights in our new house. I help Justin after the girls go to sleep for the night and during their naps, but otherwise I try to keep them entertained while Justin works. Here's Nora playing with her play-doh set, a Christmas present from Uncle Jake and Katie, in the booth. She named her play-doh dog Martin, even though we don't know anyone with that name.

Anna is just starting to gain interest in some toys. Here she's "playing" on her activity mat and smiling at the star above her. She is 8 1/2 weeks old and has her 2 mo. check-up on Friday. Finally, below is a video of Anna rolling for the first time last night. I had her on her tummy on my chest and she just looked like she was about to roll so I put her down on a blanket. She rolled about 8 different times. I don't really think it was purposeful rolling to get around but still a milestone. Nora was very jealous of all the attention Anna was getting so she wanted us to tape and clap for her too.