cereal with a spoon

Want to see a big girl eat her cereal?

Big girls use spoons and hardly spill a bit!

Big girls also have to drink the milk out of the
bowl when they are all done with the cereal. I
learned this from mommy and daddy, I think.

Who me?

Hey! Ooops, ummm, hi. Who me?? Did I wake the baby? Oh, no, that wasn't me. Somebody else came in here and poked her. I just came in to make sure she was okay. I'm sure it was Grandpa. Yep, definitely Grandpa. Oh, you're not falling for that one? Well, how about Grandma? Would you believe Grandma woke the baby and made her cry? Still not believing me... Okay. Fine. You caught me. Drat. Can't a two year old get away with anything these days??

Pete's 6th Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Peter! We had a fun time this weekend celebrating Pete's 6th birthday out in Hartford. Almost my whole family was there plus our extended Nester family. Jesse created a Treasure Hunt for the kids, there were bubbles galore, chocolate cupcakes, party hats for everyone (including Michaela), games on the Wii and presents for Peter, Sherry & Sunny (happy birthday, you two!!).

Pictures that just HAD to be shared

I still had some pictures on my camera from when Amy and her family came to visit at Christmas and I thought they needed to be shared. Grandma had taken Taylor and Sam to the thrift store for dress up clothes so the bigger girls spent much of their time here wearing dresses and shoes that were much too big for them. But they looked fabulous, darling! (In the first pic the girls were in their "fort" hiding out and eating crackers and Jackson would just stare at them all under there as if to say "crazy women".) Us big kids also played dress up for an 80's themed prom on New Years Eve at Tod and Jen's house, don't we look fantastic? (Unlike the little girls, I had a VERY difficult time finding a dress that was too big and thus would go over my very pregnant belly.)

Taking out the Trash

Ava thinks its great to take out the dirty diapers and hey, if she wants to help out, super! This morning she put Grandma's snowboots on and was ready to go out. She had a little trouble walking in the boots but got the job done. :) (Apparently she didn't want her picture taken, how embarassing to be caught taking out the trash!)

Big Sister

Ava loves to help with the baby and the pacifier is pretty much an obsession with Ava. The baby ALWAYS needs her pacifier, according to Ava. Here she was holding Michaela and had to make sure that baby had the pacifier in her mouth. If Michaela is crying Ava will find the pacifier and try to pop it in her mouth. She's usually pretty gentle but we still have to watch her closely.

Our girls are loved

Jeff and I feel so blessed in our girls. Both are lovely, healthy little miracles and we couldn't ask for more. But we are also blessed in the family that we have that love our girls, too! Here are some pictures of Grandpa Kingma with his girls, Auntie Ellen with Ayden and Michaela, Auntie Jeni with Michaela, and Grandparents Lacey with Michaela.

What is wrong with this picture?

Ava got to go play outside in the snow yesterday. Here are some pictures. Now, you tell me, what's wrong with these pictures? Notice anything? Nothing? Hmm... Perhaps I could give you a little hint: It is April 5th. Does that help? No? I'll just give it to you straight then, folks.

THE SNOW IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE PICTURE!!! SNOW, AND LOTS OF IT, IN APRIL!!!! IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE SPRING AND WINTER IS TRYING TO REAR ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN!! OUTRAGEOUS!!!

Ayden and Michaela

Wendy and I had a fun time being pregnant together and I thought you might like to see our prego pics and then the results of our 9 months of waiting. :) I'm not sure that it was "fun" to be pregnant this time around but it was really nice having someone to commiserate with during those long months!
Here they are the day after Ayden was born (03/06/09). We went to the hospital to meet him and had to take some pictures. Michaela is 10 days old here but when she was born she was 6 lbs 8 oz. Ayden is 8 lbs 11 oz. Our Aunt Bev has said "its Bobby and Kari all over again" because we were born about the same days apart and he always looked so much bigger than me. We'll see what happens as these two grow, won't we?