A lot has been going on at the Aupperlee house and our internet hasn't been working for me to share it! We finally got internet back this afternoon, so I'm quickly taking the opportunity to get some things done online.
I've been home since last Thursday recuperating from a second knee surgery. The surgery went well, but my knee is being affected by arthritis and the joint is starting to degrade. Yuck! I've had lots of time to sit at home, but no internet connection, so I've been watching lots of movies, reading lots of books, and enjoying when I can get Kate or Drew to slow down and sit with me.
In the picture below, Drew was coming up to Kate and giving her kisses and making her laugh. You can check out a video of it at the bottom of this post. Drew has been a big help with Kate and sometimes she will laugh when he walks into the room!
As it has gotten colder, we've brought out Kate's warm fleece snowsuit thing (I don't know what they're called). We put the hood up and she looks super cute in it!
Drew likes it when Kate visits him in his big boy bed. One morning Jana brought Kate in with her to get Drew and he was happy to have Kate by his tummy.
Kate continues to love smiling for the camera. What is it about babies at this age? To our total joy, Kate is also a snuggler! Drew was not much for cuddling, but last night I was on the couch for over thirty minutes with a wide-awake Kate resting on my chest and cooing softly. It was wonderful!
In the morning while he's getting ready for the day, Drew loves to have a blanket with him. He also makes sure that Kate has one too so that she doesn't get cold.
As I mentioned, Kate loves being held, so while sitting on the couch for the past few days I've had plenty of opportunities to hold her. I'm ready to be done with the bandages and the surgeries!
Taking care of three babies (I'm not much use right now) can be difficult, so my mom came this past weekend to help out for a bit. She knitted Kate a hat to keep her bald head warm, and in this picture Kate was trying it out. It's a pumpkin-colored hat with a stem and a leaf!
I doubt it was because of the hat, but Kate was very interested in the camera. She's started to reach for it and try to grab the cord.
Drew has been using my crutches to "squirt" out fires. He grabs one crutch and I hold the other one on the couch and we put out fires around the living room. It's great fun!
Drew loves handling the crutches and every once in a while we need to tell him to set them down for a little bit. He swings them all over the place putting out fires!
This is our new favorite video at the Aupperlee house. Drew is playing with Kate after supper and making her crack up. By the end of his attention to Kate, our family was giggling!
Then Kate decided to give me a show and started to pull up her shirt. She LOVES to pull up her shirt! Any time Kate is sitting around, she grabs the bottom of her shirt, pulls it up to show off her tummy and then proceeds to suck on her shirt.
I took these pictures while sitting on the couch recovering from knee surgery and Drew came over to say hello to me. He got very excited when I let him drink the rest of my cup of water. He loves drinking out of a cup, although we don't always let him do it. It's still so much easier to give him a sippy cup!
Back to Kate, who has moved quite a bit! She reached for that magazine that you might have noticed earlier and grabbed it in her hands. We snapped this picture, then grabbed the magazine before she started to chew on it. As you can tell, Kate isn't that discriminating right now about what she puts in her mouth! She rolls all over the place and chews on everything. Drew is out of that "let's put this in my mouth"-stage, but we constantly need to keep an eye on our little roller to see what she's getting into!
Drew loves helping Jana give Kate her bath in the evening. Drew helps out with the washcloth and he helps by washing Kate's elbows and knees. It's a lot of fun to watch Drew help and to see how excited he gets over helping us take care of his baby sister. I wish I had a video of this to show you because both Drew and Kate were giggling away.
Here are my two favorite ladies! Kate's eyes are well on their way to a very interesting shade of brown, so now I have two brown-eyed-girls to enjoy!
Jana is protecting Kate's modesty, but look at all those rolls of baby fat that Kate has on display! We could put Kate in a tire and sell Michelins! She is such a nice, solid weight now after being rather petite when she was first born. Around each wrist, she's got a wrinkle from all the fat in her arms.
Kate is a snuggler and Jana captured this picture of Kate cuddled in on my chest. Kate has a bit of a dubious expression on her face, but she was quiet and enjoying lying on my chest for quite a while before this picture.
One day while I was recovering on the couch from knee surgery, Jana put Kate down to sit with me. Kate gets stripped down to her diaper for most of her meals because it's so messy, so she must have just finished eating. Kate had a nice full stomach and within a few minutes she dozed off sitting next to me.
The giraffe that Kate is holding here is one of her favorite toys. She loves to put it in her mouth and chew on it. It will keep her busy for minutes at a time (and therefore it is one of our favorite toys too!).
The other weekend we celebrated birthdays in Grand Rapids, and Great-Grandpa Vryhof made sure he got a turn holding Kate. It's not always easy to get in a turn when both Grandma and Great-Grandma are around! It almost looks like Great-Grandpa is admiring the solidness of Kate's legs :)
I was trying to rest my knee (as I've been doing a lot lately), so I snapped pictures of things while keeping my knee up. I've made a lot of use of the zoom feature on our camera so that I can capture all the action around me.
Drew has favorite toys at each grandparents' house. At Grandma Lynn and Grandpa John's house he loves the Lincoln logs and the "marble" set (they're not really marbles, but that's what he calls it). At Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill's house Drew loves the trucks and cars. Drew is playing here with the old toys that Todd and I had when we were kids. He sets them up in front of the fireplace and gets totally engrossed in his play.
Grandpa Bill and Great-Grandpa Vryhof had a project of putting together a wheelbarrow. Drew LOVES to do projects, so he was all over helping out with the tools. In the picture below, he is helping to put together the wheel.
Drew grabbed a socket wrench and went to work "tightening" all the nuts and bolts on the wheelbarrow. He was a big help!
At times Drew was more interested in his tools than he was in the work that was being done :)
It was fun to watch the three guys working together to assemble the wheelbarrow. It was especially fun to not be doing any of the work!
This is a more representative picture of Great-Grandma holding Kate. She typically gets much more Kate-holding time than Great-Grandpa.
Drew helped my dad and I blow out the candles on our birthday cake. We have started singing "Happy Birthday" twice because Drew loves blowing out the candles after the song.
Drew tucked right into his piece of cake and finished off the whole piece. After a slow start in life with eating sweets, Drew has started to do a stellar job of eating anything with chocolate in it!
After all the work putting it together, Drew went for a ride outside in the wheelbarrow.
Kate is wonderful to hold in her footed pajamas. She's full of smiles and perfect for cuddling!
As much as we love being around Kate and Drew, it was very nice for Jana and I to get away for a night last weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time away with just the two of us. We haven't had time like that since Kate was born! Here is one of the pictures from our trip. 
