Father's Day

This past Sunday was Father's Day, and it was a great day for me with my family. We went to church in the morning together, we had lunch and supper out together, and in the afternoon I got to watch golf on TV and work out at the gym (while watching golf). It was a perfect day balancing time to myself and enjoying Drew, Kate, and Jana.

At the end of our vacation Jana took the picture below of me with Drew and Kate, and it has immediately become my favorite picture with the kids. What a great Father's Day present! This is a picture that I will save for a long time.

Drew and Kate are so much fun to be around because they get just enough of my presence to always want more. Both of them start a chorus of "Dad! Dad! Dad!" from the backseat of the car whenever they pick me up from work and if I sit down on our living room floor, they both immediately climb all over me. Just last night after dinner, the kids took turns leaning in and giving me hugs from their chairs. Jana and I have been blessed with two wonderful kids, and it is a total joy to be their dad.

Happy Father's Day!!

Around the house

I've got more pictures coming up from our vacation, but first I'll start with some pictures from the last month taken around our house. As you can tell, I've got lots of pictures to catch up on. Who cares what we've been doing if there aren't any pictures to go with it?

A big hit at our house lately has been chocolate ice cream. About once a week we let Drew have a tiny portion for a bedtime snack. It's pretty impressive to see how excited he gets about what amounts to roughly 2-3 tablespoons of ice cream. He does a great job eating it and we hear lots of "Mmmmmmms" between bites.

Kate gets in on the action too for a some small bites of ice cream. She'll start panting and running around she gets so excited about the ice cream. Kate knows a good thing! For both kids, their absolute favorite ice cream is chocolate.

I'm not sure when we took this picture with Todd, but I love that despite most of Kate's mouth being covered, you can clearly tell she's smiling. Kate is our little joyful baby and she constantly has a smile on her face. We consistently have people exclaim to us how amazed they are at how often she smiles. She's lots of fun to be around!

Lest you think that Drew is the only construction worker in our house, here is photographic evidence of Kate's home improvement skills. She has discovered Drew's tools and adopted his love of tools, so now I've got two little ones following me around the house whenever I tackle a project.

Jana is off work for the summer, so she's working hard at staying home with Drew and Kate. It's a big change from being a university professor, but it's also been a lot of fun. The next few pictures were taken by Jana during her days home with the kids. Whenever she takes Drew and Kate outside she's careful to protect Kate's bald little head with a hat. Kate does an excellent job of keeping it on and plays away with her hat perched on her head.

Our lilac bush bloomed quite profusely this year and our whole backyard smelled like lilacs for a week or two. Both Drew and Kate like to play around it. Kate, however, continues to NOT like the feel of grass. If you set her in the grass, she refuses to move unless just her feet are touching and she can walk. Just like their parents, Drew and Kate have some quirks! :)

I love this picture of Drew because it shows what a big guy he's becoming. He's totally a little boy now. Just tonight I was pitching whiffle balls to him and he was slamming them over my head. He runs with abandon, he climbs all over everything, and he suddenly seems much more grown up.

We're still working though on some of Drew's baseball fundamentals. For now, he loves to throw, catch, and hit. As he gets older I'll see if he's interested in learning the best way to do those things.

As you might have noticed in these pictures, our lawn was due to be mowed. Drew noticed it, and so he decided to help me out by mowing the backyard. You know you've neglected mowing too long when your three-year-old son notices that the yard needs to be mowed!!

I've got tons of vacation pictures I'm sorting through, so keep checking back for a new post with pictures of Drew and Kate at the beach.

Memorial Day weekend (finally)

I've been out of town a bit lately, so blog posting has fallen by the wayside. I'm back now, so it's time to get caught up on what our family has been doing.

Over Memorial Day weekend we headed up north into the Upper Peninsula to camp near Tahquamenon Falls. We stayed at the Lower Falls campground and we had a wonderful time. It was a little chilly, but otherwise the weather was perfect (no rain!!).

One of the nice parts of the campground was a gorgeous, new playground that the kids loved. We camped with our friends Dan and Sandra and their daughter Lorelei, and we all enjoyed the campground and the playground. Below is a rare Drew smiling picture initiated by the playground slide. Kate is fearless on the playground. She couldn't walk consistently at this point (she walked EVERYWHERE the day we got back from all the dirt of the campground, that little weasel), but that didn't stop her from scampering all over the play structure. We're going to need to keep an eye on her because she seems a bit lacking in the self-preservation instinct.

We were able to go for a hike one day, which might not seem like a big deal, but it was a momentous occasion for me. Last fall when I was in the midst of multiple knee surgeries, hiking didn't seem like a future option. On our hike, I managed to hike several miles over difficult terrain while pushing Drew in the jogging stroller. We were thrilled and grateful for the healing that I've experienced.

In the picture below we are standing near the lower Tahquamenon Falls. The water was high and the falls were roaring. We could hear them all night in the campground.

Dan and Sandra also stopped for a picture with Lorelei. As you can see by the hats on the kids, it was a bit chilly outside.

The area around the lower falls was beautiful (pictured below). It was a wonderful spot to spend the weekend!

Kate was everywhere on the campsite and without walking, she was literally crawling in the dirt. In an effort to keep her moderately clean, we set out a tarp for her to play on. She did a pretty good job of staying on it.

For the trip we rented a 2009 Ford F150 supercab. It was a lot of fun to drive and it served our needs perfectly for the trip. Drew loved it (I got a kick out of it too) and he wanted to drive it. In the picture below, he's wearing his fire helmet while "driving" the truck. You can tell Jana and I are into more fuel efficient vehicles because Drew kept on calling the truck a "monster truck." He was all excited in the photo below about driving a "monster truck." We enjoyed renting this vehicle, but it is not a vehicle we're interested in owning :)

We discovered on our trip that Kate loves to be up on my shoulders. Every time we put her up there she'd break out into a grin. You'll notice that there aren't many camping pictures of Jana . . . that's because she doesn't like to have her picture taken while camping. I'll have more of her in the future.

Dan was kind enough to attempt to teach Drew paddle ball. Drew's not too good at it yet (he's terrible), but Dan was very patient with him as he missed again and again.

Kate is sitting on our little fire engine toy, which was the hit of the trip. The children had tons of fun riding on it.

Lorelei would get on the fire engine behind Kate and they would scoot around. Kate would also get on the fire engine and Lorelei would push her around the campsite. As you can tell, Kate enjoyed it just a little bit.

I've got a number of pictures of Lorelei pushing Kate because they were so cute playing together. Lorelei was very good at pushing Kate around and Kate enjoyed riding.

Before we left the area we also checked out the upper Tahquamenon Falls. Those falls have a larger vertical drop and again there was a lot of water coming down that river!

Drew wore his fire helmet for a lot of the weekend. He was fascinated by the waterfalls and even remembered to tell everyone at daycare about the waterfalls he had seen during the weekend. He's still working though on properly saying "Tahquamenon." That's a mouthful!

Kate didn't want to be held and enjoyed walking around the trail to and from the falls. The drive to and from the Upper Peninsula went pretty well. We had some interesting moments (e.g. an unsuccessful peeing attempt by Drew on the shoulder of I-75), some normal, quiet moments (like below), and some moments when both kids were not happy about being cooped up in the car. All in all though, it was very smooth. We got Drew a "Where's Waldo?" book and he LOVED flipping through the pages and studying the illustrations for the hidden objects. He sat for hours engrossed in his book.

Kate didn't have much to do, but she also enjoyed some "reading." She sat for long stretches of time reading to herself out loud. It was so cute to hear her babble in the back seat!

We thoroughly enjoyed camping, but it was a lot of work with two small children. We were happy to get home for some rest! :)

Girl = Shoe lover

Kate likes to hop in and out of boxes. In the picture below she was getting in and out of this container. Each time she gets back in Kate is enormously pleased with herself. Yum! Kate enjoys spaghetti sauce. She did a great job of attacking (and wearing) her meal. Kate primarily eats table food now and has also made the transition to cow milk. She's getting so big!

Kate enjoyed her spaghetti sauce so much that she wanted to let us know about it. Mom and dad, this tastes great!

Kate has been obsessed with shoes. She loves to sit in the kitchen by our back door and play with the shoes that are sitting there. She'll try on just about any shoe, and both Jana and I get a kick out of it when she tries to put my shoes on. They are SO BIG on her!

Kate will go for any shoe, not just men's shoes, and in the picture below she grabbed one of Jana's shoes and made off with it. She's leaning against Drew's stepstool, which Kate enjoys climbing up and down. If this is next to something like the couch or Drew's bed, before we know it Kate has climbed up and is sitting on it!

Uncle Todd is a firefighter for the city of Battle Creek, Drew likes to get in on the firefighter action, and now Kate wants to join the crew as well. She loves to grab a fire helmet and put it on.

Jana was in the kitchen when she noticed Kate rather intently eying up the dishwasher. Both kids love to be by the dishwasher. For Drew, it's a perfect racetrack for his cars. For Kate, it's just the right height for her.

As Jana watched, Kate pulled herself up onto the dishwasher. That wily minx was figuring out a way to get up on it! After snapping this picture, Jana pulled her down and that won't be happening again.

As you can see, it doesn't matter what shoe is available, as long as it is a shoe. Here Kate has one of her shoes. She still wears size 2/3, the smallest shoe size available beyond infant shoes. Kate has tiny feet!

A rare moment of Kate and Drew together and interacting and still enough for a picture. This usually only happens in the bath. Drew was reading and Kate came over to join him. Kate loves to see what people are reading.

At the end of a long day Drew likes to sit down on the couch and do some Sudoku. It's a nice way to relax and challenges him on his early numeracy. (Just kidding, he's just "reading" it and making numbers on the paper)

Drew will get older some day and when he leaves the house we'll realize that we have no pictures of him when he was three. That's because they are either silly pictures, pictures where he isn't looking at the camera (like the one above) or he refuses to smile (like the picture below). I believe that if he were to get in trouble, the picture below would make a great mug shot. Is he happy? Is he sad? I don't know because he loves to do this blank look for the camera.

Kate, on the other hand, loves to ham it up for the camera, so we'll have many pictures of her from this stage of life!

I read Drew a story and immediately Kate came over to see what we were reading. It's so much fun to read stories with Drew and Kate!

Great-grandma and great-grandpa Vryhof hadn't seen Drew and Kate for a little bit, and they enjoyed the entertaining chaos of Drew and Kate running around. It's also nice to hold Kate while she's taking a drink!

jean skirt and sandals

Kate has been enjoying her newfound freedom with walking around and she's climbing up things and into things. The other day Jana captured this picture of Kate after she hopped into one of our storage bins and was playing in it in the living room. We finished up celebrating Kate's birthday with Jana's family this past weekend. We've thoroughly celebrated Kate turning one now! :) Upon arriving at Grandma Lynn and Grandpa John's house, Drew immediately went to find the toys. Kate joined him in taking the balls and putting them down the ramps. They did a great job of each having a ball and sharing this toy.

Kate rocked her jean skirt and sandals for the occassion. She has started to shoot up lately and she's thinning out a bit as she gets taller. She's looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby! We love this new picture of her.

Kate enjoyed this little rocking chair. All day she was getting up on it and getting down and getting up and getting down. It was the perfect height for her to explore without us having to worry about her tumbling off it.

Drew helped us open Kate's presents. He did a very good job of understanding that it was Kate's birthday and the presents were hers. It helped that he got one puzzle present of his own!

Kate was most interested in a clothes hanger and the tissue paper from her presents. She's real tough to shop for.

Kate's little hair-deficient head will be protected this summer at the beach in this new hat. She did very well with keeping it on, but we'll have to see if that happens outside.

Kate sat in this chair for stretches of time like a big girl and looked around the room at us like, "What are we talking about guys? I'm just sitting here listening. Talk to me."

We distracted Kate with a little book when her cake came out. She did a great job of checking it out and not touching it (while the candle was lit).

Kate enjoyed our clapping after singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candle.

Kate was stylin' in her coat tonight after we got home from daycare. She loves to climb up Drew's little steps and to play on them. As she gets more mobile we have to keep an eye on her because she's fearless!

Drew and Kate did a great job of playing together. We continue to be thrilled with how well Drew interacts with Kate. He does a great job of sharing toys with her, even with navigating the new situation this first birthday with Kate getting presents that are hers and not his. He's never had to watch someone else get toys that aren't his, but that he may play with if Kate isn't using them. Both of them will take turns getting toys for each other. What fun!