two new (girl) cousins

When we visited Nathan and Ana for vacation in August we found out they were expecting again (Theo was only about nine months old). Shortly after we found out Shari and Jesse were also expecting. They were due just weeks apart in April of 2016. 

Shari's turn came first. Her water broke in the middle of the night on Friday, April 8. Grace and Sarah had been cesarean sections and she deeply desired a natural birth. She labored for hours, finally dilated to ten, and then pushed for nearly five hours before the baby got stuck. Little Rebekah Joy was born via cesarean Saturday, April 9th. This was the first picture I received. Beautiful. Poor Shari was beyond worn out.

You can see Sarah's ear sort of sticking up. Her ear had got caught on Shari's pubic bone because her head was sideways in the birth canal. No wonder she got stuck!

Those cheeks! 

She had a perfectly round little doll face.

I was able to go meet her that night. Eeee! 

I was quite psyched. 

I brought Shari and the girls dinner several nights later and got a chance to hold her again. 

Then it was Ana's turn. She was wishing she could go early like she did with Theo. The poor thing was having a very difficult time sleeping - she wanted that baby out! However, her due date came and went. 

Nearly a week later she realized that she was more likely due at that time according to her ovulation charting. Sure enough, a day later she went into labor at 11:30pm on Thursday, April 28th. She labored at home through the night and when she couldn't handle it anymore they headed to the hospital. It's a good thing they left when they did because Ana had the urge to push in the car! Elin Mae was born shortly after their arrival to the hospital in Willmar, 20 minutes from home.

Awww, my proud brother.

Elin's name is Norwegian (my dad's side) and pronounced E-lynn. They had initially heard the name mentioned by my Grampa at Thanksgiving. He said it was my Gramma's grandmother's name. It also happened to be a variant of "Helen" which is my mom's first name (thought she goes by her middle name since her mom's name was also Helen). Both mean light or beautiful woman (Helen of Troy).

She's such a perfect little doll too! I think she totally looks like Ana already - her eyes.

Later that day we were able to Facetime with Nathan and Ana. That's one good thing about a smart phone. We won't be able to meet Elin for a couple months so seeing her in real time was a treat. 

She was getting rather bored of us... 

...and she's out. We're thankful our new cousins are here safe and sound, but Noah was rather disappointed they weren't boys. Not Evie though. Girl cousins are the closest thing she's ever going to get to a sister. 

Noah's 11th birthday

Two days before Noah's birthday we had all the family assembled for Noah and Evie's piano recital so we planned to celebrate afterwards. Before the recital we had Culvers for lunch (Noah's favorite) and after the party we had pizza for lunch. Not such a healthy day but Noah loved it.

Big breath...

...and blow! 

Noah had wanted this Obi Wan and General Grievous Star Wars Lego set for nearly a year. Each set of grandparents got him one character.

They're pretty much boy Barbies... (cough, ahem)... I mean, action figures. Four light sabers are definitely cool though. 

We are all about Star Wars in this house, obviously, and since we had just bought The Force Awakens DVD earlier that month, it seemed appropriate Noah should get a Kylo Ren action figure too. 

Crazy-eyed Evie got Noah a Stitch Infinity character. 

Noah put all three characters together that evening and played with them all the following day. 

Two days later was Noah's actual birthday, April 19. We "woke" him by singing the birthday song, as is tradition.

We had reserved one final gift for his actual birthday. 

More Kylo Ren.  

And a donut.

Since Noah's birthday fell during the school week, his teacher exempted him from school work. She was extra generous and let him play his new Infinity characters on the Wii. 

Meanwhile, Evie did her second grade testing.

Throughout the day, whenever I had a moment, I worked on a project I had wanted to do for my kids' eleventh birthdays but neglected to plan beforehand: A HARRY POTTER HOGWARTS LETTER! 

 I found the letter and font here and the signature here.

The second page of the letter. 

The third page was a nice touch. Notice wrote it? :D

The map was found here and included because it was cool. 

The train ticket came from here.

I even made my own envelope from here.

We had piano lessons that afternoon and I was able to deliver the letter right before we left.

I sent Noah to get the mail on our way out of the house. 

What is this?! 

EEEEE! I was so excited. I was grinning like I was the eleven year old getting the letter. 

Noah carefully read the whole thing. 

Noah was so confused. After he had read everything he looked over to me and was like, "Is this for real?" It was so dang innocent and sweet. "I don't think I want to leave home and go to Hogwarts..." We had a talk about how it was all just for fun. Evie was much more eager, "I hope I get a letter when I turn eleven!"

That night we had more chicken pot pie and then went to small group where we celebrated with some more cake. It was a fun day! 

piano recital 2016

On Sunday April 17 Noah and Evie had their second ever piano recital with Mrs. Reeves. They had both been practicing for months, had their music memorized, and did rather well. Better even than I anticipated.

Evie cracks me up.

And a third attempt at genuine smiles.

Evie performed a fiery song called Flamenco Dancer.

Noah's song was called Runaway Train, and it sounded like one.

aerating the lawn

On a Wednesday in mid-April, Terry rented an Aerator, otherwise affectionately known and dubbed as a Poopilator by my brother. As a child I never understood why my dad would do take all the time, work, and money to plug our yard and thought it was rather gross. Now that we have our own lawn it makes sense. Our lawn certainly does get tramped all over and quite compacted. In the past, before we aerated, it was July before our grass would really green up, despite regular watering. Last year it helped a ton - more than the Chem Lawn we dished out for since we thought it needed it that desperately. Turned out all we needed to do was aerate. Stinking Chem Lawn. So Terry rented the aerator a few days before it was supposed to rain and went to work:

It took a very short time for him to complete the front yard and a little longer for the backyard.

Terry got up early that morning to go and fetch the aerator and had started only when the kids had just gotten up. It was such fun for them to watch that I didn't want to pull them inside to eat breakfast. We ate outside.

I thought it looked like Ezra was at a pool. 

S-ah-muel 

The trees had just started to bud. To see life returning makes my heart happy.

Plugs! 

We had friends over yesterday who thought perhaps we needed to clean up after Snap. 

There's a man picture for you.