Dinah, Blow Your Horn

The Jackson Street Roundhouse is an often-noted "destination of fun and utter excitement" around our house. After a couple visits Jack convinced Grandma and Grandpa to go on a real train ride on one of the associated railways in Wisconsin. So one unseasonably cold Saturday morning we packed up the kids and headed to Osceola for a one-and-a-half hour train ride along the St. Croix.

 

The rail cars were not heated so we had to stay bundled up.

Lunch for the kids was a good way to pass the time.

Because as beautiful as it was, one-and-a-half hours on

a train is a long time for two little boys to sit on a train.

Daddy and the boys had to check out some of the other

rail cars and engines when we got back to the station.

 

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa for a fun morning on the train.

Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday to our sweet 2-year-old, Wesley!

His mellow temperament and go-with-the-flow attitude are a perfect blessing to our family. He is tender-hearted and has a special soft spot for his baby sister on whom he is tirelessly doting. He loves his big brother and can't be enough like him. If Jack does it, so does Wesley.

His sweet smile brings joy to our hearts and brightens our day. His silly "na-na" jokes (read knock-knock jokes) liven up the conversation during dinner. His giggles turn around any bad day.

He loves trains, legos, "Mike Wazowski's New Car," showing us his highest jump (right after Jack shows us his) and reading books. He's our comic relief. He is an ever-forgivng, always-wanting-to-play little brother. He is a wonderful gift from God.

And he's 2. Just ask him.

Disclaimer: He refused to look at the camera and insisted instead on sitting as close to me as possible while waiting for his turn with the camera so he could take pictures of Elise. Remember how I mentioned doting?

Almost-Four-Year-Old Wisdom

We made mac-n-cheese for lunch today. The boys wanted to see and Elise was crabby, which means one arm was busy holding her. I picked up Wesley to take a look at the non-boiling water in the pot which, for some reason, is enthralling to an almost-two-year-old. While he was taking his turn Jack decided that he needed to have a look right then as well. I told him I couldn't pick him up because I only had two hands and they were full with two babies - he would need to wait his turn. To which he replied, "An octopus could lift us all up." And from that moment on I wished I was an octopus...or at least that I had 6 more arms.

Who Visits?

A few months ago I added a counter at the bottom of this blog. I'm sure everyone noticed right away since it happens to be one of the most exciting pieces of information you can find here. What's that? You don't think it's the most interesting thing? Or at all interesting? Huh?

Well neither did I until one day the count went from a few hundred to over 12,000. For a fleeting moment I had delusions of great blogosphere popularity. Then I figured it was just a fluke so I started tracking it. Sure enough, my counter has ever so slowly gone from 12-thousand-something to 12-thousand-something-only-slightly-bigger over the last couple months. So much for my blog fame.

But it did get me thinking: Who visits us? As far as I know, there is no good (read "free") way to tell who visits a page, just how many hits it gets. So, if you would, leave a little note and let me know you're reading. It needn't be a dissertation (I don't have time to read all that). You could even just leave your name. Now a person interested in blog stardom might have something fun to offer. But me? I have no fancy prizes to give away. I'm just curious.

The Day Has Come

From the moment we found out we would be adding a daughter to our family, I imagined with delight the day I could put pigtails in her hair. I reminisced about the day after day after day that I marched out the door to kindergarten with pigtails adorning my own little blond head (sometimes straight, sometimes not) and hoped that, someday, my own daughter would do the same. So imagine my excited anticipation when I thought today might be a good day to try pigtails and further imagine my exuberance when it actually worked!

So presented to you below is our little pigtailed baby girl!

Bring on the barrettes, baubles and bows because there's no stopping now!

Has It Really Been Almost Two Weeks?

Well, it might be a week more before I am able to update. Work and coupon clipping are consuming all of my not-directly-responsible-for-children time and even some of my directly-responsible-for-children time. I'm hoping it slows down a little bit in a couple weeks and I can get more than 4 hours of sleep each night.

In the meantime, to take your minds off the arctic weather we've experienced of late, you can feast your eyes on this and reminisce about the sun's engulfing warmth in summers past:

Fielding

If you've ever been around a 3-year-old for more than 8 seconds you know how many questions they ask as well as how many things they don't know about that they do want to know about. We, like many parents, try to answer as many questions as possible as completely as possible. However, there are some things we just don't know (I'm sure when my children are old enough to read this that I'll regret admitting that). Case in point...


While running our errands today the following conversation took place:


Jack: Mommy, we've lived in our house for five years.


Mommy: No, honey, we've only lived there 4 months. We lived in our old house for five years. [realizing that this wasn't a completely true statement, I clarified] Well...Daddy and I lived there for 5 years. [dumb, dumb dumb]


Jack: Where was I?


Mommy: Um...Well...You were...Uh...I don't know. [I had to tell him something] Only God knows where you were.


Jack: I bet I was at Grandma and Grandpa's house.