Spring is Here...almost...

So it has been almost 2 months since I last posted. Uploading pictures to our blog, to facebook, to snapfish (to buy them and put in albums) has NOT been high on the priority list. Too many places to upload pictures, and I have had very little desire to do so. The last couple of weeks we have certainly got a taste of spring and have spent a ton of time outside. Praise God for warm days of 50's and 60's, and even one day of 70! We've even grilled out twice already this year. Mmm...Hamburgers! Morgan has already played in the dirt and fell in the mud and she was totally OK with that! We gave her some gardening tools to play with and she was entertained for quite a while. It gave us some time to chat and have a nice conversation while she was busy getting dirty! Below are a couple pictures of her having fun in the dirt!

By the end of that night she was caked full of dirt and had a muddy knee. What fun for a 2 year old toddler! Spring has been amazing for all of us, since Morgan hasn't been bored. Her tantrums had gotten a bit more frequent, but now we know that she was just totally bored! Another bonus of spring and playing outside: she is running ALL over the place. Quite the change from last year when she would barely move in the grass! AND she is EXHAUSTED and sleeps VERY well. She doesn't even talk to herself when we put her in bed, and most of the time when we check on her before we go to bed, she is in the exact same position as when we left. She doesn't even have the energy to move!

Lately Morgan just seems like such a big girl! She's growing up...sigh. She is talking in complete sentences and so many times I have laughed out loud as what she says. The other day we were in the car, with the windows down because it was really nice outside and she said, "Wind too loud, for Morgan." I nearly died. It was SO funny. I suppose she probably can't remember the last time we had the windows open!!!

Over the past 3 weeks, we've been struggling with Morgan's separation anxiety. She has not done well being left at Christina's house each morning (our daycare). This week will be pretty rough, since Christina is on vacation and Morgan will be going to our old daycare for the week. We met with them tonight to catch up and we ended up leaving when Morgan started crying and saying she wanted to go home 20 minutes into the visit. This will be a VERY rough week for me. Pray that she does well and I'm able to withstand a week of meltdowns!

Nanny Visits for Morgan's 2nd Birthday

All week long we've heard Morgan sing, "Happy Birthday Cake Morgan!" (this is her version of Happy Birthday) I would gather from that alone that she REALLY enjoyed her birthday this past week.

Nanny got into town the Friday before Morgan's birthday. Then on Thursday, Morgan's birthday, we all went out to eat at Pedro's. Morgan got a cupcake, but not before they came out singing and clapping and scared the daylights out of her! She was crying and leaning toward Paul saying "up, up!" The staff must not have training on what to do when a baby's crying while they're singing the happy birthday song because they just kept singing until the end! Oh well, after a bite of cupcake Morgan was all smiles again! After dinner we headed back home for more fun with presents and ice cream cake. Morgan got to stay up late and she loved every minute of it! We also had a birthday party on Saturday with some family. Morgan had no problems tearing open her gifts this year, and she absolutely had a blast with her cousins!

What a difference ONE year makes in the short life of a two year old. After watching old home video's recently from Morgan's 1st birthday, I am completely in awe of Morgan's growth. Last year at this time Morgan didn't know how to walk, talk, open gifts, and was afraid of everyone! So much has changed. She's running, and certainly talking; even singing. Morgan is learning so much every day and it’s amazing to see her growing SO fast. She is 34inches, and 31 pounds now! She is putting together 5-word sentences and at her recent doctor's appoint, they said her speaking and actions are at 3 year old level. We are SO proud of her!

I'm such a proud mommy that I have to spend a moment gloating. She can count from 1 – 10, and has recently started the journey to count to 20. She sings all of the ABC's, except that last line about "next time sing with me." She knows all the letters though! Morgan also LOVES to sing. She sings Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children, The B-I-B-L-E song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and the list goes on...She is also now praying for her babies when she "feeds" them and puts them to "sleep". Too Sweet! She is such a cuddle bug right now. I just love all of her hugs and kisses. I wish that she would stay 2 forever. I'm so in love!

Nanny went home on Sunday after spending 10 days with us. Morgan loved having Nanny around! She loved having another playmate to enjoy "making someting" in her new kitchen with. Nanny was able to spend a few days at home with Morgan while I went to work, and then I was able to take Thursday and Friday off to hang out. Nanny left on Sunday, and since then Morgan has been asking "Nanny go?" especially at bedtime. We had a great time, but it was just too short and Morgan misses her already!

Here are a few pictures of the fun time we had!

Christmas Wonderland in Wisconsin

This winter has already gone by so fast. Thanksgiving was spent with family back in Minnesota and we enjoyed a relatively quiet Christmas in Madison. Our annual Christmas Eve tradition is to go to church with Jeff, Dana and the kids. This year we went to St. Andrew's Christmas Eve Service with them. It was a bit rough with Morgan, since it was close to dinnertime, but the service was really nice. Afterward, we met back at the Bohrer's house. We ate some munchies and opened gifts. Morgan's favorite part was when her cousin's opened their wii from Grandma. They went nuts and she joined in too screaming and jumping around with the others! She wasn't sure what she was so excited about, but boy was she excited! That was really cute to watch...

We spent Christmas Day at our own house with Grandma. It was pretty quiet and very welcomed after the craziness of the season leading up to Christmas Day. Morgan was again overwhelmed this year and wasn't interested in opening the last few gifts. It worked out well that they were only clothes! The most fun part of the morning was watching Morgan put on her "big girl" underwear over her jammies. She wore them around for quite some time and then topped it off with her new bathrobe! Too funny! she is certainly independent.

Click the play button below to see some pictures!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Morgan's Counting AND she's Athletic

Last night was a pretty big night for Morgan. Although she has been teething and sick she still just amazes us! It is such a blessing to watch her grow up. I just LOVE every minute of it.

So, yesterday she counted to 10! Yay!!! She did have a little prompting with "Nine" but she completed them! What a big girl!!! It has to be the cutest thing in the world to listen to a little toddler voice count to ten. What music to the ears!

A bit later I'm laying on the floor playing with her and I'm reading about "Obama" to her. Yes, Grandma left her people magazine at our house and Morgan now LOVES to say Obama. Anyway, I'm reading this magazine to her and next thing I know she's rolling over and did a somersault right on top of the magazine! YAY!! She didn't seem to think it was a big deal though.

Maybe she IS going to be athletic after all!!!!

Halloween!

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Morgan went this Halloween as a butterfly, although we couldn't get to her wear the hat part. It certainly took some getting used to. I bought it a month early and had to leave it sitting out for her to get used to. The day we bought it, she would not go near it! Fortunately, after many introductions to it, now she just LOVES it and has worn it a bunch after Halloween! Morgan had a GREAT time trick or treating with us, Jeff, Dana and the cousins. She even stayed in the stroller the whole time!. (We were worried that she would want to walk, and that would have been a real treat for Paul and I!)

The top two pictures are of us on Halloween night at the Bohrer's house. The next picture is of her and her pumpkin. She decorated her pumpkin with stickers and had a blast doing it. Less messy that way for us! Maybe next year we'll get all gooey with her. The one in her carseat is her first experience with Halloween Candy (or actually Halloween rice krispy treats. A fabulous idea and Morgan loved it). The last pictures is of Christina (our daycare provider) and her 4 year old son Ethan, Elijah who goes to daycare too and Morgan. We went to Christina's church to do trunk-or-treat before Halloween. Morgan had a great time, after crying because there were SO many kids and it was a bit overwhelming. Once she realized that people were giving her candy from their trunks, she was off to the races!!!

Here's a cute little Morgan story from Halloween night...each time we went up to the houses, instead of saying Trick-or-Treat, she kept saying "one?" As in, can I have one??? It was too funny. It's a good thing she's still young, otherwise it wouldn't have sounded so cute!!!

Thanks for stopping by! Until next time...

Our Summer and Fall in Pictures

We've been pretty bad at putting pictures up all summer...so here is our summer and Fall in pictures...enjoy

Our Summer in Pictures

Our 3rd Anniversary, and a bit of everything!

Fall has come and we are still as busy as ever. Hopefully within the next few weeks the pace will slow down! As a follow-up to my previous blog, I am doing MUCH better! I did have one more follow up visit at the doctors after my first week of work and I was having some more trouble breathing. Turns out that they said I was having the burning sensation because my lungs were just tired and trying to recover. That was good news...the not so good news is that they said my lungs would probably take more like 3 months to recover than 1 month. LOVELY! Other than that I've been doing well. Just overly tired, but that's to be expected, not to mention that I can't seem to find time to barely sit down! Here is how our last week has played out...

Last weekend we went to Paul's Cousin, Angie's 30th b-day party. That was a blast! Grandma took Morgan for the night so we could spend the night at Neil and Kelly's house. That was awesome. It was a great night. We stayed up WAY too late and didn't really sleep in, so we lost of a bunch of hours, but it was well worth it! Here are a couple pictures from that night!

So, Monday we got back and realized that our friends, Keenan and Linsdey were coming to town this weekend. They are here for a friends wedding and they are staying with us, which is really awesome. We also found out that other friends went to the hospital Tuesday and had their baby on Wednesday, our anniversary. Yay!!! Wednesday night Paul and I spent a quiet evening together with a bottle of wine and our wedding video. We had talked about doing something, but neither of us had the time or energy to really give it any thought. Turns out that our anniversary was wonderful just staying home, enjoying ourselves and watching our wedding video on the big-screen together. Here are a couple pictures we took in our theater room on our 3rd Wedding Anniversary!

Thursday we also had an Anniversary-plus-1 day lunch. Paul met me at work and took me to lunch at Tony Roma's. It was pretty good food, but it was great to see Paul in the middle of the day! That was fabulous! So, Thursday evening we waited for Lindsey to get into town, then I headed off for a quick visit to see the new baby! Baby Alaina Autumn was just SO adorable. I've NEVER seen a baby with such big cheeks. I think that is where all of her weight was...her cheeks and head! The rest of her was SOOO petite. Anyway, so after holding her for quite sometime (I was very lucky that family or grandparents weren't around! I had her ALL to myself!), I realized how much I REALLY would like to have another little one running around! I guess they have had a little bit of difficultly with their 2 year old the last few days, but they suspect that it is mostly due to the fact that he's been spending the nights with his Nana since Tuesday while they've been in the hospital. I don't envy them as Kylan goes through this stage. I just pray that he stays potty trained!!!!

I got home on Thursday night just in time for the Grey's Anatomy 2-hour season premiere, man was that good timing! That was Thursday. Friday I went to work as usual, and Paul picked Morgan up from daycare so I could fly home, change and meet back at church to train someone as a wedding coordinator. I was kinda bummed that I had to do this since Lindsey was in town already. (Keenan came in on Saturday). So I spent 2 1/2 hours with that and was finally able to come home! Yay!

So now it's Saturday, Morgan is napping and what am I doing??? Updating you all on our fabulous life! Here are some more picture from the last month... and now I'm going to sit down and read a book!