More pictures from Dad's visit

Tony downloaded his camera today, and luckily he was taking pictures when my dad was here...

But first - a new dress for Anna... She doesn't like to wear dresses AT ALL!! Tony somehow manages to get her in a dress on Sundays. Sometimes I'll bring one home to see if she likes it, but usually no dice. Anyway, I brought this one home the other day and she actually WANTED to wear it!! I also got her one just like it with yellow/orange/red/pink colors and she asked if she could put it on tonight!! I think I'll keep them both! Oh and she got to play Anton's drums, something that doesn't happen very often since his room is off limits.
I love this drumming face!

Anton always gets Elaine to play poker. I was just filling in for Tony when he took this picture. I played a few hands - only won once and lost a bunch of chips for him! Elaine had been practicing - she always had the most chips.Nighty-night kisses for Emma... (don't you just love the bike grease marks on my wall??? it's my own decorating flair!!)
can you believe Anton is so grown up looking??!!
He's the best big brother ever!!

My silly girl loved wearing Elaine's jacket.

Papy is Junior's favorite visitor.

Fun snuggles!!

Building towers is our nightly ritual after Emma goes to bed.

Only babies look cute in pictures of eating dinner. Both of the girls love corn on the cob!

Anton playing the guitar Gram gave him for Christmas.

Anna was fascinated with Anton juggling the blocks.

Video Clips finally...

Yeah - Tony showed me how to download videos tonight, so hopefully I'll put real video clips on the blog more often. We had not downloaded since before Emma's birthday. So anyway, here's a few highlights from the last 3 months!!!!

Tonight - Anna "helping" Emma walk... just barely walking babies are about the cutest thing in the world!!!!

This was Anton's concert in May. We had no idea he was going to do this!!

This was the jazz band. It's so fun to watch Anton play!!! We were also surprised to see him play the keyboard in another song. He's also been playing in the new youth worship service at church. Totally unrelated news bit about Anton - he gets his braces off on Thursday!!!

This is called the "baby train" - something they love when I've just gotten diapers. By the way, I'll just be getting 1 box from now on!!!! Anna has been doing really well with the big girl underwear - woohoo!!!

Here's the video I took the day that Emma first started walking around - after we came home from Kroger and I put shoes on her!!

"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. " Psalm 23:1-3

Good-by Eges

We had our last playgroup with Caleb and Callie Thursday before they move to Austin. We are sad they are leaving but excited for their family's new adventure!

Two girls who love to eat!!
Anna loves playing with her friends' baby sisters.Big hugs for Bailey!Ah there's Caleb hard at play! Anna needs to give Callie a shot before she goes!

We are so thankful for the Eges!! They have been such a blessing to us, and I know they will be a blessing to Austin!

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:3-6

Dad's visit

We had a wonderful visit with my dad and Elaine. I didn't take many pictures –ony 2 actually - typical! I think Tony wants to show me how to download the video camera today, so I'll be busy looking through I'm sure hundreds of clips. Anyway, on Tuesday Anna had a swim lesson and did great! She kept telling her teacher that she wanted to go swim with Papy! It was very cute. They left that afternoon, and Anna misses them a bunch.

I actually braved the pool by myself yesterday with the girls. I went to a pool close by that has a giant turtle in a good sized baby pool hoping that Anna would be content to play there the whole time. We did play there most of the time & it was great fun. We also made it over to the big pool for just a few minutes, and it actually wasn't scary!!! It was actually great fun! I could tell the swim lesson already helped because Anna was able to swim around with her little floaties and inter-tube BY HERSELF! Of course I was within a few inches of her at all times, but I was just so happy that it worked. Then we ate lunch and I fed Emma while Anna played in the baby pool a little longer by herself. She was sooooo happy, and it was so much fun to watch her. She went on to impress me again in the afternoon on her bike. Tony was home so I took her and Junior out on the greenbelt and she made it down the little "hill" by our house (it's really just a dip by the drainage ditch). She usually get off her bike and walks down. She even pedaled down it!!!!

Anyway, here's my 2 pictures from when my dad was here plus some cute soundless videos.

Emma loves getting pushed around on the trike.

Anna wanted Emma to go under her legs. I guess anything is possible in the mind of a 2 year old!


Here's Anna riding the bike really fast inside the house.


Emma's cute little walk...

Finally getting around to loading old photos

These pictures are all from a few weeks ago. A few things have changed since then...

• Emma started walking last Saturday.
• Emma started throwing up last Sunday.
• Emma stopped throwing up on Wednesday.
• Anna took advantage of the week at home and wore big girl underwear most of the week.
• Anna got a fever on Wednesday.
• Anton took his last final at school as a freshman on Wednesday. He took 3 total (they get to exempt 2 and band and soccer don't have finals). His grades on his 3 finals: 100, 99 and 94. Yeah Anton!!!!
• My dad and Elaine got here yesterday!!!!
• Anna stopped wearing big girl underwear - stagefright?? Oh well, we'll try again soon. I'm just excited that the big huge jumbo box of #5 diapers is probably the last I'll buy for her. :)
• My dad and Elaine got to see Anton play the drums at church this morning. Nathan led the youth band in some awesome praise at the new youth worship service. What fun! Gloria Deo!!

Ok so here's the pictures. Here's the reason why we give Anton the big brother of the year award...

By the way, I realized that when using slide.com to make these slideshows, they automatically put a song on it. I'm just not ambititious enough with the computer right now to think of a song that would go with my slides and actually figure out how to put it on the slides. I turned the autosong off this time, but oops there was some some about kissing girls on the last one. Sorry about that... definitely not a theme for Anton's band performances!!!

More recent pics of the girls...

Anna eating cake with her best friend Joanna at Abby's birthday party. Yeah for God making Abby!!!! (ok so I realize that these pictures are a month old!)
There's the birthday girl with her daddy!!Matching PJ's and Emma trying to take Anna's milk. I'm sure Anna was saying "No baby, this is my milk!" By the way, Emma doesn't really drink milk. She gets excited when I give it to her but she'll only drink a couple of sips.

One of our first trips with the bike trailer. We all enjoy it but don't do it very often mainly because we can't bring Junior, and I rarely have time to walk Junior to the playground AND also go for a bikeride to the playground. Going anywhere outside without including the playground just doesn't go over very well!

I finally got Anna to stop playing with Junior's water about the time that Emma started crawling, so I guess I have at least another 6 months of putting his water on the table. It never occured to me to stop and take a picture before taking it away from her, but I guess that's a job for dad!

Anna loves to play in her pool. She also loves to go to the real pool, but I am just too chicken to take both of the girls by myself, so we only go on the weekends. Maybe we'll go more when Anton is around this summer. Luckily she is very content to just play in the backyard. She mostly just splashes all the water out anyway.

Don't know what Anton is doing... maybe studying for finals?

This is one of Anna's first steps, a couple of weeks before she actually started "walking around". She is now already walking most of the time and rarely crawls anymore. It is very cute how babies walk at this stage, though all the falling down is not so cute.

"Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. (or the drums?!)
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.
For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love." Psalm 33:1-5

Band & Orchestra Spring Concerts

Anton had his Band concert a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome! I was really impressed at how well these high school kids performed. They also have a jazz band that was amazing, and the KPHS choir joined in for the last few songs. They sounded angelic. Then a few days later he got to play congas for one song at the orchestra concert. That was a treat too. So far having a high school kid is a blast!

EMMA IS WALKING!

Here are a few recent photos from the last week or so...

Tony happy to be holding his baby girls I found Anna like this Saturday and had to take a picture (she didn't sleep this way, just pretending).

Anna in the box that contains all of her blocks. Dumping them out to build has become a nightly ritual after Emma goes to bed. She also likes to get in the empty box. I guess she's getting more attached to her bitty baby doll... she's even slept with it a few times. This is the "smiling for the camera" face.

AND FINALLY THE REALLY BIG NEWS - EMMA IS WALKING!!!!

Emma took her 1st step over a month ago (for Anton) and didn’t make much progress for a while. Then 2 weeks ago, when Anton was here for the weekend, she took about 5 steps 2 days in a row. Then for 2 more weeks she would only take a step or 2 while cruising. So this past Saturday, also a weekend that Anton was here, I took the girls to Kroger while Tony and Anton were at a movie. I forgot Emma’s shoes, but didn’t think much of it since she wasn’t walking yet. In the check out line, I usually let the girls out of the cart if they are going stir crazy. I was a little bummed that Emma was shoeless, but figured she’d just be crawling anyway. So I keep looking down between paying and keeping track of Anna, and there she is, just walking around barefoot in Kroger!! By the way, the floor at our Kroger is very clean! Anyway, she went on to walk around more at home that evening and hasn’t stopped. As of today, she’s still probably crawling as much as she is walking, but it is so exciting to see her walking around the house.

So anyway, here’s a few silent videos from my camera today. I took a cute one on Saturday and tonight with the real video camera, but I haven’t uploaded it yet (mainly because I don’t know how & Tony is busy with a honey-do so I don't want to interupt that!!) Poor Emma came down with a stomach bug Sunday… this is about as happy as she got today.

"Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name." Psalm 30:4