Milestones

My sweet babies are growing like weeds! Jareth will be three in just three short months and Laney is now four months old. They are getting bigger, stronger, and smarter everyday.
Jareth is finally speaking (mostly) in complete sentences and on a good day can count to 15. Recently, Jon introduced him to the movie, Sandlot, and now he has a little obsession with baseball. Yesterday I got him a real baseball and that's all he has been talking about today. I need to find him a glove but gloves for two and a half year olds aren't easy to find. He has also hit a couple of developmental milestones. He can put 35 piece puzzles together easily, he has been caught playing make-believe with batman and spiderman, and he understands the concept of counting. Another concept he has learned is that daddy comes home from work for lunch and then has to go back. He's not a big fan of that. Jon has to wear a badge to work on a lanyard and as soon as he puts that on, Jareth has a mini meltdown. But we are working through it.
Laney is getting so big! She now weighs 13lbs and is 25 1/2 inches long. She is in the 37% for her weight and 83% for her height. She loves being in the excersaucer along with the bouncer. She can stand really well with a little support and prefers standing to sitting or lying down. She also likes to reach out and grab our noses, or in my case, my hair. Also, she is loving rice cereal and sweet potatoes!
Jon and I are doing great also. He is doing an amazing job in class and we are still enjoying our time here. Family time is plentiful and fruitful and we are blessed.

Oh yeah, I had a Birthday!

Well folks, we celebrated the 10 year anniversary of me getting my driver's license last week. For some reason I think that sounds better than saying, "I turned twenty-seven last week". Twenty-seven sounds soooo old to me. So, happy anniversary to me. And yes, that means I was seventeen when I got my license. You see, I had a boyfriend with a Jeep so I wasn't really in a hurry to start driving myself around quite yet. I mean, check this stud muffin out. Can you blame me? And please ignore the hair-do....

Can you believe we have celebrated 12 years of birthdays?! That's nuts. Anyhoo, the day of was a Tuesday so we celebrated at home with some Tacos, since it was Taco Tuesday of course, and a big slice of chocolate cake from the Hy Vee. Jon brought me flowers and a card and he even put trick candles in the cake. I don't think he realized they were trick candles when he bought them. But it was fun and Jareth got a kick out of it. And let me tell you, Hy Vee chocolate cake is the bomb.

On Friday we had the neighbors watch the kids so we could go out to eat. We drove to Rochester and ate at Newt's. Jon was excited that I chose burgers at a pub as my birthday dinner. He should know by now that I love a good burger just as much as the next guy. I picked Newt's because we had seen it on the Travel Channel. I had the Jucy Lucy and he had the Mike D's. Mine was a burger with cheese in the middle and his was a burger with onion straws and bacon pitted between two grilled cheese sandwiches. They were awesome. This picture just doesn't do it justice.

After our amazing burgers we walked across the street to yet another pub and sat outside and had a cocktail. It was the first time in over a month that we had been out by ourselves. It was pretty great. Happy 10 year anniversary of getting my driver's license to me!

Just a Day in the Life..

Here are a few photos to see what most of our days look like. Yes, there's cleaning and cooking along with errands and naps but you don't want to see photos of that. We are having a great time. : )

<---Check out Jareth jamming! That face is priceless!

Never a Boring Moment!

We have really enjoyed our first three weeks in Owatonna! There has been so much to keep us busy that time is already flying by. The area has a lot going on and great things for families to enjoy. There are several public parks and playgrounds to go to, many of which are within walking distance from "fed row" where we live. The kids and I have been walking a lot since we got here. Even the Hy-Vee grocery store is just a short walk away.
Our weekends so far have been full and fun. Last weekend we had "Breakfast on the Farm." We walked to the fairgrounds and were shuttled to Clover Glen Farm for a $3 breakfast which was held to promote National Dairy Month. It was really fun and the breakfast was delicious. (I am in love with fresh butter now!) Other than the pancake and sausage breakfast that was served, there were a ton of fun activities to do. Jareth had his picture taken with a cow and put on a button and he got to go on a lawn-tractor train ride. He loved it! There was also a bounce house and a petting zoo. He had a great time. The farm was beautiful and it was neat to see Jareth excited over all the cows.

 

This past weekend we decided to venture further north to Minneapolis to visit the Mall of America. We decided to take Jareth to the Aquarium and found discounted tickets online. He was facinated by the jelly fish and the sea horses but his favorite part was the underwater tunnel experience. We saw several different types of sharks, fish, and sea turtles. We ended up buying a membership by the end of our tour. It will be something fun to do when it gets cold and it was only an extra $10 per person for the membership and Jareth and Laney were free! Pretty good deal, if you ask me! The Mall of America is huge. Huge and overwhelming. Huge and overwhelming and time consuming. Huge and overwhelming and time consuming and pretty neat. We were there for about 7 hours and didn't even see the whole place. Suprisingly the kids did really well with the trip. We found a nice bench area outside one of the restrooms at Macy's to take break at and after that they both fell asleep in the stroller. My advice to anyone going to Mall of America is to get there when they open. It was really nice early in the morning but by lunch time it was crazy! Oh, and try the fish tacos at Kokomo's. They are yummy.

Our week days while dad is at work have been filled by trips to the park and playing in the backyard. The neighbors on either side of us are fantastic and Jareth plays well with their kids. He is having ball here. Jon is doing great at work. I guess I should call it school. He is in class from 7am-3pm and then does homework until 4 or 4:30 each day. Most days he comes home, plays with the kids, eats dinner, and goes back to the ATA building to study for about an hour or so. He comes home for lunch everyday and I keep busy while he is gone. I actually feel like I'm going to see him much more now than I ever did at his old job. All in all it is going well and I'm looking forward to the next several months.