meeting

Our church will possibly be calling a pastor, and there was a congregational meeting Sunday after the evening service.  Nursery was not going to be provided and Mike and I both really wanted to be in the meeting...  Um, yeah, our boys aren't really ready to sit through something like that.  I tried to be prepared by packing a few favorite books and toys, but we hardly made it through the opening prayer!  We took the boys out and were able to go back into the meeting a little later because the ladies in charge of nursery came to help (one of them has a boy a little older than Caleb and Logan that wasn't making it through the meeting either).  There's another meeting next week to vote, and now they're actually planning on having nursery provided.  :)

This week we got the boys tricycles!  First lesson learned, put together new toys after kids are in bed.  Second, don't get them hyped up to play on their new toy until you're really sure it's ready.  So, Logan especially was cranky for the first half of the week.  Mike had one tricycle almost ready, got Logan excited about it, then realized he had to do a couple things to it yet...  So he had to take it away....  Didn't go over so well.  Then, while he was putting the second tricycle together there were two little boys that wanted to play with the new toy, and only one toy ready to ride.  That equation doesn't work so well.  The boys have now had a few chances to ride their tricycles and they are doing pretty well.  Logan can barely reach the ground, and he gets easily frustrated, but most of the time he does okay.  They don't really get the concept of pedaling yet.  We've had a few spills, but usually in the grass, so no major injuries.

The other day Logan fell out of his crib!  Wasn't expecting that one.  Hasn't happened again, so hopefully he learned...  Caleb also got out of his crib yesterday.  Quite awhile ago I put the side down on his crib, but he hasn't gotten out at all until yesterday.

The other day we marked each of the boys' height on the wall (I've been meaning to get/make something to put on the wall, just haven't gotten around to it....).  Hope you can see it okay in the photo, they've really been growing!!

happy

Before starting, make sure your volume isn't too loud.  :)  Most of the meal was like this, I finally hauled out the camera to record a small taste at the end.  This is kinda what this week has been like so far...

beep

Yesterday, Logan, Caleb, and I went to the mall with my mom, and my two oldest nieces who are staying with my parents for the week.  Originally, we wanted to do the park or zoo, but with the heat this week we decided hanging in the mall for a bit would be nicer.  First, we found each of the girls a top to wear for our photo shoot last night, then my mom and I sat and relaxed a little while the girls took the boys for a little walk.  When they got back we were going to have the four of them take a carousel ride, but I had to help get the boys on and then there was no way Caleb was going to let go of me.  At first glace he seems like my tough guy, but he's scared of car washes, thunder, cows, and now carousels.  :)

 Katie and Caleb

Natalie and Logan

Funny story, yesterday the six of us are on our way home from the mall/lunch.  I honked my horn at a driver who totally deserved it.  Surprised the girls a bit - I assured them I wasn't road raging.  :)  And, of course I got a reaction from my mom, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Anyways, this morning I'm driving with the boys, we get to the exact same spot in the road, and Caleb starts saying, "beep, beep, beep, beep" and making the motion with his hand.  Really?!  Can he recognize where we are well enough and remember that from the day before??  

Last night I had a photo session with my nieces.  It was fun!  I hope they enjoyed it, too.  It was pretty warm out, but we mostly stayed in the shade and that wasn't too bad.  

Katie (L) and Natalie (R).  All grown up!  :(

This morning I had to have a temporary crown put on a tooth, it's two weeks until I get the permanent one.  It's not going to be an enjoyable two weeks.  It just doesn't feel right and is driving me crazy.  Hope I get used to it a little bit.

steam

Friday night we went to the Steam Show with my brother, sis-in-law, and their kids.  Caleb and Logan had lots of fun - what could be better than eating ice cream, seeing tons of tractors, watching a model airplane air show, and hanging with cousins??  Eric and Lea Anne were reminded that going to something like this with Mike is no better than going with Dad - every few minutes he runs into someone he knows and has to stop and talk.  :)

 Logan and Heidi - they could be twins!  :)

 Caleb wasn't so sure about standing in this big wheel with Boden.

Saturday morning Mike had to work.  Boo!  We did visit for a little bit.  A few times now when we've gone we've gotten to take a family dump truck ride to dump the celery 'pritz' in the back - the boys seem to enjoy that.  They also really like riding hi-lo with Mike.

Saturday evening we had a get together with our care group from church.  It was at a family's house who live on the farm - it was like an amusement park for the kids!  Before supper the boys got to go around and see all the animals - cows, chickens, cats, dog.  I wasn't out there, but I guess a calf licked Caleb's hand and he wasn't too thrilled with that.  After supper the host was trying to read a kids devotional, and our boys don't exactly do very well with sitting still yet.  Caleb climbed up on the couch and did his body slam thing on the other kids who were sitting there so nicely.  :)  (Caleb was on HIGH energy, the ENTIRE evening.)  Logan got attached to a balloon (they had a birthday party the night before) and when we were headed outside and I told him he couldn't take it with him, he flipped out big time.  Screaming and doing his wet noodle move to the max.  Lovely.  After all that, we took a hay ride to the ice cream shop!  Once we got back to their house the kids got to check out the animals some more and run around and play.

 On the hay ride.

Checking out the animals.

Sunday we had my niece, Katie, with us for the day.  We went to church and had a lazy afternoon around the house.  I hope she wasn't too bored.  :)

Last night was my nephew, Boden's, birthday party.  What fun!  They had lots of water activities in the backyard, so the boys were all set.  After supper the boys played great indoors, too.  It wasn't quite as exhausting as some of the other social events we've had lately.  :)

 The boys stayed busy for awhile standing on this mini slip'n'slide and getting wet.  Caleb also had fun running down the hill a bunch of times - he gets to the top, makes sure he has an audience, then runs down.

 They played for quite a long time with the hose and cup.

Notice Mike taught Caleb to put his hand over the end of the hose.  :)

guess what!

I FINALLY finished Logan's first year scrapbook!  I don't feel too bad that it's taken so long since I know many people don't get it done at all, so I think getting two done in 19 months is pretty good.  :)

It has been busy, busy, busy over here.  Here are some of the highlights:  Saturday we went to an open house for one of Mike's cousins, and another one of his cousin's brought their puppies.  Of course the boys LOVED them!    We had to keep an eye on Caleb, especially, to make sure he didn't manhandle them too much, but they did pretty well.  I did get some pics on my phone, someday I'll have to get them off of there...  Certainly I enjoyed watching the boys have fun with the puppies, and the idea of snuggling with a little fur ball seems kinda nice, but I was not tempted in the least to take one home.  Now is NOT the time to deal with a new puppy (nothing better happen to either of our dogs for a long time!).

Sunday night the whole Steenwyk family was together!  Some members dragged their feet a bit, but we had a mini photo session.  It ended up being kinda fun (at least I thought so), even though it was quite warm and I had to run into every shot.

Tuesday morning we met my sister, sister-in-law, and kids at the park for some playtime.  It was HOT.  We didn't last very long.  We all went to McDonald's for lunch, and I had fun watching Caleb feed fries to Logan. It was pretty cute.  :)

Tuesday night was dinner out with my parents and sibs!  Often when my sister is in town we try to have an adult night with no kids, but it doesn't always happen.  It was alot of fun despite ending up at a different restaurant than we intended, and I definitely ate too much.

Wednesday morning I had a photo session with my nephew - he did great!  And, I showed my sister and her fam around Mike's work a little bit.  He was too busy to really stop and chat (it's that time of year!), but they got to see him and what he does.

This morning was a playdate with my twin mom's group.  Another hot one.  But it was fun to see some of the girls and their kids!

Mike's packing shed started running on Monday.  There have been some hiccups and he's generally running around like crazy, but I think they're getting into a groove.

The boys have been learning lots of new words, I love it.  Some of my favorites are:  "moon" (I didn't even know they knew this, then one day they're pointing at the sky and saying "moon"); and "bapple" ("apple").  Also, it looks like Logan is going to be our pretender.  A few weeks ago he was playing with an animal cracker at the table, it fell over, and he said, "uh-oh baby".  So cute!  Often with pieces of food or toys he'll play and kind of talk in a funny voice.

Parenting two toddlers is exhausting, but just so much fun, too.  :)

We have frequently been doing these little "yes/no" interviews with Caleb.  He often answers "no" with an occasional "yes" thrown in there.  We try to trick him.

coffee

I don't know what's up with this crop of kids, but it seems that both Caleb and Logan, and the two cousins closest to them in age (a niece on Mike's side and a niece on my side) are all young coffee lovers.  The boys have been curious for awhile - whenever they see a mug they point at it and say "coggee" (we're still working on the "f" sound).  The other day I finally let them try some, and they loved it!  As if my boys really need to add caffeine to their systems for extra energy...

The boys have been able to do some swimming in their pool the last few days.  I generally just let them go skinny dipping - it's easier for me than having to deal with wet swimsuits, and the open air time is good for their buns (wouldn't you want a breather if you wore a diaper 24/7???).  They've become more aware of theirs and each others anatomy lately, so there's alot of pointing and saying "pee pee".

This was kind of cute today - when Logan's looking at a book he will point at a picture and want you to say what it is.  This can go on for quite awhile, and if you don't respond right away he gets quite frustrated.  Today we were looking at a book that had a picture of a bear holding a tub of honey, he was pointing at the honey and I kept telling him it was honey, but he was getting frustrated like I wasn't responding to him - I think it's because I call the boys "Honey", so he didn't think I was telling him what that picture was!

out

I almost forgot!  Climbing out of the pack-n-play must have reignited Caleb's desire to climb out of his crib - this morning when I went to get them up he was stuck sitting on the railing.  He was on the wall side, so his leg was stuck between the crib and wall.  This is one very determined little boy who will find his way out of any sort of containment.

summer

On Friday Mike and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary!  I tried to make the boys watch our wedding video, but they were only slightly interested (they were happy to point out Daddy and Papa).  Mike and I were planning on just taking the boys out to eat with us, but at the last minute we were able to go out with just the two of us.  We dropped Caleb and Logan off at the Schreur's to play - they loved it and didn't want to come home!  They have lots of tractors and fun toys to play with, and the boys like to play with their kids.  Mike and I went to Logan's for supper, walked around World Market for awhile (needed to let dinner settle so we'd have room for dessert, and Mike needed to buy me an anniversary present), and then we went to Coldstone for ice cream.  Yum!

Saturday morning we headed up to Harold and Kara's cottage.  It was super hot and humid, but thankfully kinda cloudy so it wasn't too yucky.  Perfect day to have access to water.  :)  The boys had fun playing in the sand.  They were a little more hesitant about the water this time, but they did have fun floating on a raft and riding on Mike's back.

Naptime that afternoon did not happen - didn't help that Caleb fell asleep in the car on the way up, and he can now climb out of a pack-n-play.  I think Logan would have slept fine if it weren't for Caleb!  Bedtime was also a struggle with Caleb not wanting to stay put.  Once they finally fell asleep they slept good for the night.  We put forth a valiant effort towards naptime on Sunday, but that just wasn't going to happen either.  I was pretty frazzled by this point, desperately needing my kids to take a nap so I could have a break (I know, it's terribly selfish of me, but keeping track of two 19-month-olds at a place like that takes alot of energy!).  After several tries to keep Caleb in his pack-n-play we gave up.  We decided to take the boys on a paddle boat ride and guess what?  Not 5 minutes into it Caleb was completely zonked out, and within another minute Logan was out too.  We took an extra long ride and when we got back Logan woke up, but Caleb was still sleeping so I just sat in the boat with him for a bit because I knew he wouldn't stay awake if I moved him.

We came home on Sunday evening and the boys got a good night's sleep.  Phew!  Monday was a nice relaxing day.  We went to the park, had lunch at the ice cream shop, the boys went swimming here at home, they took great naps, and we picked up our friends' dog that we're watching for a couple weeks (more on that later....).  At the park we ran into the family that was in the hospital at the same time as us - their little boy was born on 11/27, the day Caleb and Logan were 'supposed' to be born.

Okay, our dog drama.  So, this is a dog we've watched several times in the past (Harley).  We know she's a little more aggressive and we have to be careful to not have Sadie and Macy around when she's eating, and not let the boys crawl on her, etc.  We got her over here last night, and completely unprovoked she attacked Macy.  First of all, poor Macy.  She actually peed herself during the attack, and now is afraid to come out of the kennel, even if Harley is locked up.  She has a small cut or two on her ear, but nothing too bad.  Second, poor me and Mike!  Mike was outside with the boys and I was inside folding laundry.  All of the sudden I'm hearing Mike hollering and these awful dog noises.  Of course as I'm running out I'm thinking I'm going to find one of my children being attacked.  Thankfully they didn't even see it.  The dogs were in the garage and the boys were outside not paying attention.  But boy was I rattled.  I couldn't stop shaking for several minutes afterwards!  And now I've got two weeks of keeping our dogs and kids away from Harley.