The Dill Boy Singers

Here is Joel singing his current favorite song, "Only a Boy Named David" including enthusiastic choreography.



Joel and Silas sing Happy Birthday to Mommy



We like to ask the boys questions about their little brother-or-sister who is on the way because their responses are always comedy gold. So far, Silas usually thinks the baby will be a boy, and Joel usually says girl, but neither of them is very consistent. We asked them to pick out names and they decided it's either going to be Batman or Annikah. Batman, of course, only makes sense if it's a boy.

Today Jorie was flipping through some U.S. state flash cards with Joel and she said, "Look, Joel, here's Iowa. And here's Illinois!" Joel replied, "Oh, let me know if you find Zanzibar."

Joel quotes are back

Joel says hilarious things every day. Unfortunately, I am still not great at writing them down so they can make it to the blog. But here are a few I do remember.

Joel noticed that we were almost to the end of the 2008 calendar. He asked, "When we get to the end of the calendar, is that the end? Will we all go up to heaven then?" This idea really didn't seem to bother him at all, he was just honestly curious.

He must have been thinking about heaven a lot that day because he also asked, "Will there still be birthdays in heaven?" Interesting question, Joel!

I walked into Joel's room and he was busy stacking pillows up on his lower bunk bed. He said to me, "Daddy! Let me show you what I'm doing with these pillows, but it's not very safe!" (He was lowering himself down from the top bunk to the bottom bunk without the ladder -- it just cracked me up how he declared his own plan was "not very safe")

Ear tubes, take two

As most of you know, Silas had ear tubes put in when he was just over a year old, because he had been so susceptible to ear infections as a baby. He's been sick a few times over the past couple months, and during a recent doctor visit, the doctor asked, "Did he get ear tubes put in both ears?" We assured him that he did. He replied, "Well, I only see one in one of his ears, so it looks like one of them has fallen out. I've never seen a permanent tube fall out before!" He also mentioned that it looked like the other one was no longer working properly, as there was quite a bit of fluid buildup. So we scheduled Silas for another surgery.

One week before his scheduled surgery, Silas came down with his second ear infection, after only being off the antibiotics for a week and a half, so we knew he desperately needed the surgery. Then after being on the second round of antibiotics for a couple days, his fever spiked and he had a seizure. (This happened once before, last summer) We were freaking out of course, and we called 911 and the paramedics came and checked him out. After talking to our doctor, he decided Silas was in no immediate danger and he would check him out during our regularly scheduled appointment the next evening. This time, the doctor said the ear infection was gone, but Silas must have picked up a virus for his fever to spike up so quickly like that. (he also explained that the seizures are not necessarily caused by high fever, but rather by a rapid change in body temperature) So the poor kid had gotten some kind of virus on top of his already troublesome ear infection. But as long as he was juiced up with Ibuprofen and Tylenol, he was still our happy little guy! He really has had a pretty good attitude about this whole thing, for the most part.

This past Monday, he went in to get the new ear tubes put in. He did an awesome job. The nurses said he would probably be really cranky and crying after he woke up from the surgery. Here he is, doesn't he look miserable?

We were very impressed by Mercy hospital here in Cedar. Back in the Chicago burbs, this was a 4+ hour ordeal. Here they were amazingly organized. We got there at 6:30am, filled out the paperwork, then at 7:00 they prepped him, did the procedure around 7:30, and he was his happy and awake self by 7:45. We walked out of the hospital around 8:15. You gotta love Iowa efficiency!

Lots of Winter Fun

Joel and Silas get to help make special treats when they visit Grandma's. Yummy!

Hanging out at Great Grandma Leo's for Thanksgiving - lots of fun was had by all! (and lots of food was eaten by all too)

Joel and Silas had a blast playing in Great Grandma's big backyard.

Sure they're cute, but they are two wild and crazy guys too! The big activity at the Leo's was dropping stuffed animals down the laundry chute into the basement. This provided hours of entertainment.

Back at the hotel on Thanksgiving evening, we enjoyed a dip in the heated pool. I got a free night's stay since I had spent a week there on business. Thanks, Hewitt!

We stayed at Uncle John's and Aunt Ruth's house (Jorie's Mom's Sister) on Friday night and the boys loved Uncle John's totally restored classic Service Master truck.

We got to spend some time with Great Grandpa Lower at his home in Windsor Park Manor too.

We had a lot of snow a couple weeks ago (it's all melted now, but supposed to get 6 inches tomorrow!). Joel is ready to do battle with a shovel full of snow!

Silas isn't quite as into the cold and snow as Joel is, but he does love to eat it.

This kid needs to have his own line of Christmas cards, don't you think?

Silas is still a little ham, and he loves decorating. The boys have a 4-foot tree in their room too, and they put all their favorite ornaments ("all the fun ones" Joel says) on their upstairs tree.



Welcome to the world, beautiful baby Claire! This is our tiny new niece, who you probably know all about from reading Annie's blog, Shoeprint. She updates much more faithfully than I have been lately, so I hope if you have gotten bored waiting for my updates you have followed along with her blog, and of course Roxanne's, and our latest addition to the blogger family, Rho's Garden. Please click on Claire's blog if you want to read all about this tiny miracle. She decided to come five weeks early but she is healthy and growing and we are so glad she's here!

Here is a proud new Mama.

We celebrated Jorie's birthday last week! Grandma and Grandpa came over to watch the kids for a while so Jorie and I could go out, so we had an awesome dinner at Vito's, then came back home for cake, ice cream, and presents. Happy birthday Jorie!

And in case you haven't heard the news, yes, the rumors are true. Baby Dill #3 is on the way, due July 5th. We are trying to think pink, but we are still pretty much expecting another boy. Of course, as long as it is either one of those, we will be thrilled. ;-) After much debate on the issue, we have decided NOT to find out what we are having so we'll all have to wait until July to find out if this site's name will still work or if I'll have to update it to something like "dillboysandalittlelady.blogspot.com". Nah, this site will always be Dill boys. Jorie can start her own blog if she wants something girly. :-)

Fall pictures

Yeah it's been a long time! It has been tough to make time for the blog lately. Work has been crazy. But I have bunches of pictures to share, so here we go.

The boys were very excited to go on a convertible ride with Vicki.









Kylie found a snake in our yard



The next few pics are from the day we went to see Playhouse Disney Live.








Joel loved carving up the pumpkin




Here's Buzz Lightyear and Woody



This is what Silas misses the most about Chicago - no Dunkin Donuts in Cedar!




I just loved this Chewbacca costume on Cole Halverson

Fill in the Blank Park Zoo

We journeyed to Des Moines on Labor Day weekend in order to take the kids to the zoo. The zoo in Des Moines is called "Blank Park Zoo" so we were amused enough by that name to come up with silly puns like the one above.

This turned out to be a really great zoo and the kids had a great time. Also, the weather could not have been more perfect. Mid-70's and sunny. For those of you familiar with Chicago-area zoos, this was closer in size to Lincoln Park than Brookfield. But they had some really great hands-on exhibits for kids, including a large petting zoo where you could pet the animals and feed the psycho Koi fish.

It was a little intimidating trying to pet this guy

The llama was a little more manageable

It's the eldest Billy Goat Gruff! (currently a favorite bedtime story)

Wow that is one hot mama!

The Psycho Fish!


They also had an australian outback area where the animals just roamed free all around you. There were wallaby's and Emu's that would come right up to us. I was tempted to try to ride the Emu, but Joel said he didn't think that was a very good idea.

Here's a wallaby

Here's the emu. See? I think I could have ridden that thing.

Can you spot the tortoises in this picture?

Here's what he looked like up close. I wonder if he can actually lift that shell off the ground. That would be pretty impressive. All they did was lay there while we were watching.

Silas reports that his favorite animal was the tiger (must be because of his sleeping situation) and Joel says his favorite were the jellyfish. All of us loved the aquarium area, as they had some incredibly unique sea creatures in there.

Joel loved the elephant misting machine. He got totally soaked.

This wobbly bridge in the tropical area was a big hit with Joel too.

Joel's jellyfish - I made the mistake of mentioning they had jellyfish when we first entered the zoo and all day Joel kept asking, "Can we go see the jellyfish now PLEASE?" Finally we made it.