More pics and vids with Annikah

Here is some more entertainment from Annikah's visit to Iowa. (This is going back several weeks now - as usual I have some catching up to do)






I'm sure the kids are just gonna LOVE all these pictures of them kissing their cousin when they get older. (note: sarcasm)

I love Anni's expression here. I imagine her saying, with a sing-song voice, "You'll never guess what I did!"

Happy May Day

Hola! This site is long overdue for an update, so here goes!

We've finished another busy month here in Iowa. Jorie had 11 jewelry shows in April, so things have been a bit crazy around here. So much for a PART-time job with Premier, but it is a good thing that business is booming, since summer is often a slower time. Fortunately for us, Silas has been getting over his ultra-dramatic stage the last couple weeks. It looks like he just got some huge molars that came in on top, so I think the teething was contributing to his lousy mood and oh-so-frequent tantrums. I've been busy too, with training for a half marathon. I am running the Dam-to-Dam in Des Moines the first Saturday in June. I've been steadily increasing the distance of my runs for the past 2 months or so. This weekend, I'll be running 9 miles!

Here's Joel and Silas playing at the playplace in Iowa City Mall. This is currently the most requested destination around here. Mainly because the Children's museum is there, but they do have lots of other cool stuff like a Carousel, an Ice Rink, and this kids' Play Area.

Cousin Annikah has been visiting us frequently this week, since she is staying with Grandma & Grandpa while Jason & Roxanne are on vacation. A week in the Caribbean with no kids - yes, we are jealous. Watching Annikah and Silas interact is always a blast. Silas loves to give hugs and kisses - Anni puts up with him for a while, but eventually she's like "Enough is enough, man!" We are sad that Anni will soon be moving to Africa for so long, since Jason and Roxanne will be going to the mission field. It is really hard to imagine her growing up through the toddler years and missing out on it. But hopefully we can do some online chats so the kids will still feel like they have a relationship.





Silas has been amusing lately with some cute antics. One thing we discovered is that he really is quite the little thespian. We tell him to do "Poor Silas" and he makes this pitiful face and says "Poor Silas" in a mournful tone, and then he can immediately switch back to laughing hysterically. One night around the dinner table we were all trying to do "Poor Silas" but we were laughing so much none of the rest of us could do it without cracking up. But Silas can throw a switch and go from laughing to pretend-crying and back again very convincingly and it is quite hilarious. He also likes to suddenly shout, "Oh no! A monster!" while he and Joel are playing and then he goes racing around the room waving his hands over his head and laughing like a loon. Pure silliness.

The boys showing off their new shark raincoats
A few weeks ago, the boys got to meet Bob and Larry at the local Christian bookstore. Silas was terrified, as you can see him clutching me in the picture, but Joel was cautiously interested. He said Larry made him nervous though, because he was "even bigger than Daddy".

Hot tubbin' with Grandma Rho

Put that on the blog!

That's what Joel has been telling me over and over lately, so I guess I'd better do it, before all this stuff falls out of my head. In Joel's own words, "Whenever something is funny or cool, you need to put that on the blog." This comes up even with fairly mundane things that I would never include, for fear of boring all 3 of my faithful readers to death. For example, I pointed out one of Joel's baby carrots he was munching on and said, "Look at that one, Joel, now that is a fat baby carrot." He laughed and said, "Fat baby carrot?! You should put that on the blog!"


Joel actually told a pretty funny joke the other night, although I guess it was more of an impression. We were all munching on popsicles for a treat, and Joel and I were joking around about how the popsicles make you feel cold, but being near the fireplace or wearing socks makes you feel hot. (Joel is always taking off his socks and saying, "I was hot") Silas was listening in too, and he piped up and said, "Silas, hot!" We chuckled and then Joel imitated Silas's intonation and said, "Joel, cold!" (Silas refers to himself in 3rd person, typical for a two-year-old, but Joel has long since grown out of that phase) Hey, for a 3-year-old, that is pretty sophisticated humor. I laughed a lot, anyway, and so did the boys.

Here's Silas with his kitty that he now carries almost everywhere. (This was a gift from Great Grandma Leo from a while back) He calls her meow-meow and she goes with him to the gym, the mall, the park, on car rides, etc.


Joel loves knock-knock jokes, but he doesn't understand what makes them funny. He enjoys the ones Jorie and I tell, where the words actually make a new and unexpected phrase, but he also enjoys completely nonsensical ones. Example of a Joel knock-knock joke:
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Candle.
Candle who?
Candle refrigerator! Haha-haha-ha!

My favorite knock knock joke: (I think it's from South Park?)
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting cow.
Interrupting co--
MOOOOOOO! (Trust me, it's hilarious out loud)

A really cute thing I have noticed about Silas is that he is extremely polite. (When he's not having a tantrum, that is) He will say "thank-you" for anything you give him, even if it is intangible, like information or even a diaper change. After a diaper change, he says, "Thank you, Mommy!" And often he'll find me and ask me, "Jo-jo!?" (translation: "Where's Joel?") I'll say, "Joel is in the kitchen." Silas will respond, "Thank-you, Daddy!"

Cedar Rapids held an Easter Egg hunt at the mall and the boys had a blast. This was taken just before the doors opened.

Gotta brag about Joel's genius here for a minute, so please excuse me for going into bragging-Dad mode. The other night, Joel and I were working on puzzles, which is one of Joel's favorite new activities. These are little 35-piece puzzles which we can assemble quickly, so Joel likes to do a few before bedtime most nights. He likes to "race" me where we each work on a puzzle and see who is faster. Even if I work my fastest, he is often about 80% done when I finish. Anyway, the other night, I thought I'd show him how we could make the puzzle a lot harder. I disassembled it and turned over all the pieces, so we could not see the picture. I started explaining to Joel how we could solve it by finding the corners and the edges and figuring out which pieces fit together. While I was talking, I was finding some pieces that fit together. After a minute or so, I had about eight pieces connected, in several clumps, and I looked over at Joel to see what he was doing. I was shocked to see a perfect rectangle of 6 pieces (all middle pieces - no edges) that he had assembled without looking at the pictures. I'm still not sure how he did that.

Some other random quotes:

Joel recently asked this question: "Why don't Grandma and Grandpa have a baby?"

I was asking Silas about his doctor visit, and I asked him if the doctor listened to his tummy with a stethoscope. Joel suddenly piped up, "I'm listening to my tummy with a golden graham!" Sure enough, he was holding a golden graham against his tummy with one finger.

The other night, Jorie was telling Joel about how the shamrock plants (she got one somewhere around St. Patrick's day) close up at night and she said, "They know how to go to sleep." Joel replied, "They go to sleep without any stories?" Awww, poor plants, no bedtime stories for them.

Our family on Easter morning. We enjoyed an excellent brunch at Grandma Rhoda's after the morning church service.

New word for Silas

Silas is talking a lot more these days. Not quite sentences, but 3-4 word combos are not too uncommon for him. Here's a funny little exchange I had with him this morning.

Me: Silas, is that a monkey?

Silas: No, Daddy, chimp!

And the other day he found some black crumbs on the floor in the living room. He picked a few up, brought them to show to Jorie, and said, "Mouse! Mouse poop!" He must have been paying attention when we first moved in. (for those who were not aware, yes, we had a mouse - I captured it in a garbage can and chucked it into the woods)

Meltdown Day

On Sunday we had temps in the 60's, so we had a good time in the afternoon getting out and enjoying the warm weather. The snow and ice was melting into rivers and streams flowing down our street. I chopped away the ice from around our driveway so that the river of melting ice could flow past our house and on into the storm drain. Silas loved splashing in the puddles and throwing leaves into the streams to watch them flow down the street. Joel loved throwing big ice chunks into the street, where'd they break up, and eventually melt.

However, this was NOT why I called this post "Meltdown Day". You see, Silas is taking this "terrible two's" thing quite seriously. We've been seeing this face a lot around here:

So this past Sunday, we headed off to New Covenant for church and as soon as Jorie walked in with Silas, he started screaming. He was completely inconsolable. This is very strange for him, as both he and Joel have always been very good about going and playing in church nursery, or at the gym, or preschool, or anywhere really. We've been blessed to have no real struggles with separation anxiety. But Silas had made up his mind, he was not going in there without a fight. Jorie had an idea - let's try putting him in Joel's class. The teachers were OK with this, so we decided to try it, and at first it seemed to work as Silas was happily playing with the 3-year-olds. But as soon as he looked over his shoulder and got the idea that we were leaving it was back to the screaming. So we didn't know what to do. We couldn't leave him in the nursery screaming (even if we'd wanted to, it was clear from the workers' attitude that it was not an option). So we admitted defeat, had to pull Joel out of his class, and headed home. Such a bummer. But Silas has good days, too, and we know this phase of temper tantrums will pass.

Here are some pics of the boys enjoying the nice weather.

It's snow fun in Iowa!

Hope you enjoyed that terrible pun, I couldn't resist. Just some more pics and vids of the boys enjoying the arctic state of Iowa. That reminds me, there was a day during the week last week when the sun was shining and it felt warm and pleasant. I was driving around town with my sunroof open and it felt so nice. When I got home, I checked the temperature - 20 degrees! I fear my internal thermostat has been irreparably damaged by this Iowa winter. It seriously felt nice and warm to me.

The shoveling discharge piles (well, what do YOU call 'em?) at the ends of our driveway have gotten so huge, we were able to make a mini sled run out of it.



I also had fun building this:



These next pictures are from this past Friday. See, told you I'd catch up!



Since the snow was packing better now, we decided to build a more respectable snowman. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate an eye and the hat, so we ended up with this.

Back in Grayslake

OK, so I'm falling behind in my blogging a bit, as what I'm about to post happened 3 weeks ago, but I promise I'll try to catch up. The weekend after Silas's birthday, we went back to Grayslake to visit our friends and the boys' friends too. James and Amy Tanner were very gracious hosts, letting us crash at their place and even letting Joel and Silas use Elizabeth's room. We even ended up staying a day longer than planned as Iowa got hit with a huge snow/ice storm and I-80 and I-380 were basically shut down on Sunday.

Here's Elizabeth, Joel, and Silas having fun building with KAPLA blocks. Check out Joel's outfit - Pajamas, tennis shoes, and a burger king crown. You gotta love it. Don't you wish you could still dress this way and get away with it?

Silas is hangin' with the ladies here, Elizabeth and Ella.

Jorie went to visit our friend Alissa, who had just given birth to identical twin girls. Silas loved the babies and he couldn't resist trying out the bouncer and sticking both fingers up his nose. Lovely pose, Silas!

We couldn't resist driving by the old homestead a few times while in town, but safe to say, we are very happy to be in our new Iowa home.





On the way home from our trip, Monday night, we were amazed to see how many cars were in the ditches and in the median along the highways in Iowa. We started trying to count, but quickly lost track when we started passing 10+ car pileups. It was seriously insane. We'd pass a slick spot and then a little hill and then we'd see a spot on the side of the road where tons of cars had gone off and just slammed into one another over and over. I'm very glad we made the decision to stay in Grayslake Sunday night.

As it turned out, we didn't make it all the way home Monday either. The roads were getting a little icy and Silas woke up near the I-80 truckstop and did NOT want to go back in his car seat. So our choices were either strap him in and try to drive through the icy conditions at midnight with a screaming 2-year-old, or we could stay in a hotel. Being of the masculine persuasion, of course I wanted to press on at first, but eventually I consented and decided it was worth it to leave in the morning. And HOLY COW the roads were still really bad on I-380 (between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids) so it's a good thing we waited. The ice was so thick and bumpy on the highway, we had to slow down to 20 mph for long stretches. That would have been tougher to do safely at night and with no other traffic on the roads. But in the morning, it was no problem. And there were STILL cars going off the road, even that Tuesday morning we saw people getting stuck in the median. But we made it, safe and sound! Hopefully spring will come soon, as I have had it with snow and ice and shoveling and cold and BLEH!