A play date at the mall!

Sonya loves to play with her friend, Jonathan. They play so nicely together too!

Riding a duck

Holding hands on the way out

They kept getting distracted

I love the play area at the Sheboygan mall. It was always one of my favorite places to take Caleb when he was smaller and we lived in Sheboygan.

Sleeping Beauty

Sonya didn't want to sleep in her bed during nap time so she found an alternative place to lie down. Can you see her?

Yup -- That's Sonya in her in the doll sized pack'n'play. I bet you didn't think a two year old could fit in one of those! She actually took her whole nap in that thing. What a silly girl -- she makes me smile!

Getting all dressed up!

As promised in my previous post -- Here are some photos of Sonya while trying on dresses at the store and then at home. She's going to make a cute little flower girl! There's also a few of Caleb in his spiffy outfit for the wedding. He's such a handsome little guy!

This polka dot dress was absolutely adorable on Sonya -- She was twirling all around and loved it!

Checking herself out in the mirrors of the dressing room

Attempting to sit still for the photo

This sailor girl dress was really cute, but not exactly wedding material. I still wanted to try it on her.

Blinded by the flash... oops!

Admiring herself -- and probably singing :-)

Ok mom -- It's time to get this one off of me

(This was taken about a week later) -- Love this dress!

When we got home, I had to have Caleb try on his outfit to make sure it fit. The pants are a little baggy because he's so tiny, but it still looked good. Gotta love the blue shirt with the pin striped pants and vest. :-)

Standing in the hallway to pose

Being a goof in mom's room while posing by the wall

A visit to Silver Lake College

We haven't been able to make it to any Bob's concerts. (Michelle's brother). He's going to college at Silver Lake in Manitowoc, just north of Sheboygan. So we decided to take a trip there to go see him and just hang out for a few hours. He gave us a tour of campus and we enjoyed some ping-pong in the lounge. I've really missed playing that game! The feel of the paddle in my hand was wonderful!

Tim is getting ready to serve

Sonya is learning how to play ping-pong!

Action shot

Uncle Bob with Sonya

Uncle Bob and the kids

Caleb and Sonya -- I can't believe how tall Sonya is getting!

The church at Silver Lake College

After our tour, we were all hungry so we took my brother out to eat. Food is good!

Loading up in the car so we can get some food at Friar Tuck's

Once we were all full, we dropped Bob back off at the Silver Lake campus and headed to Kohl's. I had been in search of a cute dress for Sonya to wear as the flower girl in my brother-in-law's wedding. So we had a bit of a fashion show in the changing area. See the next post for pictures!

A day of SNOW!

What do you do when the snow is perfectly fluffy and beautiful as it clings to tree branches?

You take photos!

Our view from the front window (our neighbor's house)

The tree in our backyard

Beautiful snow

 You make snow forts!

If you look closely, you can tell that it's a snow fort

And you play in it!

Sonya wasn't too happy out in the snow

Daddy playing with the kids after he got home from work

We had some good snowball fights. If you look at the tree fort in the background, you can see that it got nailed with a few snowballs. haha. We also built a friendly snowman -- with a pine cone nose, two stones for eyes, and a mouth made out of a twig. He also has one really long arm while the other is just a little branch. It was fun to make though. I LOVE being a kid when it snows outside.

Posing with the snowman

Mommy and the kids and Mr. Snowman

Another one of us -- we're all looking this time

Daddy and Sonya

Eating snow -- not recommended... lol

Mommy and Sonya with a silly Caleb in the background

My favorite -- Smiling mommy and Sonya

Mommy and the kids again

Peter Pan and Pixie Dust

This morning, Papa Nikolai stopped by on his way back home in southern Illinois. He brought with him a special gift from Great Grandpa Wagner -- an easel that made himself. Caleb absolutely LOVES it! Papa Wayne (as the kids call him) is such an amazing artist with wood. He had made Sonya a doll cradle for Christmas and hadn't quite finished the easel for Caleb yet, but it was well worth the wait.

Papa Nikolai as he finishes assembling the easel

What's he writing?

Merry Christmas Caleb! (a belated Christmas/early birthday gift)

Caleb wrote: "Thank you Papa Wayne!" -- love his face! lol

Papa Nikolai gets a BIG hug from Sonya

After Papa Nikolai left, we spent most of the day at Jumping Country. Caleb's friend from school was going to be there so his mom invited us to join them. We had never gone before, but it was a lot of fun. We took advantage of the wristbands and came back after lunch and naps so the kids could jump again.

I was pretty exhausted after jumping and helping Sonya all morning at Jumping Country so the girls napped while Caleb watched Veggies Tales. When I woke up, I heard a noise downstairs and thought that Caleb had turned on the TV and was watching more than the movie I had allowed. I glanced over at the dry erase board on his new easel and saw a bunch of words that I didn't recognize right away. Then came a soft voice singing the books of the Bible -- just the New Testament ones that we had to memorize for AWANA. I looked over at the dry erase board again and sure enough, Caleb had written all the names of the books in the New Testament in order on the board. I loved the creativity that he took with the spelling :-) I tried to stay low so that Caleb wouldn't see me because he doesn't always like an audience and as I had thought, he stopped the second he saw me. He is such the sweetest little boy and I couldn't trade him for the world.

Tim stopped by Jumping Country after work so that was kind of nice. The parents got in free anyways so he was able to help with Sonya and give me a break. After dinner, we played Memory at the kitchen table. I was giving everyone nicknames based on the images they flipped over -- one of them ended in Banana man, but I can't remember what the first image was. There was definitely a lot of laughter.

Climbing through the hole

Playing with the balls

Shooting hoops with Gracie

Caleb with his friend from school, Gabe

Going down the slide with daddy

There's Sonya and Mommy!

Love these smiles!! - Caleb, Sonya, and Gabe

Helping Sonya up the slide -- Gotta laugh at Tim's face ... haha!

VIDEO: Tim helping Sonya with one of the jumps

The kids got their jammies on and then we all cuddled up on the couch to read "Peter Pan." Caleb was dubbed Peter, Tim was Captain Hook (and he took on the voices of the Lost Boys), I (Michelle) was Wendy, and Sonya was Tinkerbell. We definitely enjoyed the story. It brought back so many memories of being young. We even did a little finger sword fight when Captain Hook's men were fighting with Peter's. So fun! We should do stuff like that more often.

Here's to the end of a wonderful day.

AWANA Grand Prix!

This year, Tim decided to buy Caleb a derby car to put together for the AWANA Grand Prix. I don't think either of us realized all of the tools that would be necessary to construct his car. So we asked my dad to help Caleb with it while we were gone for a day. They were able to carve out the shape they wanted and even started sanding. Caleb was so excited to show it off and show me all the different grades of sandpaper he had to use on his car. So we brought it home to finish sanding and to paint. Our little racer decided on bright orange and mommy helped put some cool eyes on.

The finished car

Car #100 (He put heart stickers on for the zeroes... haha)

The track

Caleb's group, the Sparks, got to go first. Mr. Karrels was doing little interviews of the kids while other AWANA leaders were lining up the cars on the track. He asked Caleb if he had any help putting his car together and his response was, "yes." Some of the kids were asked if they had helped at all or if their dad or someone else did all of the work. Oh the honesty of young kids. haha!

Sparks get to go first!

Mini interviews with Dave aka Mr. Karrels

 VIDEO: Caleb's orange car racing

(From our view, it's in the far left lane)

The scoreboard -- Caleb kept coming in 3rd for his heats

Heat #3 -- Can you see his bright, orange car?

I totally missed getting the cars in the picture

In the end, we're not sure what place Caleb took. There were probably 14 cars in his division and after the 3rd heat, he was in 5th so his little car did pretty well -- better than we had thought it might do! Good job, Caleb!

Not the most enthusiastic photo -- lol -- but he got a participation ribbon