4 months old!

Elsa and her buddy, Georgette.
Her friend Bennet borrowed
us his monkey, because I
accidentally packed ours away!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Hard to believe it's been 4 months already - our little peanut is getting so big!  She has finally started to fit better in the bumbo chair, and has recently started grabbing and hanging on to toys.  She loves the toy in the picture below. Thankfully Nolan and Kale took good care of it!  She is eating 5 oz. and still spits up, but we know she's gaining weight based on our recent dr. visits!  Kale still loves her like crazy and has recently started calling her honey, and Nolan could pretty much take her or leave her.  At least he says good morning and good night to her!

She has finally developed a little fat roll on her arm,
as well as dimples in her elbows. You can see
the roll on her leg, too!

She loves banging all all the buttons that make noise

Kale and his "honey" and "cutie"

Progress

Well, we did it.  We successfully moved about 75% of our belongings to Adam's parents 3rd stall garage space.  We are so thankful for the extra storage space - our house actually looks big again!  We moved 8 large boxes and storage bins of toys, in addition to the train table, basketball hoop and other miscellaneous large toys.  It will be nice for the boys to actually have a smaller selection of toys to pick from - and to clean up!  I drove them up to St. Cloud on Friday after work, and we just got home from picking them up.  They were pretty surprised to see the house as empty as it is!  It's weird, because there is definitely an echo to every room.  The photographer is coming to take pictures tomorrow, in hopes that it will be on the market early this week.  Wish us luck!

Double ear infection

Elsa had a super fussy weekend, which has led to a lot of sleepless nights for us this week.  It was to the point that she has been crying uncontrollably for 1/2 hour periods of time, and we can't get her to calm down. It finally clicked today when Jane called and noticed that she was pretty fussy and crying a lot when she was laying down.  I made an appointment for her this afternoon and sure enough, her first ear infection didn't clear up and now she has a double ear infection!  I knew it was bad when our NP said her right ear was bulging.  We have a brand new prescription of augmentin in hopes this will take care of it.  The good news is that she has gotten that much closer to breaking the 11 lb mark - 10 lbs, 14 oz!

She did manage to crack a few smiles this weekend!

I want to see you move...

Well, it's official - we're moving south!  I accepted a new job a few weeks ago as the Asst. Director of HR for compensation, benefits and payroll at MN State University, Mankato.  I am very excited for the new challenges this job will offer, but we have a lot of stuff to do on our current homefront.  We told the boys our exciting news last night - and were pleasantly surprised by their reaction.  As soon as Kale heard "Mankato", his first words were - "that's where Yoya (Lola) lives!"  Nolan immediately started talking about all the new friends he'll make and the new school he gets to go to. We didn't tell them until we had a chance to tell Jane.  We thought it would be helpful if she could talk to them about it, too. It was so sweet this morning when I dropped the kids off at Jane's house.  Kale looked at her and said, "I'm going to miss you so much, Jane".  I told her we are all going to miss Jane a lot.  I know we will never replace her - she is one of a kind!

We have a lot of stuff to start working on in the meantime - like starting to pack and clean out our house so it can be put on the market!  I've been a bit overwhelmed just thinking about it, so I haven't done a whole lot yet. Luckily I have a pretty fantastic husband who is also excited about the move and has already been working on some of the not so fun tasks - like cleaning out the laundry room and storage room!  We made the decision earlier this week to send the kids to my parent's house for the weekend, so we can focus on cleaning and packing.  We're going to have to stay focused, especially since we're both running in the Get Lucky 7K race in Minneapolis Saturday morning!

Bowling

The kids had a great time at the daycare bowling party today.  It was Nolan and Kale's first time, and they both really liked it.  Shock of all shocks, though - Nolan had a lot more patience than Kale!

It's Tricky

Movie makers have totally figured out how to get kids to listen to music.  The boys always equate a song to the title of the movie it's in - for example, the Turbo song is It's Tricky by Run-DMC.  Today on the way home from daycare Kale requested the Turbo song.  It was amazing to listen to him sing "It's Tricky", and tell me his favorite part is "I met a little girlie". At least he has good taste in music!

Santa and Jesus

This morning on the way to daycare the boys were discussing how fun it was that Elsa was talking.  I asked Kale what he thought Elsa was talking about and he said "I think she's talking about you, mommy".  I asked Nolan the same thing and he said, "I'm pretty sure she's talking about Santa and Jesus".

Activity mat fun

Elsa is becoming so much fun.  Today for the first time she grabbed at a toy and held on to it.  I love watching her eyes get big when she figures something out!  Jane said she is doing the same thing there, and has really gotten the hang at swatting at the toys on her activity mat!

Scribbles

I've really come to appreciate the scribble cards that are available to kids at church.  Nolan has really started honing in on his artistic and writing abilities - all in the 15 minutes before they go up for the children's message and head off to Sunday school!