A day in the life of Toddler Grover and Baby Ernie!

Iowa Men and Women's Gymnastics

2012-01-21T18:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight we went to the Hawkeye Men and Women's Gymnastics meet. Bella was really excited because she is really into gymnastics and it actually held her interest once we were there for a lot longer than we would have expected. Having Herky there and popcorn helped too.

Both girls were very excited when they saw Herky and were waving at him from a far. I thought Evelyn would actually go up to him this time because she was waving with such a big smile on her face, but one he got close she would scream. He tried to get close a few times because when he would move back a little she would smile and wave, but nope, she almost gave him a high five but that was it. Bella had no hesitation and ran up and gave him a big hug.

Evie waving to Herky

Bella was really excited to see them do the rings during gymnastics. I was really hoping it wasn't going to be the last event because she kept asking when they would do the rings. Luckily, we didn't have to wait long. Bella also seemed most impressed when anyone did a handstand, probably because that is the only thing she knew the name of. (there weren't too many somersaults going on, but if she'd seen one I'm sure she'd have been excited about that as well).

Watching vault and eating popcorn

Isabella, the gymnast

2012-01-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

Bella started gymnastics this week and she absolutely loved it. For the last couple months, she's been doing some crazy moves or jumping up and down and saying "Is this gymnastics?" We thought after the new year it would be a good idea to get her enrolled in something.

Her first night there were only two other kids in her class. She was shy at first, but with some coaxing off she went and she never looked back. We could only view her through windows, but we saw her following directions very well, like running through a routine while the teacher individually helped other students. We saw her (attempt) swinging around a bar, doing handstands, doing backbends over a barrel, jumping on a trampoline and I even saw her trying to do somersaults on a balance beam.

Evie was even a champ hanging out in the waiting room. We all went to the first night because we didn't know what to expect. Every once in a while she would just say Bella? Bella? and if she actually saw her through the window she would scream Bella! Bella! and jump up and down and point at her. It was quite a bit more energy that anyone else in the waiting room had(everyone was just reading or playing on their phones).

Bella will go once a week on Mondays until we decide to take a break. She's already very excited about next week.

Isabella, the swimmer

2011-11-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

Isabella had her first swimming lessons in Oct. She went twice a week for 3 weeks. It is always hard to determine if she will enjoy doing something like that, but she ended up having an absolute blast. My biggest worry was that she wouldn't want to get into the water without Jeff or me. The first night, as they were walking into the water, she said "Mommy, mommy", but one of the lifeguards gave her a diving ring and asked her to take it into the water and from then on she was totally fine.

We began to realize how much she has changed recently. She was so talkative to her instructors, she was the first one to shout out answers to any questions. When they were making pretend soup she was always calling out ingredients to add. "Corn!" "Crackers!" "M&Ms". She also was looking for a lot of attention always telling the teachers to "Look at me!".

I could tell she didn't really understand the difference between blowing bubbles and putting your head under water. She was constantly dunking her head under water. When they'd get out the noodles to swim with she'd start swimming away and have to tell her to come back closer to the rest of the group. When they played with the diving rings and it was her turn, she always just stuck her foot out under water to catch the ring and get it that way - which wasn't the point, but it was so funny!

We are so happy she loved swimming lessons. The next level they said she was ready for was Level 1 which she has to be 5 years old to be in, so I don't know if we will enroll her in the same swim lessons until then, or maybe I'll just make more of an effort to take her swimming at the indoor pool every once in a while.

Butternut Squash Retraction - we have a taker!

2011-10-11T08:15:00.001-07:00

The butternut squash has become an interesting food item over the years. Bella has never cared for it, although she states that she likes it with lots of ketchup (although she gagged last time she had it that way). I also find the butternut squash to be a vile food while Robin enjoys it. Evelyn has never tried it, at least until Oct 7th. Robin was eating the squash when Evie motioned that she wanted it. Being the wonderful father I am I had to grab the camera before she could take a bite which did not please her very much. Here is the video of Evie's first bite and subsequent bites of butternut squash.

It appears we have a divided house on the butternut squash, it pleases Robin to have someone else that enjoys the squash. I would imagine our supplier is probably also pleased.

Evelyn's 18 month appointment

2011-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Evelyn had her 18 month appointment last Tuesday. She had to get 4 shots which she was not particularly happy about, but was able to get to be her usual happy self by the time we got to checkout. Here are her stats:
Height: 33.5 inches tall (93%)
Weight: 23.5 lbs. (35%)
Head: 18" (45%)

To sum it up she is tall and thin with a roughly average sized head.

Butternut Squash 2011

2011-09-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

Each year Grandpa Groves brings us butternut squash from his garden and the girls are less than impressed.

This year Isabella eventually agreed to try it, if it was dipped in ketchup first. Jeff took a teeny tiny bit and here is the result

I don't think Evelyn has ever actually tried it, she just shakes her head 'no'.

Another video on a different day, trying with Evelyn

Another day, Isabella refusing

And of course, a post about butternut squash could not be complete with the videos from previous years

Who do your kids look like?

2011-09-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

I remember getting a lot of questions about whether Bella and Evie look more like me or Robin when they were babies. We have always said that they do look more like me than Robin. Months ago a picture was unearthed that proves that Bella definitely looks more like a Kellbach than a Groves. The weird thing is that Bella is a dead ringer of Grandma Linda when she was young. If you don't believe me just see the pictures below. When we first showed the picture below to Bella we asked her who that was a picture of and she replied "It's a picture of me."

Below is a picture of Grandma Linda

Below is a picture of Bella (for comparison purposes only)

We have a board book called "A Picnic With Monet" that we read with Bella. We read it a few days after convincing her the original rocking horse picture was Grandma and not herself. She saw the picture below in the book and exclaimed "Look there's Grandma."

Adventureland

2011-08-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we decided to go to Adventureland for the day. Bella got to ride on several rides but is a couple inches short of being able to do a couple of the roller coasters. Next year she will be able to ride most of the rides. We did all do the log ride together which I believe Bella enjoyed and Evie was not sure about (check out her face and her arm grabbing onto my leg in the photo).

Below is a video of Bella riding on one of the kids rides called the frog hopper.

We got both girls to nap at the same time which was awesome!

Robin is actually really nervous here that Evelyn is going to jump out of her arms!

Isabella, the soccer player!

2011-07-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

Isabella has been playing soccer on Thursday nights. She is getting better each week. The first night she basically wouldn't leave my side. The second night, she wasn't much better. The 3rd time, we told her we'd go out for ice cream afterwards if she just ran on the field by herself. That really motivated her and now she's doing much better and actually seems to enjoy it. She rarely kicks the ball during the game, she just kind of runs around after everyone else. When she actually does kick the ball you can just tell how excited she is. She has really improved and we have really enjoyed our soccer nights.

Can't believe it was actually cold the first night

Next photo shows how Isabella likes to stand behind the crowd

This is a later week where she has actually warmed up a bit to being on the field. She's not usually that far behind the others...

Getting a little more into the action, but notice she's not really paying much attention to the ball

Seeing a lot more of these proud smiles now!

And a video of her at practice the last week

Evelyn eating with a spoon

2011-06-24T19:42:00.001-07:00

After she kept trying to grab my spoon, I figured maybe it was time to let her try by herself. She loved eating her applesauce with a spoon herself, but really, not too much actually made it into her mouth.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

The girls and I worked on Father's Day cards for Jeff on Sunday morning. At Isabella's recent daycare conference I learned she was able to draw people now, so I asked her to draw a picture of her daddy. I thought the result was pretty cute.

This is actually Daddy and Mommy

The girls making their cards

I took a video of Bella making hers. Sorry about the bad camera skills, I'm focusing so much on what Bella is drawing you hardly see her face and then I never even pan over to Evie who is so cute sitting next to her at the table.

Next, the girls and I went to Hardee's to pick up some breakfast for Jeff. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but Jeff is way better at making homemade breakfast food than I am and I know he likes Hardees breakfast (thought about Brueggers, but Hardees has a drive-thru, so that kind of made my decision). Bella, true to form, decided to help Daddy eat a large majority of his breakfast.

We did some normal Sunday stuff like running errands and then after lunch and nap we got out the slip and slide (picked one up at a garage sale) and our kiddie pool. The neighbor girls came over and everyone had a good time.

So, I kind of forgot that slip and slides are a little dangerous

Evie was a great spectator

On to the pool

Hey Bella, I think you have a little something on your face...

For the rest of the day we cleaned up and took Jeff out to Olive Garden for dinner. The girls were very well-behaved and we had a nice dinner. Next, we stopped in at Coldstone for some icecream to go. Cake batter and only all cookie dough for the mix-in. Even the worker at Coldstone said that was going to turn out very good and it was!

Baseball Game

2011-06-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Bella and I went to a Cedar Rapids Kernels game with my friend Jeff and his son Aiden last Saturday night while Robin and Evie stayed home. It was P&G night at the ballpark so Jeff got free tickets and invited Bella and I out with them. I hadn't been out to a game for a couple of years so it was fun to attend and see some live baseball (sort of). We had some great seats, we were in the second row right behind the visitors dugout. Bella and Aiden sat in their seats and ate some popcorn but were not very interested in the game. We got up with them a few times as food was the only thing that kept them occupied while sitting in our seats. Bella said she wanted a sandwich and we ended up getting a kids hot dog which appears to be a normal size hot dog (just cheaper). Below are a couple of pictures of us in our seats and Bella eating her hot dog.

After about 4 innings of trying to sit at our seats with intermittent breaks we decided to take the kids over to the inflatable bounce house, slide, and obstacle course. The kids did not care much for the bounce house and spent virtually all of their time going through the obstacle course together. Aiden was much better at climbing in the course but would always wait to see if he could help Bella. Here are a few pictures of Bella and Aiden having fun.

We did go back to our seats after missing about 3 innings with the promise we would go back and play which we did less than an inning later. We were then able to go back to our seats and see the last half inning of the ball game where the Kernels lost 8-7. There were fireworks after the game and I thought that it was a good fireworks show but Bella wasn't as impressed. Bella thought they were too loud and didn't seem to care about the way they looked. We took this picture below after the fireworks and after changing into pajamas in the men's room.

We got home around 11:30PM and Bella fell asleep on the way home. It ended up being quite the late evening as Bella vomited all over her bed shortly after midnight. It was a lot of vomit and was quite disgusting (I got to see small pieces of hot dog). As I was taking off her sheets I was trying not to throw up as the stench was so horrible that I could smell it well after being away from her room and her sheets. Bella sat on Robin's lap watching me as I changed the sheets and she vomited again on Robin, this was even more disgusting and if it would have been me that she had puked on it would have almost certainly started a puke-o-rama between me and her. Robin stayed in bed with her where she threw up two more times. I am not sure if we had a bug go through the house as Evie threw up overnight the Tuesday before and I threw up this last Wednesday overnight. Thus far Robin has avoided the plague but if the schedule holds up tonight is her night.

Evelyn's Ear Tube Surgery

2011-06-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

I started this post on April 10th and realized I never added pictures and posted it.

Evelyn had her ear tube surgery the Wednesday (April 6th) after her Birthday. Her surgery was scheduled at 8:10am and we had to get there at 7am. Jeff and I both took the day off and we brought Bella with us. Evie was a trooper, she wasn't allowed to eat anything before the surgery and they were running behind, so it wasn't until about 9:10 that she went in for surgery. The surgery went well and we got out of there and ate what ended up to be lunch at IHOP. Bella went into daycare while we stayed home with Evie for the afternoon.
Prior to surgery
Prior to surgery
Bella and Mom watching Sesame Street while Evie is in surgery

Aunt Jillian's wedding

2011-06-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Last week we drove to Ohio for Aunt Jillian's wedding. We left early on Wednesday and ended up making it to Ohio around 12:30AM Central Time. We were able to stop in Indiana to visit Robin's family for dinner and to let the kids play for awhile.

Great Grandma Groves with Bella and Evie

Robin, Great Grandma Groves, Aunt Anne, Evie and Bella

We left after dinner close to the girls bedtime so we could drive the rest of the way. It was nice to be able to drive for an extended period of time with no crying. On Thursday night we went out to the wedding site for the rehearsal. We were able to do some extra practice with Bella after the rehearsal in preparation for her role as the flower girl.

Wedding rehearsal

Afterwards we went out to eat at Jill and Joe's favorite mexican restaurant where the food was really good. It was nice meeting Joe's family and their friends. Thursday was Robin's Birthday and we sang Happy Birthday to her and she got a fudge brownie with ice cream. That may be the most people that have sung Happy Birthday where they found out the person's name about 5 seconds before singing it. On Friday we made it out to the park to play and had a barbecue that night at my parents house with Aunt Lou, Uncle Bill and John and Kristy.

We had cheesecake to celebrate Aunt Lou's Birthday.

When I put Bella to bed on Friday night I told her the wedding would be tomorrow and she said she didn't want to go. I was a little worried with how she would react the next day for the wedding. On Saturday Bella seemed ready to go to and be a part of the wedding. We had a chance to let Bella practice walking down the aisle before the wedding and it was the first time I thought she might actually pull off her duty without anyone's help. Robin got some bribe candy and gave a lollipop to my cousin Maggie who was a bridesmaid to give Bella after she walked down and stood next to her. You can see Bella holding the lollipop. Bella did a good job of waiting for Grandpa to come get her, I had fears that Bella would go to Grandpa as he was passing Jillian to Joe.

The wedding went great and Bella did an outstanding job. She did so well that after the wedding she was offered a repeat role in my cousin Jamie's wedding in August. Below are pics of Grandpa welcoming everyone, me with the girls, and Robin with Evie.

After dinner Bella was a dancing machine she danced until 11:30PM. Evie on the other hand fell asleep on me in her carrier. Below is Bella eating cake and a little while later reacting to Mom and Dad not dancing with her. Bella kept dancing after getting her pajamas on. It was a great wedding and I had fun seeing family.

Evelyn's First Birthday!

2011-05-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

Finally posting about Evelyn's 4/3 1 year birthday!

Evie is now a one year old!

We celebrated by having a little get together for her on 4/2. Some friends came over for pizza and cake. She opened presents and had a great time.

We got her cake from a lady in Cedar Rapids. She also made us cupcakes and put a little E on top of each of them. They were delicious, the frosting was really good.

Evelyn had fun eating her own little cake, but didn't dive into it. She just sort of sat and picked at it for probably almost a 1/2 hour.

Blowing out the candles was kind of funny. Bella and Aiden wanted to help. They are both 3 so they obviously didn't understand the concept of blowing out the candle together. Aiden got to it first and Bella almost had a meltdown. So we relit it for Bella and then again for Elliot and then again for Aiden, so that everyone had a chance to blow it out.

On Evelyn's actual birthday (Sunday, 4/3) we took a trip to the Children's Museum. Both girls had lots of fun. After we got home we sang Happy Birthday again and gave Evie a chocolate cupcake. This time she dug in a little more.

Evelyn's b-day gift - a wagon!

ALL pictures of the birthday are here: Evelyn's First Birthday

Easter 2011

2011-04-26T19:35:00.000-07:00

We had lots of Easter activities going on this year. First, a few weeks ago we went to an Easter Egg Hunt at the Pentacrest put on by Delta Delta Delta. We actually did that one twice, because they started 5 minutes early and the Davises missed the first one, so we hunt around for the next one about 1/2 hour later. It turned out to be a pretty nice day so we all enjoyed hanging out.

We saw our neighbors there and Allison shared some of her eggs with Bella - Bella had only gotten 4. So sweet.

Checking out what is inside!

Awesome picture of Evie and Daddy

Bella getting her face painted. This is the look she gives EVERYONE she doesn't know.

Evie and Tyson hang out on the grass.

The kids after the hunt.

Robin took Bella and Evie up to the Children's Spring Party at her work. They had fun seeing the Easter bunny, doing another egg hunt, getting temporary tattoos and Bella's favorite.... eating cupcakes. That might be Evie's favorite part too, she screamed at Robin until she got a some cupcake on her own.

Hunting for eggs in the plants at Robin's office.

Nobody take your eyes off the Easter Bunny....
and I wonder why I was surprised that Bella realized this bunny was different than the one at the other egg hunt.

We also went to an Egg Hunt at the park by our house. Little colder that day, but was still nice to be outside and we even played at the park on the way home.

Yep, little colder that day

Getting ready...

On Easter we got up and went to church. Both girls were so well behaved during the service, we even sat on the lower level and not up in the balcony (which we often do to not disturb others). We ate breakfast at church and let Evie and Bella play in the nursery a bit.

Look what the Bunny brought - Cheetos! The Easter Bunny is now very cool in Bella's book.

Fun at church

Then we went home and Grandpa Groves came to visit. He put up a birdhouse in the backyard and we did a little egg hunt. Then we went out for brunch at Red's Ale House in North Liberty.

Putting up the birdhouse

We came home for naptime and then it was time for an egg hunt with the neighbor kids. The sun kind of came out and it was fun and relaxing to hang out outside.

A quick nap in the middle of all the festivities

We let the little kids start the hunt first

Then the bigger ones came running out - you can't really tell from the picture the explosion of kids out of the house

Rocky comes to say hi to Bella

I watched Allison (on the right) sit down and open each egg and shove whatever was inside right into her mouth. The result is her mouth full of candy

Post-hunt swinging

Coloring eggs

A wonderful Easter!

Alumni Weekend

2011-04-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

This is an attempt to catch up on a post I started almost a month ago. We went to Dubuque for the annual Alumni Basketball Tournament the weekend of March 26-28. My parents met us in Dubuque and stayed at the same hotel as us. They had not seen a tournament since moving away from Dubuque over 10 years ago.
You are guaranteed to play two games in the tournament. If you win your first game you advance to the winner's bracket. If you lose after that you are out of the tournament. We were lucky enough to win our first three games and advance to the Finals on Sunday. Unfortunately we were unable to pull out a victory in the Finals. In our first game Saturday morning, one of our teammates (Abe) ruptured his patella tendon. Below is a picture of Abe, he would not let us get a picture of his missing kneecap, it was too bad as we had a cameraman in place taking these fine shots from above.

A picture of me being absorbed into the body of a 300lb. man. This is the same individual who fell into Abe causing his injury.
What a sweet stroke! That free throw did go in by the way.
Bella in my old JV jersey.
I enjoy going back to see old classmates and their ever expanding families. We are all good friends, but it is tough to stay in touch throughout the year.

Bella had a blast spending the entire weekend with Grandma and Grandpa. It was kind of bizarre to only be focusing on Evelyn, because Bella was hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa. She even slept in their room. The first night everyone slept well. The second night was a little rougher. Grandma was up with Bella most the night and got up really early with her. Evelyn also was up quite a bit. Turns out everyone would eventually get sick. Robin even had to stay home from work on Monday.

Bella went swimming (but actually barely moved from this step)

Watching a lot of basketball and waiting around is a pretty good test for a 3 yr old. Bella did pretty well.
A game of catch with Julia

Being entertained by the iPad.
Bella slept like this through the ENTIRE championship game, should have known she wasn't feeling well. Exhausting weekend!

We got a kick out of the fact that Bella called the hotel "Buick". It was because we kept saying we were going to "Dubuque". During the first basketball game she said we wanted to go back to "Buick". Turns out she thought that was what the hotel was called.

Evelyn's 1 year appointment

2011-04-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Evelyn had her 1 year appointment on Monday. The poor girl got 4 shots and a lead test which involved drip lots of blood out of her finger. Overall she did well. They noticed her white blood count was kind of high, but said she was probably just starting to fight off a cold or teething.

Her stats:

Height: 30.75'' (95th percentile)

Weight: 20 lbs (40th percentile)

Head: 18 '' (55th percentile)

Evelyn's Labor and Delivery Story

2011-04-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

I did this with Isabella on her first birthday, so I thought I’d try to do the same for Evelyn. A detailed (as best as I can remember, sorry if too detailed) story of her birth.

Thursday, April 1, I was up late working on a late night work issues when we ran into problems. I ended up working straight, until 9am that Friday morning. My manager, Claire, told me not to come into work and basically take the day off. I slept from 9am to noon on that Friday morning and then couldn’t sleep much more. I logged on to work to summarize the issues I ran into the previous night while it was fresh in my head and give others some tips because we would need to do some follow up work the next week. I sent the email out to co-workers stating, this is what we will need to do next and said that while things were necessarily progressing yet with my pregnancy, my dr had said “See you next Thurs, unless I see you before then.” It was April 2^nd and my due date wasn’t until April 10^th.

I was definitely experiencing back pain, but I couldn’t read my body correctly because I hadn’t slept the night before. I was super stressed all night sitting tensed up at my laptop, it didn’t surprise me that I was sore. I think I posted something on facebook about how I couldn’t tell if what I was feeling was sleep-deprived related or pregnancy related. Early that Friday afternoon, I remember feeling like walking so I went out for a walk around the park in our neighborhood, it started pouring down rain, so much that I had to stand under a shelter for a while to let it let up as it was really downpouring. I remember thinking what a waste of time, being stranded in this shelter when I really should be home sleeping and how silly I must look at there so noticeably pregnant. The rain let up and I walked home and slept a little more.

I was really looking forward to a good night’s sleep that night. Jeff was going to take care of Isabella and get up with her in the morning so I could sleep in. I crawled into bed and around 10pm I requested Jeff grab me an apple. I felt like I needed one. I never eat that late and especially not in bed, yet I didn’t really think it was all that odd.

2 am I got up to use the bathroom. I was so excited to head back to bed, sleep was feeling wonderful. I crawled back into bed. My water broke. I jumped out of bed. I said to Jeff “I think my water broke”. Jeff was asleep and said “uh huh, ok” and went back to sleep. I said louder and made sure he really woke up and said “My water broke”. Luckily, since I had just gone to the bathroom I was fairly certain that indeed was what had happened. Honestly, we didn’t exactly know what to do, since my water didn’t break with Isabella. We knew enough to call up to Labor and Delivery at the hospital. They said we should definitely get ready on come in, but we didn’t have to rush. We called John and Kristy to have them come over to be with Isabella. We had plans to have dinner with them on Sat. and one of the topics of discussion was going to be what would happen if we had the baby in the middle of the night. So, we had to wing it. It was 2:30 am and John and Kristy said they would be over. I showered and we both got things ready to go. Jeff actually took my weekly belly picture, as we hadn’t taken one that week.

We drove to the hospital. Jeff dropped me off and parking the car in the emergency lot. We went up to labor and delivery. They hooked me up to monitored and tested to see if my water had actually broke. When the nurse came in with the results she said "Looks like it's baby day". And I responded "Why? Are there lots of other people coming in to have their babies?" and she said "No, it's YOUR baby day". I still wasn't feeling any contractions so they told me to walk around to get things going. We were directed to walked around for a little bit. We started doing laps and Jeff kept telling me to slow down, because we kept having to pass the same nurses' station. I think I remember thinking it would be a long time before I'd be able to walk again and wanted to get the most out of it while I could. I wanted to keep walking, but around 4:30 - 5am just said we'd better go back to the room. At some point I started having stronger contractions. I got my epidural. That really slowed down the contractions and they had to give me pitocin to speed things up again. At some point Jeff ran down the hallway to get some food. I rested a bit. I remember wanting to the lights to be off (even though I usually don't like sitting in the dark) and remember that is one of the things they talk about in natural childbirth that people and animals both want to be in the dark. During both of my labors I always just wanted to lay there, I never wanted the tv on or to read or anything.

The nurses continued to come check on me. When we started pushing the doctor was going between 3 different rooms that had basically started pushing at the same time. She'd leave and the nurse would stay with us. At one point the nurse said "Well, I'd better go get the doctor. Not that I haven't delivered a baby on my own before, but this baby is ready." The doctor came in, because of the epidural, I really couldn't feel anything, so I was trying to push, but I really had no idea if I was doing anything. I must have been doing a bad job because the doctor kept telling me to focus and try harder. Then she recommended we get a mirror so I could watch because that might help and I really didn't want to but I said ok. It only took a few pushes before Evelyn arrived. I remember looking in the mirror and then suddenly the baby was on my lap and I told myself to look directly at the baby, not at the baby in the mirror. Jeff was freaking out because Evelyn had so much hair and he saw the back of her head first and he really thought something was wrong with her. She was born at 11:46am and everything had gone wonderfully perfect!

Ear Surgery

2011-03-29T20:09:00.001-07:00

I took Evie to see the ENT Doctor today, who is the same Doctor that did Bella's surgeries for her ears. There was no big surprise as he found her appropriate for tubes and thought they would help her out a lot considering how many ear infections she has had. She will go in for surgery on April 6th which I consider a late Birthday present from Mom and Dad. What better present than the gift of relieving some future pain and hopefully will be a gift to Robin and I in the form of less sleepless nights.

Double Ear Infection

2011-03-21T19:26:00.001-07:00

I am finally at the point to meet with the Doctor to see when we can get ear tubes for Evelyn after finding out that she has ear infections in both ears. We had noticed some drainage on a couple of occasions out of one of the ears which Robin and I thought was odd. We were not even sure we should take her to the MD as we thought her pain may be from the several teeth she has coming in right now. The Doctor said that both ears looked really bad which made me feel pretty awful as I have been thinking we could wait on tubes until the fall. Evie has been such a trooper, you wouldn't know anything was wrong with her during the day and she has been sleeping really well with the exception of last night. She has had some periods of fussiness, but we attributed much of it to being tired and her teething. Next Tuesday we will meet with the ENT Doctor and hopefully get tubes in soon to see if we can avoid some ear infections. I wasn't sure what to give Evie for her Birthday, so I guess tubes will be a nice gift.
Evelyn is getting stronger with standing, she can stand for about 5 to ten seconds without any problems and has taken a small step a couple of times. On Sunday morning we were listening to music and she was dancing without holding on to everything. Thankfully Robin came in to see her as it was absolutely hilarious and would not have been believable. She was bouncing and dancing with her arms. We tried to get it on video, but she would not dance like that again. I will have to try again in the near future with the camera ready to go.
We are going to be in Dubuque for the annual Alumni basketball tournament. This tournament gets more difficult each year (because of age and not having the same physical abilities as 10 years ago). Our first game is at 6:30PM on Friday night so we will be leaving home by 3PM so we can get settled into the hotel. My parents will be meeting us in Dubuque as they have not seen an alumni tournament since they moved away from Dubuque. I look forward to seeing everyone and hopefully winning another championship. I am not looking forward to how my body will feel at the end of the tournament. Bella is looking forward to seeing Grandma and Grandpa as well as seeing Aiden again. Bella has enjoyed running around on the bleachers of basketball games during our Sunday night basketball games with Aiden, hopefully they will have enough room to enjoy themselves this weekend.

Class pictures

2011-03-02T20:23:00.000-08:00

I always love class pictures. These were taken last fall, a little before Thanksgiving, so they are kind of old. Evie had just recently started sitting up, so we were surprised to see her just sitting up by herself front and center.

Bella's class has already changed a bit. I hear both good and not so good things about her interactions with her classmates. I guess there were a couple of new girls in class that don't speak very much English and Bella's teachers told us Bella really stepped up to play with them and make them feel comfortable. Then there are the other days where I have a conversation like this:

Bella's friend Z: Who's mommy are you?
Me: Bella's
Z: Bella screams at me
Z's Mom: Well, I'm sure she just got frustrated about something like we all do...
Z: Bella kicked me in the head.
Z's Mom: Well, you might just be thinking about when you two were just jumping and playing and I'm sure it was an accident.
I kind of think Z said something else similar about Bella did to him, but I can't remember now...

As usual, the individual pictures are hilarious. Bella got a haircut that definitely wasn't one of my favorites a few days before.

You down with RSV? Part 2

2011-02-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

Part 1 was a post with this title on January 18, 2009. The string of sickness has continued in the house. I was sick on Valentine's Day with a stomach flu, I didn't get out of bed until 3PM except for only the most necessary of trips (I'll spare the details). Robin was still not feeling well so last Sunday she and Evie went over to the UI Quickcare to get checked out. They still couldn't find anything wrong with Robin, but gave her an antibiotic prescription to fill if she wasn't feeling better in a couple days. Evie was checked out as well and had some fluid in her ears, but no ear infection and couldn't find anything else wrong with her. She had been having several rough nights of sleep in a row. Wednesday night at 5:30PM I received a call from daycare that Evie had a 100 degree fever and was lethargic. We got her into an appt. that night that was scheduled for 7:15PM, but we didn't get into the Dr.'s office until after 7:45PM. I was just happy they were able to see us on such short notice as Evie had developed a seal like bark for a cough. Evie had a mild case of RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) and another ear infection. She is on antibiotics for the ear infection, but there isn't any treatment for the RSV since it is a virus. Evie has been sleeping pretty good, although last night was a rough night.
Spring cannot come soon enough for this house.

Show and Tell

2011-02-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

Isabella played pretend show and tell today. She got a basket full of toys and sat on our bed and started saying things like:

"Who brought this in?"
"Come sit in the yellow chair and tell us about it"
"How does it work?"
"Does anyone have any questions?"
"Ok, put it back in the basket"

She had Evie and I come and sit up on the bed and play show and tell and pick out different toys that we had "brought in". It was really cute.

Sick Again

2011-02-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's the house, but we can't seem to stay healthy. I was awaken on Thursday evening just past midnight by Bella crying in her bed. I went in to see her and she started vomiting all over the bed. I decided to pick her to take her to the Bathroom (calling for Mom as we passed our bedroom) and have her sit on her stool so that she could throw up into the toilet if necessary. I noticed Bella was holding onto Teddy who was completely wet from the vomit. Robin sat with Bella and I entered her bedroom and turned on the lights to assess the damage. I definitely could make out the green beans and blueberries from dinner. There was a lot of vomit and I used many paper towels to wipe everything up before putting her comforter and sheets in the wash. Robin slept in her room the rest of the night. Bella woke up the next morning acting like her normal self,but complaining that her stomach hurt. I was thinking of keeping her home until she said excitedly can we watch a movie and Dora. I decided to take her to school but told her teachers at daycare about vomiting and to let me know if she is not feeling better. I got a call from daycare at 9:30AM saying that Bella was complaining that her stomach hurt so I decided I would go pick her up (I eventually made it to daycare after finishing off a few things). Bella was pretty wiped out and declined lunch at daycare and home. We took a nap together and sat in the recliner the rest of the afternoon watching Dora and Aladdin. She didn't want to move even when it was time to pick up Evie. Good news is that Bella seems to be better today, but still not eating as well as she normally does.

Evie does not seem to be sick,but is setting records with the number of blowouts she is having during her 10 day sentence on Augmentin. Her bottom and private area are still red, but we have been very diligent with putting on gobs of magic butt paste. Evie had 5 blowouts on Friday alone. Today she had a second blowout in which I had to get her onesie over her head, but I failed, so we took a second bath of the day so she could avoid being called a poophead(there is another term, but this is a family blog). Sunday will be the last day of antibiotics and we see the Dr. on Monday to get the ear checked out.

Robin is feeling better, but is not 100% back. She seems to get better and then feels worse again. I need her to get healthy as she is too necessary to this house to not be 100%. I got a head cold the night Bella vomited and was having difficulty sleeping, but besides some fatigue feel fine again. I really hope this is the last post about sickness because this is getting old.

Evie taking the stairs

2011-02-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

Robin is feeling better today and worked from home. She still is not 100% but appears to be on the road to recovery. Evie had a rough day today, she had three blowouts at school today and is very red and raw on her bottom. Bella had the same issues when she was taking this same antibiotic. Evie is doing fine other than a sore bum and hating her medicine. The rest of the house is doing well.

Here is the video I said I would try to post.

Still Sick Part 2 and a video of Evie that was better than any SuperBowl commercial

2011-02-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

Robin went to the Doctor on Sunday keeping alive the streak of 3 consecutive days someone in the house went to the Doctor. The Doctor did not find anything that he could treat but Robin still felt miserable. I was not feeling well on Sunday either but luckily Uncle John and Aunt Kristy were willing to watch the kids for the afternoon so we could rest. John stopped by and picked up the kids and took them to his house where he put them down for their naps and fed them. It felt great to get some sleep and rest without having to chase the two of them around for a little while. They reportedly both did very well over at John's and Bella was none too happy when I showed up to pick her up. She laid on the floor and pouted that she wanted to stay (at cool Aunt Kristy's and Uncle John's house). Thank you John and Kristy so much! I am still not feeling great, but much better than yesterday. Robin is still feeling bad and took a day off of work to rest. She is planning on working from home tomorrow even though she is not feeling better right now. Bella seems to be doing well, but had a rough day at school today. She had two accidents and she bit another child because she was not chosen to be calendar helper ( I am not sure what the calendar helper does even after Bella trying to explain it to me). Evie seems to be doing better as well, but really hates taking her medication and we are only through 4 of 10 days.

Here is a video of Evie from last week that is absolutely hilarious. I think the toy should be playing Metallica. I will try to keep up on my posting and share another video tomorrow of Evie showing off a new skill.

Still Sick

2011-02-05T18:59:00.001-08:00

It seems as the health of everyone in the house is not the greatest at the moment, but fortunately nothing life threatening. I took Evie in to see if her ear infection had cleared up and it either has not or she has gotten another one in the same ear. We started her on a stronger antibiotic that needs to be taken with food. Last night we gave her her 2nd dose and then Robin fed her. I am not even sure what time it was but approximately midnight Evie woke up and then threw up. Robin got her cleaned up and took her downstairs and she threw up again this time on herself as well as Robin. After that Evie and I slept in the recliner until 5 in the morning. Robin fed her in bed and she slept for a little while and then Robin took her downstairs. I fell back asleep (or coma) and did not wake up until 9:15 when I heard Robin putting Evie down for her morning nap.
Bella was up with Robin and was complaining that her ears hurt. Robin used our ear checker which we have always wondered how accurately it works and it said she had an ear infection in both ears. I called the Doctor's office and they were able to get us in this morning and sure enough Bella had an ear infection in one ear and had fluid and looked to be heading towards an ear infection in the other. The Doctor was also concerned about her coughing and lung sounds and put her on an antibiotic to cover it all. Bella did pretty well and I am thankful she can tell us when she is sick so we can take care of it before she is in more pain.
Robin has not been feeling well, she is tired, has a headache, ear pain (maybe she has an ear infection as well), a horrible sore throat and has some chest congestion. It hurts her so bad when she has to cough it up. She will be seeing a Doctor tomorrow if she is not feeling better which means we could extend our streak of someone seeing the Doctor to 3 straight days. I hope the streak does not continue because that means she is better and because it is becoming quite costly.
I had not been feeling well, but that extra bit of sleep this morning made me feel a lot better today. I hope you all stay healthy and hopefully there will be no more sickness in the house for awhile that is post worthy.

Sick

2011-01-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

All in all the kids are doing well, but they both seem to have a constant cold. This weekend started off alright, but Bella was not feeling well after she got up from her nap. She was cranky and did not want to go outside to play in the snow. When she said she didn't want to build a snowman we knew something was up so Robin grabbed the thermometer and sure enough she had a temperature of 103. Kevin and Maria's baby, Calvin, came over for a few hours so they could go out to eat for Maria's Birthday with some of their friends. Calvin was the easiest of the three kids, he was content to play by himself and did well with eating. Evie was excited that there was another baby in the house, but Bella seemed indifferent about the whole situation which was fine with us(could've had something to do with feeling under the weather).

Saturday night I slept in Bella's bed with her of course for a few hours and then Robin replaced me for the last few hours until Evie woke up. Bella was pretty weak today again and her fever went up and down all day. It peaked at 103.6 and was down below 98.6 for a period of time. She actually cuddled up with me and watched a whole movie(The Princess and the Frog) in one sitting, something that has never occurred before. We also watched a lot of Dora the Explorer and started the movie Aladdin. Bella seemed to be feeling better by the end of the day and hopefully will be feeling better tomorrow so she can go to school.

Evelyn is battling another ear infection. This is her 2nd ear infection in two weeks, her first one cleared up. She is gaining new skills, pulling herself up on everything and everyone (she often crawls to me or Robin and will pull herself up by grabbing our pants). She has not said much besides "Hi Dad" thusfar, but Robin, Bella,and myself have been holding our hands up and hers and saying "Touchdown Iowa" and then clapping and saying "Yeah." This morning when we did it Robin and I both swear to goodness that she said "Touchdown Iowa" in a weird voice. Robin claims that she actually heard it twice, we tried to get a video of it with no luck.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

The new hot club (really hot club with Bella's 103 degree fever)

Calvin after eating carrots and pears in Evie's chair.

Evie and Calvin chillin' in the gym.

Calvin in the gym and Evie posing for her senior picture.

3 Year and 9 Month Check ups

2011-01-29T13:10:00.000-08:00

Evelyn and Isabella had their checkups last week. Evelyn had her 9 month check up and Bella her 3 year check up. Isabella is in the 75% for height and weight (38 inches tall and 33 lbs.). Evelyn is in the70% percentile in height (28 inches) and 30% percentile in weight (18.5 lbs.).

Evelyn's Leaps and Bounds

2011-01-24T19:42:00.000-08:00

A little after Christmas Evelyn really started crawling and now there is no stopping her. She loves her new ability and loves moving around. She has even started pulling herself up on things and taking steps while holding on to something.

Here is one of her first times crawling

Isabella isn't so impressed that Evelyn can move around. She's not happy that Evelyn can get into her stuff and Isabella's stuff is the only things Evelyn is interested in. Isabella says, "Evelyn's crawling!" in a tone that sounds like she's tattling on her. Or she just screams and says "Evie's coming" and throws herself over her stuff. We are really working on sharing, or having Isabella pick out something else for Evelyn to play with. Isabella usually just finds the closet thing that she's not interested in and throws it at Evie.

Here is Evie walking with the shopping cart. She stops to wave "hello", which we think is just so cute!

Bella's 3rd Birthday

2011-01-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

Still trying to catch up on the blog, this post is almost a month late. Bella got to celebrate her 3rd Birthday with lots of family. Grandpa Groves came down for the day and Grandma Linda, Grandpa Jack, Aunt Jill, and Uncle Joe drove in from Ohio. Uncle John and Aunt Kristy stopped by for Bella's favorite lunch (sandwiches) and some Birthday cake. We got Bella a Dora the Explorer cake since she has really been enjoying Dora lately. Bella told us she wanted a brown and purple cake so they put a purple frosting trim on the cake and added a brown tree. Evie tried to upstage her big sister by crawling for the first time. Bella got to open lots of presents for her birthday and then the next day as well for Christmas.

Bella looks pretty bored after we sang Happy Birthday. She didn't want any of her cake.

She was playing with the Ipad with Grandpa Jack and I do not remember why she got angry(that is the problem of waiting so long to do the post),but Grandpa Groves got some good pictures of her sour face.

The two pictures below are Bella opening some presents and Bella showing us how old she is.

Potty Humor

2011-01-11T16:45:00.000-08:00

Wrote this up on 11/22/2010, but forgot to ever post it....

For a long time we have made halfhearted attempts at potty training Isabella. She started doing alright with peeing a couple months back, but refused to have a BM on the toilet. When she moved to the three year old room in October she really became much more interested in going on the toilet as many of the children in that room were potty trained. She began having all of her BM's in the toilet. Over a weekend we were able to wear underwear all day except during nap and overnights and had no accidents. Bella really wanted to wear underwear that Monday to school so we decided to let her and has done great. She rarely has had any accidents and now only wears a pull-up overnight and it is dry or only a little wet.

You can't go through potty training with a bunch of humor. Of course the fact that I'd just blogged about Bella's BMs is funny enough. Other funny stuff:

Bella refuses to throw the toilet paper in the toilet after she has a BM. She says "I can't see the poopy, no cover it up!" if you try to put toilet paper over it. She likes to watch it while she flushes.

One day Bella went up behind Robin and pulled Robin's pants back. She said "Any poopy in there, Mama?" Robin explained to her that you don't just walk up to someone and look down their pants (even though we were doing it to her all the time). Bella replied "I was just checkin'"

Robin went in one morning to wake up Bella. Robin was dressed and ready for work, the first thing Bella said to her was "Mama, you wearing underwear?" Robin said "Yes, I am wearing underwear". Bella said "Let me see it!"

Trip to Florida

2010-12-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

We flew to Florida the week after Thanksgiving to visit Gus, Nancy, Grandma Groves, and Great Grandma. Gus and Nancy flew down from New York, but Bella thinks that Gus lives at Grandmas. This was the first time we flew with Evelyn and all in all both kids did well on the flights. We were looking forward to getting away from the cold Iowa weather, but it was not as warm as we had hoped. Florida was experiencing record lows during our trip with frost warnings overnight. Despite the weather we were able to have a lot of fun. It seemed like the weather got colder everyday we were there. You will probably see that we are more clothed in each picture.

Bella got to fish with Gus and Grandpa caught her first fish.

No trip to visit Grandma is complete without visiting Parkesdale for some Strawberry Shortcake. Unfortunately they didn't have Strawberry shortcake yet, but we were able to get a Strawberry Sundae. Bella was upset that she had to share one with Mom even though they are huge.

We played a joke on Bella and caught it on video. Thank you, Gus, for knowing when to end the joke. Gus's maturity helped to avoid a complete meltdown by Bella.

We did swim one day while in Florida. Bella sporting her new swimsuit with built in life vest and enjoying the water with Grandma.

Evie watching the swimming and showing off her two bottom teeth.

We also made a trip to Busch Gardens. Bella had a blast going on the rides and meeting many Sesame Street Characters. Her favorite ride was Air Grover (rollercoaster) which actually goes surprisingly fast. The weather helped as the park was not very busy so there was no waiting in lines for any of the rides.

Here are a couple of pictures of Evie just to prove she was in Florida as well. She is taking a snooze under my coat while we are at Downtown Disney shopping. After she woke up she tried on the Minnie Mouse ears.

We really did a lot while we were down there. Here are some pictures of our trip to the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa Bay. We were all happy that we could get in for free with our Children's Museum cards (ours was expired, but we are planning on renewing...).

In addition to the cool firefighter outfits, there was also a pole they could slide down. Gus was a pro, but Bella had never seen such a thing and just fell straight down rather than slide down the pole.

We were so busy that many of our nap times took place in the van. On one trip Robin was the only one awake for a 40 minute stretch as all three kids as well as Nancy and I fell asleep. This picture is taken on our way home after the Children's Museum and a lunch at Burger King.

Here is the 4 generation shot with Grandma, GG, Robin, and the girls.

Bloomsbury Farms

2010-11-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

We went out to Bloomsbury Farms in October during the Hawkeyes bye week. Isabella had a great time jumping on the Jumping Pillow, riding in the barrels, seeing animals, and lots of other stuff. Bella also really liked this big slide they have, she liked it so much that she ran right back up and cut in front of the entire line and went down again. I wish I could say she only cut in front of one or two people, but it was a lot longer line than that. We do have pictures of Evie to prove that she was there as well. We have a picture below of her next to the measuring stick and also of her sleeping next to Tyson. My favorite pictures of the day though were Bella on the jumping pillow. You also have to check out one of my favorite videos of all time at the end of the post where Bella looks like she gets shot out of a cannon. I recommend watching it in slow motion so you can see how the expression on her face changes as well as the imminent doom.

Bella's impersonation of David Lee Roth.

Bella doing her Wrestling moves on Aiden

Evie and Tyson taking a snooze

Banwarth Halloween Party

2010-11-22T17:30:00.000-08:00

Since my parents were in town Robin and I were able to go to the annual Banwarth Halloween Party. Abe and Brandee always do an unbelievable job with the party, they decorate the entire house and always have awesome food. We also got to meet up with friends that we don't see very often. My parents brought us the gorilla costume and this blonde wig. We were able to put together some nice last minute costumes, although I would say that mine was most disturbing.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2010-11-19T16:41:00.000-08:00

We posted a video of Isabella reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.

Halloween

2010-11-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

On Halloween morning we decided to put the girls in blond wigs. It did take some convincing to get Bella to keep it on and take some pictures, in fact I believe she was bribed with the promise of candy. Evie looks like a doll, we had just put some Aquaphor on her face so it glistens in all of the pictures.We went out trick or treating around our cul-de-sac and Evelyn kept up the tradition of wearing the Tiger costume. The tiger costume is almost 40 years old and Evelyn is the 5th person to wear it and thus far is the youngest as well at 6 months. Bella was a bumblebee and enjoyed being outside, but did not seem to care that much about the trick or treating, but she certainly got her share of candy. Grandpa dressed up in the Gorilla costume and although Bella saw him to get into the costume she was quite hesitant in sitting next to him. You can see in the picture that she would not sit right next to him, but at the end of the photoshoot we asked her to give grandpa a kiss and she did.

Tiger Costume lives on and on Part Deux

2010-11-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

Robin originally did a post regarding the tiger costume 2 years ago when Bella continued the tradition of the costume hence the reason this post is entitled part deux. The costume is almost 40 years old and was originally worn by my brother John. It was then worn by me 5 years later and then my sister Jillian wore it 8 years after that. It had been at my parents house unused for 24 years until Bella wore it in 2008. Evie was able to keep the tradition alive of wearing the Tiger costume despite being the youngest to ever don the suit at a mere 6 months. Below is a picture of everyone wearing the costume.

John 1971

Jeff 1976

Jillian 1984

Isabella 2008

Evelyn 2010

Halloween at daycare

2010-11-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the late post about Halloween, we are very far behind on the blog and will try to catch up over the next few weeks. I was able to do trick or treating with Evie and Bella at daycare as we went around the businesses in the area. Bella dressed up as a bumble bee and Evie was, well we are still not quite sure what she was. I think she was a horse, while others debated that she was anything from a cow to a horse to a giraffe. I have added a couple of pictures so you can draw your own conclusion. Anyway we did trick or treating for nearly an hour and I thought my arms were going to fall off from carrying Evie the whole time. Evie ended up falling asleep at the end of trick or treating and got to take a nap in her costume.

6 Month Checkup for Evelyn

2010-11-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

Evelyn had her 6 month check up a couple of weeks ago (it was closer to 7 months for her, but oh well). We got to talk to the doctor about a lot of our concerns. Evelyn’s sleep habits were not good and she’s not really rolling over. The doctor told us not to be too concerned about the rolling over as long as she’s kind of pulling herself up on her stomach (which she is) and she’s also sitting up really well. As for the sleep stuff, I thought for sure I’d be told not to keep feeding her in the middle of the night, but the doctor said it was okay. She thought it would be wiser to work on a better bedtime routine (putting her down to sleep when she was drowsy rather than asleep) before being concerned about her getting up in the middle of the night to eat. So, a few nights later we started doing that and it has worked wonders. She is getting a lot more sleep at night now. (and us too, yippee! – although we are still completely sleep deprived). We finished off the appointment with lots of shots.

We started her eating some baby food and she is starting to gobble it right up. We’ve tried green beans, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peaches, pears, bananas. She seems to like the fruit more than the veggies. We also have tried a couple of meat ones which she gagged on and I don’t blame her because I practically gag when I open the jar. Looking forward to giving her finger foods (she’s always trying to pull food off our plates and tried to get some of Isabella’s fruit snacks) but she needs to be crawling before we can do that and she seems quite a ways off from crawling. (does not like the tummy time!)

Here are her 6 month stats

Height: 28 inches (95th percentile)

Weight: 16.5 lbs (45th percentile)

Head: 17 inches (95th percentile)