Our nephews are finally here! We were so excited to hear about their arrival last Friday. 14 lbs total between the two of them!
We told the kids about them and we were so impressed how quickly Parker grasped their names.
They had limited visitors in the hospital, so we got to meet them Monday night after they came home. Esme wanted to get them a gift and chose Mario and Luigi stuffies. After doing a little research, I learned they are not just brothers, but actually twins!
Esme thought it was so fun to hold Jameson (I think that's who she has).
Proud Grandparents
Proud auntie and Nana.
Grandpa with 4 of 5 grandkids. Big brother Jayden was working, but we'll get a picture of all 5 soon.
Our good friend, Chuck, is a retired pastor. His last position was as executive director of Churches United of the Quad City Area. They had their 61st Annual Meeting last week and invited him to be honored. His wife recently had knee replacement surgery and needed someone else to accompany him. The timing worked out well for my to tag along. We headed out Thursday morning and stopped for lunch at Culver's before finishing out drive.
We checked in to our Moline, IL hotel and rested for a couple hours before heading over for dinner. They catered from Fazoli's and had a great spread of pasta and salad.
Chuck was executive director from 1992 to 2002 and was instrumental in many of the services still provided by the organization. He was also called upon to lead a community event in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He shared a great story about that time and passed on a key to the city he was gifted back then to the current executive director.
I've long known how great of a man Chuck is and felt lucky to hear stories from others of how he has impacted their lives as well.
We headed back to our hotel after the meeting and drove home Friday. I think the last time I spent a night in a hotel alone was for some work training back in 2010. It was a nice little break along with some great car conversations.
We had a movie night at church earlier this month watching Ice Age: Buck Wild. We all made it through the whole movie thanks to some snack packs (and an iPad for Parker.)
Esme randomly started crawling under out bed and falling asleep. The first night we couldn't find her and were freaking out a little. Then Jimmy saw the corner of her blanket sticking out. She did it every night for almost a week. Silly girl!
Being back at youth group at church has been so much fun! We did donut bowling for one of activities recently. I am looking forward to more fun and relationship building with these kids.
Esme has been having fun collecting new cars with dad on Gran Turismo 5. Her actual driving skills are still growing, but she'll get there,
Parker's school had one of their first social events since COVID began, so we had to stop by the school dance. They lasted about 20 minutes, but it was still fun to be back in school with him.
I also attended the wedding of our pastor's son and a young woman from our church on Saturday. I volunteered with Katelyn in youth ministry a few years ago and I was honored to be included. I've been wanting to make this crafty wedding gift again fro a while and this seemed like a great opportunity. The text is the lyrics to their first dance song.
It was a very sweet ceremony with a dance and ice cream social afterwards.
It's been a busy spring and I got a bit behind on blogging. Hoping to catch up and back date a bunch of posts soon.
Our latest at home date night was pigs in a blanket and a charcuterie board made with my Valentine's Day cheese bouquet. Esme finally decided to spend her Christmas gift card at Target this week. She chose a Barbie, which was her very first one! I loved Barbie growing up and am excited to see if the interest continues. This was Ice Cream Shop Barbie.
We took our first Twister ride of the season at Grandpa and Nana's House. A little chilly, but fun none the less.
Esme has had a wiggly tooth for a while and it finally popped out at school this week.
We got a special ice cream treat at Dairy Queen to celebrate.
The end of February comes so quick. Esme showed us all how to play musical chairs this month. She doesn't quite have all the rules down, but it was fun none the less.
We hit 40 degrees on the 20th and made sure to enjoy it. We started with the first time we were all back at church post covid. Parker has a new buddy to help at Kidventure and Esme is elated to be back.
Jimmy got to take his scooter out for a ride and he took the kids on a bike ride.
Snow bunnies!
We got "Guess Who" for Esme and she's catching on to the rules.
She also started playing "Snake" on her iPad and said it's the "best game ever." This gave me a giggle since there are millions of electronic games out there, but the best is the only one we had on our calculators and Nokia phones in the early 00s.
Jimmy had been looking forward to Gran Turismo 7 coming out on PS5 and Esme thought it looked fun too. She looks pretty distressed here, but is having fun playing.
We've been having cocoa a few nights a week and Chewy tried to sneak of sip of Esme's. She's been dealing with a couple of colds this month which is making her asthma worse. She's had a couple years of not needing any intervention, but is now taking her preventative nebulizer daily and albuterol as needed. We are so grateful to have medicine at home for this.
Her class celebrated the 100th Day of School this month with lots of "100" activities. They stacked 100 cups and made 100 Days Smarter crowns.
Finally, Esme brought home her very first ceramics art project. She was so proud of it!
We are looking forward to more warm weather in March and getting outside to play. Our baby nephews/cousins will also be arriving in March, so it's going to be an exciting month!
