Vacation Fun in Illinois

While Ryan was off solving world illness at his Global Medicine course in Texas, the girls and I drove over to Emily's house for a good time. And if this picture is any indicator, a good time was had by all.

Jane and Alyssa practiced all sorts of new tricks while they were together like sticking out their tongues, pulling themselves up onto furniture, chewing on toys and climbing up stairs. Emily had a good time dressing them alike so it was nearly like having twins.

At one point I couldn't find Chloe and Helen. I followed the sound of giggling upstairs and found them exploring Emily's tub. Luckily they haven't learned how to turn it on yet.


Can you guess what happened in these pictures? Quinn was teaching Jane how to growl like a tiger, Jane got scared and Quinn got growled at by the mama tiger.

Here are Quinn and Helen showing off their superior tower building skills. Chloe is demonstrating the many uses of a Lego box and Jane realized that she needed her mom.

You probably thought this was Batman, but it's Zach. We didn't get a lot of pictures of Zach because he is all grown up going to kindergarten.

If you had a hard time figuring out who Batman was, Superbaby will be even more difficult. The long hair gives it away though -- it's Alyssa.

Grandma Johnson gave the girls all almost matching clothes for Christmas and they helped us keep track of them at the library. Clearly Quinn felt left out of the matching fun.
Helen was introduced to "power tools" at Emily's house. Chloe was able to show her the ropes.

Christmas in Iowa

This winter we went to Iowa, and as you can see from the picture below, we had a white Christmas. Making snow angels in this deep of snow can make a little girl very nervous.

While Ryan and Helen were outside tromping around, Jane discovered the joy of an exercise ball.

Now that my Dad has a workroom again, Ryan and I took advantage of our time by fixing up some bunk beds. Helen wanted in on the action, so she was assigned to brush off all the sawdust. While I was training her in her new job I realized that this was what I always did when I was a child. Note the protective eye wear; Norm Abram would be proud.

Here are Helen and Dad enjoying a good story during break time.

Now we get to the most exciting part of our trip -- putting a new wood floor. For those of you who have never put in a floor, in this picture you can see three important parts of the process. Mom was in charge of lining boards up like Tetris, Dad got the wood lined up and then I would nail it into place. The fourth person was the floater, tagging in and out of various jobs and keeping the kids out.
This fourth job was not always easy, especially since Jane is crawling now.

We went bowling and Helen is definitely at the "Do it myself" stage, regardless of whether or not the ball was heavier than herself.