Meeting Baby George

While we were in Dallas for Easter, the twins and Amy got to meet baby George for the first time. I met George in the hospital, but for some weird reason, hospitals don't like toddlers running around the NICU.

The kids were very excited when Angela asked if they wanted to hold George. Caden did exactly what he was told to do to prepare. I think you can really see his anticipation in this first shot.

Caden was very gentle with George.

After Caden finished holing George, Caden exclaimed, "I did it!" He was very proud of himself.

You can see here that Caroline was also very excited to hold her little cousin.

I like that you can see Caroline smiling at George. I bet she can't wait to be the boss of George.

Caroline gently rubbed George's head with her left hand and patted his feet and belly with her right hand.

This is the first picture of the cousins. Caden and Caroline are very excited to be big cousins.

 

 Caden got another chance to hold his little cousin.

Baby George bought Caden and Caroline a birthday gift to help make sure there was no jealousy. While the kids liked getting a present, they much preferred hanging out with their new little cousin.

We can't wait to see George again.

Easter 2012 -- Dallas

We were in Dallas for Easter this year. Here are some pictures of the kids opening their Easter baskets.

Caden was very excited to see he was given packages of M&Ms.

The kids also got a bowling set.

After opening Easter baskets, we went to church. After church, we went to our standard Easter and Thanksgiving location where we had dinner with the Eakers, Meiers, and Shanks.

Before lunch, we went out to take some pictures.

Here is a Shank family portrait with Angela, Allen, and baby George. I think George posed very nicely.

Here is our attempt at a family portrait. It is hard to get Caden, Caroline, and Amy all looking the correct direction.

There was all sorts of fun toys to play with at the Eaker's house. Caden loved this realistic tool set. Caden is very interested in tools right now. He frequently points them out in our garage, tells them goodbye, and loves when we let him touch the tools.

We had an Easter egg hunt for Caden, Caroline, and Sammy. Caroline collected by far the most mainly because Caden and Sammy wanted to open each individual egg to get at the interior contents.

The kids were a little delirious at this moment. It was well passed their nap time. Soon after this picture, we loaded the car and headed home. The kids quickly fell asleep in the car.

We had a lot of Easter fun.

Easter 2012 -- Austin

The weekend before Easter, we went over to Amy's parent's house to celebrate an early Easter with them. They had gifts for the kids (and one gift for our entire family).

The kids were given a small wheel barrel. They love it. Both enjoy filling it with stuff and pushing it around the house. 

Both kids also go a number of other things like these bunny ears modeled by Caroline.

The family gift was a jogging stroller. Amy had been eying a jogging stroller for awhile.

After breakfast, we took the new jogging stroller and walked to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. This is the second time we attended this hunt and the kids had a lot of fun. Some of the fun was collecting rocks before the hunt actually started.

After the hung started, the kids had no problem gathering their share of the eggs. Here is Caroline showing off her stash.

Caroline's Photos

In the potty training efforts, Amy bought a whole bunch of little toys and put them in a prize bag. When the kids go #2 in the potty or #1 enough times (25-50ish depending on how good we are at keeping track), they get to pick a prize. One of the best prizes was a digital camera made for kids.

Caroline was very excited when she got the digital camera. She loves taking pictures. Here are some of her best ones.

This is her favorite...which makes me happy. She often asks Amy to find the picture of Daddy so she can look at it.

Here is a good action shot of Caden playing his recorder (also a prize bag item) and Amy working on taxes.

Caroline also takes a lot of random pictures of items in our house. Here is an example.

The first few nights after Caroline got the camera, she insisted on taking it to bed. I learned that Caroline would take a whole bunch of pictures at night time. It was too dark for any of them to turn out, but it is still cute that she would do that.

In a few years, I bet Caroline will love taking pictures with a higher quality camera.

Obstacle Course

A few weeks ago, Amy went on the women's retreat with Grace leaving me home with the twins. It was an entire weekend of just the three of us. We had a lot of fun while Amy was gone (though we missed Amy). I kept us very busy and thoroughly wore the kids out each day. We ate a Torchy's Tacos numerous times and went out to get Amy's Ice Cream one night. At home, I decided to make a giant obstacle course spanning much of our house.

It started in the hallway by the front door. When the kids woke up Saturday morning, I had blocked the hallway with one of their slides.

The first slide led directly into the second slide. (In this picture, you may also notice a refrigerator box I turned into a playhouse.)

The second slide led to a cloth tunnel.

The tunnel curved its way into the living room where the kids found a little running room heading into a big pile of couch pillows (which became their favorite obstacle). They loved running and diving into the pillows. In the background of this picture, you can see Caden exiting the tunnel as Caroline conquered the pillow mountain.

 

Sometimes, the kids attacked Pillow Mountain cautiosly...

And other times, they ran and jumped into the mountain full speed. That is what Caden did here. His momentum tossed him right off the other end head first into the carpet. He thought this was awesome!

After climbing over Pillow Mountain, the twins had to climb over the ottoman blocking the walk way.

This led them to the ball pit blocking another hallway.

The course was complete once they made their way through the ball pit.

Here is my course diagram. :) Next time, I'll add a few more obstacles and might try to make a more obvious loop.

The kids must have run this course 50 times over the course of the weekend. It was a great way to burn a lot of energy and the kids loved it.

Picking Strawberries

Amy took the twins to Sweet Berry Farms to pick some strawberries. The twins each got their own box and got to pick whatever they wanted. They had a lot of fun. Amy plans to make this an annual event.

Here are some of the pics from the twins first time picking strawberries.

Feeding Baby Cheerios

Caroline has a toy for her baby that can be a baby swing, car seat, or, as you see below, a high chair. This is a picture from the first time Caroline and Caden saw it as a high chair. They thought it was really cool. They fed baby Cheerios for nearly an hour. They also helped baby eat all the Cheerios off her plate.