No more dirty knees!

I am not sad that I will have less dirty little pants in the laundry, but I am a little sad that Emerson is quickly growing up. Two weeks ago, he ONLY crawled. A week ago, he crawled mostly, walked four or five steps. Six days ago, he crawled 75% of the time and walked for objects within 7-8 steps away. Five days ago, he crawled half of the time. Four days ago he crawled significantly less and walked from the living room all the way to Ophelia's room several times. Three days ago, he barely crawled and ventured to explore the whole house. Two days ago, he ONLY walked! So, here we are today, my little guy is on foot! He walks everywhere, explores everything, grabs things from one room and drags them to the other side of the house. I still can't find that blue washcloth that he took two days ago... 

Here is our little boy! He has to stick his little tummy way far in the front to keep his balance while walking. Look at those leg rolls. With this much walking, I better enjoy them as much as I can, soon they will disappear!

Family self-portrait. Crazy eyes and all!

I feel like Ophelia has been growing up fast too. Her shirts and pants are getting shorter and her little face is looking more like a little lady, than a toddler. I just watch my babies some days and want to stop the time. When they laugh and play together, roll around in the "pretend pool" or "nest" of pillows and blankets on the living room floor, snuggle up to each other, when they play in the backyard catching the spring sunshine, when they giggle in the backseat of the car...those are the times I cherish, those are the joys of my life!

Ophelia is loving her preschool, the outdoor Butterfly Garden school. She is like a sponge wherever she is and especially at school she is learning so much. Today they learned how to make peanut butter, how cool is that!

Here is a first steps video of our newest walker of the house:

Emerson is picking up signs like crazy. He knows so much! Besides the basics (more, all done, milk, car, dog, fish, cat, sleep, shoes, flower, bird, eat), some that come to mind are farm, sheep, horse, cow, socks, go, baby, chicken, grapes, apple, banana, play, potty, hurt, yes, no. I have such a strong testimony of Signing Time! It's incredibly exciting to communicate with a one-year old, whose only spoken word is "mama" (and "go") but who is able to tell you exactly what he wants via signs. So awesome!

Spring is in the air!

I love this picture of the kids. It is so hard to get them all still for a second, facing the same general direction, not to talk about smiling even!

Another sunny day in Oatmeal! The kids love the piano at Grandma's house. Pretty sure there is the same exact picture and pose of Ophelia somewhere in the archives:

Funny kiddoes! They figured out that they can reach each other in the car and hold hands like this:

On our way back from Oatmeal, the kids are all tuckered out:

This was spring break went by really quickly. The kids got sick, so we mainly stayed close to home. This is in our adopted backyard, behind our fence. A wonderful field to go fly a kite:

I didn't take any picture of a little trip that we made to Fort Worth over spring break. We stayed there for two nights with some friends, because PJ happened to have an ESL conference in Dallas. I don't have very many happy memories of the trip because it was pretty rough. A seemingly short three hour trip turned into a torture both on the way there and back. The kids were really fussy, Ophelia being uber-dramatic and Emerson hating being in his carseat for that long. Benadryl, Tylenol, Advil is all sugar water packed with Red 40, I was convinced! Nothing helped to ease the tension. We were to tense and stressed the whole time there, that on our horrible trip back we pretty much had a breakdown... By "we" I mean PJ and I! Not so fun. When we slept at our friends' homes, it was a disaster...we pretty much didn't sleep those night. Sleeping in the same room with our kids is something I hope not to do again for a while. I realize that sleeping was horrible because the kids were sick. But it didn't help that they couldn't fall asleep at night being all excited and Ophelia waking Emerson while he was just first asleep. Plus Emerson would wake up at 5 or 5:30am! Aaahhh! We were so happy to be back home, everyone in their own room, in their own bed. We all slept amazing!

I did enjoy seeing old Fort Worth friends a lot! We also made a trip to the FW zoo and despite the cold front moving in on us while we were there, the kids had a great time.

My attempt no.2 at gardening. Check out our little baby scare crow:

11/1/2013 update on the garden: I've come to the conclusion that I have a brown thumb...both of them. We grew caterpillars, ant mounts, and mushrooms in our spring garden. The 5 strawberries, 10 baby tomatoes, and 7 sweet pea pods are not worth the hours of work and loads of money that I spent on the garden! I have suspicions that the garden gets too covered by shade, thus we had no harvest this year. Too bad it takes so long to learn from your mistakes and start over the whole garden again!!!

Here is Ophelia, the bead lady:

Our friends, the Allens, invited us to go camping with them on lake Georgetown. We went camping our Kinzler-style: come hangout and enjoy all the camping fun and adventures and leave home after the sunset to sleep in our own comfy beds.

Ophelia said she was making "the German face" on this picture:

We joke about that because all the German pictures we have have totally stoic faces, no emotion at all. I think O did a great job of that! Emerson checking out the Allen tent:

Enjoying the warm March sunshine:

On the banks of lake Georgetown:

Mmmm! Hot dogs:

While Ophelia was enjoying her hot dog, our poor little baby was eating rocks...and loving it too!

Roasting marshmallows:

I'm telling you that's the best way to camp! We loved spending time with the Allens and do all the camping activities and then go home, take baths, showers, and sleep in our soft, comfy beds!

My parents 30th (!!!!) wedding anniversary is coming up. Here is what I made for them:

My parents are planning a trip to the Maldives for their anniversary. Now they get to wear matching shirts there!

Park Paparazzi

One cloudy Saturday evening, we took the kids and the camera to the park. And here is the result of it!

I definitely have more pictures of Emerson because, so far, he does not move as fast as Ophelia does :)
Here's my lovely little trio, all snuggled up:

Early morning loves:

He does not walk yet, but....he does climb!!! Watch out, world! And we better buy him some head protection gear...

The result of Emerson climbing chairs, is that all chairs that are his height have to be made inaccessible to him:

Also, some of Ophelia's artwork on her whiteboard. Pretty abstract, but cool: