Broken or Spoken?

In this video Isaac and Maddie are singing the primary song, "Love is Spoken Here." It is their current bedtime request, so they hear it just about every night. Isaac sings "love is broken here" instead of "love is spoken here." I'll try not to read into what that means about how he feels about his childhood...and poor Maddie sounds like a barking seal with her horrible cough.


Here is a video of Big D. He loves to stand on his own but prefers to belly flop when he gets tired or excited instead of trying to take a step or two.

La Casita

Upon coming back to Iowa for these last four months before Ryan graduates, we found a little house that has been perfect for our family, and the landlord was even willing to let us sign a short-term lease.

I can't tell you how much I love being in a house! I am trying to live it up since we have no idea what our living arrangements will be during residency. Here are a few pictures of my favorite things about our new casita:

Our little baby blue house.

The kitchen nook is one of my favorite parts of the house. During the day I love to pull up all the blinds, and I can't wait to open up the windows when it gets warmer.

There is a mudroom as you walk through the front door. The kids love keeping their shoes on all the benches.

This little runny-nosed guy loves racing his cars all over the house. Like most crawlers, he loves the bathroom and makes a b-line for the potty every time the door is accidentally left open (which is all.the.time).

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I love that this one has so much cupboard space. I'm pretty sure that dishwasher you see was the very first model ever built. It sounds like Cape Canaveral throughout the entire house every time we run it, but it washes dishes like a champ. Quite certain it isn't energy-efficient. 

From the Mouth of My Babe...

Last night Isaac said the following prayer with Ryan before going to bed:

 "...and thank you that Jesus died for us so we can be happy, and thank you that Lightning McQueen is a really fast race car..." All in one breath. Love it.

Ike on his sister's pink scooter. Thank you 50 degree Iowa weather. Feels like 70!

Handprint Hearts

My friend Megan introduced me to this blog recently, and I loved the handprint heart idea. I am not into painting much, but I decided I needed to branch out and give this one a try. It turned out to be a lot of fun and the kids were big fans of finger painting, so it looks like we are into it now.

Here is Maddie, prepped with her apron and ready to crack open the paint. Not sure why but I love this picture of her.

Ike's favorite colors right now are red (think Lightning McQueen) and pink (think pink is almost like red and red is like Lightning McQueen--don't tell him pink is only for girls...). Since he got to use both colors for his heart, he was thrilled.

They are currently decorating our fridge. I wrote things I love about them around the outside edges. 

Maddie finger-painting after we finished the hand prints. 

Helping decorate mini cupcakes for some of Maddie and Isaac's Valentines.

This week we attempted what I once thought would be completely insane: Putting all three kids in one room together. So far it's actually working out! Ike's old room is now the toy room. We did this for two reasons: 1) The toy room gets really cold at night and we found ourselves piling tons of blankets on the poor boy in hopes of keeping him warm, and 2) we wanted a room where the kids can play and keep the toys (somewhat) contained. They love sleeping in the same room and I love having the extra room for the kids to play. Win/Win, baby.

 Crossing my fingers that this one keeps working!

Keeping her Locked Up

Maddie is developing a habit of locking herself in or out of places. In her 2 1/2 years of life, she has managed to need a locksmith or policeman 3 different times. I wrote about the first time here, when we went to the library to return some books.

The second time it happened she was traveling across the country with her grandparents this past May. In the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska (Brady, to be exact), they stopped to gas up and take Ike to the restroom. Grandpa got out of the van to pump the gas and Maddie stayed inside to watch her Dora dvd. The van locked itself automatically (according to Grandpa...I believe him...the exact same thing happened to me at the library) and the Brady fire department and a few police cars came the rescue. She was out in a matter of minutes and my father-in-law was so pleased with the prompt service he received that he bought all of the service men Blizzards from the local DQ (one of the only eating establishments in the small town of Brady).

Once again, last week, Maddie managed to trap herself in the only bedroom with a lock in our entire rental home. A keyed lock with no key, mind you. I put her down for a nap. Twenty minutes later she called for me to help her fix a page in her torn Dora book. When I tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge. All the coaxing in the world couldn't get Maddie to understand how to unlock the door from her side. Since I couldn't get the credit card trick to work, and breaking a window seemed more expensive than the alternative, and all the hinges and screws were on her side of the door, I once again called a locksmith. Through this whole ordeal, Maddie went from being calm ("I be brave like Dora, I on an adventure!"), to sheer hysteria ("I NEVER GOING TO GET OUT OF HERE! WAHHHHHHH"). A mere 30 minutes after she was rescued, she had forgotten all about it and didn't know what her dad was talking about when he asked her about being locked in her room that day.

Maddie taking a nap this afternoon in her big girl bed.
She got to make the change from a crib when we moved to Iowa last week. 

Here's hoping that I don't need a locksmith again for a very long time.

Roasted Vegetables

Lately I have been obsessed with roasting vegetables. I can't seem to get enough.They are, in my opinion, so much more delicious than the steamed variety.
Some of my favorite veggies to roast are broccoli, cauliflower, onions, peppers, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus.
All I do is add a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper. I roast them at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. If I am feeling extra adventurous, I will squeeze some fresh lemon juice or add a pinch of garlic salt when I pull them out of the oven.
When roasting cauliflower by itself, my sister-in-law, Becky gave me the following recipe: add a little bit of Parmesan cheese, some bread crumbs,a couple of cloves of minced garlic, and some Italian seasoning after coating them with a little olive oil and it is a great companion to any Italian dish . Ryan's brother claims that this cauliflower is so good, it tastes like French fries. Not sure I agree with the French fry part, but vegetables really are delicious cooked this way.