Happy 4th Birthday, Jeremiah!!

Oh my word, that face just kills me!  I can't believe this baby boy is 4 years old!!!!

I think it is safe to say that the celebrating is now finished.... but wow, we sure were partying for several days!  It should always be like that for birthdays, don't you think?

Anyway, J's birthday celebration begin Saturday night-- we held a "friend" birthday party for him at Cherry Berry Yogurt Bar in Ankeny.  I was happy to find a place to hold a party that did not break the bank (holy moly birthday parties can quickly become outrageous!!).  I was not intending for J to have a "friend" party just yet at this age, but with our upcoming move to MI, I wanted him to have a special time with some of his best buddies here in Iowa.  So that's what we did!

We were allowed to bring in our own dinner (thank you Little Caesar's Hot 'n' Ready for $5!).  Then we did presents, and wrapped it up with frozen yogurt for everyone!

I believe the present-opening lasted approximately 5.4 seconds.  Seriously.  He doesn't waste any time!

Both J and Pierce are in awe.

Best Buddies!

Dreamsicle yogurt with sprinkles and a gummi worm!

All of J's daycare friends and a few church friends were able to come-- it was SO nice!  He has so many wonderful people in his life who love him!

Sunday we did another celebration-- this one with just Mommy and Daddy before Daddy had to go back to MI for the week.  J opened his presents and we had cake and ice cream!

A scooter!

Play-Doh garbage truck!

Mommy's weak attempt at a Pinterest cake.

Singing "Happy Birthday!"

No cake for him-- he just wanted to lick off all the construction vehicles.

Monday, we actually did no celebrating, if you can believe that!  Turned into a snow day for me because of a poorly timed snow storm that came through in the morning.  But by afternoon it was 40 degrees and sunny!

Tuesday, February 18, was Jeremiah's ACTUAL birthday!  He was relieved to FINALLY be 4!! :)

He got to celebrate during the day at daycare.  Mommy whipped up a bach of "dirt cups" for a b-day treat.

He begrudgingly posed for a b-day picture in the morning.  Can't blame him, I guess, for being crabby at 6:30 am!

When we got home from school/daycare, Grandpa and Grandma Wiers were at our house to continue celebrating with us!


First things first!  Grandpa and Grandma brought some presents, and J also had a few packages waiting for him!

A leaf blower!  He is adding more and more services to his landscaping company!

Building a motorcycle!

After presents, we headed to the Pizza Ranch for dinner (birthday boy's request, of course!).

Then we continued our celebration at home with special Mickey and Minnie Mouse cupcakes that Grandma ordered!  We, of course, sang "Happy Birthday" ONE more time, and even included Daddy on Skype for that.

Being sung to never gets old!  How cute is this?!?!

J spent the rest of the evening playing with his new toys and showing Grandpa how to play trucks.

J even got to spend all day Wednesday at home with Grandpa and Grandma-- and it was such a nice day that he even got out his new scooter and rode his tricycle around the block!  Of course, Grandpa and Grandma had to cut their trip short because of the impending bad weather, which we are currently "enjoying."

Happy birthday, Jeremiah!  Mommy and Daddy love you so much-- you are funny, sweet, loving, and smart as a whip.  We are so blessed by you each and every day!

Sigh

Sitting here watching the winter Olympics and I am quickly reminded of 4 years ago, watching the Vancouver Olympics with a brand new Jeremiah.  That was pretty nice, actually-- something to watch on TV late at night and during the daytime while on maternity leave (one can only take Maury Povich and his "You ARE the father!" shows for so long....).  Of course, they don't air any of the exciting events late at night or during the day, but still.  It was nice!  And now, apparently, the winter Olympics will forever remind me of Jeremiah's first weeks of life!

So, since I get nostalgic every year at this time, and since Jeremiah has an upcoming 4th birthday (!!!!), I give you:

MY TOP 10 FAVORITE J VIDEOS (in order from birth to now):

1.  Brand new baby video.   Pretty much the only video we have of J as a tiny baby (sadness!).  How stinkin' cute was he with all his blond hair?!?!?!?  Oh my.

2.  Don't drink the water.  Can't go wrong with a bath video, right????  I have no idea why he was so fixated on drinking the bath water that day.... I don't remember him EVER doing that other than in this video!  He's cute.  I think he was about a year old in this video.

3.  Grandpa Magnet.  I know J is probably one of the few children out there who has a picture of Grandpa on a magnet.  And how cute are his interactions with Grandpa in this video?!?!?  I think he was about 16 months in this video.  I have quite a few favorites from the 16-18 month range when he was starting to talk!

4.  Animal sounds but not Abby.   Another one from about 16 months old.  He would NOT say "Abby!"  But oh my, the just learning to talk stage, I think that might be my favorite age!!!

5.  Jeremiah's Song.  My absolute favorite video of J (he's about 17 months in this video)!!!!!  I love his little song!!!

6.  The birdies.  The cheeks..... talking about "buh-dies".... it's just too much!  Another 16-18 month age video.

7.  Come out, duckies!  He was about 20 months, here.  He just wanted the duckies to come out, people.

8.  Twinkle, twinkle Little Star!  20 months old and singing "Twinkle twinkle Little Star!"  Sometimes we still sing this rendition as it is just too cute!

9.  Eating it.  My first cookie decorating attempt with J-- he was about 22 months.  Stepped away for 1 second and that's what I came back to!  "Eating it."

10.  Daddy, mow!  2 year old J.... pretty darn exited about daddy mowing the lawn!!  And let's all just pause for a moment of silence as we remember the year when it was already hot, the grass was green, and lawns needed to be be mowed on March 25 when I took that video.  Sigh.  What does that even feel like?!?!?

11.  Daddy, mow!  Part 2.  This one is a bit more realistic-- 3 year old J all bundled up as daddy mows for the first time....

12.  "Oh my Soul"  J LOVES the song "10,000 Reasons" (although he likes to call it "1000 Parts").  He requests this song over and over and over again in the car (good thing I have it on my iPod).  "Hey Mommy, can you please play that song that goes 'Oh my soul'?"  Not sure why in this video he just repeats the same part over and over.... he knows the whole song and sings right along in the car!  Make me tear up every time. :)

Oops.  Did I say top 10?  I guess by 10, I actually meant 12.  I don't expect many people to click through all those videos and watch them (except maybe my mom-- Hi Mom!), but I like having all my favorite videos of my favorite little boy in one place. :) 

Some highlights of last week, for those of you who skipped over the videos (shame on you):

~We got snow last Tuesday.... and I shoveled twice.  I was pretty proud of myself. :)

Of course, by the next day, it had snowed more and blown like crazy, so the driveway was all covered again. :(  I was happy and relieved to find out that one of our awesome friends came while I was at school and cleared off the driveway and sidewalk once again (Thanks Josh!).  Oh, and I got 1 early-dismissal and 1 late-start out of this snow storm, so that was nice.  Then another late-start the next day for the frigid cold.  I'll take it.  This was my drive to school on our late-start day:

~Our smoke detectors decided that Thursday at 1:30 am would be a good time let me know that they were all OLD and malfunctioning.  Perfect.  Scared the C-R-A-P out of me and a certain little boy (who still brings up smoke detectors at least 5 times a day).  Anyway, I didn't know why they went off, didn't know how they stopped by themselves, I have no idea.  But going back to sleep that night was just a bit difficult.  This guy agreed!

After the smoke detectors went off AGAIN Thursday evening while J was home with our babysitter, I knew something was not right with those things.  Thankfully another awesome friend of ours came over, checked everything out, and installed 6 new smoke detectors for us the next day (Thanks, Scott)!  And (fingers crossed) we have had 4 peaceful nights of sleep since then.

~We are incredibly blessed by our daycare provider and her family.  J and Grady are the best of friends, and Grady's Grandpa and Meema wanted J to have a fireman suit (and even a hose!) just like Grady-- such a sweet thing to do for Jeremiah!

Proud to be a "real" fireman!

That was about all the excitement I could handle for one week!  Next week promises to be a great one-- Jeremiah is turning 4 (I can hardly believe it)!!

It's February!!

Thank heavens!  Is it just me, or is January the absolute longest month EVER?!?!?  Sheesh, I thought it would never end!  I really think it is my least favorite month of the year..... snow, cold, wind, below 0 windchills, a million days long (or maybe just 31 but it felt like a million?)..... not much to get excited about in January.

February, on the other hand, brings Valentine's Day, Jeremiah's birthday (!!!!!!!), only 28 days, and one month closer to spring-- yippeee! :)  I'm sure the snow, cold, wind, and below 0 wind chills will still be with us (in fact, I believe this week we will be enjoying them all), but other things to look forward to make those seem not as bad!

So what did we do in January?  Well, not a whole heck of a lot.  We obviously live for the weekends a LOT more than we used to, now that that is our only time with Adam.  J and I pray for Daddy every night, and remind ourselves that he'll be home again in 5 (or 4 or 3 or 2...) days.  This seems to help J when he's missing Daddy (which happens a lot at bedtime.... just about breaks my heart!).

School has been going well, and I really can't complain.  I am SOOOOO glad that we only had 1 snow day in January and our school year keeps trucking along (I'm sure I just jinxed it for February!).  Every time I heard about another snow/cold day in MI, I just said a little prayer of thanks that I'm not there (yet). :)  And my kids have been doing amazingly well on these many days when it is WAY too cold to go play outside! 

Anyway, some pics of our activities in January!

A happy weekend outing with Daddy!

They look a little bit alike, don't you think?

This is how we have dinner with Daddy every night! :)

Jeremiah started shaving.  He's gonna be 4, ya know.

A week and a half ago my parents came for a few days to help, and that was SO nice!  Just not having to get J up and out of bed so early made things a little easier for me (of course, the day they watched J, I ended up having a 2-hour delay for the cold anyway!).  But anyway, definitely just nice to have them here and J just loves hanging out with his Grandpa and Grandma!  Then Friday, I took a personal day, and we all took off for Wisconsin for the weekend.  My mom road with J and I, my dad drove their car, and Adam drove from MI to meet us in WI for the weekend.  It worked perfectly!

And our reason for heading that way for the weekend, was so that my mom and I could go down to Chicago for the day on Saturday to go bridesmaid dress shopping with Abby (she and Neil are getting married in June!  Yay!).

Friday night we met the Brassers for dinner at Panera (of course!).  J always likes to see "Hunka Noo" and "Jo-uh-ant." :)

No, that's not my mom.  That's Aunt JoAnne!

 The day in Chicago was FREEZING.  But, we braved the cold and took the train (from Abby's apartment in Bucktown) downtown to do some shopping!

Hats and ear warmers were a must!  It was SO cold!!

I love this city!

 It is weird for me to think that I actually used to live in Chicago.... seems like a lifetime ago!  And I used to know my way around!  Now every once in awhile I'd think (or say), "I know where we are!"  Kinda disappointing to realize how quickly I have forgotten and that I'm not that "city girl" anymore!

Sisters!

 We had lunch at one of my favorite places-- Potbelly's!

Oh yes, I did get a shake AND a dream bar!

 We did not find a dress on our shopping trip, but Abby did find one online that day, so we are all set with that!  We also were able to help Abby get a good start on putting together the invitations, too.

J had a fun "guys day" that day with Daddy and Grandpa!  They went to The Domes to see the train exhibit!

Look at all that green!

Last week our temps actually got above freezing (39 degrees, I think!), so J was just dying to go outside!  He used some of Daddy's tools to "chunk the ice" for awhile (I'm sure this is totally safe).

 This weekend J got to go to his first real "friend" birthday party.  His daycare buddy Connor turned 6 and had a party at SkyZone.  Jeremiah had so much fun!!

J and his best buddy Grady jumped together pretty much the whole time (once they both got comfortable with the trampolines!).

Best friends!

 And with 5 minutes left to jump...

J took a great nap that day! :)


So that's what we've been up to.  February looks to be busy and fun!  Of course, every February I get a little nostalgic as I realize my baby is turning yet another year older.  I'll be back sometime soon with a little trip down memory lane and then a re-cap of J's b-day!

Back to Reality....

Well, today is Sunday and that means it's back to reality and our new, temporary "normal". :(  Not gonna lie.... I don't want this Winter Break to end!!  It was SO nice for all 3 of us to be home, relaxing, spending time together, not worrying about work and travel to/from Mi..... but of course, that's not reality, is it?  Somebody has to pay the bills!  Life must get back to normal, even though I'm not a huge fan of it at this point.  Adam left this afternoon to head back to MI, and while earlier this week it looked like the weather would be fine for traveling, now it is looking horrendous.  A winter storm pummeling IL, IN, MI.... fabulous!  So prayers would be MUCH appreciated as Adam travels today.  My hope when we made this job decision was that this winter would not be too snowy--  obviously that is not going to happen!!  And we still have a lot of winter left to endure. :(

Anyway, we did enjoy some nice time the rest of our Winter Break!  Some of my instagram and phone pics of what we have been up to:

76 mph, 59 degrees, dirty dashboard

I headed up to Sioux Center for a little girl time, and it was fabulous (Disclaimer:  I made sure that the one other car on the road was nowhere near me when I snapped this pic.  Temps that warm in Dec. in Iowa need to be documented!)!!  I left Friday the 27th, and came back the next day-- a nice quick little trip to see friends!  Friday night I went out for dinner with my very best friends Stephanie and Natasha.... well, it was dinner, dessert, driving around, and coffee..... and we still didn't have enough time to get all of our chatting done. :)

Bff's!

Saturday morning Steph and I met up with one of our good friends from high school, Rebekah (FYI she's over at Our Plain Life).  To give you a bit of background, I was SUPER cool in high school (right?!?!?!?) and my closest friends and I called ourselves "The Wildflowers" after the song by Tom Petty (and yes, I have been made fun of mercilessly by my older brother about this).  Anyway, there are 4 Wildflowers, and what are the odds that we 4 California girls would marry NW Iowa boys?????  Crazy (although factor in being Dutch and CRC and maybe it's not so crazy?).  Anyway, none of us live in CA anymore, but we can sometimes overlap our visits to NW Iowa and fit in time to see each other!  This was one of those times. :)  We missed our 4th Wildflower, Kerri!  And of course, no pic. :(  But, I assure you, we are ALL still as cool as we were in high school.  Maybe even more cool, if that's even possible.

J and Daddy got to have guys time while Mommy was gone!  They did some painting (we're working on getting ready to put the house on the market in a couple months!), and also got to play outside in the nice warm weather and snow.

Good-bye blue.

A ladder on stairs.... that's safe, right?

This guy loves playing in the snow!

 Let's see.... what else have we been up to?

Snuggling and staying cozy.

Puzzles at the library.

Pretending to play in the sandbox.

"Baking" aka licking beaters

Thursday I had Professional Development at school, so J and Daddy got to have another guys day!  They went to the mall so that J could play on the germs.... I mean, playground.

Jeremiah has been keeping us laughing with the things he says!  One conversation we had the other night:

J: Hey Mommy, Daddy brought me to this world.
Me:  What?  How did that work?
J:  Well, a long time ago when I was a baby, I lived in heaven.  And Daddy came up and got me and brought me to this world.
Me:  Well, how did he come and get you?
J:  He just came in a rocket ship.

Huh.  Okay, sure.  Daddy gets all the credit!

And here's an update:  No school for me tomorrow due to the -40 to -50 degree wind chills that are expected.  So, that's our first "snow" day and one more day in May we'll be in school. :(  But I guess my wish for Winter Break not to end yet has come true!  And please say a prayer for Adam as he is traveling-- thanks!!