Yard work

Along with all the tree cutting, we needed to get the yard work done. Here is Maren mowing along with Jeff.


Cheyenne found a worm and let Maren hold it. All was good until it started to wiggle...she screamed, dropped it and then shivered a couple times. When asked how she liked holding the worm..."it was Yucky!"


Cheyenne is working on one of her value projects for Young Womens...she has been weeding and caring for our garden...Joran decided to help her this morning...he was so proud of his weed!

Maren's Second Birthday

Maren's Birthday is May 7th...we were so busy that night ( Connor had an away soccer game-a one and a half hour drive each way plus the hour and a half game, and Cheyenne had a volleyball tournament) that we decided to celebrate the next night. Maren has been celebrating since we flipped the calendar-we have a dog calendar and she knows which puppy shows when it is her birthday!

This is our 2 year old Maren...on her real birthday!


Anyway, Grandma Stephens takes each grandchild to lunch and shopping, but in this case...she brought Maren a happy meal and a gift...



Here are Maren and Joran sitting on Maren's 4 wheeler from Grandpa and Grandma!


The battery had to charge once we got it put together, so these are actually the next night...


she was chasing Cheyenne around the house!

We're entering the Princess stage again!


Maren got pizza for her dinner...our kids usually chose what they want for dinner. We decided that since Maren often wanders into our room at 2am and says "I want pizza" that she wouldn't mind too much if we helped her choose.



Maren had an Abby Cadabby cake last year that I made. This year the week was too busy to make a Dora...she had to settle for a store cake this time!


I think the rest of us had more fun opening gifts that she did...we like to do heavy, heavy hangover with each present...we kept telling her to close her eyes and she looked like she was trying to fill her pants....we laughed so hard each time.

Still trying....


She figured out how to peak!

I think she might be getting the hang of it now!


These are sand toys for the sandbox...


Training pants...can you tell what we're doing this summer???


Big girl pants for when we've succeded!


A new baby and all the "things" a good mommy needs!

I don't know what happened to the pictures of her bubble mower...she also got a gallon of bubble mix...we're going to be prepared this year...that stuff goes quick! I think she had a good birthday and we are so happy she is such a blessing in our lives...

Maren's Really New Bed

Ok...the trundle idea was short lived...too much of a pain to push it in and pull it out everytime she went to sleep. So I decided to pull a switcheroo...I moved the bunkbeds from the big girls bedroom upstairs and the little girls daybed/trundle to the basement. This was a great idea...the timing was not so good. Jeff over did it at the gym this week and could hardly move his arms! The bunkbeds are made of 4X4 posts and 2X6's and the boards are ply wood...anyway they are way heavy... between all of us we got it done. This is the result:

Maren sleeps on the bottom of course and Annicha on the top.

This is how the other side loooks...we added the kitchen cart with all the play food and dishes now that the trundle didn't have to pull out into this space.

Maren Big Girl Bed

I mentioned to Jeff that maybe it was time to take down the crib...considering Maren could climb in and out with the side up or down. The next thing I knew he had it done and I had to "fix" the furniture. In the below picture the crib was against the wall with the book shelf and came out to the beauty salon.

We decided to let Maren sleep on Annicha's trundle so that if she fell off she wouldn't go too far.

Here is Maren trying out her bed...she was upside down for some reason...she's wearing a pull-up because she put it on herself...I guess she thought she was a really big girl now that she didn't have a crib....I'm not ready for that process quite yet.

Now she is the right way...

Joran was a little jealous and wanted to try out the new sleeping situation...he's pretending to be asleep...but peeking!

Maren's Pretty in Pink

It was nice and spring like the other day so we put our spring clothes on and tried to figure out what to do to tame Maren's curly locks...we pulled out the baby bows and used them as headbands...she thought she was so big..."like Annicha" she kept saying. We thought we'd take a few pictures so everyone can see how big she is getting :(


Maren has a huge cowlick so it is hard to do much that doesn't have her hair parted on the same side all of the time...

where did all those curls come from?

Our sweet big girl!

I feel like I'm writing a hair blog...NOT...I just follow a lot of those. Anyway, she loved her hair and she left it alone for a long time, almost the entire day. We might try this again...maybe I can get some more use out of those baby (now big girl) bows!

Little Escaper

It snowed last night...



Maren has learned to open doors...ask me how many times a day I have to close the back door...yes I lock it...she's figured out that part too! I'm sure our next heating bill should be interesting.
Maren opened the coat closet, put on Sierra's hat, and Joran's boots. She then let herself outside...the reason she is crying? She likes to eat snow and didn't put gloves on! Her hands were freezing :(



I brought her in and we got her some gloves and her vest so she could go back out for a few minutes ... she refused to take off Joran's boots and wear her own.



Joran saw her outside so he had to join her. He's a little smarter and put on his coat, hat and gloves before he went out...although he had to wear his sneakers because Maren had his boots on! That's a spongebob bandaid on his chin - another story.



Stockton had to get involved in the action as well...if you look at his nose in the picture with Joran it is covered in snow...he loves to root in the snow! Below he was totally rolling in the snow...never seen him do that before. Joran and Maren were totally giggling at him. I told them he was making a snow dog angel.

Maren's Piggies

Maren's hair is finally long enough to put in Piggies! It won't stay all day, but at least we have options now. I'll have to figure out how to add the link to the hair blog I follow...we copy lots of ideas for Annicha and sometime the older girls. When we do Maren's hair she calls it pretty hair!