Trevor, say "Cheese!" (or "milk"?)

Check out our little Trevor!  He started smiling and cooing last week, and we're absolutely crazy about it!

Here's the wind-up: He hears us calling him and his face lights up.

He's going for the hit: He starts cooing!

It's a home run!  Let the smiles begin!

Fix- It guys

Jaron and his trusty assistant fixing the window of the Saturn.

Car Tales

You know you're officially grown up when your dream car is a minivan with automatic sliding doors!  Yesiree, Jaron and I have officially crossed the threshold of true adulthood; we bought a minivan last week.  It was an adventure.  I had found a great deal on craigslist.org from a private seller in Chicago, so we made the 6-hr trip, hoping that this would be the one for us.  And, luckily, it was!  So now I'm not "just" a mom, but a true-blue soccer-shuttling/carpool-carrying/ grocery-getting mama!  I feel really grateful to have found a super deal on a really nice car, and Jaron's glad to be done car shopping.  Now all we have to do is sell our "3rd" car--a '99 Saturn station wagon.  Jaron has demonstrated his mechanical genius by fixing numerous things with this car, including a water pump, automatic windows (nothing a little wire won't hold together) and other complicated-sounding things an auto dunce like me can't remember.   (Anyone out there want an 'adorable' and affordable car...?)

Winter Fun

Here's some things we've been up to this winter:

Mikey's Joyschool class went on a fieldtrip to the firestation.  Mikey got to go in a real firetruck and talk to real firefighters!

Jaron and the boys made a bona fide snowman (snowballs for eyes, stick nose, smoking a candy cane pipe, and hard candies for buttons...oh, and mama's scarf).

Spencer and Mikey are taking swim lessons at our local Rec Center.  Here's Spencer with his buddy, Jordan.

You'll notice that the majority of our winter activities aren't actually outside, so we have tried to discover all the fun indoor things Iowa has to offer.  There's a great (and free) Natural History museum downtown, and a good sized children's museum.   And when we just want to stay home (which is more often for me lately with a baby in tow), we have fun swinging on our basement trapeeze, building couch-cushion forts, and making soups and homemade goodies.  Jaron and I agree that, while winter can get stinkin' cold here, it's also fun to have a change in seasons.  We like the cozy feeling of being in a warm home with family, sipping hot cocoa after playing in the snow.