A Little Bit of Everything

These past few weeks have just flown by with activity, so we apologize for not updating the blog on a more regular basis. I'll start with the BIG news - we bought a house! Yeah! I went down alone (well, with the kids) to househunt, and looked at 8 houses total (yes, again, with the kids. I'm nuts). I fell in love with the second house that I looked at, and liked it so much I "forced" Joe to drive to Springfield and back to Iowa City in one day so that he could look at it before taking the plunge. Barring any unforseen problems, we will close on this house in mid-June.

The new casa de Baima. This house was completed in November 2007, so we will be the first owners. The yard is big enough for a swing set, and we love having a clean palate to work with on the inside. The location is great as well - close to several major roads that will quickly get us anywhere we want.


The big selling point to me...the kitchen. I will have a lot of fun in this room!

Olivia and Ethan having fun on yet another yucky day in Iowa City. Both of the kids really love music, particularly the drums. Ethan has started the "baby dance" of bouncing up and down so he is really joining in on the musical fun now! He is also playing peek a boo, clapping his hands, and walking with a push toy almost like a pro.

My little climber. Olivia was not a climber, not now not then. Ethan cannot stop climbing. Just tonight Joe found him on top of Olivia's Barbie car which was on top of Olivia's American Girl wagon, and he was attempting to climb onto the doll house to reach some dolls. And this is all before he can walk, so I know that the worst is yet to come!

My parents came up for a visit a few weeks ago, and so there was another baking session. However, the real lesson came while the brownies were baking - grandpa showing Olivia the art of licking the batter off of the spoon and bowl.

Now we are jumping to when I went to my parent's house last week. I left Iowa City to get away from the snow, and you can guess what happened. It snowed 8 inches in Litchfield the day after I arrived (and Iowa City remained dry the entire time). Sigh. Luckily things are beginning to melt here in the IC, so we are really hoping it melts without incident (ie: flood!). Anyway, this is a picture of Olivia playing with a bowl of snow and food coloring. In a princess dress of course.

Bath time for Ethan. I don't think that he'll last long in this sink, since, you guessed it, he attempts to climb out of it.

Back in Iowa City. Just a cute shot of Ethan sleeping with Enid.

This past weekend Rachel and Thomas came for a visit as they will be unable to come up for the Easter holiday. This is just a silly shot.

Once again, more cooking lessons. If you have not picked up on this yet, my family loves to cook. Here Olivia is learning how to make chocolate-peanut butter bark. Rachel pretty much let her put anything she wanted into the bark, as well...jelly beans, m&ms, dried cherries, sprinkles, etc.

Since the mall here does not have a "real" Easter bunny, Olivia had to make do with these little bunnies.

I can clearly remember Ethan being too small to play on the mall playground, and now he is able to crawl/climb around. I just have to make sure he doesn't get run over on the weekends when it is full of kids.