Not alotta news...just some cute.

Greta's new favorite phrase...."I changed my mind."

Greta's new favorite pasttime....chasing after Moses- Jersey's bichon cousin who is with us for the week

Greta's new favorite park equipment....the "tiny-totter" (teeter totter)

Greta's new vocabulary mixup..."angry" and "hungry" (and she says hungry/angry ALOT)

That's it for our update...enjoy a few pics in some pre-Easter finery.

Grandpa Jay's Birthday

We helped Grandpa celebrate today....we won't tell you how old he is now, but let's just say the birthday cards this year revolved around bodily functions and were in large print.  Heh.  We had a great time at Grandpa's birthday.  Here are a few photos from our day with the family!

2 posts in one week? Can you believe it?

I'm telling you, the warm weather is to be credited!  The little taste of spring we are getting right now is divine (and short-lived...snow flurries predicted for the end of next week).  We went on a family bike ride today.  The Preacher has been dyin' to get me on the new bike he got me in the fall and Gboo couldn't have agreed more.  He hatched the "family bike ride plan" at about 9 am this morning.  Seemingly, daddy has not learned that you get all the preparations for outings underway BEFORE you get the toddler all excited about a "bike wide."  The end result: Greta was bouncing off the walls for 2 hours while daddy got the bikes out, filled the tires with air, found our helmets, etc etc etc.  We had reached critical meltdown stage (her coat and helmet were on....I had run out of stalling tactics) when daddy finally said, "ok we're ready!"  We biked over to Grandma Marmo's house, had lunch, and biked back.  Gboo's mommy and daddy felt exhilarated by the wonderful weather and already quite sore (we have yet to hit upon a suitable and dependable exercise routine up here in the tundra)...and 3 blocks from home Greta felt......sleepy.  I wish we had had the camera to capture her napped out in the bike seat on the back of daddy's bike.  You'll have to settle for this shot of us trying to get her coat off while not disturbing her nap!!

One other funny from yesterday....Greta was crabby yesterday afternoon after a nap that was far too short.  Daddy came home and wanted to hold and squeeze his girl, a predictable daily occurrence.  Greta was doing her best to wiggle away and daddy was holding on tight...the match was set...who would be the victor.  Then Greta blurts out "put me down Daddy, I have a stinky diap."  In typical Preacher-man daddy style, he did put her down (hoping mommy would deal with the stinky diap?) only to find she had CLEAN PANTS.... Clever girl has already figured her daddy out!

Look Mom! No Jacket!

Ok, I know it seems like we must be doing our best to kill whatever following we have for this blog.  The last few months have been pretty difficult for us professionally (Tyler is now the solo pastor at our church here- long story), so I hope you'll cut us a hair of slack.  I DO come bearing funny stories and pictures.  We'll just keep this in short snippets or else this will be too long to endure!

Funny stories:

1) Greta has taken a liking to "Where the Wild Things Are."  This should probably concern us.  Anyhoo...a week or so after we started reading this book to her, she started to spontaneously say "Nash" when she was unhappy.  We finally figured out that she was "nashing her terrible teeth" at us when we were requiring her to do something that wasn't to her liking.  Oh my.

2) (this one is a little personal- skip if you embarrass easily) Greta took a peek down my shirt a few weeks ago and let out a loud "Oh no, mommy."  I said, Greta, what is wrong?  She replied, "oh no, Mommy....Mommy has a bottom on her front."  Hmmm.  Someday I'll tell her that the state of my chest (amongst other things) is in part due to her.....  Gotta love the honesty of kiddos.

3) Greta is now sleeping in the big girl bed instead of a crib.  The first 2 weeks went great.   And then she discovered that she could get herself out of the bed.  So we've been fighting a bed battle with her.  Usually we hear her get out of bed and we just return her to bed without too much fuss (a la supernanny style).  However, we did go in to check on her the other day and she had made the hard wooden floor her bed so she got a rather rude awakening (the door hitting her in the bum) when we poked our heads in her room.

4) She's doing alot of "talking" on my cell phone.  Of late, she is doing alot of talking to Gramps about airplanes.  She knows that Granny and I frequently put her on "speaker"...so she usually weaves that into the conversation too.

5) She tried to put her dad in time out a week or so ago.  You can guess how well that went over.  OH man....  

So here are a few pictures from our March adventures.  Swimming with Grandpa Jay, displaying our new cheese face and our new "funny" faces, and playing in the park today on our 65 degree day (did you hear me singing with joy all the way in Alabama??).  I should mention that one of the funny faces is greta "putting makeup on"...tell me I look better than that at the end of the process!  Too much fun!

We'll try to update again soon...though with Easter bearing down upon us I'll make no promises.  We're heading to Granny and Gramps' house the week after Easter so we should have some fun pictures from that visit to post soon too.  Much love from the thawing tundra!

PS I'm pretty sure the unseasonably warm temps can be credited with my fingers defrosting enough to type....so keep praying for a warm spring for us up here!  We deserve it after this winter!

Birthday Videos (coming soon)

Tank You Fah-der

Over the past couple of months we've been working on teaching Gboo to say a prayer before eating. She likes this one a lot and has just started leading her parents in song.

Greta's 2nd try at her 2nd birthday party!

Well we finally got to have Greta's 2nd birthday party.  We had alot of Tyler's family over for brunch this morning to celebrate and open presents and had a great time!  It was Elmo themed, as I think I mentioned in the original Gboo bday party post, which meant tons of red icing to smear everywhere (notice it was a 2 parent clean up job!)....great idea mom!  Greta is sporting her new "smile" (accompanied by the obligatory "cheeeeese") in several of these photos.  Of course Greta racked up some good toys- puzzles, stuffed animals, books, play food, an Elmo pillow....but we enjoyed watching her play with our family the most.  We'll post some funny video tonight or tomorrow too, but for now here are some pictures so you can celebrate with us.