A New Skill

I was in the knitting store today getting some help with a project when I noticed that Ethan had my keys up next to his ear. I took them away afraid that he would try to poke them inside. Later in an effort to keep him quiet I handed him my cell phone which he promptly held up to his ear and than he smiled really big...I wonder where he learned what to do with a phone? ;)

Ethan's Birthday

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Here He Is! The Birthday Boy! It's so hard to believe that it's already been a year...he is a joy to have around and we don't know what we'd do without him...well, maybe get more done and we wouldn't have to keep our games out of his reach and we wouldn't have to lock all the cabinets and...:)

Here's the bathtub cake that I made for Ethan. The water is made of blue jello and the handles are made of marshmallows:) It was fun and easy....www.familyfun.com has a lot of cute projects, cakes, and treats to make.
This is the cake that Jamie made from Keegan and Ethan's joint birthday party. We also celebrated Ryan, Amanda, and Amy's birthdays as well. On Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving week all the Weiss girls went shopping and spent the night at a hotel. It was fun to spend time together and considering how many trips were made back to the van with packages it was pretty successful too! We won't mention the room keys that were locked in the room or the missing van keys:)

Below is a slideshow of pictures from Ethan's two parties. This time I used more upbeat music although it doesn't really fit the pictures... The Happy Birthday song that I downloaded from iTunes wasn't able to be downloaded into Windows Movie Maker...oh Well! Enjoy:)

New Poll!

Be sure to check out the new poll to the right and vote!

Pictures are still forth coming of E's Birthday parties (yes, he had two!) as soon as I can get the camera unpacked from the car. It's buried deep, deep inside the trunk so it's any body's guess as to when that might be!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were reminded of how blessed we are! It was nice to be with family and it's nice to be home again:)

We met with the moving company today and set dates for the movers to come. They will start packing us up on Monday, December 17th and end on Wednesday, December 19th. The twins have school up until the 20th of December so we'll head to Illinois sometime on that Friday or Saturday. It depends on how long it takes to do a final cleaning of the house. Our official move date is January 2nd. Our flight leaves at noon on that day.

The rest of this week will be busy with getting the house decorated for Christmas and getting cookies made for an exchange this weekend. I have to have my final spreadsheet of all that we own done by this Wed and start packing our belongings that will head into storage. Plus, the Christmas letter needs to be written and our list updated:)

Fun Cake Wins!

I made Ethan a tub cake with Jello for water and a rubber ducky floating on top - he LOVES rubber duckies:) Pictures to follow...

Guess who's walking?!?!?!?

Life will never again be the same around the Weiss household! I'll try to get video tomorrow to post. We were at Fehr's for supper tonight and E several times took 4-5 steps in a row to get somewhere. You can tell that he really wants to do it and his little body is geared up for it....and than his mind catches up and says, "WAIT! I MIGHT GET HURT!" so he falls to his hands and knees and crawls since that is the safer way to get around at the moment:) It's fun but what on earth am I going to do with a walking one year old on a 20 hour flight?!?

Where's Ethan?

We've been playing a new game lately..."Hey! Where'd Ethan go?" I have learned that most of the time I don't really want to know the answer to that. He may be destroying Kaitlyn's room, or eating crayons, or breaking night lights, or - UGH! - swishing his hands in the toilet!! It's an adventure most days for him:) His favorite thing to do today is to climb on top of the Little Tykes picnic table and than chew us all out because he can't get back down! You would think that he'd learn...must be his daddy coming out in him...I'm smarter than that;)

Better Late Than Never!

Here it is, finally! This is a slideshow from the Annual Kellenberger Weiner Roast back in Sept. It took me forever to figure out how to make it and post it...So, here it is! To view the slideshow just click on the play button under the picture below. PS: I take no responsibility for pictures of people eating:)

Tis the season for....Stomach flu:(

Our home is becoming more and more cleaned out as the time to move gets closer and closer. We took a load of things home the last trip back and now Mom and Dad are taking the twins' bunk beds, the John Deere Gator, and odds and ends from our garage back to Illinois. We are going to get a new bed for the twins but we haven't decided what would be the best yet. We are considering a bunk bed with a trundle in case all three kiddos need to sleep in the same room for awhile...they do anyway...or a twin over a double. We went shopping on Friday evening for storage shelves and baskets as storage will be an issue over there. We also bought an area rug for Kaitlyn's room since none of the condos there have carpeting. Most people use area rugs but they are SO expensive there compared to here. This next week I am going to try to finish cleaning out every closet, under every bed, and the storage room so when the movers come we can tell them exactly what's going. After Thanksgiving we'll rent a storage unit and start putting things into storage that we aren't taking with us. It's such an ordeal to move 2 adults plus 3 children. I have a spreadsheet that says what toys, clothes, etc are going with us on the plane, which ones will be air shipment, which ones will be sea pack, which ones are going into storage, and which ones we are donating:)

We enjoyed a nice weekend with Dad, Mom, and Rachel. They leave tomorrow morning. Hopefully we didn't give them a present of the stomach flu. Ethan had it first early last week, than Kaitlyn on Thurs, and finally Kenton this morning. I've been washing my hands so much that they are raw!

The weather has been gorgeous - although a little more sunshine would have been nice. We were in the 70's today and tonight it still feels nice...maybe I'll stick K & K in bed and head on a walk. They are getting to stay up late since A. Rachel is here...

Prayers of the Innocent

Sometimes I wonder if anything I teach or tell the twins sinks in. Tonight I was given a special little glimpse into an innocent soul when Kaitlyn asked to say the bedtime prayer. After saying the "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" prayer I usually add a blessing on family and pray for any needs that we know of. Kaitlyn said the first part and hesitated before adding "God bless grandmas, grandpas, all our aunts and our uncles and our cousins, and bless daddy and make him come home safe to our house and tell (name withheld) that he needs to repent so he can go to heaven, In Jesus Name We Pray, Amen!"

Life, Slow Down!

Cleaning and Scrubbing can wait til Tomorrow...

For Babies grow up we've learned to our Sorrow.

So quiet down Cobwebs, Dust go to sleep.

I'm rocking my Baby and Babies don't keep!

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Last Friday Ethan didn't get an afternoon nap until late. He fell asleep in the car (which is unusual for him) and he actually stayed asleep when I carried him in the house. The twins were at the Fehr's for a few hours so I sat in the rocking chair and rocked him for about 25 minutes. It was WONDERFUL!! First of all, he is not a snuggly baby and second of all the above poem is posted over his crib and it seems most days I tend to be too "busy" to really spend that precious time with Ethan or Kaitlyn and Kenton. I have to say that my heart was quite full by the end of our "rock" session and my housework still got done:)

Like Father, Like Son!

Last week while we are at my Mom and Dad's Ethan found the change jar. He figured out how to get the lid off and reach in and grab coins...he MUST take after his daddy:) He would stand there and swish his little hand around in the coins until he finally had a handful. Than, straight to his mouth they would go! I tried and tried to post the video of him doing this as it's pretty funny but I couldn't get it to work.