Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Monster Truck!

Apparently, Nintendo has a monster truck...who knew? We took the boys to see it when it made a pit stop at Nintendo before heading to the Tacoma Dome for the monster truck rally. Seriously, there are so many things I never thought I'd do, say or write before I had boys.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Gus soup and ice cream

Gus absolutely LOVES taking baths (which is a nice change from the scream-fest that is bath time with Mr. Max) and he'd probably play in there for hours if I'd let him. A favorite "toy" is my big wooden spoon. When Max caught him playing with it, he immediately ran and got his "scootle" (stool) and said he wanted to make Gus Soup. It was so cute.


Here's Max giving his soup a good stir:

Gus says, "Don't you cook me, big brother!"



On another note, we're potty training. After Max went poo-poo in the potty, he got to go to the ice cream shop. He looked like this:



Potty training is slow and tough, but Max is a trooper and is doing a great job. I can't believe I have to do this all over again with Gus!
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Friday, January 25, 2008

On pins and needles

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. We've been battling a lot of sickness in our house and this little blog has taken a back seat in terms of priority. In fact, my mother-in-law let me know a couple days ago that I hadn't even posted our Christmas pictures on our picasa site. If you're wondering, they are now posted...a month later. Oh well.

In other news, I've taken up sewing! I took a very basic course on using my machine a couple weeks ago which was really helpful. I made a potholder and I seriously stared at that thing for days thinking, 'hmmm...i made that. me. i actually made something.' It's been really fun to practice while the boys are sleeping, although that means things like dishes and laundry get a bit neglected. I'll need to work on finding a better balance. Yesterday I tackled making pincushions. I realized I needed one and was going to go buy one when I thought, 'I could just make one' and low and behold, I did it. And not only did I make one, I made two. One round and one rectangular. Once again there's been some major staring. Here's a few pics:



Amazing, I know. I even made another one today. I'm like a sewing maniac! Alright, enough about that for now. I will update soon with some pictures of the kids (the stuff you people really care about, I know!)

Thursday, January 3, 2008

An Experiment...

Well, the holidays have come and gone and life is slowly getting back to normal. We still have some Christmas cards trickling in which gave me an idea. I used to handmake my Christmas cards each year and then, when I got pregnant with Gus I realized I was too tired to do that anymore. So, I started ordering those very-generic but oh-so-easy photo cards. I told myself this year that I would also include a family update letter, but things got crazy and well, that didn't happen. I started thinking today as I was reading a friend's Christmas letter that I wished there was a way to write my letter in advance, before all the craziness of Christmas began. That lead me to thinking how interesting it would be (at least to me...maybe I'm alone in this) if I wrote my 2008 Christmas letter now and then looked back at it to see how accurate I was. So here it goes...maybe you'll see this come December, or maybe I'll be way off.

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Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas! It's hard to believe another Christmas season is already upon us. 2008 has been a wonderful year for our family. We hope it has been the same for you.

Mark is still with Nintendo and is enjoying his job as a Forecast Analyst. He was grateful for the addition of another analyst to his department which has lightened his work load a bit. He took a couple trips to Minneapolis to visit with accounts and has seen pretty much the whole of the Mall of America! When he's not working, Mark continues to be Max and Gus' hero and does "research" for work quite often, whether testing new Wii products or trying out the competition's offerings here at home.

Max finally decided to potty train and is loving preschool. He is particularly fond of the monthly field trips they take, which means he gets to ride a Metro bus. Very exciting for a 4-year old. In addition to preschool, Max took a 10-week painting class during which he moved from painting mainly lines to experimenting with circles. He continues to be a very curious boy who constantly wants to know "Why?" I have had to get pretty creative with some of my answers to keep him satisfied!

Gus has grown up so much over the past year. He's walking--well, running--everywhere. I have to keep my eye on him all the time as he's really fast! He routinely delights us with a new word, which he seems to be picking up more and more every day. He follows his brother around like a shadow, causing Max to often turn to me and say "Mommy, can you please tell Gus to go away?" For the most part though, the boys are good friends and it's been so fun to watch them interact together.

I took on the task of finally learning how to sew and have taken a few courses through North Seattle Community College. I still have much to learn, but I have really loved taking some time to work on a few small projects. The boys keep me busy and continue to challenge me to come up with creative ways to spend our days. It's a blessing to be home with them and to watch them grow up.

Mark and I celebrated our 7th anniversary in April and took a trip to New York City in May. We had to catch a game at Yankee Stadium before they closed it down. We planned it so that we caught a Mariners game and were thrilled when they won, although we were careful not to celebrate too loudly! It had been ages since Mark and I traveled without kids and was definitely a trip we'll remember for years to come.

Well, that about wraps it up for our family. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy 2009!

Love,
The Kaetzel Family