Will's first basketball game

Will had his first basketball game last night.  He had a wonderful time and his coach, Jen, is just fantastic with the kids.  She has 8 kids of her own, 7 girls 1 boy, and coaches 2 teams.  One of her girls is on the team.
Will got several rebounds, showed great hustle, and even scored a basket!!  The look on his face when he scored was priceless!  He is  very excited about playing again on Saturday.

Oh and Will is the one in the red hightop shoes.  Look for the energetic kid, that's him!

Love my girl!

Monday while I was sick Caroline was the biggest of helpers.  After she got home from school she rode back to school with Will to take him to basketball practice and then rode home.  She then took Eric to the playground.  If was such a beautiful day temperature wise on Monday (about 70*) and Eric hadn't gotten outside all day since I was staying close to the bathroom.  Then she and Will unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.  What a huge help!

side view of braid

I tried out a new braid Sunday.  The lace heart braid is like a french braid but you just add hair from one side not both.

Thank you for all your help Caroline!  I love you!!

Last Week

Last week got away from me!  Not sure how a week can go by so fast but it did.  Monday Will had his endoscopy done and everything went really well.  Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!  I got the results back from the biopsy last week too and everything is normal.  He has a slightly inflamed stomach but the doc is keeping him on the prilosec.  So on to the next phase of figuring out why his stomach is hurting, more allergy testing.  We go on Valentine's day.

He is not pretending to be asleep, he actually looks that angelic while sleeping!!  We brought him downstairs when we usually take him to the bathroom to have a few pretzels before midnight and he couldn't stay awake.

Pictures of Will's tough!  The bottom right is his stomach and it's not supposed to be splotchy like that.

After Monday I'm not sure how the week got away from me and I didn't get much cleaning or anything else done for that matter!!  Then Will got sick on Saturday and Monday I was sick.  I feel much better today.  I'm hoping no one else gets it but lots of nasty stuff is going around post.

Big News

Done!  We are officially done with diapers at the Redfern house!!!  WOOOOHOOOO!  Eric is now wearing undies at night.  He is 26.5 months old by the way.  He was more ready than I was, and asked to wear his "umwear" to bed like Will does.  SO I hesitantly agreed( he had had a dry diaper every morning for the past 2 weeks).  He woke up at 3:30 asking to go the first night and then 4:30 the second night.  I'm so proud of my big boy waking up and telling me!

Enjoying apples and peanut butter with Dad.

An introduction to school

Lately Eric has shown an increased interest in wanting to use scissors, saying parts of his ABC's, and telling me what color something is.  So I started doing a little "school" with him based off of some Montessori ideas.  He loves doing his school and his attention span (most days) is pretty incredible for a 2 year old.  (At least I think it is!)  

He is doing what is called "spooning" where you spoon an item from one place into another.  He has also done this with the flattened marbles that you would use in a flower vase and spooned them into an ice cube tray.  Some day he will use a medicine dropper and move water from one to another.  All working on fine- motor development that will lead to better hand strength and control for handwriting.

Eric knew how to correctly hold the scissors with out me showing him.  I have gotten him some smaller scissors, but he doesn't like them as much since he can't cut through the sheet in one motion!  He doesn't have the lifting of the thumb part of scissoring down yet.  He takes his hand out and uses both hands to open them and then puts his hand back in.  A little slow but he gets it.

This was his first time with a glue stick and he thought it was super cool!  He glued his cut stickers to another sheet of paper and was so proud of himself!!

This is some of Justin's school work!  And no, I am not so good at helping him with it.  So Uncle Paul, Aunt Patt, or any of the Kvernens that would like to help him practice his spoken Chinese that would be great!

Matching

I bought these matching shirts for the boys awhile back. They are more for warmer weather but Will keeps wanting to wear shirts from "his other drawer" ( the one with t-shirts in it!) so long sleeve under was the way to go.
The boys loved matching and have asked to have more shirts that match! Will told me that Eric had to wear brown pants like he was wearing. All day Eric told me baseball shirt yike Will!

Oh, and be on the look out for these shirts Ryan and Raleigh! The R will work great for hand-me-downs!!

Gymnastics

Gymnastics has been a big part in our kids lives so far.  They have all 3 taken classes and really enjoyed them.  Last week Eric would ask me every morning if it was nastics time.  After nap on Thursday he woke up and asked time go nastics?  And when I said no one more nap and then we'll go he started crying!!  He loves to go and is a the best listener in the class.

Caroline went to a new gymnastic place on Thursday.  The classes offered on post are not up to the level she was doing in MI and she was wanting more.  I wish we could have started her here back in the fall but the schedule just wouldn't allow all the travel it takes.  Mercury Gymnastics in in Kansas City, MO just south of the airport so it takes a good 30 minutes to get there.  So it's not like I can just drop her off for a class and pick her up later.  She was doing 4 hours of gymnastics a week before we moved and would have been doing almost that much here.  Sitting with the boys during that time would not have been something I would have wanted to do as well as the classes all being in the evening.

The schedule is better now and Justin is available to stay with the boys while I take C to class!  She can't be on the team here like she was in MI since it is the middle of the season and her level is over-crowded.  So her teacher said she would challenge her and push her.  Works for me!!

Busy busy gym!

This place is HUGE!

Caroline is sittin gon the floor on the right side.

The video below is Caroline learning a new skill for the first time!  A front handspring!  She was so proud so got the hang of it pretty quickly.  She is on the middle trampoline (or the left black one) in a black leotard.  She misses on the first try and gets it on the second!  

Caroline was absolutely thrilled about coming to this place!  She had a blast and it super excited about coming back.

A Big Week

This week has been a busy one.  It was the first full week after break.  Will has basketball practice on Mondays and Wednesdays, Justin has Chinese class Mondays and Wednesdays, Caroline has gymnastics Thursday evenings, and Eric has gymnastics Friday mornings.  Between now and Mid-May Justin has 9 more all-day-long masters class on Saturdays with the Friday night before it too.  Busy!!

But also this week I found time to make some new recipes. 

My kitchen helper!

Homemade dairy free, chicken 3 cheese ravioli with a garlic butter parmesan sauce.  Made for Will!

I stopped buying loaf bread in October, I think.    This recipe is from my cousin Laura.  Thanks Laura, I love this bread!!

Made these pull apart orange rolls for Last Saturdays breakfast.

Made homemade lasagna the same day I made the ravioli, loaf bread, and homemade cinnamon bread.

Will can't have dairy and we have also eliminated beef and tomatoes.  Since doing that his stomach has stopped hurting and he is off in Prilosec!  He is still going to have a scope on MLK day and more allergy testing on Valentine's day.  The last time he had allergy testing done he was 3 so the doc wants to do it again.
Meal planning is more of a challenge but Will has always been so good with whatever I feed him.  He even told me my ravioli was better than a restaurants!!

Guess what I finally did?!

I finally turned all my blog posts into a book!  It has only taken me a few years to get this done.  I was struggling with Blurb and just couldn't figure it out and then did and went back to work on it again and couldn't find my book! UGH!!  So I googled blog to book and found another program and had my 2 books completed in a matter of 30 minutes.  Phew!  DONE!  Now onto other projects.

Suz and Graham gave us the coolest gift.  Can you see them hanging on the cabinet doors?  It's the states where we have lived!  Made from that states license plate.  How fun is that?!!  We love them.  We wrote the dates we lived in each state on the back.  6 states and this year we will add another.  Will is 6, but he hasn't lived in NC so only 5 for him!

Tried a new style.  Made a bow out of hair!  Her hair was too clean and the loop in the middle kept slipping out.

I was making room in my cabinets to add some of my new Christmas presents ( a bread machine,  a mandolin, and a fry daddy) and Eric thought I had made room for him to sit!

Leo

Meet Leo, our cat!!  He is a Maine Coon and about 16 lbs.  My mom is downsizing her pets and Justin finally agreed that we could have a cat. So when Mom and Pete drove to KS they brought Leo with them.

The cat LOVES Justin and will follow him around the house , after the kids are in bed!

He sits on Justin's desk while he does his homework.

And sleeps at Justin's feet.  Miles and the cat get along fine but Miles is a tad jealous when Leo gets to sleep in the bed, which is why he is on the bed.

Welcome to the family Leo!!

Bowling

Nana and Papa came to visit on the 27th for a few days.  While they were here we went bowling!  What fun we had, it was Eric's first time bowling and he enjoyed himself too.

Will wasn't too bad and had decent technique too!

Eric wanted to pick up all the balls.

Watching the screen after a strike.

Getting ready to bowl with his 6 lb ball.

Her technique wasn't as good but still somewhat effective!

Eric had a great nap after playing 3 rounds!

Christmas morning