Bill's South American Adventure

Bill had the opportunity to take 12 of his students to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands for 12 days. As you can imagine he was in complete heaven. Here a just a few of the hundreds of pictures from his amazing trip.

Standing on the roots of a giant tree.

The whole gang spanning two hemispheres.

Bill having a chat with a giant tortoise.

The Campo Chocha Community kindergarten class ganging up on him.



The Galapagos Islands: too cool for words!

Overall I think he had an awesome trip and can't wait to go back. Check out his facebook page for even more info and pictures of his trip.

What a Cutie!

We had our 20 week ultra-sound yesterday. We asked the technician not to tell us if it's a boy or a girl and even though the baby was very active and kicking all over the place we still don't know. Everything looked good and the baby seems to be healthy and growing right on track so we're grateful for that. Here are a few pictures:

Here's a profile picture. You can also see the knees tucked up by the stomach.

Here's a picture of the little hand.

Now if this little bugger could somehow get the morning sickness to stop things would be great.

Mo the Caterpillar

Dylan found a cute green caterpillar and decided to name him Mo. We were going to keep it but we weren't sure what kind of caterpillar it was and what to feed it. So we decided the best thing would be to let it go. Dylan was very sad to have to let it go so I told him we'd take some pictures and post them to the blog.

Hopefully we'll see Mo again once he's turned into a beautiful butterfly (or moth).

Sprinkler Fun

Dylan has been asking me for weeks if we can hook up the sprinkler. I keep telling him it has to be at least 80 degrees or he'll be too cold. Well last week we had our first day of 80 degree weather and a few days of 90 degrees so the kids had fun finally getting to play in the sprinkler.

Paige uses this big bucket to haul rocks all over the yard.

Baby Ticker

I just added the baby icon to our blog page. According to this, I have 149 days to go until my due date. I don't know about you but does that just sound really far away, or what?! I have been feeling better lately so that's great - only got sick twice this week. Our ultrasound is scheduled for May 26th - but don't get your hopes up - I don't think we're going to find out if it's a boy or girl. I know it drives most of our friends and family crazy but it's just more fun that way.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers out there. I have to say I have been very spoiled today. Here is a picture of all my goodies from Dylan and Paige.

Dylan made me a book of coupons. They include: one walk together, help with the dishes, and breakfast in bed, among others. What a great gift!

Paige made me a "bouquet" of flowers that are cutouts of her hands. So cute!

Thanks for all the calls, cards and gifts. It was a wonderful mother's day!

BUSY...BUSY...BUSY!

If I had to pick one word to describe Paige it would be: BUSY. She is constantly on the go. Here are a few pictures from the past few days:

Paige has recently discovered that she can now open the spice cupboard by herself. This makes cooking a challenge as she is always offering a new spice to add to the meal. Saturday, I was just coming down from upstairs and this is what I see at the bottom of the stairs:

Paige is smiling from ear to ear because she found the bottle of sprinkles in the spice cupboard and was helping herself to a little snack.

Here is the cupboard after she had rummaged through it. Fortunately she had only gotten to a few of the spices before she found the sprinkles and not everything had been dumped out.

I now have a freshly cleaned spice cupboard :)

Yesterday I was trying to get the kitchen cleaned up and Paige was again trying to "help" (which is code for following me around and un-doing everything I had just done). So, I put her upstairs and put the gate up, thinking she could just play in her room until I got done. After I was done in the kitchen I went upstairs to get her. This is what I found:

Paige had gotten into the closet where we keep the pet supplies and dumped out a whole container of dust. I'm sure you're wondering why we even have a container of dust. Well, Dylan has two little pets in his room. They're called Degu's (pronounced day-goo), they're kind of like hamsters. Anyway, these degus take dust baths and so we buy dust at the pet store. Crazy, I know. Well Paige had managed to find the container, open it, dump it, and then track it all over the upstairs bedrooms and hallway. Lets just say I was less then impressed.

So not only do I have a really clean spice cupboard, I now also have freshly cleaned floors upstairs. My life would be so boring without a helpful, curious, into-everything, adorable 2 year old!

Hail Storm

This morning we woke up to a raging thunderstorm. Within minutes the hail began to fall and quickly piled up. Here are a few pictures.

The piles of hail at the bottom of our downspouts.

The front steps and walkway.

Fortunately, the hail was small, about the size of peas, and our car was in the garage, so we didn't have to worry about any major damage. The storm has now passed and it looks like it's going to be a beautiful day here in the midwest.