Happy Halloween!

Jess the giraffe and Elsie the flower seemed to enjoy their second Halloween today. The weather was absolutely beautiful, they got to pick out a pumpkin, and they learned a new word: "candy". I now understand why some parents wait years and years to introduce them to the world of sweets, since all they wanted was more, more, more. But they were polite about it and shared with each other (mostly that is). Following is some pictures for the grandparents (and anyone else who wants to see) who didn't get to see these little guys all dressed up:

Carving pumpkins for the first time is always an experience. After Jess declared five times in a row, "Yucky in there" to the inside of the pumpkin, he decided it was actually fun to play with the guts.

Since I didn't let them use the knife to cut the face out, which was a source of great contention, I let them add their own little twist to the pumpkin with markers.

Checking out the final product

Raiding our own candy bowl.

So far, suckers and smarties seem to be the favorite candy (in reality they haven't had much else)

The Cousins Came to Play

Last weekend my sister Jody came out with her two boys to visit, and we had an action-packed weekend around here. In two days, they managed to hit the zoo, the Children's museum, an indoor pool/rec center, and the natural history museum. One of the best parts for me was watching Elsie and Jess interact with them, and I saw a glimpse of what they might be like if they had an older brother or sister to rile them up. All of a sudden, they want to really jump on the bed and tumble off onto the floor with summersaults. This came after watching their cousins wrestle and have pillow fights. Ethan and Owen, being boys, were also much more interested in Jess than Elsie at this point. They spent a lot of time asking him questions, or trying to get him to say certain things. But Jess was unusually shy at times with all the attention, and so Elsie, who wasn't getting nearly as much attention would come over and answer the question for him. Since Jess usually does most of the talking, it was interesting to see. And don't worry, Elsie didn't feel bad. She got lots of attention from the rest of us.

These are a few pictures from the past couple of weeks. I've gotten behind on the blogging again while trying to study for the boards ( I know, not a good enough excuse. Will try to improve.)

Jess, like most little boys his age, is fascinated with trucks and trains. But he gets really really excited about bikes -- maybe taking after his uncle Scottie?

Taking walks around the block with Poppie

Elsie, playing in the leaves with her new purse. She was so excited to get it that she carried it around the block with her and wouldn't put it down. Jess was a little jealous at first, but they've both seemed to have gotten over it a bit.

Will she be a girly girl? We'll have to wait and see. She's definitely not as excited about trucks as her brother is, but she doesn't like to have her hair done either. I'm still undecided.

Always together, encouraging some type of mischief.

Jess looks like his daddy in this picture, I think.

Jess's First Haircut

As you can see a bit in this picture above, Jess's hair was getting a little bit long and hippie-like. Which was fine, except that he was growing a pretty good mullet in the back and someone asked if we had two girls (even though he was dressed in brown and blue boy clothes). So we decided that it was time to go for the first haircut. Overall, he did great, and although I got a little bit teary-eyed watching that baby hair come off, he looks like a cute little (bigger)boy now.

Elsie just came along for the ride, as she really doesn't have enough hair to cut yet. But they both enjoyed getting to ride in the fire truck. Actually, they enjoyed it so much that we could hardly get them to leave the salon when we were done.

He hardly even noticed what was happening.

In this picture, Jess reminds me of his cousin Owen at this age. I guess that makes sense, since people used to say that he looked like me.

The only part that Jess didn't like was the razor with the buzzing noise. He has always hated, and been slightly afraid of, things that vibrate. Like those supposedly soothing bouncy chairs and crib vibrating apparatuses -- every time we turned one on when he was a baby, he would start to cry.

The first sucker ever -- a big bonus!

And of course Elsie got her own sucker too. Since they had never had one before, when we gave the suckers to them they took them and started hitting themselves on the forehead with them. But after I showed them how to lick them, they were quite pleasantly surprised. The ladies in the salon got a good giggle out of it all.

Dipping

Last night I gave the kids some sour cream to dip their quesadillas in, because they get really excited to dip their food. However, Elsie seemed to find sour cream to be very similar to lotion (she does like to eat lotion too...)

Jess looking over at Elsie, thinking "Oh, that's what you do with it. I thought we were just supposed to eat it and put a little bit on our faces."

As you can see, Jess like the lotion idea just as much. And their arms were very soft after their bath, I must say.

August and September Family Time

After getting back from the cottage, we got to spend a little more time with Trev's parents before they had to head back to Michigan. Nana got to relive the old days of being our nanny for a few days too, which I think she enjoyed :) Of course we were sad to see them leave, but we were also happy that it meant that Poppie was so healthy that he could start teaching this semester again at Calvin Seminary. They'll be back out to see us (and by us, I mean the kids mostly) in a couple of weeks as Ron has a wedding to do out here.

It's hard to drag the kids' attention away from the Baby Einstein video to smile for the camera. This activity is right up there on the favorite list along with reading books, and we frequently hear requests for a "bi-bee-oh" throughout the day. They love to shout out whatever it is they see on the screen -- especially the animals, and it makes me laugh to watch it with them.

My mom has been staying with us for the last seven weeks of my fellowship to take care of the kids while we work (and take care of us too). I don't know how we would have made it without here, since Trevor has been working nights (6P until 8-11AM) and full days/nights on Sundays. Combined with my overnight calls, it's been a tough schedule, and we need someone to stay with the kids at night! We've been blessed with our help in taking care of the kids thus far (my mom, Sugar, Abby, Dave), but the past month has been a bit of a challenge trying to find a nanny to take care of the kids for when I'm done. After hours and hours of searching, we think that we finally found someone who will be great for the family. I'm sure she'll enter the blog later. Anyway, in this picture we are on a hike in Boulder, letting the kids explore some rocks.

Jill showing Jess some fun nature facts.

I'm not sure how well it shows up in this picture, but Elsie has some nice war paint in the form of chalk on her face. We introduced them to sidewalk chalk about a month ago, and I'm still deciding whether that was a good idea. While it has given them hours of fun drawing on the patio, they also frequently draw on each other, on the house, the patio chairs, the picnic table, their big wheels, and about anything else out there. For the most part, we don't care since it washes off easily in the rain. But the other day, Grammy was changing Jess's diaper, only to come out of the nursery and find Elsie covering the hallway wall with pencil. After Trevor had a little talk with her about how we don't draw on the walls inside, both she and Jess walk by this area and say "No no", shaking their heads. Elsie also pointed out a couple of other areas of her artwork that I hadn't noticed by saying "no no". But I am not sure if that means that she won't do it again...

The weekend after Labor Day, my dad and sister Jody flew out from G.R. to spend the weekend in the mountains with us. As we were preparing to go for a hike, Jess and Elsie practiced some dancing while waiting to get seated for breakfast.

What cracks me up about this picture is that Jess is signing "more". He has developed this cute little habit of stopping when he is doing something really fun and saying "Moh" while signing it. He then wants you to say, "Okay Jess, keep on dancing." And he resumes gleefully.

My parents were troopers and hiked up to around 12,000 feet, with some pretty steep and rocky footage later up the trail. Trevor and Dave carried the kids (I'm not that stable on my feet and have frequently fallen on these types of hikes, so I didn't want to put the children at risk unnecessarily.) You can see them barely in the background.

Jill and Jess huddled at the top of Columbine Lake.

Dave and Elsie cuddled up too.

This is the only "family picture" that we could get at the top, since the weather got pretty cold and we had to hurry to get down. But proof that we all made it!

Every morning the kids want to read books for almost an hour unless we distract them with another fun activity. Elsie listens very intently to whatever you want to tell her about the picture. Jess, on the other hand, gives you a nearly constant running commentary that goes something like this: "I see a bee. I see a butterfly. I see flowers. I see a bee. I see a bee. I see a bee. I see BIG bee. I see a boy. I see birdie. Tweet Tweet. BUNNY!" with about 1/2 second pause between each phrase. We used to think that Elsie would dominate him because he seemed to be much more passive, but the tables have definitely turned. She seems content to listen to his commentary on life, even when they are trying to go to sleep and you can hear, "I see Elsie. I see Elsie, Mommy rocking. I see car. I see big truck. Big truck BUS! Jess BEDO!!! (a.ka. his pacifier)" coming from his crib.

Long Overdue Visit to Crystal Lake

So the question is whether the visit to my family's cottage was overdue, or is this post simply overdue? Well, to me the yearly visit to the cottage is always overdue, as it is one of my favorite places in the world. But, since we were there about 5 weeks ago, I guess this posting is just as overdue. I fell off the blogging wagon again - both writing on ours and reading on other people's blogs, but I'm going to try to catch right back up. To start, I wanted to post some pictures of our relaxing time in northern Michigan the first week of August. The weather was wonderful, and we had a great time just lounging around the beaches, walking in the woods, and going for bike rides and walks. It was just what we needed. My parents and sister Jody and her kids Ethan and Owen came, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins were there as well. We also got to see some grandparents, and a couple of visitors. Here's some pics from the week:

Elsie loving the beach time.

Watching her brother jumping around in the water

The bigger splash, the better

Turning into a little fish already

Elsie at Pointe Petsie on Lake Michigan

Jess warming up with his daddy

Elsie seemed to like the sand more than the water.

Abby (our former nanny) and her boyfriend Justin came up for a day -- the kids were really happy to see her again and sad to see her leave.

Great Grandma Mulder (my mom's mom)

Great Grandma Heeringa (my dad's mom)

Great Grandpa Jess Heeringa (my dad's dad). This is who Jess is named after.

Last year we got the cutest picture of Ethan and Owen holding Elsie and Jess, and we wanted to start a tradition of snapping a picture every year. However, during the toddler stage, this can be very difficult. This is the best picture we could get of all the cousins together.

Very intent on playing with pebbles

Ethan and Jess watching Owen's old Elmo videos

Grammy and Elsie

Grampy and Elsie and the favorite activity : reading books.