See how they've grown.

In March, our dear friends, the Yu's came to visit.  We got to meet Evie's new brother Peter and had a lovely day visiting together.  

I think this second picture was taken sometime in the spring of 2011 after Owen was born.

Well, we're finally back.  I had some encouragement from Jeff's mom and Aunt who both recall that the last time I posted was February, so prepare yourself for some updates.  Thank you for continuing to read!

Here are some pics from Owen's 1st Birthday.  We all went out for breakfast at a local favorite, Classic Cafe,  before Jeff headed into work.  

Here's the happy birthday boy.  Owen is a pretty jolly little fellow.  In most cases, happy to go along with the flow.  Owen started walking just after his first birthday as well.

Cousins in Boston

My cousin, Josh, who is a senior in high school came out to visit us this weekend. We've never had a teenager stay with us before. It was a lot of fun. Josh likes to play strategy games, so he was in good company and we got to introduce him to Dominion. The kids loved having someone come to stay with us. Anne would ask about him every morning to make sure he was still here. I'll be sad to tell her tomorrow that he had to go back to Illinois. On Friday night, Anne brought her jammies and diaper downstairs and told us she wanted Josh to put her jammies on...hmmm, that went over like a lead balloon! We let Josh off the hook on that one, but he did read her a bedtime story.

Pics from last week

Here's Anne with her buddy, Zach, at playgroup last week. Apparently she thinks the firetruck is a 2-seater, but Zach didn't seem to mind....too cute!


Here's Owen with Maisie. She's the daughter of one of the nurse practitioners I work with. A bunch of use have had our round 2's of children at work, so I hosted a playdate a couple of weeks ago for the kids to meet.

Two and a half is such a fun age. Anne can definitely have her difficult moments, but she's such a little person now, full of spunk, energy and endless laughing. She's just so easy to love. She's been doing a great job with potty training, too which we're really happy about. I used this book called Pottywise and we had it done in about a week. She's still in a pull-up for naps and diaper for bedtime, but using the potty on her own consistently during the day. I operate well with a program, and it seemed to work well for us. We're so proud of her and happy to not have so many diapers to change. Jeff has said the diaper genie is definitely less full these days.
Owen's first birthday will soon be upon us. He's such a smiley guy. As long as you feed him, he's happy. But if you take too long getting the next course, he'll let you know about it. Jeff has now taken to making sure everything is cut up and ready to go before he even puts him in the highchair for lunch. Owen is pulling himself up all the time and can stand for a couple of seconds on his own. We think he'll be walking soon.

Where did the snow go?

Seems very strange to be looking at these pictures now. We've had a very unseasonably temperate winter without much snow. That bums me out bigtime! Last winter when we had oodles and oodles of it, I was afraid of it because I was hugely pregnant and worried about falling. Now, when I'm chomping at the bit, there's nothing.

I'm very thankful I took the one opportunity we did have in January to take Anne out sledding. We had a fun time.

The Reifenberger's Have Christmas lights?

Well, after much angst and goading, Jeff agreed to hang up some Christmas lights. This was not something he was used to growing up. I thought they looked terrific, so we headed outside on our new porch to take some pictures. Thanks, Jeffer!

Grandpa the Entertainer

Anne now remembers when we go to my parents house to ask Grandpa Farrey to play his guitar for her. She loves to have him play for her and dance.