Still Recovering

Well, no new pictures tonight. I hope no one is disappointed. I know that Aunt Carol has been following the blog now and likes the pictures. Maybe I'll have some tomorrow night. It continues to be a long week. I think we're still recuperating from the Penn State weekend. At least I am. The kids were really tired at school today but they perked up tonight and we had a fun time. Cooper said "monkey" tonight for the first time. That's what we call his lovey blanket because it has a monkey on it obviously. He's also starting to make animal sounds which is cool. He really likes the Baby Einstein animal flashcards. (I can hear my mom groaning now. She probably thought I was over those since I always had them in McKenna's face!) But really, Cooper likes them. McKenna was busy tonight trying to brush the tangles out of her American Girl doll's hair. I think we'll have to send her back to the company for a "real" beauty treatment. She's looking a little rough. How was I to know that you only can use a certain brush in her hair. She's more high maintenance than I am. Oh well, it kept McKenna occupied for a little while at least. We watched a stimulating episode of Sesame Street (can you sense the enthusiasm?) and then put the kids to bed. And while I should be doing laundry and packing lunches so that I can get to bed at a certain hour I'm still sitting here blogging...and enjoying. So, thanks for checking in on us. I hope you have a good night.

We are Penn State

This weekend we braved the weather and 106,00 people at the Penn State vs. Illinois game. I was a little intimidated when I woke up Saturday morning to actual puddles in my front lawn and pounding rain. We loaded up on ponchos, packed extra clothes and old shoes and headed to State College. All week my pap has promised that the weather would turn out to be okay. I think he was really trying to convince himself, but his optimism paid off and we had a beautiful day. We arrived in State College around noon, parked the car and headed off to meet Megan Dugan and some of her family and friends for an afternoon of tailgating. Megan and Jason did a great job and we all enjoyed lots of food.

We were also fortunate to have my Pap Landis along with us again yesterday. We usually don't go to a game without him which is really cool because he always took me to games when I was a little girl. It's awesome to still be able to share that with him. We are looking forward to taking McKenna to her first actual game and we hope that Pap can go along with us. How cool to have 4 generations there! McKenna went to the Blue and White game this spring and was a little disappointed when she found out we were going back without her. She's quite the little fan and says that Joe Pa is her favorite.

We're looking forward to a semi-quiet week. I have to work Monday-Thursday and Friday I'm planning to take the kids to Lewistown to visit with Great Pappy Richard and to see Carol, Amy and the kids. Earl and I still have quite a bit of packing to do and so Amanda is coming to watch the kids on Wednesday evening so we can run some errands and hopefully pack up some more stuff. It's hard to do when the kids don't have someone to keep them occupied. McKenna has been a big help though, which I especially appreciate.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Our little gymnast

Sometime last year I had encouraged McKenna to start ballet lessons. I had even gone so far as to call about the lessons. Then the holidays got close and we tabled the dance lessons until the spring. The spring turned to summer when we finally decided against dance and took up gymnastics. I signed McKenna up for an 8 week introduction to gymnastics at the Lewisburg Area Recreation Authority. She loved it and so now we're signed up for another 8 week class. The class during the summer was very much a "let's have fun kind of thing". Her new class is still fun but has a bit more structure. The teachers expect a lot more of the kids and McKenna seems to be responding well.

Ahhh...finally a normal evening at home tonight. Well, as normal as they get. For the first time this week we did not have something planned for the evening. It was nice to come home and not have to rush off to do something else. The kids and I did stop out at the new house to see the progress with the lighting. We had hoped to see them "spreading" grass seed and straw, but they weren't quite ready while we were there. Here are some pictures of the house for those who haven't seen it yet. It's coming along nicely and we're hoping to be moving in sometime in November.

Busy Day

Today was a busy day around here. McKenna spent the morning painting ceramics with Mimi downtown at "In a Glaze". McKenna painted a mermaid and Mimi stuck to the fall theme and made a ghost candy dish. We have to wait patiently for a week until they're fired and ready to pick up. I can't wait to see them. Hopefully McKenna has more of a knack for painting ceramics than her mother. (That's for you mom!)

Cooper and I spent our morning with Ed (our builder) picking out carpet for the den and the bedrooms. I can't wait to see it in the rooms. I hope it looks good. The house is coming along quickly. We may be able to move the first week of November, but we'll definitely be in by Thanksgiving.

Tonight we picked Earl up from work and headed to the Bloomsburg Fair. It was VERY crowded but we saw a lot of our friends there and had some good old fattening food. McKenna and Cooper played a couple games and we wandered through the livestock exhibits. Cooper was mesmerized by the horses and the sheep. He wasn't too impressed by the dogs, but gave a couple of good "ruffs" anyway.

I'll try to post pictures tomorrow, but for now I'm heading for bed! Goodnight everyone.

Dinner anyone?

I was ready to crawl into bed tonight whenever the phone rang and Earl got called into work. Now that I'm wide awake I thought what better time than to post a few more pictures on the blog. As I said in my previous post, I thought that this would be a good way for family and friends to keep up with what's going on with us. However, my brother assured me this morning that what I really need is a life and that I have too much time on my hands. I guess that means he won't be checking in much. So, for those of you who do care, thank you for taking the time to check in and see what we're up to.

This weekend was a pretty lazy one, at least compared to most for us. The realtor showed the house on Saturday morning so we had to be up early and out of the house. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the Penn State game and doing laundry, etc. Earl was on call today so we didn't go far from the house. We did manage to get some packing done though.

Cooper was his usual mischievous self and was into everything. He loves to help himself to rice cakes in the snack drawer and was even trying to help set the table for dinner tonight. I would prefer that he didn't crawl into the fridge, but at least he wanted to help.

Tomorrow it's back to work and school. McKenna has gymnastics tomorrow evening. She really looks forward to it. I just wish we could convince her to practice during the week. As long as she's having fun at class I guess that's all that matters.

Enjoy the pictures of Cooper in the fridge. (Yes, I did let him stand there long enough to snap a quick picture).

What's he pointing to?

I've probably spent more than enough time on the computer tonight, but I wanted to quickly add a funny story from earlier this evening. Earlier this month on our trip to Ocean City, MD we were singing to Cooper in order to keep him occupied in the car. While McKenna and I sang the ABC's and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star Cooper would wave his pointer finger in the air and grin from ear to ear. We had no idea what if he thought he was the conductor or what. But when we returned from our vacation I asked his daycare teacher, Ms. Sheila, if she knew why he was always waving his finger while we sang. The only thing she could think of was that he wanted us to sing This Little Light of Mine. It totally made sense. Since we've caught on we sing it to him all the time and he still waves his little pointer finger and smiles ear to ear. Tonight while we were playing and singing his favorite song he began to yell "NO" when we would sing 'hide it under a bushell'. He had all of us laughing until we cried. I hope to capture on video and post it for everyone to see. Both Cooper and McKenna are truly lights my life and I feel so blessed to have them.

Getting Started

For over a year I've been telling myself that I'm going to jump into the world of blogging, but like other things it's been put on the back burner for awhile. Now with our house almost done and Cooper a little older I decided that it's time for me to give it a try. I hope that this will be a way for me to share McKenna and Cooper with friends and family who we don't get to see often. But more than that, I wanted to have a place to write about the funny and amazing things that they do every day. Some days I feel like life is passing by so quickly and I want to remember it all. I hope that everyone enjoys the posts and I hope that one day McKenna and Cooper will enjoy looking back on what life was like with the two of them.