I Want to Thank All the Little People...

From the Shrine Employee Appreciation dinner, which had a sort of movie/red-carpet theme:

Shrine Playground

Hanging out with the kids and Erin Hammond at the Shrine while the guys did Oddwalk business. It was warm enough for the first time in months to play outside, so we took the kids to the playground and let Madeleine run around.

We met up with the guys for lunch, then hung out in the hotel room, watching some quality children's programmin on public telelvision and trying to let Noah nap. Then at about three pm, Madeleine pushes the stroller over to the bed I'm lying on with Noah and says, "Let's get some ice cream. Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Ice cream.", nodding the entire time like she does when she wants something and is convicing you that you want it too. We thought that sounded like a good idea, and since Noah wasn't sleeping, we packed up and went back over to the Shrine restaurant for a snack. After we were seated, the waitress came over. As soon as she got to our table, before she could say anything, Madeleine stuck her finger in the air, as you do to indicate you are ordering and said, "Ice cream!"

Noah's Big Basket O' Toys

One of Noah's favorite things in the world to do is sit in front of his big basket of toys and just go nuts digging through it. He even grabs the edge and tips it over so he can reach in himself. When he finds something he likes, he chews on it voraciously until something else catches his eye.

Slobbery baby + black washable crayon = eww

Noah is semi-mobile now. He's not quite crawling, but he can move about using his toes and elbows, fingers and knees approach. Between the creeping and the rolling, he gets to where he wants to go. Evidently, he had his eye on this black washable crayon that was left on the living room floor last week. When I left him to put a load of laundry in, he was sitting up by the window and his toy basket. When I found him, he was face down in the carpet, gumming this crayon. There was blackened baby spit on my carpet and smeared all over his face and hands:

Happily, the crayon was, after all, washable, and came out of both the carpet and the baby easily.

Shaw Gardens

The Cerneka family has been on a three week sprint of work, ministry and family events, and we've finally been able to take some time and catch our collective breath. The last two weekends we've been in the Belleville/St. Louis are for Oddwalk stuff, and did some visiting while we were there, too. One of the things we did was visit the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Orin and Erin live in the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis and have a membership to the Gardens. We had lunch and took a walk through the grounds.

Meeting Maia!

We finally got to meet Miss Maia Lauren Puckett! The Pucketts spent a week traveling and visiting family, capping the visit with Maia's baptism on Sunday March 4. I have pictures of everything but the baptism itself, of course. My batteries were dead. Same thing happened for Noah's and Madeleine's as well. Weird. Anyhoo, here are pics from that extended weekend (more pictures are posted on Maia's blog:

Madeleine first meets Maia. She's fascinated with babies. We've had a lot of new baby friends and family members this past year.

Noah seems to like Maia, too, but mostly as something to grab at and try to chew on.

Aunt Maggie on Maia's baptism day. The gown was Becca's, handmade by our mother and grandmother.

This was interesting. Getting this pic was everything you'd imagine it would be. "Smile Noah! Madeleine, look right here! No, stay put! No, don't poke Maia! Maia baby, right here! Smile, Noah-boy! Madeleine, stay put! Look up! Right here! Ma-del-eine! Stay there!"

Becca and Maia try out the sling I made them for the first time.

Half a Year!

Noah would have turned 6 months on Februrary 29. However, since this is not a leap year, there was no February 29. So, we'll have to wait until 2008 to celebrate his official 6 month birthday. Here are the things my unoffical 6 month old is doing:
-Sits up
-Rolls all over the place
-Drools insanely
-Smiles easily at everyone
-Babbles with consonant sounds (duh-duh-duh, bah!)
-Squirms on belly to move forward towards a toy
-Eats rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and peas
-Sits in big bathtub and slashes and chases floating toys
-Loves: Homer, remotes, his sister's hair, books, bouncing, music, sitting a digging through his basket of toys, baths
-Hates: being hungry, being tired (but who doesn't?)

He is 17 pounds, 8 ounces and 27 inches long. He's incredibly social and not a bit shy. He loves to be played with, but he will also sit and play by himself happily for 15-20 minutes at a time.

Promotions

These last couple of weeks, we've made a couple of changes for Madeleine and Noah. First, I painted the kids' room a leaf-green. We told Madeleine it was her new room and the bed was a princess bed. The comforter and sheets were a birthday gift back in October. She loves it! She walked in after it was all put back toegther and the bed was made and said, "Oh it's bootifill! Tank you Mommy! Tank you! Tank you!" She tells me at least once a day, "I wuv my woom!"

The room before:
And after, with Madeleine illegally in the crib:

She loves the new bed, and we put her in it to sleep, but she's only lasted the night once in the week since we started. She'll get used to it eventually.

Secondly, we bought Madeleine a booster seat and she sits at the table now to eat. Noah gets the high chair now, especially since we've started solid foods. (More on that in a future post)

Our first meal in new seats:

I'm certain she's brilliant

And here's proof:

Madeleine: Hi Mommy! I'm hiding.

Me: Hiding from who?
Madeleine: From you!

We're going bonkers for Valentine's Day

We had two sets of plans for Valentine's Day: one set if we got a babysitter, and one set if not. Well, we kinda waited too long and weren't able to get a sitter, so we took plan B and headed to Columbia to play with Madeleine at We're Going Bonkers, where we went for her birthday. On our way there, Kelly called to tell us she didn't have her meeting after all, and she could sit for us. Since we were halfway there, and rather looking forward to it, we decided to go ahead to Bonkers, and asked Kelly to join us. She met us there and we had a great time. Afterwards, we had wings and beer (Madeleine had milk) at a newly smoke-free, thanks to the Columbia City Council, Buffalo Wild Wings.

Playing catch up

Here's some pics from February I haven't had time to post yet.

Gramma and Madeleine reading.

Me and the kids on my 32nd birthday.

Me and Shannon on my birthday. (My nose is not running;
Shannon thought it would be cute to put whipped cream on it. It wasn't.)

Valentine's Day. And yes, the pictures on the wall are still crooked.

Me and Madeleine in our Princess Dresses.
Mine is actually from Chris and Maggie's wedding.