Sunday

Have you noticed that the new plastic eggs that you buy in the stores have holes in them now? This is the reason they make those eggs with holes. Yes, those are entire plastic eggs in their mouths. What goofballs. Guess it's time to put the Easter stuff away.
It was a blobby day here. The only thing that got us up and moving was a trip to Michael's Craft store.

Stinks drinks

Annalise decided that enough was enough with the sippy cups. As the name implies, you have to sip. You can't get big, satisfing gulps out of them, so now we are sippy cup free. It's quite a novelty as she mostly just drinks her entire meal. At some point, the remaining liquid becomes backwash. It's pretty grosss. The good news is that we've only had to clean up two milk spills. On the other hand, her crumb production has increased so the floors need mopped almost every night. Here's the action shotWhen she finishes her three swallows, she puts it on the table and says "more, More". We ask her if she wants more to drink and she nods her head and says "yes". This is the only conversation that we can have with her so far.

Happy Spring

Spring has sprung here! Our flowers are well on their way to welcoming spring. It certainly helps us to getting in the mood for warmer weather.

The girls were working on Spring Training.

Annalise clearly has a lot of work to do starting with which end of the bat to use.

Evie, on the other hand, is being scouted by the Reds. We hear that they could use a slugger like her.

Thanks Aunt Becky

Thanks for the Hello Kitty marshmellow suckers, Aunt Becky. They were delicous! Evie is so danty about eating it. It was all gone by the end of snacktime. By the way, she told me today that she wants to grow her bangs out (like the neighbor girl who she loves). That would be great if we didn't get them cut last week. There wasn't much to put in a hair barrette, but she was happy with her hairdo today.
Stinks starts out easy....

....then goes in for the kill by trying to eat Hello Kitty's face off. I guess she has the same killer instinct as Henry.

Happy Easter

Mom was gone in Wisconsin visiting the Turner family . Dad took care of the girls. He got them dressed and even got them to 8 am mass on time! What a great dad. Of course, there were some eggs to be hunted before and after church. Oh, and the post mass donuts. As if there wasn't enough sugar in one day.The ladies on their pre mass egg hunt. Dad dressed them and did pretty good
Annalise finds the chocolate bunnies.
Then, the post mass egg hunt (in a different room)
Annalise found a robin's egg and tried to eat it.
Evie also eats a robin egg.

Then they went to the Bray's for Easter dinner.
Annalise hijacked a furry friend from Marin's room.
Marin assists the girls on another egg hunt.
Evie counts her loot.

And the Easter bunny even left some baskets out in the Brays' yard for the girls. What a great day!

Easter Prep

The little girls in the house were pretty excited for Easter to come. Our neighborhood hosted an egg hunt the Saturday before Easter. As you can see, it was a little cold for egg hunting. They did get a few eggs, but there were a lot of kids and it was pretty crazy.
Then, they came home and colored eggs. Evie was the chief egg colorer. Annalise didn't participate much other than voice her concern of why there were so many coffee mugs on the table.
She did have some time to get pretty messy
Evie finished off the decorations with the stickers. They are almost too pretty to eat!

Welcome Carter Noah!

Our good friends, Chris and Marissa, welcomed their son, Carter Noah, on March 21. He is 6 pounds 11 ounces. We hear that mom and baby are doing great! Congratulations!

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Taller

Grandma and Grandpa Taller left their Easter presents from the last time they came to visit. We opened them up to enjoy them this Easter Both girls had fun opening the bags

Evie was pretty excited about the puppet. she put on puppet shows the rest of the day.

Annalise liked her present too. This is her new word this week.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of St. Patrick's day, we prepared an Irish feast. Corned beef and Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread and green beans (because they are green).

Evie set the table with all our fancy green tableware. She really liked the corned beef too. Just like her dad.
They also celebrated at preschool today and this is what she made. She also came home and told me the story of St Patrick and what the 3 leaves on the shamrock symbolize (God-Jesus-Holy Spirit), but by dinner, she couldn't remember anything to tell Jim
Annalise didn't really take part in eating any of the feast because she was too distracted with the Dora placemat. That's the last time we use a placemat for her for a while.
She did manage to gather herself enough to eat some traditional green jello. Plain green jello with no fruit. Just like they do in Ireland, right? Evie and the world's biggest Jello shot (probably more along the lines of how college students celebrate St. Patrick's day). We had to pour the jello in clear glasses so we could fully appreciate it's green-ness.

Annalise is feeling a little better, but still has a runny nose. She's also not too much into eating anything right now besides goldfish crackers. Mom is healthy again.

Staying put

Well, we were supposed to go to the world's greatest fish fry at the K of C in Archbold this weekend (fried with beer and Love), but mom started feeling sick and not feeling like loading up the car and driving, so we stayed home. It's a good thing we did too because when Stinks woke up from her nap, she was sick too (we are both hoarse and have a runny nose). We all needed some tomato soup to warm our tummies. As you can see, it was so good that Annalise got it on her forehead as she was licking the first helping out of her bowl. We had to change clothes after this meal.
After she changed, she decided that it was high time to get some cleaning done. She vacuumed the whole foyer and pointed out whatever her vacuum didn't pick up.
What's with the dog in the pants? I don't know but she kept it there until naptime. Evie still needs a haircut so dad will take her tomorrow to get a substandard cut from great clips. Both girls are really enjoying the doll house. Today, Evie had the mommy looking under the bed for a missing baby. Later, the baby was taking a bath in the sink. Annalise likes to press all the buttons to make the lights come on and the music to play.
I don't know what this is all about, but she insisted on having her picture taken

Some movies. I don't know why they are side by side. One of Annalise and her vacuum skills. Toward the end, she appears to be repairing the vacuum. We think she may have the Knack, but it's too early to tell. The other is Evie's crazy dancing skills. Whatever it takes to get your energy out on a day when mom is blobbing around on the couch.

Annalise is 18 months old Today!

Our baby is now 18 months old and a full fledged toddler. Her favorite thing to do is whatever Evie is doing. She loves getting her hand stamped at story time and at Evie's gymnastics. She LOVES dogs. She doesn't really eat anything and her favorite word is MINE!Wondering what it is like living with Annalise? Scroll down.
Pretty much like this but she has less hair than her zoo bound counterpart.

March Madness

It's the most wonderful time of the year. March Madness, Baby! We took part in the ritual end of winter by attending the Women's Big Ten Championship game. Purdue vs. Illinois. Boiler Up--again, we still don't know what that means.Here are the Purdue faithful getting ready for the game to start. Annalise wasn't so sure about the Fieldhouse when we went in, but she warmed up and cheered and screamed and clapped at completely inappropriate times. Evie was excited about the pom pons and the bands.
Evie didn't need the whole seat.. just the edge.
Here's the opening tipoff. Conseco might be the greatest place in the world to watch basketball.
Annalise also only needs the edge. Mostly because when she sat back, the chair folded up.
Of course, what is a game without refreshements? Mom brought Lunchables for the girls and later we shared a popcorn.

By the way, the game was pretty exciting in the last few minutes. It was all tied up and a shot at the buzzer won the Championship for Purdue! Go Boilers!

My little cheerleaders

It looks as if there is hope for the girls to be girly after all.

For some reason, I haven't been able to post pictures lately. We have a great update, but you will just have to wait until the Blogger picture upload works again.

Happy Anniversary Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran

Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran are celebrating their 4th anniversary today with their 2 kids and Grandma. How romantic.

Suprise package

On Wednesday, a large package arrived at our door. We didn't discover it until close to bedtime, so we waited to open it until this morning. This is what we found:Of course, it didn't arrive like this. It took the three Taller women about 45 minutes to put it together. It probably would have went faster, but the littlest Taller discovered the joy of putting the screws in all the wrong places. We eventually got it together and tried it out. Later, after Annalise went down for a nap, Evie got to use her paints. It was great fun. If you have any empty walls, let us know because our budding artist has many paintings to share. Thanks Uncle Jeff for the great gift! The girls also used the bath squirters tonight!

Then our friends, Fiona and Sean, called us and asked if we wanted to to to Bounce Zone. I tell you, I wish I had the idea to build a pole barn and then stock it with inflatables and charge $6 a pop to let kids in for a couple of hours. What a gold mine.
Evie and Fiona run around

Evie at the top of this particular slide. This is when the battery died in the camera. Later, Annalise even braved it enough to climb up (or get tossed up by mom) and come down the slide. In addition to being a gold mine, it was a good way to wear out a couple of kids on a cold winter day. Everyone is going to bed early tonight-including mom.

Out of the woods, but homebound.

Here, in the Ohio Valley portion of the midwest, we are experiencing a typical late winter ice storm. This is causing us to remain home for the entire day. We couldn't even go outside to play because who wants to get pelted with freezing rain? The forcast is for 1-3 inches of snow on top of our inch of ice. Be careful driving home from the airport,dad. This picture doesn't really show the extent of the ice other than the white stuff you see on the ground is not snow, but accumulating ice. Makes me long for the days of Minnesota snow where you could just clean it up and forget it.

In other news.....

Annalise is turning into a smurf. She doesn't know what a smurf is. Maybe it's better that way.
I gave the girls this bath soap that was supposed to be like playdoh, but it wasn't very pilable. Fortunately, it was very similar to paint. And, when you let all three colors dissolve in the water, it turned the water gray! What a bonus.
Evie painting the bathtub. No, it doesn't stain the bathtub...only kids. She has also recovered from 6 days of her fever/suspected flu. I took her out to a play date today and she was so worn out that she slept for 3 hours when we got home. She is well enough to go to school tomorrow, but still weak enough to nap and give me some time to tackle some of my spring cleaning in the afternoons. Best of both worlds. By the way, please send grandma home soon, Evie needs a hair cut.

Annalise styles the bubbles in her hair. You may notice that I had to change the bath water because I didn't think a kid could get clean in gray water.

Special note to my new June Bug:

Juney--I know that it is devistating that the Farve is retiring. You can make him live forever with a nice #4 tatoo on your arm. When I come visit you, I'll take you to the place where your mom got her nose pierced. They are good people there.

And, to take your mind off the Farve, there is something that you can look forward to. On March 12, the one and only Bob Knight, The General, will be commentating on ESPN for college basketball. Talk about entertainment. Since you aren't familiar with the General (and you aren't even familar with INDIANA BASKETBALL), here's Bobby in one of his finest coaching moments.

You have a lot to learn, June bug, and I will do my best to shield you from pathetic professional Ohio football teams and teach you all about the wonders and excitement of the Big Ten.

Love, Aunt Jenni

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