Meeting Titus

We finally made it to Minnesota to meet the newest addition to the Ulferts family! Our trip was short, but it was so much fun to see everyone. The older our kids get, the more fun our family visits get to be. Sophia especially talks about her uncles all the time and always wants to know where they are and what they are doing. And she is fascinated with Oma's house and Opa's car. She always wants to know about Opa's car!!

This was the first time Sophia had her own seat on the plane, and thank GOODNESS!!! We are so grateful it's such a short flight. Sophia is still awed at the whole idea of flying and "going in the sky", so it wasn't hard to keep her entertained. Three days later, she is still talking about the man putting the "green stuff" on the plane for de-icing. Noah, however, is not quite as interested in airplanes-yet. Right, he is more concerned about the lack of mobility that comes with airplanes! Keeping him contained and occupied was exhausting! And we weren't even in the air for two full hours! This does NOT make me look forward to road trips with this kid.

Sophia with Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Eric

Noah playing with Uncle Ryan

The cousins! Sophia, Noah and Titus

The rapidly growing Ulferts family

Sophia has talked about Uncle Ryan's three legged cat for months- I think she might have been just as excited to meet him as she was Baby Titus!

Todd's fiancee Ashley, Sophia, and Uncle Todd coloring Easter eggs

Snuggling with Titus

Noah's First Birthday

So I've discovered that I'm terrible at keeping this blog updated! I have no idea how some people find time to do it daily. I'm just not that way! But I'm promising to try and do better!

So Noah's 1st birthday came and went so fast. I can't believe it's been a whole year! People ALWAYS tell me, as a parent of very young children, how fast time goes and how fast they grow. Mine may be little, but I'm learning that already.

Noah continues to be our happy, "Sweet Boy" as he is dubbed by many friends. He is content most of the time and always has huge smiles of greeting, of pride, of accomplishment, and of just plain good-naturedness! the kid is almost always happy. Especially now that he has learned how to move; he's all over the place. His favorite this are to open and close, open and close, and open and close any kinds of drawers and cupboards. And now that he's really mobile, he has just discovered "getting into stuff". He loves the bathroom cabinets, the bookshelves, the dishwasher, etc.

His birthday party ended up being more work than I intended, but it was a pretty big hit. We went to a local bounce house with just a few of his closest friends. Here are a few select sneak peaks:

The cake

Playing with one of his favorite gifts. The boy now finally owns some distinctly "boy" toys!

Ready for cake!

Eating- one of Noah's favorite activities!

Playing at the bounce house with mom.

This little light of mine

Sophia is learning to sing!!! Just in the past couple of months, she's got some songs figured out and if you listen closely, you can just make out what she's singing. She sings most often when she thinks no one is listening, but also loves to sing in the car and at the table and when washing her hands. (I always sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star when she's washing up so that she knows how long she should be washing those hands.) She also sings the Clean up song and her new favorite is "This Little Light of Mine", especially the "Hide it Under a Bushel" verse. You'll have to listen closely to catch her in the video, and don't miss Noah rolling around on the floor in the background. No, we did not get a pet; those pet-like noises are actually Noah's contributions to the song!

'Tis the Season

Christmas season is here!!! And after being in the 70's for the first part of last week, it has now finally snowed and actually feels like winter time! We are all so excited and ready! We've been out to look at Christmas lights a number of times, and Sophia's favorite phrase to repeat EVERY time we get in the car these days is, "Lotsa Christmas lights!" She couldn't be more thrilled. There's one house near us that has made national news for the amount of decorating they do; it's the kind where you actually have to stop the car and get out and wander around to see everything they have on display. They have a number of trains running through one section of the yard and Sophia asks repeated to see the trains. (Coincidentally, one of our most frequent babysitters lives virtually right next to this house, so Sophia insists on going along every time we go pick up Jessicup, aka Jessica.)

We have a number of Christmas trees scattered throughout our house of varying shapes and sizes, and Sophia even has a small pencil tree in her room with Curious George ornaments. If you ever ask her what goes on the tree, she'll tell you "George." My mom has also made her an advent tree, and she daily looks forward to getting the box and finding the right ornament to put up for that day. The first day I had a hard time explaining to her why we could only put one ornament on that day, but she's got the routine down by now.

We went to pick out our real tree last weekend, and it was quite the affair. Each year, there is a man who owns a nursery who is an elder at our church (it was for his dad that Tim used to work landscaping) who kindly donates a free tree to the pastoral staff of our church, which is what allows us to be able to afford a tree from his lot. They are very costly, but also very beautiful. Every year, we say that we don't think there is a hint of a bad tree in his lot. We enjoy our outting every year, as it's complete with hay rides, cider and hot chocolate, roasted peanuts and chestnuts (which incidentally, for my family, are WAY better than our London experience of roasted chestnuts- they're actually good), Santa, and several reindeer!! Sophia had a great time riding in the wagon behind the tractor and checking out the reindeer. Noah, who was all bundled up in his carseat as it was cold and snowing, was less thrilled with the experience!

Sophia and I have been out to play in the snow several times, and it never fails to amaze me how she doesn't seem to get cold! I'm always ready to come in long before her. We've made her first snowman this winter (which scared her a ton when it crashed over while I ran into the house to get the decorations for his head), she's been on several sled rides, and today we made her first snow angels. They're so small!!! Usually, we venture out in the morning while Noah is napping, so he usually misses the fun, but we did take both kids for a short sled ride on Sunday after church. Noah was not impressed with the sled, until it started moving. In fact, he definitely wanted out, until Tim started pulling and then it was okay. But the minute we stopped moving, he was ready to be done!

It's been so much fun to experience the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of a child. And it's also been a real eye opener for us. Now that Sophia is old enough to begin to understand presents, and decorating and all these things, we are striving so hard to teach her the real meaning of Christmas. Which we've discovered is even harder when it seems that we frequently fail to remember what Christmas is really about. We've debated for years (long before we had kids) what we were going to do about the great Santa debate. And finally, this year, we are feeling more pressure to actually have an answer as Sophia is beginning to recognize Santa everywhere we go. Just days after Thanksgiving, I was thinking through all of this while I was waiting for Sophia to go potty, and I ended up thinking out loud "Maybe we'll make a birthday cake for Jesus this year." I've always thought that was pretty cheesy, but now that I'm wrestling with this for myself and my kids, I thought it might be a semi-tangible way for a 2 year old to comprehend some of the reason for Christmas. Little did I know, Sophia was fully listening to me thinking out loud and would bug me daily about a birthday cake for Jesus!!! So maybe, just maybe, we are on the right track...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sophia and Noah riding in the sled (Noah's first ride)

Go, Daddy, Go!!!!

Sitting on Santa's lap. She had NO idea what to say when he asked what she wanted for Christmas. You may wonder where Noah is? Well, I was going to sit him in there after this shot, but then the batteries on the camera died, so this was all we got this year!

Sophia's first snowman! (After repairs from crashing over!)

Harvest Festival and Nurse Maid Elbow

For the first time since we've been in Colorado, our church did not do a harvest festival on Halloween night this year. I was very bummed when I learned this was the case, but it turns out, it was one of the best things that could have happened. Tim didn't spend a week rounding up enough cardboard to make a crawl through maze in the student center, and better yet, I didn't have to take the kids out all by myself while he was stuck supervising high schoolers. This year, Halloween was actually a family affair. We just decided we'd take the kids to a different church for a harvest festival experience! I think I was most excited about the fact that Tim was coming with us. Anyway, it turned out to be a lot of fun- even more fun than the our church's usual production. The church we went to was much bigger, and so there was so much more there and it was so much more spread out. There were at least 4 bounce houses, more games than we could count, several live shows, balloon men, and all kinds of things we didn't even get a chance to see. And best of all, we didn't even come home with that much candy! (Although what we did collect was quickly gone because every time Sophia poops in the potty she would ask to pick something out of her bucket! I figured that was a good way to get rid of the little bit we did have, so I didn't bother to argue!)

So you might be asking, "What about the nurse maid elbow?" Let me tell you, because Tim and I are new experts on the subject. Towards the end of the night, Sophia was freaking out about her arm. We had no idea what she was talking abut, but we did see a couple of spots that looked maybe like a little rash starting. She was overly tired, so we didn't know how much that was contributing to the situation, but she was crying about her arm when I took her out of her carseat, she didn't want to put it through her pajamas, and basically just held it into her tummy. The next morning when we were debating what to do about the arm that she still wasn't using, she was telling us that it hurt from holding Daddy's hand. Tim said, "She was trying to pull away from me and I was having to hold on pretty tightly." We got her into the doctor later that morning, and our pediatrician diagnosis was "nurse maid elbow". Basically what happened is that the ligaments across her elbow got shifted out of place. They had mostly moved back into place by the time we got to the doctor, but she said she did feel a little click in one of her last movements, so the doctor figured that was the final "adjustment" to move the ligaments back to where they belong. We were kind of sweating how we were going to explain when Sophia said that her arm hurt from holding Daddy's hand, but before we even got that far, the Dr. told us that this commonly happens when toddlers are holding their parent's hands and try to pull away! So, consider it lesson learned!

Our own branch of Nielson Farms

Sophia's first bounce house experience. She had fun, even if she still can't jump!

Amy and Noah

Tim and Sophia

Sophia's Big Kid Bed

Here she is in the bed she is so excited about!

Notice the Rockies jersey, which she also loves. She gets so excited to wear her very own 'baseball shirt' (which isn't even actually her own, since it's just on loan for the season).

One day I'll get the curtains done, and then the room will be complete!

Potty Training

Our "baby" has become such a big girl, as evidenced by all the changes in Sophia's life in the last couple of weeks. We have moved her to a "big kid bed", which is still a major source of excitement for her. We had set it up a couple of days before we moved it into her room, and she talked about it non-stop. We had set it up downstairs, and she would come down to her bed and just sit in it and play for long stretches of time because she was so excited about it. But then when I put it her room and put her in it for her first nap, she was less than thrilled, let's say. Okay, truthfully, she freaked out! She cried and cried, and I had to lay in there with her for a bit. But after sleeping in it just a few times, she's become used to it and now loves it. She loves to put her babies to bed in it, and close the door to let them sleep quietly. (And then she'll immediately open the door to "check" them!) She's even told me a couple of times that baby has been naughty and she's put her in there for time out. Yesterday, she came and told me that Baby was in time out, and she needed to go "check" her. She came back saying that Baby was sorry and that she was praying and telling Jesus she was sorry! Oh, from the mouth's of babes... Those are the moments when you realize that somehow, by the grace of God, you are doing something right!

Anyway, the biggest event in Sophia's life, is that she seems to have almost conquered diapers!!! YIPPEE!!! We had been half-heartedly getting Sophia acquainted with the potty for several months, and then a couple of weeks ago, we went to visit friends and Sophia wanted to use the potty just like her friend Taylor. We got home that day, and from that minute on, Sophia started telling us she was done with diapers. Every time we would change her, she would tell us that she needed to go "pee-pee", and she would manage to squeeze something out every time! So that continued for a week until she ran out of diapers, and then we realized we had finally come to a turning point and decided we needed to figure out what we were going to do. Last Friday, we decided to hit the potty hard core. Turns out, it was a good decision, although it took us a little while to be convinced. There were several factors we were unsure of how she would deal with, but she's pretty much shown us that she was more ready than we realized. By the end of the weekend, we weren't sure we had made the right choice, but she woke up on Monday showing us she knew the drill. I was worried about all kinds of things: how would we ween her off treats, would she tell us when she needs to go, would she poop in the potty, what about when we're out of the house? And this week, one by one, she's past all those hurdles! We've only had a few accidents, she hasn't asked for treats, I haven't changed a poopie diaper from her in a week, and she told the ladies in the nursery at church this morning that she needed to poop on the potty!!! And, we weren't even going to address this issue for some time, but on her own, she has stayed clean and dry during all of her sleep times this week! Who knew? Kids sure do surprise ya sometimes! And we are all too grateful!