Julie's Lamplighter Weekend

My friend, Lori, sponsored me to attend a Lamplighter retreat this weekend.  Lamplighter is similar to the Cursillo, Walk to Emmaus, Via De Cristo, and Great Banquet retreats.  The purpose of the Lamplighter weekend is to give guests the opportunity to grow in their Christian faith.  Dan attended a men's Lamplighter weekend back in November and was excited for me to attend this women's weekend.  Since the schedule includes some surprises, those who have attended in the past are very secretive about what happens and when during the weekend.  So, I didn't really know what to expect, but knew that it had an uplifting impact on Dan and our other friends who had been guests at previous Lamplighter retreats.  I am thankful that I got to see Ryan take several consecutive steps Friday evening just before I left for the retreat because he (quickly) became a much more confident walker in just the two days that I was gone from home.  We were not permitted to have cell phones, watches, or computer access during the retreat, and it was nice to just "unplug" for awhile.  I won't disclose too much since Dan and I plan to sponsor more friends to attend and want to keep the weekend's activities a surprise, but I can say that I really enjoyed it and learned a lot too.  It was also evident that God had a hand in who was placed at which tables (the attendees were divided into small groups), as the members of the small groups bonded very well with one another.  I really enjoyed meeting all of the ladies at my table and especially connected with one in particular who I am sure will be a life-long friend.  And, a huge thank you goes out to everyone who supported and encouraged me during the weekend- I really appreciate you!  I would encourage any of my friends and family to attend a retreat like Lamplighter. 

Ryan is Walking!

I'm cheating a little bit and backdating the photos in this post.  They were actually taken on 5-11-10, but I wanted to post them here since 4-23-10 is when Ryan actually started to take consecutive steps on his own.  I am disappointed that I didn't capture some of his first adventures in walking on "film" but am glad that I have these photos of his early walking to post.  He had been cruising holding onto furniture and running behind his walking toys for awhile, but until this point didn't seem that interested in walking on his own.  It's fun to see how excited he is about this new found independence. 

 

Ryan is SO excited to be walking!

 

Oops!

 

And he's back up again...

Ethan's New Dentist

Since our dental insurance changed when Dan and his friends started their own company, we now have a much larger pool of local pediatric dentists to choose from for Ethan and Ryan.  Our old insurance only covered 3 pediatric dentists all of whom were at least a 25 minute drive from our house.  Based on recommendations from friends, we decided to take Ethan to see Dr. H for his next appointment.  He was so nice, energetic, and enthusiastic.  I could tell that he is great at working with kids!  Ethan has always loved going to the dentist (weird, I know), and he was not phased by going to a new office.  Dr. H. was very happy with his exam and said that Ethan had the best mouth of teeth he'd seen that day (Ethan was so proud).  Whenever Dr. H. sees a new patient, his staff takes a photo of them with Dr. H. and a giant toothbrush.  Ethan thought that was really neat and gave them a big smile.

Sorry for the poor picture quality (it's a photo of a photo)

Woolly Wonders

I took the boys to our local living history museum again today for a neat program about sheep shearing (and sheep in general) called Woolly Wonders.  The first thing that we got to do was walk out to the barn where the sheep are kept and watch a sheep shearing demonstration.  It was interesting to see how thick the sheep's coat was (and dirty!) as the shearer cut away the kind of rough outer woolly coat to reveal the soft, white, clean wool underneath.  Ethan got the opportunity to pet the sheep before and after it was sheared.

Beginning to shear the sheep and pull away the wool

All the kids crowded around to feel the soft undercoat

There were also very young goats that were walking around in the barn that the kids could pet.  Ethan just loved the baby goats!

He tried to get down eye-to-eye with them

Our next stop was to watch what it looked like for the wool to be spun into thread.  It was neat to see people using authentic "olden days" spinning wheels to make thread.

Ryan enjoyed observing the Woolly Wonders activities

When we returned to the main building, Ethan got to make a lamb craft from real sheep's wool

He also got to try his hand at using these tools with some wool (these tools are used to clean the wool and prep it for the spinning wheel)

Train Layout Designer

Lately Ethan's favorite playtime activity has been designing new train layouts and pushing his trains along them.  We have a large area of laminate flooring in our basement and friends that gave us their son's huge collection of wooden track that together allow Ethan to make some pretty impressive layouts.  Dan and I have been amazed at his creativity and ingenuity in building the layouts all by himself.  Not all of his layouts are this intricate, but here are a few photos of two that he built recently.

He was very proud of this layout

When we saw this, Dan and I asked each other if we had helped him prop up the ramp and bridge with blocks and found out that Ethan had figured that out himself.  I doubt that I would have come up with this idea to use 3 blocks to prop up the ramp and bridge.

Another one of Ethan's huge layouts

Moms' Spring Fling at Ethan's Preschool

In the Fall, Ethan's preschool had a Daddy Date Night event that was a lot of fun for Dan to attend, and today was the Mommy Spring Fling.  We had some playtime (Ethan got to show me his favorite toys at school), made a picture frame together, had a snack, and his teachers read "madlib"-style stories to us from our kids. 

 This racetrack was one of Ethan's favorite toys.  The cars roll right-side up or upside-down through the twists and turns.

Working on our picture frame together

I thought that Ethan did a fantastic job signing "LOVE, ETHAN" on this little poem.  His teachers made keychains with the kid's photos inside for each mom.

Just like for Daddy Date Night, the teachers read the kids a fill-in-the-blank story (about their mommies this time) and recorded their responses.  It was interesting to see what Ethan said.  Of all of his classmates' stories, Ethan's made the most sense (which was somewhat surprising!) 

The kids also made floral placemats for their mommies

 

Getting ready to pray before our snack

Trying to sneak some M&Ms while smiling for my photo

The decorated tables were so cute

 

Since this was one of the first times that I used my new camera, I could not for the life of me figure out how to get it into video mode, so photos had to suffice.  The kids sang several songs for us with hand motions.

We certainly are living in an age of technology.  I thought it was funny that you could see two moms recording video using their phones :)  I wish that my phone had video capability as I would have used it too since I couldn't figure out our new camera!

A few days later Ethan's teachers gave me a photo of us together in the frame that Ethan had made :)

Air Conditioning FAIL

We have had unbelievably bad luck with appliances at our house even though none of them are very old. :P  We have had furnace issues a few times already and discovered that something is not quite right about the way that it was installed, but it still functioned fairly well.  Now our air conditioner stopped working.  When the repairman came out, he diagnosed the issue as a coil inside the house that would cost around $1700 to replace.  Our A/C system is 7 years old, the repair would be expensive, we have known issues with our existing furnace, and there are several federal, state, and local utility rebates currently available for installing high efficiency HVAC systems, so we decided to replace everything now even though it would cost a lot.  We bought a new high efficiency heat pump, furnace, and humidifer (we did not previously have a humidifer tied in with our HVAC system) and will qualify for $1500 in rebates/tax credits.  What was really interesting (and worked out hugely in our favor) is that the sales representatives from two of the companies we got quotes from know each other from working together in the past and were insanely competitive with one other for our business.  Trying to win our business clearly became a personal rather than a business battle.  One of the sales reps would decrease their estimate and throw something new into the quote (extended maintenance agreement, upgraded filter, humidifer, duct cleaning), then we'd get a call from the other who would one up their competitor, and this went on...and on....and on.  Really to the point that it was getting ridiculous.  In the end, we purchased the system for somewhere around $1300 less than the original estimate and also received:  5 year maintenance agreement (twice a year), free whole house duct cleaning, a 15 year warranty, and a humidifier tied in with the furnace.  Even though we didn't really initiate these "negotiations", the sales rep that we ended up deciding to use said that the next time he's planning to make a major purchase, he's going to hire me to negotiate a deal for him!

New Camera and Ryan *Running* with his Car

It's absolutely ridiculous that it took me this long, but I purchased a digital SLR camera (Nikon D5000) many months ago and FINALLY took it out of the box, charged the battery, skimmed through the manual, and started using it!  Now I wish that I had gotten started using it a long time ago!  I am excited to learn more about it and its capabilities and hope that it helps me capture special moments in Ethan and Ryan's lives (they move very quickly, and I love that the shutter speed is way better than our old point and shoot ;)  These are some of the first photos that I took with the new camera.  Ryan went from a cautious and slow walker while pushing his car to running around with it, turning it on a dime, and confidently tearing around the house with it.  I think that these shots captured his glee while running around with his car!

Celebrating Grandma G's Birthday and Easter

Ethan and Ryan were really excited to spend the day at Grandpa and Grandma G's house to celebrate Grandma's birthday and Easter.  Unfortunately we didn't take very many photos of our visit that day and don't even have any of Grandma on her birthday :(  

The boys received Easter "buckets", each with a cute stuffed animal chick, and Ethan's also included a Leapster game and some Thomas the Train stickers.

 

This is the first year that we dyed and decorated Easter eggs with Ethan.  He loved it!  He wore Grandma's apron to protect his clothes and had a great time selecting colors for the eggs and then decorating them with Cars stickers.

Colorful Cars eggs

Ethan eagerly awaiting the "Go!" for hunting eggs at Grandpa and Grandma's house

Ryan did a good job of crawling around to find eggs

Ethan filled his bucket to the brim with eggs-What fun!  Thank you Grandpa and Grandma G. and Uncle Mike for the Easter gifts and egg hunt!