Fun baby moments.

Our babies are at a fun stage right now.  I love watching them learn and experience the world around them.  Their joy brings me joy.

A few weeks, maybe even months, ago Lincoln gave Annika a ride in the dump truck.  Both of them thought it was great fun.  Lincoln pushed the truck up and down our family room for probably 30 minutes. 

Manual labor.  All in the name of love!

"Why yes, I deserved to be driven around!"

Lincoln is at the scrunched up smile phase. 

Annika just loves to sit on this little ledge.  It's almost as if it was made for her bitty body.

Her hair is getting long and I really should start doing more with it.  

 Lincoln loves our little toy vacuum and the big vacuum for that matter.  If I want to snap him out of a post nap tantrum I just pull out the vacuum.  I tell him to go find his vacuum and before long we are vacuuming side by side.  He also has made it his duty to unplug the vacuum when I'm finished.  It's the little things the bring him joy.

Annika has taken an interest in Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  Both babies have, but especially Annika.  She loves to go through all of the pages and imitate how Joseph reads it.  

Joseph really is a good dad.  He always lets the babies tag-a-long when he works on projects and he has fun playing with them too.  He likes to pretend to be stern with them and tells them to "Come here right now!" and as he says that he points to the ground right in front of him.  If they obey they usually get tickled.  Well, Annika has turned the tables on him and when Joseph starts pointing in front of him Annika bends down and points in front of her.  Sometimes she will even instigate the teasing by pointing first.  It's her way of saying "let's have fun".

Annika loves shoes.  She loves to find any shoe she can and put it on.  She usually can't get her own on, but if she finds an empty shoe she fills it with her foot!  Here she is walking around in one of Joseph's shoes, but yesterday it was Rebecah's rain boot.  She is no respecter of shoes!

Last but not least, Rebecah has been losing quite a few teeth lately.  I think she has lost 3 teeth in the last month.  If she loses too many more teeth she won't be able to eat anything!

Dining Room Project

Carpet and food don't mix very well.  I'm not sure why houses are built with carpet in a dining room.  We have lived in our house 3 years and our dining room carpet needed to be replaced.  In addition to the babies regularly throwing banana on the carpet someone else spilled hot chocolate and there were other food stains, too.  The carpet needed to go.  Last year Joseph started researching the process to install hardwood flooring.  

In January Joseph ripped out our carpet and started the process to level the floor.  It took us  many trips to various flooring stores to finally decide on the floor for us.  We ended up going with a mid-color bamboo.  Not too light and not too dark.  The bamboo is supposed to be much harder than oak floors so we hope to avoid scratches, even though scratches are inevitable.

Annika (above) and Lincoln (below) "helping" Joseph with the project.

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The felt underlay.

Laying the floor.  All of the kids had to be involved.

We are pleased with the end result and it is much easier to clean up after the babies have eaten.

Finished Product