Case is 2!!

Last Saturday, my baby boy turned 2! He's officially a toddler! For his birthday, Matt and I took him to the Mall of America's indoor amusement park. They give kids unlimited rides on their birthday for free - it was great! We had such a blast with Case! Some friends of ours watched Sadie for us, so we were able to give Case an evening with just the three of us. He got Macaroni and Cheese from Noodles and free ice cream from Coldstone. He thinks he's smiling in this picture! We went on tons of rides - the Big Rigs, Balloon Race, a train, bus, carousel, cars, etc...I love this picture of Case looking up at Matt while riding the flying puppies!
At the end of the night, Matt and I both took turns taking him on the log chute. The log chute was actually pretty fast and had two fairly big drop offs. After the two rides Case said, "All done, Boats." But as soon as we got to the car, "I wanna ride boats!".
It was so fun to look back over just the two years Case has been in our life and how he has changed our little family for the better! Case is so busy right now, he has an unbelievable amount of energy! He loves to run, run, run - being chased is his favorite thing. We love to play "Sadie's gonna get you", I chase him around the apartment holding Sadie out. His other favorite thing is, "no monkeys jumping on the bed" where he jumps in his crib while I sit in the glider and sing "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed..." He insists I sit on the glider while he jumps. It's a great energy release for him! He also loves playing on our bed with Matt, they'll just play for hours diving under the covers and laughing.
One of Case's other recent favorite things is to watch himself in video of pictures. He laughs so hard at himself and if you ask him who it is, he says, "Caser-man!"
Case is talking up a storm! Our favorite is when he says, "I love you." Ahhh, just melts your hearts! He also is just super cute if he's playing by himself and passes by me in the apartment and says, "Hey Mom." He seems so mature!
As he's understanding more and more, it's been a blessing to share with him about Jesus. He loves to read his Bible and knows that the Bible is about Jesus. He's just started to pray at night, "Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross to save me from my sins." (We say it a couple words at a time). Case, we love you so much and pray you will grow to know and love your Savior!

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY, CASER-MAN!

Book Worms

These two love books as much as their Daddy already!

Case has become a little obsessed with "We're going on a bear hunt". Between Matt and I, I bet we read it 40 times today! Earlier today, he came and told me he wanted to read it to Sadie (or Sayabelle as he calls her!). She was already in her papasan so I helped him climb in with her. My heart just melted as the two of them looked at this book together and Case "read" to her.I love watching them become buddies :) Sadie has gotten a little tougher as she's gotten more sturdy and she just loves Case and all the attention he gives her! She laughs at him and puts up with all his smothering. He rolls on top of her as if he's wrestling her, and she grabs his hair - her only move :) It's so cute to hear him say, "let go Sayabelle, let go Sayabelle."
We love these two so much!

Labor Day

Matt and I were so excited to join the Brandes family up at Hannah's place for Labor Day. We were going up on Thursday night, so we'd have the place to ourselves until everyone else started arriving Friday afternoon and evening. Thursday morning I woke up ready for a busy day of packing, packing, packing! Case woke up with a temp of 102 :( poor little guy! This is what he looked like...
So he slept a lot during the day and was just tired and cuddly. Tylenol really seemed to help so we still took off for the cabin as planned. About 30 minutes into the drive, Case started crying pretty hard and all of a sudden he threw up all over! We stopped at a gas station and cleaned him up and he seemed a lot better. At dinner he was completely himself, but when we got to Hannah's he was so out of it! He just snuggled up with us on the recliner and watched Elf. His temp went up to 103 when we went to bed but thankfully he was fine the next day! He took a morning nap which he never does but then he was all better! So much better that he was no where near tired when bedtime rolled around. We figured out of about a 36 hour period, he slept about 30 hours.
Ughhhh... So Friday night was the worst night I have EVER had with either child. Case and I stayed up until 3:15am!! He fell asleep with Matty for about an hour at that point and then woke back up and finally slept from 530am until 830am! Ugh, it was so miserable! I was completely shocked that during that day, besides some puffy eyes he was completely himself. He crashed that night but Sunday night wasn't a whole lot better. It's a very humbling thing when your child keeps up a cabin full of about 15 people!!
So sleeping was miserable, but other than that we had a blast!! Hannah's family, her sisters friends, extended family and family friends were all up there. We ate the best food ever, and they barely let us lift a finger! I got in trouble when I started washing dishes after breakfast one morning! Case had constant playmates and he loved every minute of the attention. Sadie was held all day long and couldn't have been happier! This was seriously how she spent her whole weekend.

Case got to go fishing with his new friend, Kiersten. Or as he called her, it! He kept saying, "Where'd it go?" any time that she wasn't around! He loved her!

He also had a great time just playing in the water

and he LOVED the boat. The boat rides were the best, but he was perfectly content just to sit in the boat. I love this shot of him on the deck!
I miss it already!

Up and Running again...

A couple of weeks ago, I read through all of my blog posts I've written over the past year and a half. It was so much fun and it gave me great motivation to keep blogging, even about little everyday things! Then... our internet stopped working. We just got it working tonight, so I'll try to get some make up blogs up in the next few days! But in the meantime, I'll leave you with a few fun pictures from the last month!

Can you find the baby?
There she is! And there is the culprit!
I love this picture of Case's bedhead - he woke up like this from a nap, with perfectly coiffed hair! I couldn't get it to do this if I tried.

And here's Sadie sporting her cute little hairdo! It makes me realize how much her hair has grown - even since this picture!

One day I was packing to get ready to head up to Cambridge for an overnight. I had my suitcase on the bed and it was about half way full of the kids clothes and my clothes. I was busy doing some other things and came back to this...Not only was the suitcase empty, but I could NOT find the missing clothes. I assumed Case came in and pulled all the clothes out of the suitcase, but they weren't any where in the bedroom?? I could not figure out how he could make a suitcase full of clothes disappear! After great detective work, I found them, here...

Can't tell where that is? I'll tell you how I found them. Being the smart detective I am, I put Sadie's jeans in the suitcase and put Case up on my bed. He immediately started giggling, ran over to the suitcase and did this with the jeans!
He had taken every article of clothing in the suit case and had shoved it down between our headboard and the wall. We were both laughing so hard!

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