yum!

roman is a good eater. two things that he has recently taken a liking to -- corn on the cob and cookie dough. both are probably not on the "healthy" list - so in our defense, we've only had them once, but he was very excited about both. :)

we are enjoying roman's expanding vocabulary/skills. he's putting more words together -- it's not like we're having long, philosophical conversations with him... but his (mainly) three-word sentences and phrases are pretty good/entertaining. example -- jake and roman were in roman's room last night, getting roman into his pjs. roman then picked out two books that we would read after he brushed his teeth. i was in the bathroom getting his toothbrush out and roman yelled out "mama, i found jesus!" apparently he had picked out a book of bible stories and he and jake were starting to look through it... precious words to any mama, right? :)

.

we are getting very excited for Baby Stotts to arrive - due date is about 3 1/2 weeks away! roman has moved into his new room (used to be our office) and seems to like his new space. he will randomly run into his old room and check it out, saying "baby, baby". so we think he knows that something/someone new is coming... we'll just have to wait and see!

roman's buddy

last weekend, we went to hannibal, MO with part of the wenger family -- i think the final count that I heard was 42 people, which I think is about 2/3 of the whole gang. it was a good weekend - went way too fast but it was fun to see everyone and do some catching up! roman and our nephew, raefe, both ended up being a little under-the-weather pretty much as soon as we got there, but they were troopers and hung in there - weren't quite themselves but i think they enjoyed themselves at random times!

since we've been back, roman has talked about raefe quite a bit -- at least once a day, he sees someone, either another child or a picture, and says "raefe! raefe!" we bought an inflatable pool and roman was sure that the little boy on the box was raefe... luckily, we get to see raefe next weekend, for his 2nd birthday! so roman can spend some more time with the real raefe! :)

New Floors!

over memorial day weekend, jake took on the task of ripping out the carpet in our front room and the linoleum in our kitchen and putting in hard wood flooring. his right-hand man for the project was brother rick, and also had some help from charlie and derek. roman and i were (politely!) asked to be out of the house for the weekend, so we went to wayland and had a fun time there! jake and rick started their work on thursday afternoon and would randomly text pictures to me with short captions... things like "progress" or "slow going but good"... and then one time, "sorry babe. i put a staple in my finger" which of course included a picture. thankfully it was a minor injury. here are some pics of the progress...

half-way done with the front room -- notice the nasty "high-traffic" area in the middle of the room. eww! gross!some of the tools the boys used...

almost done with the front room... yeah!a nice shot of the kitchen all done. (there aren't more pics of the kitchen in stages... the guys were in a groove and getting it done, not taking pics!!)

roman is liking the new floor. here he is, enjoying the new floor and also a cookie that gma susan sent back with us!

not meaning to brag, but i think the guys did an amazing job on the floors and love how they look! (and i hear that they'll be nicer/easier to keep clean, too! yeah!) very proud of jake and his crew! :)

me mow

sorry for the long time away from posting... no good excuse, just enjoying spending time together and enjoying life! :) not sure if it's because we're his parents, but we are amazed at how much/fast roman is growing -- being a little parrot and repeating what we say and reminding us that he has a little mind of his own at times. :]

our neighbor larry brought over a little mower for roman to use, which he does. whenever jake goes out to mow, roman says "me mow" and follows jake outside to the shed. when he pushes it, the mower tends to drive "down" which is a bit frustrating to roman, so he usually mows backward (aka pulls the mower)... as long as he's going at a pace similar to jake, he's happy.

the results are in...

looks like we'll be adding another boy to our family in August! we're all super-excited. :)

random updates

I think that I've mentioned this before, but Roman likes hiding - squeezing his little body into tight spaces (which is totally not something his mama would do), sometimes even if it's dark (ie closets) and will sit there quiet for a surprising amount of time. One of his favorite places to squeeze into is our pantry - he opens both doors and (tries to) flatten his body so that he can pull the pantry door closed. If we don't acknowledge him right away, he starts saying "hide! hide!" It's pretty funny!

we finally spent some time outside in the snow last week - since it was actually above zero and not super-windy out! roman liked the snow - but even more, he liked the icicles. he was very good at spotting them and pointing them out for jake to grab. (luckily they were all within reach!)

last weekend, the davisons came to visit - yeah! roman and raefe had fun playing together, and the rest of us did, too! whenever we would drive somewhere, britt and i would have r&r in the backseat of our vehicle and jake and ross would follow us in vehicle #2. we're not sure what was so funny, but r&r would laugh at each other -- raefe would usually start, and then roman, and then raefe again, and on and on... and they were good, belly laughs... wish we could have got that on camera! next time!

weekend fun

roman got to spend some time with my parents last weekend - they came up to Ankeny so jake and i went out without the little guy!

here's roman enjoying some of grandma's congo bars... yum!
...wonder where grandpa's congo bar is? maybe he already ate it!

roman opened an (early) valentine's gift from grandma and grandpa - a very cool tonka truck that makes noises! he tried his best to say "thank you"...

...and then he started shredding the blue tissue paper that was in the gift bag. i asked him to please not make a mess. i got busy doing some other stuff and then found later that night where roman decided to put the torn up tissue paper...in my shoes! funny boy!!