Playing outside in the snow

Holly ready to play in the snow outside!

Myles hanging out on his snow cave

Holly shoveling snow.

Myles playing in the snow.

Today was such great weather, that we decided to play out in the snow after nap time. It was a lot of fun, and the kids really enjoyed it. Holly did lots of walking around and some shoveling. Myles rolled around in the snow, made a snow wall, and threw snow balls back and forth with Mom. The evening is relaxing and we are just playing around the house. Tomorrow is Sunday School in the morning. Let's hope we all get good sleep tonight so that we are well behaved in church!

Love, Andrea

Fun activity for the cold days of winter....

Tonight we ate a quick dinner together at home, before we headed out into the cold again to play at the BK play place. What a wonderful place that is! We got there and there was only 2 other boys playing, a 5 year old named Sam and his 3 year old brother Max. Myles and the 2 boys became instant friends and raced around the play place together. Myles only stopped occasionally to suck down some of his strawberry shake. Holly kept up the best she could with the boys and ran around. She even braved the twisty slide on her own. She's a tough little girl! She only got plowed down a few times by the boys, but never cried about it. We got home at about 7:40 pm - just enough time to play a little at home and then get ready for bed. Let's hope they sleep good tonight! I know I will!
Love,
Andrea

Happy Birthday Patrick!

Myles charmed Erica and Pete into a game of Hi Ho Cherry O! Pete won first, then Myles. Better luck next time Erica!

Dad and Erik enjoying the evening.

He got some work pants so that he could help the in-laws on their Elk farm. Now he isn't a city boy anymore!

opening gifts - that's the best part!

Mmmm... look at that pie and ice cream.... it was painful to track Saturday's meal on Weight Watchers. Let's just say that I went over my daily points by about a million.

He got them all out - no girlfriends! Which is good since he is getting married in May!

The birthday boy - Patrick!

I think he is shocked at how bright 29 candles are! :)

After dinner, we put candles on pie and sang to the birthday boy!

Last night the entire family got together to celebrate Patrick's 29th birthday. He requested "Brinner" for his meal. For those who are unfamiliar with this term, this basically is breakfast food at dinner time....Brinner. So we cooked up a big meal of scrambled eggs, french toast, hash browns, sausage, donut holes, fruit, and juice. All very tasty! Then while the kids played and watched a movie, we opened up gifts and had some pie and ice cream. The kids were excited because they got to stay up later than normal. We may pay for that today, but we'll see.

It was fun to see everyone, and I hope that Patrik's last year in his 20's is a good one!

Love, Andrea

The last few days

Holly chilling on her little couch

Okay... a bad picture of my two kids, but this is all I could get!

We worked hard on our creation -Color Explosion makes these great things that you can trace and the color appears. It was fun, but it was like pulling teeth to get Myles to take this picture! But a fun Sunday night activity!

Close up of our art work!

Things have been good at the Johnson house lately. The kids are being pretty good (for the most part), and we're trying to wear them out during these cold winter days. They slept over at Grandma's and Grandpa's house on Friday night, and Erik and I went to his work party. It was nice to meet many of the employees he works with. They were nice and we were there until midnight. The morning came early as we had to pick up the kids early so Myles could go to his 2nd swimming lesson at 9:30 am. He enjoyed it! In the evening we had the Thielke's over to play and hang out. The pizza and beer was sooooo yummy! Even tastier for me as I'm doing the online weight watchers.... gotta get rid of the holiday weight that I managed to put on. Ugh! Sunday was pretty quiet - no church. We pretty much played during the day, and then took the kids swimming in the late afternoon. They had fun, even though the water was a little cool at the pool. Swimming always wears them out!

Today was MLK and daycare is closed. A bit of a surprise, but I had the day off so we decided to have fun! Keely came over in the morning so that the kids could play together. Myles, Holly, Hayden, and Halle all had fun! Only one accident when Myles ran into the entertainment center... just a little crying, but got over it quickly. We then went to Culvers for lunch together. Yum! This afternoon we had naps and then playing. All in all - it has been a good day! I didn't get any pictures from today, but I hope you enjoy some from the weekend!

Love, Andrea

Awesome Weekend

Holly thought it was funny to sit in this basket of balls. She laughed and hung out for about 10 minutes in it. Funny!

Here is the only picture I could take of Myles in swim class. They don't want you to take pictures, but I snuck this one. He is the one in blue on the left.

What a great weekend this was! Lots of fun. On Friday night it was Spaghetti night and movies! We watched Kung Fu Panda. Very good! Even Holly watched it. Spaghetti was a huge hit. Especially for Holly. Erik and I have NEVER seen her eat so much food! It was incredible to watch. She would finish her noodles, then hold up her plate and mumble some gibberish. We would get more and watch her eat every last bite. I think I filled her plate about 4 times. Let's just say that she slept well that night (and so did us parents!). On Saturday morning I took Myles to his first swimming lesson. He did great! Very well behaved and followed his teacher's instructions. It was 30 minutes long, and there are 3 other kids in his class. They worked on some basics such as putting your face in the water, floating, jumping into the water, and kicking. They took turns doing each of these with the teacher individually. He has about 7 more lessons in this class. I'm sure we'll sign him up for more. In the afternoon/evening we just hung out and played with toys in the basement. Sunday was packed with activity. We had church and Sunday school in the morning (Myles told his teacher he loved her -how cute is that!). Then we took a trip to Costco. Love that place. Lunch and naps next (love nap time!!!). Once we all woke up, we packed the kids up to go swimming! Myles was thrilled! Holly didn't know what was happening and clung to me... until she saw the pool. Then she screamed with delight and couldn't wait to get out of my arm. Everyone had a blast! We swam for about 1.5 hours before we decided to call it quits. Myles suggested that we head out to Chinese for dinner and we agreed. Again, Holly ate quite a bit. In fact, after eating dinner she managed to eat an entire ice cream cone. Amazing. Now we are hanging out at home watching Polar Express for a bit before bedtime. I'm so pleased with this weekend. Hope everyone had just as much fun!!!!!

Love, Andrea