In Bloom

The Great Outdoors

One of our favorite parts of our new house is the big backyard. Now that the boys are walking almost all the time, it's much easier to just let everyone roam freely and explore.

Alex and Maguire love to climb up and down the deck stairs, play peek-a-boo through the railings, fight over the slide....

...and could literally spend hours (Maguire especially) staring at our backyard neighbor's dogs.

Plenty of time is also spent figuring out potential escape routes from all angles. And if you're thinking that gap between fence and house is much too small for someone to squeeze out, you'd be wrong. Just call him MacGyver -- despite having one of the biggest heads around, Maguire is capable of wiggling into/through/out of some of the teeniest spaces.

Ellie has a new favorite outside activity (which I'm sure is endearing her to our many senior citizen neighbors with beautifully manicured lawns) -- blowing dandelion fuzz off of every dandelion that crosses her path.

Bear with me on this next one, I had to let her do a crazy face before she'd smile for me.

And with boys, there's always lots of bug-gazing and stick eating to be done.

Happy Days

It's Official -- We're Huronites

Or maybe it's Huronians? Who knows -- but all that matters is that all 5 Studers are living in the same house in the same city again! It has been a long 4 months of living apart. I think I almost forgot what it's like to have another adult around all the time -- actual conversation is pretty fun! Not that Ellie and I didn't talk or anything, but lengthy discussions on which Disney Princess was our favorite just aren't quite the same.

We are busy settling into our new home. It has much much more space than our old house, including this 3-season room where the kids spent hours locked in playing while we moved in furniture last Friday. All kidding aside, it's probably my favorite room in the house. I forsee many hours of playtime spent here.

We've also devised a plan for making some extra money for a little remodeling. We're going to hire out the boys to new parents, set them loose in their house, and be dazzled by their amazing ability to find any door, cabinet, shelf, or surface that is unsafe for children. I can't even begin to count the pinched fingers, arms, and legs, bumped heads, and small children wedged in inappropriate spaces that we have had to deal with this week. On the bright side, most of the cabinets are still empty and can be used as great hide-and-seek spots. You won't find Ellie in a lot of these next few pictures -- she is thankfully big enough to know better, or at least she can run away from the messes faster than we discover them.

Yesterday I heard the boys in the kitchen cupboards, and then all was quiet. A sure sign of trouble. When I went in to see what was going on, this was the sight I was greeted with:

The little stinkers found the applesauce and popped holes in the top with their teeth. They were having a grand old time sucking it straight out of the container -- but at least it took care of afternoon snacktime!

Fun with oatmeal!

Another big winner -- the fireplace! So far, no major injuries, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Maguire is chatting away on the phone with his own reflection in the fireplace glass, while Alex tries a side-arm throw with what appears to be a bulb syringe (booger catcher). Gross. And how did that end up packed in with the toys?

A few high points of the week:

Chris and his new big screen. Love at first sight.

The boys, just chillin' in the car taking a phone call or two.

Napping in the same pack & play on moving day because we only have one and neither crib was set up.

This picture needs a little explanation, but is a great illustration for my mental state this past week. Notice anything funny about these shoes?

The week before we left Sioux Falls, I bought the boys each a pair of the blue sandals for summer. Same style/color, same size. Well, it turns out that size 4 is still a little too big for Maguire so his pair needed to be returned. Luckily KMart is one of the few major retail stores that's actually in Huron, so a few days after we moved I brought one pair back to the store. They didn't have the right size, so I just got my money back and bought a different pair (see brown shoes above). The next day I went to try on the boys' new shoes and noticed that we had another tiny problem. Did you figure it out? -- look closely! Yes, I returned two left shoes to the store and kept two right shoes! Oops. Thank goodness the ladies at the store were very understanding when I returned to KMart once again to let them know that I needed to exchange a right for a left. Sigh.

Wayward Travelers

Hello from Brainerd! The kiddos and I are on the tail end of our 8-day stay at Grammie and Papa's while we're between houses. We have had a great time, visiting with all the grandparents and great-grandparents, seeing Scatteredtrees (my little brother Nate's band), and just hanging out. But boy, are we ever ready to not be living out of a suitcase anymore! It may take us a few days to dig out the box where the computer is currently living once we get into the house, so here's what we've been up to in a nutshell:

We visited the Little Falls Zoo yesterday afternoon. Can you see what our children's favorite animals were? Nope, not the Siberian tigers or timberwolves, not even the peacocks or cougars. They couldn't get enough of the prairie dogs -- practically the state animal of SD.




We have fun dressing up the boys in puppet clothes. I cannot take the blame for this one -- it was all Papa. You can see the fireman puppet next to Alex on the floor -- and can I just point out that even the fake fireman puppet has a mustache? Is that a requirement to be a fire dept. member, Papa?

My Aunt Julie, who cut my hair my whole childhood, came over and gave Ellie and Maguire a trim. Alex sadly took a pass on this one. We hope that maybe by this time next year he'll have enough hair to merit a trim.

Unfortunately, we were way too busy actually moving out of our old house to be bothered to take a single picture of our packing, UHaul loading, cleaning, or storage unit packing, so the majority of the last few weeks is undocumented. Here are a few random snapshots from April to tide you over until we get the computer up and running in Huron.

Ellie and all her friends from Wednesday night Rainbows at church.

Getting better at bike riding!

Happy Belated Easter!

And finally, a few clips of the boys walking. They are finally getting the hang of it -- we're in some serious trouble....

We're Still Alive!

T-minus 6 days and counting until we officially leave Sioux Falls! We are also happy to announce that the lovely home pictured above will be the place we call home in Huron. Yep, we finally found a house! And in just 30 short years, the bank says we can keep it! We are really excited about our new house -- it has three bedrooms on the main level, quite a bit more space than our current house, and is just a block away from a great playground! Can you tell we are a bit relieved about having a place to go by my excessive use of exclamation points?!

We are busy packing up the house in Sioux Falls -- we will be putting everything into storage temporarily because we don't close on our house in Huron until May 1st. So the kids and I are headed to Grammie and Papa's house for about a week after we close on our house here next Wednesday. Are you tired just reading all that? Me too. Add in the pink eye (both boys) floating around our house and my sprained foot (thanks again, Easter Bunny, for those new wooden building blocks!) and we're right in the middle of one crazy week! But seriously, my foot is feeling much better and I have only myself to blame since I'm the Easter Bunny around here.

I would post more pictures, but I've got to get back to the boxes. Plus, you don't really want to see the boys in all their crusty-eyed nastiness. I do, however, want to say belated congratulations to my friend Ryan and his wife Kristi on their new baby boys, Easton and Owen! Kristi is truly the superwoman of twin pregnancies -- she was on bed rest for over 4 months and carried those boys all the way to 37 weeks! So rather than subject you to my pink-eyed twosome, go check out their adorable new arrivals. Congratulations, Ryan, Kristi, and big sister Addyson!

Only in the Midwest

We spent a lovely afternoon at a local park last week. Temperatures were in the upper 40's, so Ellie decided to spend most of the time without a coat on. We were the only people at the park, so I pretty much just let the boys run (or crawl) wild all over the play equipment. Okay, so mostly they just ate wood chips, but they sure had a good time doing it! Here's Maguire with his new favorite trick (pointing) which is almost always accompanied by "Dis?"

Maguire also had a blast being pushed on the swings by Ellie.

Alex, not so much.....

Like I said, a lot of fiber was ingested that day.

After his traumatizing experience on the swings, Alex had a go at the slide with Ellie. As you can see, it went really well.

While Ellie and Alex took on the slide, Maguire made a new friend.

We are so glad that spring is almost here! -- if only we hadn't woken up THE NEXT MORNING to this sight. Ahh, Midwest living at its best.