Easter

Other than the winter-like weather, we had a great Easter in Rockford last weekend. We went up Friday night and stayed the weekend. Gabe and I visited Jamie and Hunter on Friday (he's a doll!) and Saturday we took him for Easter pics at Wal-Mart and colored some eggs. I think Gabe enjoyed the eggs - we would do the base color and then we had these egg "paints" with a little brush and he would paint them. On Easter we went to church with my parents and then to Dan's dad's family's brunch and then to my mom's lunch. I felt like we were eating all day, but Easter is probably my favorite holiday and I LOVE the food (especially my mom's ham). We ended up not hiding eggs because it was cold and Gabe ended up napping for a couple of hours at my mom's so by the time he woke up most of the "kids" were already gone. We had a great day...just wish it could have been a little more spring-like!

Bob Party

A couple of weekends ago we had Gabe's 2nd birthday party. A little smaller than the first birthday bash, but still lots of family and friends. We made our homemade "Bob the Tomato" cake again along with some cupcakes and for dinner we had "His Cheeseburger," "Junior Asparagus," "Not Your Ordinary Beans," chips, pasta salad and raw veggies on skewers. You Veggie Tales fans will get the meaning of some of the food titles. :-) Gabe did really well, although he did get a little restless during the present opening. But he even did pretty well blowing out his candle (with a little help from Mommy. For his big present we got him one of those Radio Flyer tricyles with the steering handle for the parents so you can kindof guide and push them. He loved it and he and Henry had a lot of fun with it! Henry was even pushing Gabe around for a while (we got that on video, I'll have to see if I can figure out how to download from the camcorder and post it).

We had lots of fun and it's hard to believe he's two already. Time flies!

Paris

We spent the last couple days of our trip in Paris, which was amazing. We didn't have a ton of time there, so we did a bus tour of the city the first day and saw a lot of the city that way, which was nice. The second day we went to Musee D'Orsay and saw lots of original Monets, Van Goghs, Reniors, etc. I'm not an art buff, but that was very cool to see. Then we went to Notre Dame and Saint Shappel (sp?). Here are a few pics: Heather and me at the Louve (we didn't go in due to lack of time and wanting to go to Musee D'Orsay instead), Place de la Concorde (where Marie Antionette and Louis the IX (?) were beheaded), Arc de Triumph (original gate to the city, if you closely those are people at the very bottom - it's huge), the Eiffel Tower, and Heather and me at Notre Dame. It was a wonderful trip and I'm so glad I went. I was definitely missing home, but I know I'll always be glad I took to opportunity to go and would definitely recommend it for anyone else considering Europe!

Toulouse

Here are a few pictures of our time in Toulouse. Toulouse in in the southern part of France, between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. It's a beautiful city - they call it the pink city for all of the beautiful brick that was used in the buildings there. Toulouse was a lot like I had imagined Europe - beautiful old buildings, shutters, window boxes, bakeries, cafes. We really enjoyed our time there with the staff for Agape Campus (equivalent of Campus Crusade in the US). We spent some time with French students and also got to know the staff. Some of them had small children and we babysat and helped with some housework to give them a little break. We had plenty of time to shop and see the city, though. The pics below are the outside of our hotel, the view out our hotel room, a "place" (plaza) where we ate lunch and shopped a couple of days (we ate at the pizza place behind me - delicious), Capitole, and a bakery where we grabbed breakfast and snacks a few times. We enjoyed the food - lots of croissants, some crepes, some cream sauce - yum!

Two-Year Check-Up

We took Gabe today for his two year check-up. Everything went well. He didn't want to nap today (as is the case lately), so he fell asleep in the car on the way and slept in the stroller until they called us in. He woke up when he was on the scale and we were taking off his clothes. :-) He did well, though, he smiled and said hi to the nurse and then was totally calm as the doctor was checking him out (although she checked him out "down there" and tonight he kept saying "doctor....pee pee..."). He is 35 3/4 " tall (90th percentile), 30 lb. 7 oz. (75th percentile down from 90th) and his head size is tapering off. :-) I'm not sure why his weight is down, but she said it's not uncommon for them to "thin out" at this age. She also said he can have peanut butter now and he can drink whatever milk we drink (either skim or 2%). I may keep giving him whole though (and I've been drinking it, too!). She also confirmed his two-year molars are coming in, which explains the drooling and the chewing on his fingers.

Here are some of his milestones at two years:

• Loves to talk and can say just about anything you ask him to. He's starting to talk in little sentences.


• Can sing his ABCs from beginning to end (need to get this on video).


• Loves to sing and has memorized most of the Veggie Tales sing-along CD (including the dialogue in between songs).


• Knows how to identify some letters and colors and can count a little bit (more like 2,3,5,9,10,11..).


• He's trying to give up his nap (which the doctor confirms he still needs!) and is no longer sleeping in his crib. However, he's been sleeping through the night in his own room.

We had a great birthday party for him on Saturday. I'll post on that soon (and I promise to write more about France, too.)