A Daddy Stage......

Silas is definitely going through a Daddy's boy stage. He cries for at least 10 min when Kurt leaves for work and the whole day will talk about daddy. If he sees a car, it is daddy's car or a book is daddy's book. If I tell him daddy is coming home from work, he'll go and sit on the ledge of our front window. If both Kurt and I are around, he really wants nothing to do with me. It is really cute though. I tell Kurt he must be brainwashing him when I'm not around!!! I'll attach a few pictures to show why I think that....he, he. Silas loves to play piano with daddy. Although he doesn't sit for very long yet, he really enjoys "playing" along. Silas also loves books and the other day he grabbed my Bible and started paging through that. I thought it was cute when he grabbed a pen and started to "take notes"....gee that isn't like Kurt at all! The other picture is his first time "helping" me make brownies. Yes, it was all about licking the spoon, as it should be.

Other than that, he's growing up all too fast! His favorite words are "airplane" which there are plenty of out here. He also loves to say "bus, truck and car" even though he sometimes gets confused. His new phrase is "oh boy!" with a lot of excitement. He's really into waving goodbye and blowing kisses. It's not too uncommon for him to do it to complete strangers who just love it.

Anyways, pray for us this weekend as we go camping in the mountains with our church. It should be fun, but this will truly be our first time camping as a family in a tent, so I'm sure it will be an adventure!

A Bublemaniac Bruiser...

We'll - at first glance this seems like an almost nightly event... Silas and Haven chasing bubbles on our deck.



But if you take a closer look, you'll notice that he has had his first life experience with the laws of physics. Yesterday, we went out to lunch after church with some close friends. Well, Silas got a little - OK a lot - upset and leaned back to throw a tiny fit. Well, when he came forward, his cheek met Mr. Table - and the table won.

It bruised within a minute...and today, well - see for yourself. His new nickname - "Bruiser"

A quick update on our trip

Well, our trip back to Illinois and Iowa was very fast. We flew into Cedar Rapids July 4th, and went straight to my sister Carla's. We were able to spend some time with their family and meet the new nephews. We also got to watch fireworks from her deck which is always nice not having to travel. We got up early Sat and spent some time in Iowa City. We were amazed by what the flooding has done to the campus and were really sad to see it like that. We were able to walk around downtown Iowa City for a little bit and see how that has changed since we have both been out of college. We also got some Iowa gear for Silas in preparation for what we hope will be a good football season. (You can always hope!)

Anyways, we left for Chicago from there and had a nice barbeque with Kurt's family. It was nice to see the cousins play together and get to catch up with the adults. Sunday, we went back to our church which is always a joy to see our "church family" in Chicago. We were also able to see some friends after church who have a little girl Silas's age. It was nice to compare notes on parenting toddlers and catch up on life! Sunday night we went out to eat w/ Kurt's family and spent some time at Grandma Aichele's place.

Monday we woke up and left for Iowa. We first went to Great Grandma and Grandpa Conklin's house for a home cooked Iowa meal (yummy!). Silas had fun playing ball there and we got to catch up on how things are going there. We left for the Grandpa and Amma Shippy's farm and had another wonderful home cooked meal and got to meet another nephew Brock, who I think is going to outgrow Silas very soon! We got some neat pictures that Kurt will have to post since they are on his camera.

Tuesday was a day on the farm. Grandpa took us around to see some cows and goats and let Silas play on his tractors. Daddy and Silas also played on the 4 wheeler. I wasn't sure what Silas would think of the 4 wheeler, but he immediately took to it and it was so hard to get him away from it. Many tears shed as we had to say goodbye to the 4 wheeler for this trip.

So, although it was a short trip, we had such a nice time seeing friends and family. We had a bit of a rough trip back being delayed in Cedar Rapids and not getting home until after midnight. Then, we had to get up to go to work on Wed, so we were all exhausted. I have gotten a cold now and Kurt has admitted this morning he's not feeling the greatest either, so do pray that we will kick whatever we have gotten and we will get back into the swing of things quickly! Here are some pictures to enjoy.