What we've been up to...

Wow... where do we even begin? I suppose I could start by coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses for why our blog hasn't been updated in several months, but I know that's not why you read this. :) So, I'll just jump right in. What have the Illinois Klingenmaiers been up to? In a word... lots! Micah is growing like crazy, and learning new things every day. At his 15 month check up, he was 25 lbs., 2 oz., and 31 3/4 inches, which puts him in the 50-75% for both height and weight. So, while we might get a lot of comments on how big he is, he's right where he should be on the charts. :) He is getting more and more independent, which I both love and hate at the same time. On the one hand, his getting more independent is a good thing, especially as we anticipate the arrival of #2 in just a few short weeks, but at the same time I'm struggling with the fact that my baby isn't my baby anymore.

Micah is getting pretty good at using a fork and spoon to feed himself, and while a fair amount of his meals still end up on the floor, his ability to get the food from his plate to his mouth with a utensil improves with each attempt.

A lot of the time, Micah will stab his food with the fork and then pull it off and put it in his mouth with his hands, but he's learning and that's what's really important, right? :)

***

We discovered our son loves ketchup! And anything else he has on his plate with the ketchup is just a conduit for him to eat the ketchup. :)



The way Micah attacked the ketchup at this meal reminded me of the kid in the movie "Big Daddy"... I have a feeling that someday Micah will be like that little boy when asked what he wants for lunch... I'm predicting a response of, "30 packets of ketchup" in a few years! :)

***

He is getting very good at navigating the stairs by himself... going up has never been a problem for Micah, and coming down has always been pretty easy too, since Aaron started working with him on how to go down backwards as soon as he figured out how to go up the stairs. However, these days, Micah prefers to come down the stairs either by holding one of our hands and walking down like a big boy, or by holding on to our hands and sliding down on his backside like Uncle Eric taught him. :) Both of these methods of going down the stairs will be helpful once I'm trying to get down the stairs with 2 kids instead of just one. :)

***

We have had a number of projects going on around our house over the past several months, and while the mess has been somewhat stressful for me, it has been fun to watch Micah turning into daddy's little helper. The kid is very mechanically minded... we might have an engineer on our hands!

Here he is learning how to lock and unlock our front door. (it was early on a Saturday morning... daddy was a little sleepy still) :)

And here are my boys hard at work ~

I found myself getting a little nervous as Micah would pick up a screwdriver and wave it around like a maniac, so I bought him his own tool belt from Ikea... this one is all fabric and a little less dangerous. Unfortunately, our little brainiac knows the difference and while he'll play with the plush tools, he definitely prefers the real thing. :)

Helping daddy take out the garbage ~

Other highlights from the past few months include playing in a box...

...a few trips to the Kohl Childrens Museum...







...coloring and playing with play doh...








...building a fort with daddy...



...swinging on the porch swing with Pops...

...and going for a bike ride with daddy. (we're still working on getting Micah to wear his helmet)

We've had a few VERY nice days lately, so we've also been able to get outside a bit and enjoy the warmer weather.

Watching the geese with daddy ~

Strollin' on his own ~

Happy guy ~

The look after a hard day of playing... I LOVE his hair in this picture! :)

And that's a glimpse into what we've been up to. :) Stay tuned... there's a lot more to come! :)

First things first...

I know, I know... I get the world's worst blogger award for the past couple of months for not keeping our blog up-to-date... and I promise one of my goals for this weekend is to get caught up and fix that. But first, and more importantly I wanted to announce that we have a new niece!! My sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl last night, May 11, at 8:25 pm. She weighed 8 lbs., 6 oz. and is 20.5 inches long. Baby's name is Elin Joy DeBoer, and we can't wait to meet her when the family comes to town for my brother's wedding at the end of June! I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll post some as soon as I do. For now, you can take my word for it... she's adorable! Congratulations, Lisa and Matt!

Like father, like son...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so enjoy 2,000 words (without having to read them!) and these pictures! :)

Like father, like son!

Fun at the Kohl Children's Museum ~

When my friend Kellie was visiting a few weeks ago, we discovered the Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview, a town not too far away from where we live. (you can see more on that visit here) We took Micah there one afternoon and had so much fun, we got a membership so we could take Micah back without having to pay every time. This was one of the BEST investments we've made recently! I've been back to the museum with Micah twice since that first time, and we've had a ball every time!

At the beginning of the month, Micah and I met my friend Shana there with her son Michael, who is about 6 weeks younger than Micah. The boys loved exploring the exhibits and playing with the different things there...

The car room ~ vroom vroom!

We've always said Micah has music in his blood... here he is banging away on a drum in the music room ~

With buddy, Mikey, in the tree ~

On the digger ~

Playing in the "dirt" (FYI: my FAVORITE kind of dirt!) :)

And just this past weekend, Aaron and I took a break from our house projects to let Micah play and burn off some energy for a few hours.

In the pet vet room ~

Dr. Klingenmaier, I presume? ~

Pushing a button at the ball-popping exhibit ~

Blowing up tubes by pushing a lever down ~

Creating his own rhythm in the music room ~

Ahhh, the drums.... mommy's favorite! ;)

Water world!

As you can see, the water world room is one of Micah's favorites! He absolutely LOVES the water! By the time we literally dragged him out of there, Micah was soaked from the neck down! Good thing I brought a change of clothes! :)

We were only there for about an hour and a half, but it was completely worth it to let Micah run around for a bit. It's also amazing to me to see how much more interactive Micah is now... just a little over a month after our first visit to the museum. Our little guy is blossoming and growing up right before our eyes! :) And it's nice to be able to go for a short time like that, and not feel guilty for paying $8 a person. So to anyone in the Chicago area with young kids, I highly recommend checking out the Kohl Children's Museum! :)

Micah ON the bear...

Every month during Micah's first year of life, I took a picture of him with this giant bear we received as a shower gift before he was born. These pictures became increasingly more difficult to capture as Micah grew and became more mobile, but we still managed to get at least one decent shot every month. :) I would LOVE to be able to continue taking pictures of him with the bear as his second year progresses, however because he is SO active and nearly impossible to keep still, I think this year's pictures will be more of Micah ON the bear... rather than WITH the bear. :) Nevertheless, here are the first two pictures from Micah's second year of life... enjoy!

January 31, 2011 ~ 13 months old

February 28, 2011 ~ 14 months old

Projects!

Aaron and I had a goal to have our house ready to be put on the market by the end of February. However, before our house can be put on the market, there are several house projects that need to be completed. CALL IN THE REINFORCEMENTS! :)

We are so blessed to have family that is so willing to help! Aaron's parents came down for the weekend to help us get a few things checked off of our massive to do list, and we are so grateful!

Project #1 - kitchen. We decided to just put another coat of paint on the walls, rather than try to cover up all the places where we had had things on the walls, so taping, patching the holes, priming and painting took up a large part of Saturday. Thankfully, Micah took a great nap Saturday afternoon, which freed everyone up to help out. I did a lot of the taping, Aaron patched the holes and sanded the walls, and Debbie took over the painting. While all of that was going on, Bill was hard at work leveling out the cabinet doors that Aaron had made and hung a few months ago. They looked amazing before but now that they all close completely, the kitchen feels even more finished! Once the painting is finished, and dried, Aaron and his dad will hang crown molding up, which will pull everything together... not to mention have made the painting project that much easier, not having to worry about a perfect line of paint at the top of the walls! :)

Project #2 - touch ups. The living room walls had a few decorations hung on them, so we patched some more holes in that room and touched up those spots, and the master bathroom needed a few areas touched up as well. Both fairly easy projects, that can be accomplished pretty quickly. :)

Project #3 - powder room. After I accidentally flushed a mechanical pencil down the toilet in our powder room, Aaron needed to pull the toilet up to fix the plumbing problem that resulted from that. Unfortunately, when he pulled the toilet up, some of the tile came up with it. So... we re-tiled the downstairs bathroom and decided to give it a fresh coat of paint before putting the vanity back in place. It's not a large room, so putting another coat of paint on the walls wasn't too daunting a task.

Project #4 - "fixings". Ever since Christmas, we've had a bowl full of ornaments that have needed to be glued back together. (ah... the joys of a curious 1-year old!) So, a few glue purchases later, those were fixed and we moved on to other fixing projects. Included on this list was the desk drawer; which just needed a dab of super glue to keep the front of the drawer in place, the coffee table; which needed the legs and the trim on one side re-attached, the front door; which blew off of the closer part during one of our insanely windy days earlier this winter, re-hanging the curtain rod in the master bedroom; which is pretty self-explanatory, :) our dresser; which is completely missing the bottom of one drawer, and about to lose the bottom of another, and the entryway; which needs a new transition strip between the tile and carpet, as well as the trim to be put back in place. More projects that won't take long, but need to be done. :)

Project #5 - cleaning and organizing! - This is going to be my main contribution to our house projects list. :) As anyone who has tried to sell a house knows, the house needs to be pretty pristine in order to show well. So on my list of things to clean/organize is the pantry... we don't have a huge pantry, but it does manage to look cluttered rather quickly. I need to clean it out, get rid of the stuff that isn't good anymore, and re-organize it... and try to keep Micah out of the bottom few shelves so it stays organized! :) I need to scrub the kitchen counters... our next house will NOT have white counter tops! We need to clean the carpets, and dust the shelves around the house. The bathrooms need to be cleaned, and we need to clean out our garage... which will probably also include getting a small storage unit to keep a few things in so our garage doesn't look like it does right now when potential buyers come to look at our house. :)

I suppose when all the projects are lumped together in categories like that, the list doesn't seem so massive.... but believe me, it FEELS massive! But we are making progress. Actually, as of right now (two weeks after Aaron's parents were here helping) the only things that still need to be accomplished are touching up the master bathroom, finishing the entryway, packing, and cleaning. And once those things are done, the project of MAINTAINING our house begins. By "maintaining", I mean keeping it clean and ready to be shown at a moments notice... which I know will never happen, especially with "hurricane Micah" tearing around. :) So, pray for me... as I try to keep my sanity through all of this. And pray for our family, as we entrust the selling of our house and the purchase of a new one to the Lord. We know all of this will happen in His time, so pray for patience as we wait for that. :)

In conclusion, a BIG thank you to our parents who were of GREAT assistance a few weekends ago... and continue to be a tremendous source of help in various ways as we go through life... and here are a few pictures from our "work weekend" so you can see the progress we've made... as well as some of the progress we still need to make. :)

Taping in the kitchen ~

Leveling out the cabinet doors ~

Debbie painting the kitchen ~

The "workshop" (yes, that's an intended double-meaning there... "workshop" as in the place where boards were cut and other work was done, as well as "workshop" as in work definitely needs to be done here!) :)

Cleaning ~

Hanging crown molding ~ (NOT an easy task!! Thanks for all your hard work on this, everyone!)

Even Micah helped with the cleanup! :) Let's hope this continues into his teenage years! ;)

As you can see, the main focus of the work weekend was the kitchen. Since that weekend, Aaron and I have worked on the other projects that needed completing, but I don't have pictures of those. Don't worry though... I'll definitely post pictures of the finished product, once our to-do list is history! :) And seeing as how it's the last day of February and we're not completely done with our to-do list, our goal, sadly, was not met. However, we are "alarmingly close" (as my dad likes to say just before he pulls dinner off of the grill)... so stay tuned! :)