Easter

Here is a video of Natalie searching for her Easter basket this year. She was so cute when she was looking for it. I didn't actually tape her finding her basket, James got that part on the other video camera. Michael is not in any of our pictures/videos from Easter because he was sick and slept all but 1 hour the whole day. Last year Michael was just a couple weeks old so he was sleeping the whole day then. So, we have gone through 2 Easters without evidence of Michael but he was with us. :)

Catching Up

So, I decided to make a slideshow of pictures dating all the way back to Christmas,
I haven't exactly been on top of everything lately!! For those of you who don't know, we are expecting baby #3 in October!! We are very excited about adding another baby to the Chalmers family and are excited to see if we'll have another wild girl or boy. We'll wait to find out till the little one arrives. We're thinking through names and I think we've decided one for both a girl and boy, that will be a surprise too. :) Things are going well so far. Natalie talks about the "new little sister/brother in her tummy", she doesn't have all the details correct yet but she'll get there. Well, hope you are all doing well and take care!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I decided, after looking at the price of some maternity jeans that they are so crazy expensives, to attempt to make my own. So, I looked online, found some instructions, borrowed a pair of a friends to copy and went to work with James' mom to make my own maternity pants. I used a pair of American Eagle and a pair from The Limited. They were a huge success and fun to make so, here are the pics. :)


Here is the pair that I copied:


Here is one of the pairs that I made:

Michael's 1st Birthday!

That is the video from Michael's party with my family. I think he was tired and couldn't decide if he was excited to eat his cake or if he wanted to go to bed, it was pretty funny.

We had multiple parties for Michael's first birthday. We had one with Michael's friend Sam Clatterbuck, who was born 4 days before Michael. They had a lot of little friends over to celebrate with them, and for a morning of mommy time. :) We also had a party with my family and it was also Christian's (my nephew's) birthday the day before Michaels. The kids played at the pool and had a great time. The last party we had was tonight, just our little family of 4. This is a picture of Michael with his gift from us, a Philadelphia Flyers mini hockey stick. He loved it and started chasing Natalie around with it which was hilarious.
Here is James giving Michael his cupcake.
Michael didn't waste any time getting to work. I think he might have mommy's sweet tooth. Natalie on the other hand, asked me to take off her frosting. Who does that??Michael was really frustrated when his cupcake was gone. He ate the entire thing!!


Here is a picture of the kids in the hot tub with Grandma, taking a break from the pool. Caroline, Natalie & Michael.

Here is Michael's first birthday cake. I decided after making this cake that I'm going to take a cake decorating class because I need some help!! It was fun though.

Here is Michael & Sam, getting ready to dig in to their cake.

Here are all the kids that were over to our house for the morning. It was so much fun!! This picture was hilarious, there were screaming babies, I guess that happens when there are 14 kids on one couch. :)

Here is Natalie "helping" me make Michael's cupcakes. Yeah, she is in her pj's, meaning it was about 9:00 in the morning. Oh well, she had fun!

5-5-5

Ha! I love this one! I was tagged (by Christi) to post the fifth picture in your fifth folder and tag five people. Love it.

I can not believe what picture it was!! It was a picture from Rothenburg, Germany in 2004 that we took with Jared & Christi and Brent & Kerri! I loved this little walled city, oh it brought back memories!

1. Michele Senkbile

2. Tracy Krelle

3. Mindy Bednar

4. Chad & Maria Kruse

5. Elizabeth Lewis

Here is a little video of what my days look like at home. These two crack me up and love eachother so much. They each think the other is so funny and have these great conversations with eachother.

Messy Boy

Yesterday Natalie wanted to feed Michael "all by myself". So, I walked out of the room and let her do her thing. It was so cute watching when she wasn't looking. She would try to wipe the food off his mouth after every bite and he was loving it. She dropped the spoon on the floor so I went in and wiped it up and left the cloth on the table. When I came back a couple of minutes later she had wiped his face and bib off. Oh, I wouldn't trade the squash all over the floor, highchair, Michael's outfit and in his hair for anything. That was such a sweet moment.

Wow!! Major update needed.....

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It has been way to long since my last post. It seems like it always happens that way. I figure that pictures can tell way more than I can write so I made a pretty lengthy slide show for you at the bottom of this post. You can scroll through the pictures at your own pace so you can look quickly. A couple of highlights:

• Michael is crawling all over the place, standing up on everything and actually taking some steps behind one of his toys. He also climbs steps and moves from one piece of furniture to another if they are close enough.


• Natalie is talking so much now, a million miles a minute. She says the funniest things. Like tonight...."Natalie, I love you. Do you love mommy?" "No" "No, you don't love mommy?" "no" "Well, who do you love?" and with so much excitement she screamed "I love JESUS!" It was so cute and I cracked up. She later told me she loved me too, phew.


• Natalie is such a mimic of us. For example, if we tell her to do something we say "Natalie, you need to put your toys away. You say 'okay mommy' and obey" She knows that she has to say okay and obey us right away. So now she says to Michael if he's doing something he shouldn't be doing "no, no, Myny. You obey mommy, you obey!!" Poor little guy has 2 moms!


• James was traveling for work for a week so I went back home to Randolph for 5 days. It was a wonderful time of visiting with family and friends. There are pictures of our time there in the slideshow.


• We have a friend living with us. His name is Dieudonne and he moved in about 2 months ago. He has been attending our church (http://www.cdomaha.org/) for about a year and half. He is a refugee from Burundi, Africa and is going to Central High School. It has been so much fun and such a blessing to our family having him live with us. We've had some great conversations and Natalie loves playing with him and talking to him. We celebrated his 19th birthday with him in October.


• Our church, Coram Deo, is celebrating it's 3rd Birthday next week. We have grown so much spiritually through the teaching and community of people we are around. All of the sermons are on the website if you are ever interested in listening to one.


• I am absolutely LOVING my job of a stay-at-home mom. I look at our kids every day and am so thankful I get to spend all of my time with them and friends. I get to use all of my energy on my family and watching it grow is so wonderful. We spend our days doing whatever comes our way. Natalie will wake up and say some of the following statements "are we going to the woo... are we going to MOPS... can we go on a walk... are we going bye-bye in the car.. can we play with coco "or names other kids"


• I'm starting to work on sign language with Michael so he stops grunting when he wants another bite. We did it with Natalie so that she could communicate with us before she was able to talk. We started with the sign for please and she would have to do it before we would give her food or anything else. So, I would say to Michael "do you want more" and then take Michael's hand before every bite and sign "please." Natalie would laugh and then a couple minutes later said to me "mommy, may I have some more milk please." Amazing what a difference 21 months makes.


• I've been making baby food for Michael. It's been great. It cost 1/2 the price to make my own organic food than to buy non-organic!! And, not to mention the difference in the food. Gross. Here is a picture of green beans that I bought and food that I made. Yuck. I think I'll stick to making my own. I'm not sure what they have in their "green beans" but why isn't it green???