Happy Easter!

We had a fun Easter weekend as a family.  The kids were gone the entire week at Nana and Papa's house while Ben was out of town and I got an entire week by myself at home!  (Best gift ever.  I have the best in-laws!)  The kids came home on Saturday and so did Ben, so we wasted no time doing Easter things together- coloring eggs, making sugar cookies, easter egg hunts, etc.

The Easter Bunny brought the kids each their own movie and, of course, candy.

Mitch shoved candy into his mouth as fast as he possibly could and was stuffed to the brim at all times, until we had to hide the candy.

Chloe in her new Easter dress.  She was so excited to wear it and we love picking out a new dress together each year.

Mitch in his new Easter outfit.  He wouldn't stand up for me, but he looked very handsome in it for church and for his first day of NURSERY!  Hooray!  What a happy day it was for all of us to have him in nursery.

Happy Easter!

Update!

It's definitely time for an update on the Andros Family.  We have had quite an eventful winter and beginning of Spring (if you can call it Spring yet).  Here's our happenings, in no particular order (it's too hard to get all of the pictures in chronological order with so many!)

In February, my sister Amanda came to visit with her little boy Carter.  Chloe was the second mom to cousin Carter (acting like she's never had a little brother before) and loved to feed him his meals!

The boys had a good time playing together, even if Mitchell's favorite game was "push over Carter and watch him fall."  Mitchell practiced his walking skills by taking cousin for a ride in the shopping cart.  It was hilarious.

Then they switched and Carter "pushed" Mitch.

At the end of February, our dog Daisy had 14 chocolate lab pups (can you imagine?)  Unfortunately, one was still born, and 2 were sickly and died, but we were left with 11 very healthy, very cute puppies.  Here they are just a few days old- little brown rats.

Chloe is the best little "mother" to the pups.  This is our 3rd litter and she gets more helpful and sweet with each litter.

Mitch was just 6 months old last litter and didn't have any idea what was going on, but gets now that we have puppies.  He really wasn't sure about them in the beginning, though, especially when they were this tiny.

Ben's newest hobby is dutch oven cooking!  We got some dutch ovens for Christmas and he has been trying his hand at all sorts of recipes.  Cinnamon rolls have been his latest obsession, and after many not-so-great attempts, he finally got it perfect!  We are hoping our dutch ovens come in handy as part of our food storage supply so that we have something to cook with in times of need.  If bad times come, the Andros family will have dessert!

The proud chef!

In March, Chloe went back to the ophthalmologist for a check up to see how her glasses are helping her lazy eye.  The doctor was very impressed at how well they have worked and we got the best news possible- we don't have to patch!!  The doctor was actually surprised- he said he was almost certain that the glasses might help, but not be enough and that we would have to patch her good eye to strengthen the weak eye.  That would have been miserable for all of us.  We were very excited.  Now she will continue to wear the glasses for a few more years, possibly, until everything is corrected.  I give Chloe the most credit- she wears those glasses faithfully EVERYDAY and is such a trooper about them.

Just getting Mitch used to eye doctor equipment- we're pretty sure he'll be the one in the chair very shortly!

Our little man, who is almost 18 months, is still not walking.  Not only that, but he's not talking either.  To speed up his progress in both areas, we have decided to get him evaluated to see if he qualifies for speech and physical therapy.  Everyone has said that he will be talking and walking in no time, which was a nice idea, but rather than wait months and months to see if that happens (after already waiting months and months with little or no progress in both areas), we want to help him so that in a year or two, he's not drastically behind and really struggling.  We have nothing to lose by getting help and we are very excited to see what the therapists say after next week's evaluations!

Although not walking, he sure is a little monkey and climbs EVERYWHERE!  His favorite place is to climb onto the dishwasher and unload it for me (clean and dirty dishes) and he has also been spotted on the counter in the bathroom and on top of the kitchen table.  A child who can climb as well as he can SHOULD BE WALKING!

When the weather is nice (which has been rare lately), we love to go out and play with the pups.

Now that the pups are bigger and walking around, Mitchell finds them much  more interesting.

He is learning to be very sweet and gentle with them.  It's very cute.

We have had lots of fun having both sets of grandparents visit in March.  The kids love fresh meat to play with them (mom and dad get boring really fast). 

The kids love Aunt Catherine!

Playing with the pups.

Chloe loves to cuddle the pups like a little baby, on their back.  Puppies normally don't like to be on their backs, but Chloe has the magic touch.

We are definitely tired of SNOW!  I really don't think Chloe minds it though, and when Nana and Papa were here, they played in the snow all morning.

And made a huge snowman!

Mitch's new obsession (and I mean obsession) is holding hands with someone pretty much at all times, especially if he is sitting with you or holding still.  Here in his high chair, he sucks his thumb with one hand and makes Grandma hold his other hand.  He whines in the car for someone to reach back and hold his hand and in every other place and time you can think of.  Very cute and very sweet. 

Kisses for the puppy!

In February, Chloe's preschool class went to the local Fire Station.  The kids loved it.  They even got to get inside the fire truck.

Sporting their cute fire hats.

Whew!  That's all!  A very fun winter, despite the rotten weather.  We are anxious for more of the nice weather we've had lately so the kids can start playing outside more.  The pups are 6 weeks old this week and will go to their new homes in just 2 weeks.  Happy Spring!

First Haircuts

Neither of our kids have ever had their hair cut before.  For Mitch only being 16 months, that's not terribly unusual, but Chloe is 4 years old and still never had a haircut (unless you count the time she took scissors to her own hair and trimmed the long pieces in front this past December, not noticeable to anyone, not even me, until I saw the cut off hair on the table).

We decided they both needed one and decided to do it ourselves!  It would have been really fun to go get their hair cut at a cute little kiddie shop where they can sit in airplanes, but I didn't think Mitch would be very happy and I can't justify paying a lot for Chloe to get her hair cut when it is just straight across cutting (her hair is easy because it's curly and you can't really tell if it's uneven).  We started with Mitchell.

His hair has just recently gotten thick-ish and is starting to form a curly mullet in the back.

It is very long over the ears and it was starting to look like a little old man's hair.

The baby curls in back were cute, but when they started to look like THIS (see above), I said enough was enough!

And his hair was so long on top that we could spike our own mohawk.  I called him "Spike Lee" one day after I spiked his hair and now Chloe calls him that every time his hair is spiked or sticking up.  She especially enjoys sneaking into his room with him, getting his baby lotion and putting globs and globs of it into his hair and spiking it herself.

Ben used his beard and mustache trimmer to get the job done.

The way Mitch was whining, you'd think hair really does have feeling in it.  I had to pull out treats to keep him still and quiet.

Here is our brand new man after the haircut!

Bye bye baby mullet, hello handsome!

I can't tell if his short hair makes him look older or younger..... at any rate, he is still our beautiful baby.

Now onto Chloe.  She hasn't had a haircut in all her 4 years because we had to work so hard to get hair in the first place!  I have been putting off cutting it because we FINALLY have hair to style and we've been enjoying it.  It just didn't seem right to cut hair that took 4 years to grow.

Here's a little flashback to illustrate my point:

Here's Chloe at 1.  She had less hair than Mitchell does AND a receding hair line (not a great styling combo).

I worked very hard at one year old to put her hair into tiny little pony tails on top of her head.  I was desperate for ANY hair to style.

At 2 years, we had a little bit more hair- it was definitely thicker, but not a ton longer.  At this point, it was very curly and I loved that.

But I still didn't have much hair to style.  She had the same hair do everyday.

Finally, by 3 years old, she had hair to her shoulders!  It was still very, very curly (and gorgeous) and we could do long pigtails, braids, pony tails, etc. 

Finally some length to play with!

And now, at age 4, it has doubled in length in just one year and we are having a blast styling it.

Chloe's curls are great because they are easy to style (we don't have to fight them like some kids with curly hair) and it makes for easy hair styling days if we don't have much time- just wet it down, put a little gel or mousse in, and put a bow in it.  It dries quickly and cute all by itself.

But just in the last month or two, her hair has been not so great.  It gets very tangly and snarly and she screams bloody murder when I try to run a comb through it.  The longer it gets now, the less curly it is and her hair looks flat, thin and unkept.  It took me a few months to finally do it, but I decided she needed it cut to give it some volume and bounce (and to reduce the tears each time we tried to style it- a bonus for Mom and child).  It was hard to do, after all the work it took to grow it.

Here's our little Rapunzel before her FIRST haircut.  Notice the scraggly ends at the bottom...

I gave it a whirl at cutting her hair.  How hard is it to cut a straight line? (Not terribly hard, but kind of tricky, to be honest).  Ben had to help me even it out at the end.

And here is the finished product.  I should have measured how much we cut off, but I'm guessing 4 or 5 inches or so.  It made her hair look so much thicker and has added a little more curl back to it.  (I'm sad that her hair doesn't get as curly as it did when she was 2 and 3......)

Maybe we'll cut it again in another 4 years!

Baby Steps

Our hard work is paying off!  Mitchell took his real first steps today.  We should have known that all the motivation he needed was to have a basketball hoop in front of him and a ball in his hands.  Hooray!  We were all very excited.  Now if we can just get him to do this on his own..... (he'll only do these new found tricks when we stand him up and prompt him).  We tried this game just 2 weeks ago, trying to get him to walk and he screamed bloody murder, so this is real progress.  (We should have gotten all of his "walking tantrums" on video too, for comparison.  It was quite the sight).

The second video is just for fun- it is of Mitch's first slam dunk.  We thought it was pretty awesome.  As soon as we send this video to basketball scouts, he'll have a career in basketball for sure.

We're making progress!

We had a ground breaking day yesterday!  Mitchell finally walked behind a toy!  This may not seem like a big deal to the rest of you, as most children are very excited to walk behind and push toys, but just last week, when I tried to get Mitchell to do this same activity, he would crumple to the ground and refuse to even try.  We have been working with him on walking ever since his last doctor's appointment and we have made a lot of progress.  He is much more interested in walking now, and here is the proof!  Hooray!  He may walk before nursery after all! :)