March 21

One of the ways in which the boys take after Abe and I individually is their hair. Riley has this thick, coarse hair just like Abe does, and Jonah's hair is super-fine just like mine. One of the sure-fire ways for me to tell when Riley needs a haircut is when his hair is standing straight up on end when he wakes up in the morning. Case in point:

This morning for breakfast we made pancakes. I like to spread a little Nutella on my pancakes, and Riley tried it for the first time a few weeks ago and loved it. So now every time we have pancakes he asks for a little "spread" on each one. What can I say... the boy has good taste!

We met up with some members of our church for lunch today at the Ritz, right next to the Allentown Farmer's Market. You can't have a meal at the Ritz without ice cream, and Riley specifically requested a cone to go with his ice cream. Nanny helped him load a little ice cream in it.

Although Jonah has the "Where's my ice cream?" expression on his face, he did have some also!

March 20

This morning Riley woke up congested and with a cough, so he stayed home with Abe while I took Jonah to Sunday School and to church. I took this picture of Riley before we left. He loves to put all of his toys in one big pile... I think I'm going to have to sign him up for toddler Hoarders.
 

During Sunday School today some of the members of the Adult Sunday School class put on a reading of a short play about Esther, in honor of the Jewish festival of Purim. I sat on the floor taking pictures of the play and Jonah started crawling all around me.

This afternoon Jonah and I went on a secret shopping mission to get Riley's big birthday present and to Micheal's to pick up supplies for a new spring wreath for the house and a special project for Riley for sometime during this week. Riley and I have been talking about painting a birdhouse for a few weeks now, and I was happy to find a plain wood one there for us to work on. We went to Carrabas for dinner tonight - I took this picture with my phone (which is why it's so dark), but I was happy that I got both of the boys smiling!

Abe is off to Florida tomorrow for 5 days - one day in Miami (where he's going to eat at our favorite restaurant ever... I'm trying to contain my jealousy!) and the 4 days at a trade show in Orlando.

March 19

Today started like every Saturday does with breakfast at Billy's in Bethlehem. Then Abe hung out with the boys at home while I took a glorious 2.5 hour nap... that almost never happens and I felt better today than I have in weeks! After I woke up Abe got his riding lawn mower out of the garage to give the yard a once-over, only to discover that sometime over the winter the transmission stopped working. After Jonah got up from his nap, we went to a local garden store to look at new tractors, but not before stopping at our favorite afternoon refreshment stop:

Even though Riley refuses to nap in his bed anymore, I know he still needs an afternoon nap because whenever we go somewhere after 1 pm in the car he ends up looking like this. He was asleep and snoring by the time we got to the end of our street today!

Abe and Jonah checking out the new tractors... after this stop we decided that we're going to have our existing one repaired - Sears is coming to the house Thursday morning to take care of it.

Today I want to make a prayer request... one of my friends from working at Camp Mosey Wood a million years ago is named Tracie. Her camp name was HC, which stands for Hic Chic (or jokingly, Hates Celery). I found out this morning that on Thursday her parents' house burned down - her dad made it out of the house safely, but her mom passed away in the fire. Another friend, my dad and I will be traveling to Mechanicsburg on Wednesday for the memorial service, but I'd like to ask that you keep Tracie, her sister Vickie, and their dad Edwin in your prayers as they deal with this devastating loss.

March 18

What gorgeous weather we had today!! We started the day by hitting the new Cedar Creek Playground (at Cedar Beach in Allentown) with Riley's friend Charlie and his mom, Jillian. We met them two years ago when they took the class that I used to teach at the Bethlehem YMCA. Riley and Charlie have birthdays that are 11 days apart - it's hard to believe that they were just 9 months old when we met and now the boys are about to turn 3!

Riley loves the tunnel slides!

Charlie took a spin down the big slide:

 Jonah was loving the swings:

Snack break!

On the run...

Charlie was great at the climbing wall!

At the top...

At the bottom!

We stopped at Target this afternoon and when I mentioned that I needed new sunglasses, the cool kid decided he needed a pair also.

After Abe got home from his afternoon meeting, he took the boys out in the yard to play while I finished making dinner.

Then we ate dinner outside, at Riley's request. It was the perfect night for it!

March 17

We're fortunate to belong to a great playgroup in our area... a group of really nice moms with great kids. Today we hosted a Meet & Greet since our group has recently taken in some new members. It was an all-around great morning, one of those elusive playdates where all of the kids play really nicely together and there aren't a lot of arguments over toys. Riley was so nice about sharing his toys that he even got to go to a special lunch at the restaurant of his choice (Red Robin, his favorite these days). I didn't get to take a lot of pictures this morning, but thankfully Jess had her camera along and shared these pics with me (thanks again!).

We're still working on the "keep your fingers out of your nose" thing...

Smush face!

Mmmmm... french fries!

Playing nicely with Kat & Daniel.

March 16

The weather seems to finally be taking a turn for the warmer... we started off today with some rain, but by this afternoon the sun was out even though it was cool. Riley rode his favorite car around the patio for a few minutes while I made dinner, and Jonah was stuck inside wondering when I'd let him out there too.

March 15

Last night I went to our local Home Goods store looking for something, but ended up leaving with a new rug for our dining room! The rug that was in our dining room before I bought in 2004 from a back to school sale at Home Depot for $20. It lasted us a long time for being something so cheap, but I was thrilled to finally be able to upgrade us. As soon as we rolled out the rug this morning, Jonah motored right over and started crawling around in circles as fast as his little legs and arms could move him with a huge smile on his face! I didn't quite catch the smile here, but he was excited!