The Last of 2011

Since Gramma and Grampa left things have been quite low key around here. It's so great to still have Aunt Abbie here. Doug and I are loving the back up with the boys and I love having one of my best friends right here at home with me.

Yesterday Doug took Koen on a special date to the Carnegie Science Center. They went for a new adventure though, Koen got to see his first "movie." Well, not really a movie. It was an IMAX theatre showing of Rocky Mountain Express, the story of a steam engine and how its railroad was built. I love that Koen's first movie experience was a documentary. Let's hope we can keep that up for years to come. =) Doug said he loved it and was so interested in the information and the pictures the whole time. I asked him if the big screen was too overwhelming and he said he loved it. Doug even said he leaned over and thanked him for bringing him to the "show." So cute!While Koen was enjoying that special treat with Daddy. Tavin and I hung out in the neighborhood with Aunt Abbie. Well, we stayed at home most the morning and I went crazy with further organizing the third floor closets, etc. So fun and so satisfying! Once we finally were ready for the day and done with that project, Abbie and I took Tav to the playground. He was thrilled! We stayed out for over an hour, just following him around and chatting with him as he worked on the playground equipment, followed other kids around and pushed the stroller. Tav has totally taken a liking to Aunt Abbie. Sometimes when I offer to help him with something he says, "Babbie?" wanting Aunt Abbie instead. So sweet!
Oh yeah, before Doug and Koen went out, while Doug was working out, Koen got another piano lesson from the wonderful "Miss Abbie." Here are a few quick video clips of his first "song." I'm so excited that he enjoys the piano work so much!


Well, this is a pretty dull post for possibly the last one in 2011. But it is not a reflection on the year we've had. We are so blessed with health, a home and so many loving friends and family, not to mention our daily adventures both big and small that fill the blog posts from 2011!

Christmas Week Catchup

Ok, so with my parents and sister around I've been quite distracted from my usual blog time. I'm not complaining, it's been fantastic. Mom and Dad left this morning and I'm so sad. I'm already looking forward to our March Florida vacation when we will next see them. Thankfully, Ab is still here, so I still have some more family to enjoy and they didn't all leave at once. Anyways, I have some catching up to do on what the little Melder family has been up to these last few days.

On the 26th, we hung out at the house. New toys to play with, plus a nice day made it a good day to just enjoy a low key day around the neighborhood. Grampa spent quite a bit of time outside with Koen working on bike skills. Koen is getting so much better at starting his bike up on his own and the training wheels are permanently off I believe.

The 27th was a yucky weather day with pouring rain all day, so we decided we would all head to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. My parents had never been there and we haven't taken the kids or been ourselves in months. Our first stop was to see the Christmas trees in the front hall. The boys enjoyed playing "I Spy" with the big nativity scene.Koen was really into the dinosaurs this time as his knowledge of them has really expanded since our last visit through books and episodes of "Dinosaur Train." It was a little frustrating though that the museum has tons of touch screens in this area that are quite a distraction from the fantastic display of fossils.Tavin did well in this exhibit. He wasn't super happy with the trip to the museum in general, but he held it together at this point at least. I guess he wanted to go in for a visit with these dinosaurs...I get so bummed that I'm never in pictures during these activities. Not because I love being in pictures, but because I feel like it looks like I don't do any of the fun stuff with the boys. So, here was my attempt to get a picture. Not great, I know. But proof that I was there.Doug and Koen were still enjoying dinosaurs, so Tavin and I took the elevator up to the "M is for Museum" exhibit. We hadn't seen this one before as I believe it's temporary (although I really hope they keep it!). It's a lot more hands-on and kid-friendly than the rest of the museum. Tavin loved playing peekaboo in the preservation jars display.Koen and Doug came up to get us because they discovered a special area in the dinosaur exhibit that we'd never done before. A place where kids can really go and get their hands dirty and pretend to be paleontologists. Koen was so into it. He had already been there for 20 minutes with Doug, but he was excited to "dig in" again with Tavin. Here he is with his goggles picking out tools for he and Tav.
Then he found a good spot to dig for bones...Tavin carefully and slowly made his way out to him, Koen was encouraging him the whole time.
Look at my little paleontologists! So cute!Tav didn't like wearing the goggles, so he didn't last very long. He was sad he had to give up his brush though just because he wouldn't wear the goggles. Needless to say we got out of there to get his mind off of it. We didn't last too much longer due to Tav's crankiness, but I'm sure we'll be back another day. Gramma, Grampa and Aunt Abbie spent most of their time in the Art Museum connected to the Natural History Museum. I was so happy that everyone enjoyed this beautiful and elaborate museum treasure we have in Pittsburgh.

We dropped everyone off at home for lunch and then Abbie and I took Koen for a haircut on S. Highland (Hairdressers II - it's the best, haircuts for kids are priced by their age!). Koen was way overdue for a haircut. He was quite shaggy as evidenced by the bad hair day pics on the blog that I'm sure you've noticed. He was excited for his haircut (although quite tense, look at how stiff!).He warmed up to the sweet hairdresser (who is so good about him moving, etc. I was so impressed!) and soon was smiling and making funny faces in the mirror, and of course, he was talking her ear off.The three of us then headed home for lunch too. After Doug and I laid the boys down that day we headed out for a "day date." I had some errands I wanted to do, we caught a movie for the first time in probably over a year and had a fun and simple dinner at Red Robin. A really great afternoon/evening. Thanks, Mom, Dad and Ab for taking care of the boys. While they did so, Aunt Abbie worked on Koen's fish face. Check it out...Ok, so on the 28th, it was freezing, so we figured another indoor activity would be best. Doug and Tavin, Grampa and Koen took on the Children's Museum. The three girls got to stay home. I went to the gym and Ab and I went to Target and Mom got some peace and quiet (not to mention she also cleaned my floors - thanks, Mom!). My Dad was with Koen, so I don't have any pictures yet from their fun times at the museum, but Doug palled around with Tav, so I got a few picture reports throughout the morning. I wasn't surprised to see this one - Tav in his favorite car...Then I guess he got interested in the plane soon after that. Doug saw some "dress up" bomber jackets. Look at the cute pilot!Doug said Tavin loved the art room. This is Tavin's first painting. Doug said he told him to paint Mommy. Interesting. (By the way, check out Tav's sweet baby hair mullet in the light).Everybody got home in time for lunch. Doug stayed with the boys and let me go out to lunch with my parents and Abbie at Alexander's in Bloomfield. It happens to be the restaurant where our elderly neighbor has worked for 50 years. He was thrilled to see us come in and we all enjoyed a traditional Italian, yummy meal. Thanks for lunch, Dad. So nice to have a little special time with you, Mom and Ab like that. We got back home in time for the boys' naps and we all relaxed as well. Mom, Dad and Ab laid the boys down again as Doug and I had a party we needed to go for a few hours. When I got home Ab and Mom were playing Boggle, so I quickly joined in. We had a fun last few hours. Mom and Dad left after breakfast this morning. It was sad, but again, so nice that Ab is still here. Thanks so much for a wonderful visit, Mom and Dad. We miss you already!

Doug went out to the gym this morning and Koen and Tavin and I got to organizing upstairs. A project I've put off until after Christmas due to the new toys I knew would be added. Check out Koen's new organization station which he totally helped put together.And look at the nice clean room. No more toys all over the floor. Hopefully we can now work on being consistent with having him clean things up and put them away regularly so that toys aren't always spread out and in place, discouraging Koen from playing more with them. Not to mention how good it feels to have an orderly room!Well, that's the brief catch-up. I'll try to stay on top of the blog more now, especially since both sets of grandparents are again relying on it for their daily dose of Melder grandson information!

Christmas 2011

Christmas was a great day. I think I put off blogging about it because writing about it really means it's over. I love, love, love Christmas. The anticipation, the preparation, the lights, the tree, the decorating, the shopping, the cooking and baking and obviously the obvious opportunity to focus on the greatest gift of all (I love talking about it with the boys especially). Anyways, it's all over now, well, all that anticipation and prep is over, but it was a fantastic day of celebration and fun. Here's a glimpse at our day.

At our house (an adopted Gagnon house tradition) we start our Christmas morning slowly. The boys stayed in their rooms until 8am as usual. Doug and I got showered before that and then we all headed down to breakfast. Soon Gramma and Grampa appeared all showered and ready to go and later Abbie too. After we had all eaten, we settled down into the living room to get started on presents (not soon enough for Doug's sake, but after 10 years, he's used to this routine and adopted it pretty well). It was about 9am or so before we started unwrapping presents. First though, I like to take a few minutes to make sure we remind ourselves and the boys about what this day is really about. So, Douglas read us the Christmas story from a beautiful book we were given when Tav was born a few Christmases ago. Koen was patient and participated in the story even though he was so excited to see what the presents were that had been laying under the tree for days and increasing in number each morning!

So, here we go. The first present. Look at Tavin trying to learn how to even attempt opening his by watching brother's technique.The first present was sippy cups. It was so cute. We didn't want to give all the toys first because we wanted the boys to get into it a little before we distracted them with toy presents. Koen was such a good sport and was so excited about the cups and then Tavin followed right along. Koen had a really great attitude the whole morning about a present big or small, toy or not. It was a really neat improvement to see versus last year (very toy-minded and a little snotty about it last year!).

Koen not only enjoyed opening his presents, but he helped everyone else open theirs as well (we go by one-by-one so every person gets a turn, then we start all over again, a long wait for a 4 year old).We tried to time it so that the boys both had a present to open at each turn. It was so cute because every time Koen was opening a present he was also anxious to see what his brother got. As you can see that even just a few more presents in, Tav is getting the hang of how to rip into the wrapping paper.I had to comment on this picture. The present is a puzzle of the United States. Again, we were holding off the big, exciting stuff a little longer and Koen's attitude was fantastic. He made every present exciting. He kept saying, "Mommy, I'm so thankful for this present." No matter what it was. Such a relief that he enjoyed every little thing and not just the big, toy things this year.Like I said, Koen wanted to help everyone...Gramma...Aunt Abbie...Daddy...(this was Koen's homemade candle holder he made at nursery school, Doug's a good daddy, you would've thought this was his favorite gift)...Tavin, although good at following his brother's lead with how to open presents, was a little perplexed and put off by a morning of everyone sitting around the living room making a mess and saying, "ooh, ahh." He asked for his blanket about 3 presents in and we gave in (because, hey, it's Christmas, why not?) and he was quite the snuggle bug. Here he is with Gramma.In my surge of crafty creativeness (well, for me), I had come up with an idea for Koen to make cardboard frames with a picture of he and Tav in it. One for Gramma and Grampa and one for Aunt Abbie. He painted the frame and helped me cut out the cardboard and he was the master gluer getting the picture in and the frame pieces together. It was a fun project and a big hit with the receivers, they made a nice deal about how great the artwork was and Koen was very pleased with himself (ok, I was too since it was my idea).Mr. Christmas Morning himself. Doug is such a little kid at heart on Christmas morning and such a trooper to do it the Gagnon way every year (he actually appreciates quite a lot of the traditions, but our slow pace really gets to him by about 11am!).Douglas loves to give presents. I'm not necessarily great at receiving them. My practical nature can really be a party pooper on Christmas morning. There have been quite a few returns the week after Christmas over the years. This year, Doug did quite well though staying in the practical realm (one of my love languages I guess) and he also totally surprised me with remembering something I wanted that even I had forgotten about. I knew there was a large frame sitting under the tree with my name on it and honestly I was quite nervous about it. I figured it was something I wouldn't really want to hang up because I didn't have a spot for it or it wouldn't match or something and then it would hurt Doug's feelings to return it. Well, he totally surprised me.As you can see by my crazy eyebrows! Anyways, the frame was a print of art that I just love and saw last Spring at an auction. It's a map of Pittsburgh with all the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh written in text and arranged so that the letters basically make up the drawing of the city. Very creative, simplistic and original. I am so excited to hang it! Thanks, Douglas! So impressed you remembered!Eventually we got Tavin and Koen into the toy gifts as they needed some more distractions as the time went on (I love making Christmas morning last as long as possible!). We had them open the toys we got them. A set of 6 noisy work trucks for Tavin and a Marble Run for Koen.Since Koen has never seen or used a Marble Run, he was way more into Tavin's gift and kept telling us that because there were so many trucks Tavin had to share and the gift was for both of them.We said that we would encourage sharing, but that no, these trucks were not for Koen. (Poor Tav barely has anything that has been originally his, so I wasn't going to let Koen take these trucks from him!). Tavin is used to surrendering quite a bit to his brother and he is happy to do so as long as he is left with something good to play with, so the boys did play with the trucks together (loudly) for the next few rounds of present opening.Koen was so cute about his present from Abbie. He is really into crafts right now and Abbie got him a stamp and colored pencil set. He was really excited about it (although did tell her they could try it later).Soon after that Koen opened his present from Grampa. If you don't remember, Koen and my Dad have made quite a bit of progress on Koen's biking skills this Fall/Winter. On that note, my Dad got him a bell for his bike. Look how excited Koen was to open the gift! He's literally jumping up and down!!Christmas presents are a lot of fun, but it's just the simple things in life too that can be fun. Koen found some bubble wrap from one of the presents and taught Tav how to jump up and down on it to pop the bubbles. Why did we even go shopping again?Later on Koen and Tavin opened their toy gifts from Gramma and Grampa. Tavin is unwrapping a shopping cart (with brother eyeing up every move just in case yet again Tav's present is more fun than his). Koen is opening Legos.Tavin was so cute because even though he can't really talk yet completely, he totally knew what this was as he opened it and he was spouting all sorts of jibberish in excitement.We got to work on it as quickly as possible to get it up and running and Tav was off! As you can see, Koen isn't doting around Tavin this time because he was already building a Lego house. =)The last toy presents we saved for almost the end of the unwrapping time. They were from Uncle Phil and Aunt Leah. My brother had told me what they had ordered for the boys and I was impressed at how well Phil had done picking out such age-appropriate, fun little boy toys. Even though I predicted that Koen and Tavin would be happy with them, I couldn't have predicted Koen's excitement over his gift. Again, jumping up and down!Phil and Leah got Koen a Hess truck. My brother had one when he was little. Our friend, Lisa, who used to watch Koen once a week has a son and he had Hess trucks. Koen remembered playing with them and said, "I've always wanted one of these!"Tavin was also excited about his well-chosen gift, the Fisher Price Little People airplane. That was more of a challenge to quickly get out of the box (they tie down and plastic clamp pretty much every inch of this toy in the box!). But once we freed it from its packaging, Tavin was off and flying!I tried to get some "thank you" pictures for Phil with Koen looking up as he was so intent on just driving the truck around at floor level. This is as good as we got and it looks like he's in pain because he really actually wants to be playing with the truck. =)That sums up the pictures that were worth sharing from our Christmas morning. Thanks to all the gift-givers, we certainly feel blessed, even spoiled from all the thoughtful and fun gifts. Even more so though, it was great to have family there and enjoy the boys amidst the Christmas excitement. I love Christmas! After presents Doug set to work on lunch of leftover ham (from the Christmas Eve meal the day before) sandwiches and soup. The boys played with their toys. Grampa and Koen also spent some time outside practicing skills on the bike and mounting it with the new bell of course. Eventually it got to naptime and mom and I took a walk and then we all relaxed for awhile. Around 4pm Cookie and Corey (remember the wedding Koen was the ringbearer in?) arrived to hang out and have dinner. It was fun to have a full house and again watch the boys enjoy their new distractions. Koen got into his stamps and pencils from Aunt Abbie.And Doug and Koen (and Tavin, the little helper) got into the Marble Run after dinner. Here they are the following morning working on it together. Koen really enjoys it, so I'm happy since it was quite the bummer that he was so disinterested in it Christmas morning.It was such a great Christmas. Hard to really let it go. Well, after three days of trying to type up this post, I think it's time to bid farewell to Christmas 2011 and set my sights on 2012.

Christmas Is In The Air

Since my last blog post there has been a lot of time with Gramma and Grampa, Aunt Abbie, playing around the house, bike rides, wrapping presents and preparing for Christmas Eve. Here's Grampa being a good sport playing the Chuggington game with Koen.I got to take a spin at it the next morning (with a little helper of course).Tavin and Doug built a nice train track Friday morning. Tavin loved having some tracks to himself (and a special treat to build it in the living room).Later Tav got to do Play-Doh with Gramma.Last night Koen and Doug prepped the hot appetizers for the lunch party we had today. Koen was actually quite the pair of extra hands and helped Doug a lot. They did blue cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. Doug pitted the date and then Koen stuffed it with blue cheese, then Doug rolled it in bacon and finally Koen stabbed it with a toothpick. Quite a team!Look at the concentration!So today is Christmas Eve! I, unfortunately, woke up feeling really bad. Not sure if it was a fluke or this stomach bug going around, but either way, I was not myself. With the help of mom, dad and Abbie (Doug left before we were awake to get to church and prep) I did make it to the lovely Christmas Eve service at North Way Oakland. Afterwards, we hosted those from the worship team who wanted to join us all for lunch. It was quite a feast! Unfortunately, I spent almost the whole time in my bed watching a movie due to feeling lousy. I heard though that my boys were quite the little hosts (and my parents and Abbie were so helpful to Doug). Tavin warmed up to a few guys playing with some things on the floor.I guess Koen was a hit at the table keeping up with the adult conversation and causing quite a few laughs. Koen definitely has a mini-adult side to him that comes out amidst a lot of adult company. Really fun!

Tonight Doug got home in time to lay Koen down. Doug came loaded down with so many lovely gifts from different staff and church members. We feel so loved! Doug got a scarf from one friend and he tried it on Koen. Koen got so embarrassed with all of us watching. It was so cute.After Doug unloaded all those sweet gifts, we headed in to the living room to let Koen open one gift. He was so excited! He opened a beautiful book from Aunt Megan and Uncle Nate. Such thoughtful godparents!The book is, "Song of the Stars, A Christmas Story." We jumped right in and read it. I thought it was a great way to end our night and prelude tomorrow bringing the focus back on baby Jesus, the best gift of all. Nate and Megan, thank you for the book. It was perfect for reminding us of the wonder and joy that Jesus brings to this world and that that is really what Christmas is all about.