Landree Dancing

I have a few videos to share. It was a nice relaxing weekend here. I got a project almost finished that I have been wanting to do for the past year. I will post pictures when Jason and I get it all hung up. Other than that, Jason took Ryleigh to a hockey game last night (it's not her first one, but it's her first one that she understood the most--the last few times shes went, she was a baby). She had a blast. Jason gave her a few highlights on how the game is played and I guess I didn't get to hear the most exciting parts until this evening when she was talking to her Nana Peggy. It was hysterical listening to her talk about it, but she told her they had to sit in time outs for fighting for 2 minutes. Last night when she got home she told me the other exciting story and Jason filled in the blanks. Apparently, she was waving at the mascot in the suite above her and Jason, but he did not see her. She became sad, with her head hanging and her shoulders drooping. Some ladies in the sweet noticed her waving and seen her become sad, so they told the mascot who then opened the window of the suite and jumped down into the bleachers where Ryleigh and Jason were sitting and talked to her and gave her a five. Jason said she was a little scared of him at first, but then was giving him high fives. She was so excited when they got home at 10 pm and told me about it. They had a good time even though Jason's Alma mater lost to Denver in overtime. I was doing laundry while the game was on and saw parts of it. I wonder if they were on TV with the mascot business, but I didn't see them since I was in and out. Here is a video of Landree's new dance moves. Hope you enjoy! I will add the other videos later this week as I've run out of time.

Happy Birthday Nana Peggy!!

Just wanted to wish Jason's mom, aka: Nana Peggy a very Happy Birthday! It was nice talking to you on the phone. Glad you had fun at your party yesterday and hope the rest of your weekend is nice and relaxing. Here is the video I was telling you about! And, really, don't mind my singing......I cannot figure out how to cut out some parts of videos. :)

Oh my goodness. How the girls have changed in just a year. Crazy......

Pictures & Stuff

Finally, I found my little paper with notes of what's been going on with the girls. I've mentioned a few things below, so I won't go through them again. First, I will start with Ryleigh. Not only is she writing her name, but she's also mastered how to spell the whole entire thing too....not just Ryleigh anymore, she spells all three!! She's also been learning to add little numbers together (thank goodness for fingers :) Her newest favorite movie is G-Force thanks to my cousin's little girl, Payton who had it at Christmas. We rented it here at redbox a few weeks ago, but she has asked several times to watch it again. And, a couple of funny things she's said: R: "There's snow everywhere" M:"Yes, there is......I hope it melts soon" R: "Me too, I like snow, but I'm looking forward to spring!" M: "How was your day today, Ryleigh?", R: "It was QUITE busy, actually!" That is one of her many new words that she uses in a lot of her conversations with us. Actually. And, Totally.

Landree just has a few updates. I had written down that she has been a rebellion when it comes to talking or signing. But tonight when she wanted more raisins, she signed more perfect. She has also been adding a few words to her little list. They include: bye, hi, bath (not new), ra (Ry)and my favorite: "yumyumyumyum"--with any sort of food product. The last few nights she has also sang her version of the lullabies, which absolutely melts my heart. But, she is a stubborn one. You should see this girl bust a move, too. I have been trying to get it on video, but the camera is never around when she's doing her "running man" dance. Her favorite things to eat right now are raisins, blueberries and strawberries, but she eats EVERYTHING we put in front of her. She has also started praying with us at meals. Of course, half way through the prayer, she starts clapping for herself.....it's pretty cute. She is also so different from her sister at this age. Ryleigh wasn't as into dolls as Landree is. She does like them now, but not ever as much as Landree has enjoyed them. Ryleigh was and still is the tomboy, so it will be fun to see if Landree is our little prissy one. That's about all I have for right now.

Here are my two cuties together:







And here are some pictures of the last week or so. Landree was being ornery and was put in her first time out.....it was actually pretty funny, but she stayed and she stopped doing what she was doing wrong. I think she knows what it means as she sees Ryleigh being put in "time outs" on a regular basis. She sure came and hugged me when I went to get her out of the "time out"... Don't mind her outfit either. She got blueberries on her jeans at daycare and this was the only extra pair of pants that she had for Landree, so her outfit does not match at all!!

I also forgot to mention a couple of weird and funny things I've heard on the news in regards to winter. Two Saturdays ago, while Jason and I were driving to my parents house, they had reported that there was snow accumulation that day in 49 states. The only state that did not have any snow accumulation that day was Hawaii....crazy, huh? The other funny thing I heard was a statistic that 15% of Americans have never seen a snow shovel in person.....wow!! I guess I have lived somehwere my entire life where it snows every winter. Pretty interesting.

Bittersweet-ness...........

Today is a "bittersweet" day............pleasant but tinged with sadness, producing or expressing a mixture of pain and pleasure, yes, that is exactly my definition for today (even though, I borrowed it from the free online dictionary). Last evening, Landree's 14 month birthday, was her last evening of nursing. And, it is exactly that, bittersweet. While I am happy and feeling some freedom this evening, it has been a hard couple of evenings. Last evening, while nursing her, she did all the things I love about nursing her. She played with my hair, she put her hand over my mouth until I blew it "off" (which makes her giggle so loudly in her sleepy state), she gazed at me while I sang to her......I know, it seems crazy, but I love and miss that bonding. She also laughed when I cried (I think she thought I was laughing). I nursed Ryleigh for the same amount of time and so I was happy to make it to 14 months with Landree. The best thing about this evening....she did wonderful. We snuggled and sang a book with several lullabies, she still played with my hair and when I went to lay her down she squeezed so hard, but she went down without a fuss and I haven't heard a peep from her since. And, now, I am feeling like I have myself back!!!!

Let's see, whats been going on around here....Saturday, Jason let me sleep in and when I woke up, I felt like crap. My nose and head were stuffed up so bad that I couldn't hear out of my right ear. I did some home remedies on that and was starting to hear later in the afternoon. My parents came over to hang out with the girls while Jason and I went and had our taxes done. We also took advantage of my parents being here and went out to eat a bite for lunch together. It was nice, thank you mom and dad. A friend wanted to go out on Sat evening and asked me several times if I was going to bail on her....so I tried sucking it up and went out. Somehow, we ended up at a karaoke bar after some weird encounters at other places (yep, sounded real great with my disappearing voice, basically she sang while I stood next to her and danced!!) Yesterday morning, Jason let me sleep in again (I have the best husband). When I woke up on Sunday morning, I seriously felt like I hadn't even had a cold. My cousin Matt, his wife Andi and their son, Carter stopped by on their way home to Lincoln, NE from a visit in Minneapolis with Andi's family (her sis lives in WI). The kiddos played awesome together until Landree almost whacked Carter in the back with a puzzle. Poor kid, learning how to walk and then he's got two girls running "buck wild" around him!!! He turns 1 here on March 1st and he is such a cutie. It was fun to visit with them for a few hours and have lunch. They left around 12:45 and we headed to the Bowl-A-Thon Benefit for baby Ryley that I have been requesting prayers for. It was an awesome event that raised $7,000 dollars for them, WOW!! We had bowling, a silent auction and some raffles on a TV and two quilts. Ryleigh especially loved the bowling. It's a pretty new place with a bowling alley, arcade, laser tag, mini put put glow in the dark course. It's called the WOW Zone, which is kind of funny because we walked in and guess what the first words out of my mouth were.............."Wow"!! The bowling alley was really neat. Jason, Ryleigh and I bowled on a team with my friend Rebecca and her 6 year old daughter, Gwen. It was so cool that we could put bumpers up for Ryleigh and Gwen and then they would go down when it was our turn. Jason beat me, which shouldn't have happened, but I got second. Ryleigh would get so excited when she hit the pins. Shoot, she was so excited to go, all morning she kept asking, can we go bowling yet....agghhhh! She got to wear these cute little bowling shoes, and used this really light ball. She was all about putting her fingers in the correct holes and bowling just like daddy. She wouldn't "grandma roll" it for anything. She was such a "big girl"!!!! Boy, though, if she didn't like how the ball was rolling, her shoulders dropped and she just pouted. At one point, I asked her if she was having fun because she was pouting and she started jumping up and down screaming, "yes"!!

I was just reading Andie's blog and was shocked that Emeryn only has 6 teeth. Landree has 12. She's only missing her 4 "i" teeth and her 4- two year molars. Landree shook her head yes tonight for the first time. She's been trying real hard and she finally did it tonight. She has also been into reading books, and will bring us a book, turn and try to sit in our laps. She does really good if she gets to turn the pages and you read fast or just get a "one word a page" book. She is now running as well. Her and Ryleigh chase each other around the "island" in the house and we've already had a few accidents this week, none like Ryleigh's goose egg when she was about this age. Every day she joins daddy and Ryleigh in more fun things like ..... wrestling. She was pretty social at the bowl-a-thon event too. I had some other things to blog about on Landree, but by this time at night, my mind starts to wonder towards heading to bed.

Ryleigh has been doing great. She's been writing her full name: Ryleigh Grace Quint. Since she has been writing it, she's needed to have it written somewhere nearby to look at, but last week at daycare she wrote her name without it in sight and she wrote it so well that my daycare lady was shocked. She and Ryleigh framed it and wrapped it up and gave it to Jason and I for a present. Ryleigh was so excited and I am guessing Cindy didn't know we've been working with Ryleigh on that for a couple of weeks. She also wrote mom and dad for me a couple of times last week as well as starting to write Landree. I love how she is noticing words and letters on signs and stuff. It is so cool to see them learn. Speaking of learning, I think she is going to start preschool in the fall. She's been doing so good in gymnastics too, her balance has improved so much since the beginning. And, we are going to be starting swimming lessons soon here a little more into spring. I did find a post it of something Ryleigh said that was pretty funny last week. She was talking about this book we got for her and Landree for Valentines Day, called "you're all my favorites". It is a story of three bears and she referred to them as "the biggest, the middle-est, and the little-est"! So funny! I had some more stuff written down on Ryleigh too, that I can't find....but when I do find the paper, I will post it. Hope everyone has a great week and I will post pictures of the past week, hopefully tomorrow.

Dinslage Christmas Photos

Here are some pictures I got of the Dinslage Christmas we had a couple of weeks ago. I didn't get many pictures and I thought I got a picture of Grandma Zabka too, but these are all I could find. Don't forget to check out the snow drift pictures below, too!!

Look at these snow drifts...

Here are some snow drifts at my parents house from the blizzards that swept through Minnesota. They tend to get a little more snow in St. James then we do in Mankato even though they only live about 40 minutes away from us. Now, the drifts I saw along the highway were high in Nebraska, don't get me wrong, but I could see the corn field stubble, we still have almost 2-3 feet of snow still in our yards and fields...... I shouldn't complain too much, the sun has been shining here the last three days and the ice is finally melting off the roads. Take a look at these photos: This drift is between my parents house and their neighbors, the part of the house to the right is their garage, bet it took a while to get out of there!! Doesn't look like the snow fence helped any.....

Here is a picture of the truck in the "driveway":

This picture is next to my parents garage....

Now, the first year that my parents lived in MN the drifts were pretty high and they haven't been this high since then (that was in 1999). I remember Jason and I came up to visit them at the end of March/beginning of April and we were outside playing on snow drifts in our t-shirts because it was about 70 degrees, but the snow piles were still there. I remember Jason and my brother were able to jump from the top of the snow drift onto my parents roof, because the snow drifts were so high. It will be fun to see if there are still snow drifts at there place that high this year....if there are, we will have to get the girls over there to go down them with sleds or tubes....they would have a blast!!

More Birthdays!

What a busy day!! Two very important birthdays today. My first shout out goes to my brother, Ryan. He turns 28 today....wow. And, even though he is somewhere where he probably can't read this, I still want to wish him a very happy birthday!! I can't remember what we packaged up for him for his birthday, but I think it was a couple of cards and lots of pictures of the girls. I hope he is enjoying them today. When he gets back to the states, to MN, to be exact, we will have to have a little birthday bash or a drink or two!!! WE LOVE YOU UNCLE RYAN!

The next shout out for birthdays goes out to my aunt Lisa. Hope you had a wonderful birthday. We love you. It was great to see you a few weeks ago. This picture is a few years old, but I like it. Actually this was taken at Grandma and Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary.

Today also happens to be the first day of Lent. Jason and I feasted yesterday on "Fat Tuesday", or at least I ate two huge bowls of his Taco soup, and boy was it yummy. For Lent this year, I am giving up candy, which is going to be huge as I started craving it when I became pregnant with Landree and haven't been able to stop eating it. (I even have a habit of buying it and eating it and hiding it, so some people don't see me eating it, and of course, there are always sweets at work). Jason is giving up alcohol. Tomorrow we have a pot lock for Mardi Gras, even though that was yesterday, at work. Yesterday I also got to stay home with the girls. We painted nails and put up Easter decorations. Ryleigh kept asking me if we were going to paint rocks. Figured out early on that she meant eggs. I told her when it gets closer to Easter, we don't have any eggs to color yet, then she said, well it's closer right now. Yes, but not really! It was fun though, and the girls enjoyed playing with all the plastic eggs. I am so excited with my new decorating spot. I saved a spot on top of one side of the cupboards to decorate for the different holidays and it's been turning out so cute. Of course, Jason thinks I am a dork, but that's okay, I AM a dork!!! And what does that make him for loving me......A DORK!!!! :)

Happy Birthday Blake!

Happy Birthday to my cousin and Godson, Blake Alan!! Love you so much and wow, you are turning in to be one handsome little man!! Love you and hope you have a great day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Finally, the week is over and the fevers are gone, even if we still do have snotty noses and coughs! Happy Valentine's day to all reading. I received one of the neatest Valentines Day gifts from Jason this year that I have EVER received. He's not big into buying the cards, flowers, candy bit for this "hallmark holiday" as he calls it, so I was excited when he had something hidden for me behind his back. I got my Valentines Day gift early this year, I think because he was excited to give it to me and because he was going ice fishing this weekend with some buddies in South Dakota. Anyways, I got a novel. I know, what is so neat about that, right? Well, when I opened up the front cover it read: Another Day in Paradise, A Personalized Romance Novel featuring Heather Quint and Jason Quint. The next page read: This Book is Lovingly Dedicated to My Lovely Wife, Heather, From Jason, Happy Valentines Day, February 2010!!! Talk about romantic (and if you think it's corny, you must be a guy, because in no way was it corny)......way better than candy, cards and flowers that they overprice this time of year and die in a few days. Don't get me wrong, flowers are nice, but I think it is fun to get them when I am least expecting them. So, I got this novel Thursday evening (it was the first time Jason and I saw each other this week as we were working opposite schedules to stay home with the girls, but still get our hours in), and I am finished with it as of this afternoon. It was a good book and took me away from all this snow. Thank you to all who sent the girls a Valentine, they loved them all. They got books and a necklace each from mommy and daddy.

Another awesome thing about this weekend.....they slept in both Saturday and this morning. Yesterday morning they slept both until 7:30 and we didn't hear a peep out of either of them. Of course, we bribed Ryleigh with some M&M's, but hey it worked so, yay!! And this morning, Landree slept until 8:30 and Ryleigh until 9:30 (no bribes)!!! It was great. I haven't felt so refreshed in a while. Jason dropped us off at my parents house on his way to Sioux Falls yesterday and we hung out there until this evening. The weather has again become snowy and blowy this weekend. Jason and his buddies caught a bunch of Perch. The drive home was kinda scary but Jason said it was much better from St James to Mankato then it was from Sioux Falls to St. James. I took a few photos of the girls in my make shift photo set up in the play room. Here are my two favorites of Ryleigh:

Here are my two favorites of Landree:

And here is my Valentine and I --I love you Jason!! My mom had this picture from my brother's wedding of Jason and I dancing. I don't have a scanner so I took a picture of the picture and this is the best I got, thank you mom for the original.....

Hope everyone has a great week.

Snow, snow and more snow!! YUCK

I don't know if I can take anymore of this snow! I just want it to go away, along with every sniffle, sneeze, cough and fever the girls have had this winter. Actually, Landree has been pretty good, but Ryleigh has caught every darn virus since she had pneumonia last March. This week we've been at home with the girls because of more fevers. I used to take pride in having a VERY healthy child, but this year I am just getting beat. I half way feel like if I miss anymore work, things could get bad. Therefore Jason and I have been splitting shifts and both continuing to work. He went in early and came home early yesterday, then I went into work late and stayed work. We switched that up today and tomorrow, if we are still having fevers, we will be doing what we did on Tuesday again. And, wouldn't ya know, this week at work has been terribly busy. AGGHHH! I know we've gotten lots of snow, but I'd like to blame these bugs on it being a warmer winter than last year......it sounds crazy, but I think it's true. I mean last year we didn't even step foot out of the house around Christmas and it was -6 the day Landree was born. This past December it was almost in the 30's on her birthday and it got to 34 degrees on Christmas Eve. I am looking forward to going to my parents this weekend while Jason goes ice fishing in South Dakota with a buddy....I am just hoping my mom and dad will let me sleep in on Sunday, cuz I am really looking forward to the sleep....please, mom and dad, please!!!???!!! HAHA!

Now, there's something in snow country that every person should own, and once you own one, hopefully it works.......and that is a snow blower....especially if you have an exceptionally little longer driveway. Funny thing is, we have two and Jason finally got one of them running here about a week ago. Now, that sounds crazy, but the story goes: we found one free on the side of the road about 6 years ago and we took it home, it wasn't working, but Jason got it working and then it died and we never could get it working again, so we've been using a shovel since (boo). Then, about a month ago, our neighbors snow blower died and who does he bring it to but the "neighborhood fix-it guy with all the tools", Jason!! I think he was getting too antsy when Jason didn't have enough time, so he went and bought a brand new one and sold his to us for a good price, then Jason only spent $12 to fix it and it's running like brand new. I got some pictures of him blowing as we have gotten so much snow in the past week here, it's pathetic. Plus, it's his new LOVE!! Ryleigh had fun playing outside last Saturday with him, running from the blower, as you see in some of the pictures he is smiling and she doesn't look very happy. It's amazing in just one night we got 6 inches.....you can see next to Jason in the bottom picture from his track how much it snowed as he had the driveway cleared before that. And, now they are talking more snow in the forecast this weekend. I can't imagine the flooding that will occur this spring. Glad we live on a hill and hopefully our finished basement will stay finished and dry...............!!

Landree watching daddy snow blow the driveway and Ryleigh playing...

Landree being adorable:

Landree's face when we say no...........I couldn't quite capture the full face, but you get the gist:

Ryleigh holding a baby "Saint". He's the runt and is such a sweetie. We got to go hang out with some 6 week old baby Saint Bernard pups, they were adorable and the girls just love them, of course, they get to see them every day.....

Well, I better go get ready for bed, if tonight is like the last two nights.....it's going to be long. I had more to blog about but I will let you enjoy the pictures instead. Hope everyone has a good rest of the week (hopefully we do too)!! :)

Old Videos

I found some video that I took in December of the girls that I thought I'd share. Ryleigh and I were actually watching it together one evening when I was putting her to bed. This first one is of all of us singing to Landree at her "canceled birthday party", where we just had the grandparents at. Ryleigh thought it was hilarious because Landree keeps looking from side to side. In fact, she was laughing so hard and kept asking me to replay it. I noticed after playing it over and over, that the funniest part is towards the end, when she is trying to get her foot off the side of the booster and it looks like someone is under the chair kind of shaking it. Well, I don't remember if someone was under there, but I can still hear everyone singing, so I don't know. After I showed Ryleigh that, she was really laughing hard. Anyways, here it is:


This next video is of Ryleigh singing her favorite Christmas song: We Three Kings. A little history to this song.........well, when Ryleigh was 5 months old, she celebrated her first Christmas. I don't know if I've mentioned it much, but Ryleigh was a colicy baby....and it wasn't until I met a massage therapist that things began to improve. I don't know if it's because she grew out of whatever was bothering her or what (yes, I even went and spoke with a chiropractor about this) but Jason and I couldn't afford her weekly visits and the massage therapist helped my on one visit out of the kindness of her heart (and I only trusted this one chiropractor because she helped me after my car accident.) I did some massaging of Ryleigh whenever she would have these non stop crying sessions, and she would go from screaming to sleeping within thirty minutes.....and I noticed after a month that I was doing it less and less. It seems by the time I went back to work, she was over it and was this happy baby. I also noticed if I sang to her while I massaged her, this also helped relax her. Anyhow, she was about 4 months old when I started singing Christmas carols to her and the first time I sang We Three Kings she relaxed completely in my arms and fell fast asleep. I noticed after that, that she did that "relaxation trance" every time I sang that song. I think I sang it to her well into the late spring, when I had had enough of singing Christmas songs. LOL. Anyhow, whenever she wasn't herself or needed to calm down I would sing it and every time Christmas came around she LOVED that song. Well, this year I sang her Christmas carols right after Thanksgiving and that was the one she'd always request I sing again, "three kings". About two weeks before Christmas, I heard her singing the song to herself. She had memorized it completely. So, I had to get it on video. Now, she kind of has a stuffy nose in this clip, but you get the point. Enjoy:

The Amazing Castle & Misc. Photos

Here are the photos from the Amazing Castle that I took the girls to with some friends of mine and their kiddos. It was lots of fun and I am sure we will go again while they are still in Mankato. This is the exhibit put on by the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota....pretty fun!

I also have this slide show from miscellaneous pictures from January. They are of our trip to WI, just having fun around the house with Christmas gifts, playing in the snow, and visiting a pet shop. I think all I have left are the pictures from Christmas in Nebraska, and those photos are at my moms house. I also saved some that I took for Valentines Day. Hope you've enjoyed all the late photos I've finally gotten posted.

Ryleigh and her Godmother!

So, Shea you are probably going to kill me. I was going to add the best picture I could get of the two of you, but when I started going through them, I thought it would be a great slide show and everyone could see how difficult you two were being when I was trying to get your picture! ;) LOL! SO, here is Ryleigh and her Godmother and Auntie, Shea, being silly. In the end, you will notice, I finally got a good one of the two of them together!! I will be adding slide shows a few at a time, so be sure to scroll down so you don't miss any pictures!! (wink)

Pictures from Christmas with Danny and Terri

Okay, so I finally got the pictures downloaded to the computer thanks to my hubby! Now, I am just getting them organized into slide shows!! Here is one of the first ones. I can't remember if I gave details, but we headed over to Jason's dads house to celebrate Christmas with them the weekend after Christmas. We went over on a Thursday night and then celebrated bringing in the New Year with them as well. We had fun making cookies, playing the piano, opening presents and making noise with the new year noise makers! It was a good time. I thought I'd hurry and get these pictures on here, since it is now February!!