Welcome baby Jacob!

As I mentioned in a previous post, our good friends Brian and Sara welcomed baby Jacob Maxwell into their family last weekend. Last night, our small group (consisting of Eric, Jill, and Claire and us) took over a pizza, so we had the opportunity to meet him for the first time. (Hannah's had a runny nose the past week, so as not to expose the baby, Jason stayed home with Hannah, but I'm sure she'll be meeting her potential boyfriend soon :-)

What a sweet little guy! He weighed 6 lbs. 4 oz. and 19" long when he was born, almost the exact same size as Hannah. Holding him made me realize just how quickly time really does fly. It seems like just yesterday I was holding Hannah in my arms, and now she's a toddler on the move!

We are so excited for this new family and pray for all of God's blessings to be on them in the years to come. Congratulations again Boven family!

Little Fish

With summer quickly approaching, we thought it would be a good idea to enroll Hannah in a swimming class to get her acclimated to the water. However, for kids her age, it's not only a baby swim class, but a parent class as well. Since Jason will have class on Tuesday nights starting next week, I got to be the one to go in with her.

Oh my goodness, this little girl loves the water! We literally were holding her back before going in. Once we got to the edge, she immediately started kicking and splashing.


Hannah's teacher is Miss Katie. There are only 3 other babies/toddlers in her class, so we got lots of personal attention.


We sang some fun songs and did some neat things, like blowing bubbles, floating on our back, and even going under water!


I think she's definitely excited to go back next week!

Babies!

We've been on baby watch for my sister-in-law Courtney, and friends Sara and Jennifer since they were all due in the beginning of May. However, we were surprised to learn that our friends Aubrey and Brian had their little boy first. Little Trevor Scott was due in the middle of June but God had other plans, and he came a little earlier than expected. I'm very happy to say that Mom and Baby are doing very well. In fact, Aubrey's baby shower was on Sunday, and she was feeling good enough to attend. She looked fantastic! Trevor is still in the hospital, but he's a real trooper. In fact, he's doing so well that they're hoping to bring him home very soon. Congratulations Dean family!!

Guys Night Foiled

A couple of weeks ago, I went out for a girls night with my friends Jill and Sara. Sara was expecting their first baby at the beginning of May, so we decided a night out before baby comes was in order. Since 2 of the 3 husbands did babysitting duty that night, they lined up a guys' night out for last Saturday. As it turned out, guys' night out was cancelled when Sara started having contractions and thought that her husband being out in a boat would not be the best idea.

Not wanting such a beautiful evening to go to waste, Jason and Eric devised plan B, which included all of us meeting up over in East Grand Rapids where the guys went out for a boat ride...




...while Jill and I relaxed in the park with the girls.


Afterward, we went back to Meulenberg's house. After all of the activity of the day, Hannah was more than ready to get to sleep in their pack-n-play. Once the girls were down for the night, we had some delicious bbq chicken pizza (and of course a pepperoni pizza, too!), drinks, and adult conversation. A perfect end to a great day!

(By the way, it was a good thing Brian skipped out on guys' night. Sara and Brian welcomed little Jacob Maxwell into the world early Saturday morning. Congratulations!!!)

Fresh Air

After our morning at Frederik Meijer Gardens with Claire and Jill, I expected Hannah to take a nice, long nap. Apparently, she was too excited about the nice weather to waste time sleeping. After only an hour-and-a-half, she was up and ready to go back at it. We soaked up the rest of the afternoon in the yard, enjoying the sunshine and the grass...

Garden Play Date with Claire

We took advantage of the beautiful weather last Friday and met our friend Claire and her mom Jill at Frederik Meijer Gardens. Turned out we weren't the only ones that thought a morning at the Gardens would be fun. The place was packed! We skipped most of the indoor attractions and headed right outside.

After exploring the sense-garden, we headed over to the Great Lakes water where the girls dove right in(almost literally!). The water was freezing, but they didn't seem to mind.


This was Hannah's first experience playing in water outside of the bathtub, and she absolutely loved it! I had to hold her back a couple of times from literally jumping into the pool. We may have a little fish on our hands.


After getting soaked from head to toe, we took a break and checked out the tree house. While Claire and her mom explored the upper level with the big kids, Hannah and I hung out down below. She had a great time just practicing walking back and forth.


After all of that activity, we worked up an appetite. We had lunch in the newly remodeled cafe. Sometimes I cannot believe how much Hannah can eat. She ate a whole bowl of macaroni and cheese! I must admit that it did taste pretty good. After we got the girls cleaned up, we had to snap a quick pictures while they were still held captive in their high chairs. It is a rare opportunity to catch these little ones sitting still for a picture these days!

We had a great time and are definitely looking forward to more play dates and visits to the Gardens this summer!

And she's off!

Hannah's been taking more and more consecutive steps lately, but today she's finally started really walking! I think we can now officially call her a toddler :-)



And one more..

Who's the bigger mooch?

Happy Easter from Grandma and Grandpa Davis

Last week was a busy week for us. The boys of our regular babysitter had their birthday on Wednesday. Normally, my schedule is flexible and I can switch the days I work pretty easily. However, I happened to have to attend an all-day meeting on Wednesday. That being the case, Grandma and Grandpa Davis agreed to come over and babysit Hannah for the day. I think they all had a great time.



Since we were in Frankenmuth for Easter, Hannah got a special Easter bag of goodies during their visit.







She had no problems at all pulling all of her treats out of the bag - bibs, cute outfits, and even some chocolate.

I'm sure they're all looking forward to the next time they can come to babysit!

Afternoon at the Gardens

Since becoming members at Frederik Meijer Gardens, we have been anxiously waiting for the weather to break so that we could finally head outside to enjoy the outdoor gardens. Saturday was finally the perfect day! Apparently, everybody else had the same idea. The place was packed, but there were a considerable number of people inside catching the last of the butterfly exhibit. Since we'd already seen that earlier in the season, we headed right outside.



Our first stop was the Children's Garden. It's a fabulous area with tons of activities for the kids. They have a really neat water area, but we decided we weren't up for getting soaked, so we played in the sand instead. Needless to say, Hannah will be loving the beach this summer!



After emptying the sand from our shoes, we ventured back to the farm area, where it was much quieter. Hannah seemed to enjoy looking at the animal sculptures. I'm sure they'll have some neat things going on there through the summer and fall.



As we walked down a trail in between gardens, we were joined by a friend.



We wrapped up the afternoon by walking through the sculpture portion of the Gardens, where we encountered this beautiful waterfall exhibit. It made us anxious to go swimming this summer!



After being outside, we worked up an appetite, so we ended our afternoon by grabbing a late lunch on the patio at Boston's. It was so nice to be warm outside! With this nice taste of spring, we're definitely looking forward to more warm weather to enjoy the outdoors!

13 months

Time is flying! The days go by so fast. I just don't know how Hannah has already turned 13 months old. She is one busy little girl! Here's what she's up to:

• She's walking regularly along walls and furniture. She's still hesitant to take off by herself, but if she's not thinking about it, she'll take 2-3 steps on her own.
• She's quite a monkey. She climbs on the car she got for her birthday, gets down from furniture on her own, and loves to climb all over us when we're sitting on the floor.
• She's babbling lots. She says mama, dada, ba (ball), and lots of her own words. She does seem to be getting closer to saying distinguishable words and has lots of "conversations" with us.
• She's learned to blow. Not sure where she picked that up, but she puckers her lips and blows a lot.
• She lets us know when she wants to be picked up by crawling up to our legs and stretching her arms up. Pathetically cute!
• She has 8 teeth (4 up, 4 down) with what seems to be some 1-year molars on the way.
• She seems to be learning more cause and effect with her toys - She puts them inside of things and shakes them. She puts blocks into the holes on her activity cart and watches them come out the bottom. She's definitely a busy body.
• She has acquired the Oberholtzer sweet tooth. Anytime we eat something sweet, she speed crawls over to our feet and begs to be picked up to share.
• She loves to cheer for herself. Whenever she does something good and we praise her up, she gets a huge smile and claps for herself. What a little ham!

Within the last month, it seems like she's really started transitioning from a baby to a little girl. As much as we loved cuddling her as a baby, we are totally loving this stage of interaction and learning. Every day she learns something new. We are truly trying to cherish every minute. She is a total blessing!

Rummaging for toys



Hanging out in her cave

Helping Mama in the kitchen

Little Miss Sunshine :-)

Easter

The Easter bunny managed to find us in Frankenmuth this year. Hannah had gone over to my parents house the Thursday before to get some extra Grandma and Grandpa time. This also gave Jason the opportunity for some Mommy and Daddy time! We had a wonderful Friday - dinner at 6-1-6, a movie (Sunshine Clean, just ok), and dessert at The Melting Pot.

Hannah had a great time hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa. As always, she got totally spoiled - Grandma and Grandpa doing their job :-) She spent a little more Grandma and Grandpa time with them on Saturday night, as Jason and I went out to dinner with Todd and Courtney. It won't be long before they become a family of three, so it was nice to be able to go out before their world gets turned upside down!

We celebrated the Lord's resurrection on church Sunday morning. We sang all of my favorite Easter songs. I absolutely love Easter! It's always such a renewal of my faith. After church, Hannah collected Easter eggs at my parents' house. She quickly figured out that if she shook the eggs hard enough, they would break open with all of the contents flying everywhere! She definitlely had fun!

Hannah with her Easter basket from Uncle Todd and Aunt Courtney

Our attempt at a nice family picture

Collecting Easter eggs

Early in the afternoon, we headed to my aunt's house for brunch. As usual, we had a wonderful feast - quiche, spinach soufle, eggs, bacon, baked french toast, coffee cake. Oh, so good!!

Hannah taking in cousin Mark.

Jason finishing off his meal with a nice cup of joe.

A satisfied little girl


Happy Easter from the Oberholtzer clan!

Bunny alternative

If you know Jason, then you know he's got a passion for trains. As I was scanning the Saturday paper, I noticed that the Bunny Train was running Saturday at 11, 1, and 3. Since Jason had some things he wanted to get done around the house, we decided that 3:00 would be the time. You can imagine his disappointment when we arrived and found out that the times in the paper were wrong, and we had missed the last departure by an hour!

Rather than wallow in our sadness, we took advantage of the nice day and drove out to the lakeshore to find a park to swing instead. We found a little park tucked away between Grand Haven and Holland, but unfortunately there were no baby swings. They did have a "big kid" swing for Jason, though!

I wish I would have video taped him getting out!


Hannah and Daddy did do the twisty slide.

We continued on down the lakeshore and ended up at Kollen Park on Lake Macatawa in Holland. They had a great "miniature" playground perfect for the little ones.

Hannah is certainly our little daredevil. The higher the better!

After all of that activity, we worked up an appetite, so we went to New Holland Brewery for pizza.

Waiting impatiently for her pizza.

The perfect ending to a practically perfect day!

Steps

I swear right before I took this video she took 4 or 5 steps on her own. At least you can see 1 in this video. We just have to distract her, and she'll take off. She's such a chicken!