Happy Valentine's

It's a little late, I know, but here are pictures of the kids making Valentine's Day cards and cookies for Daddy. They had fun painting with finger paints and using the safety scissors and of course putting the sprinkles on the cookies. I think Daddy was happy with their finished products! By the way...sorry Brandon has no pants on but the little guy doesn't like to wear his clothes. We're lucky he had his shirt on that day!

The Spirit of Goodyear

Brent and I somehow got lucky enough this weekend to take a ride on the Goodyear Blimp! It's extremely difficult to get a ride on the blimp and we were lucky enough to be offered a pair of seats on Saturday's noon lift off. There had been a last minute cancellation and it worked to our favor. Here are some pictures of us, the blimp and the view from the blimp. Brent also took a short a movie of the blimp taking back off after our ride. Our ride lasted an hour. We took off from Suffield Township at the air dock which is about 15 minutes from our house. We then flew up towards Akron and past the Goodyear buildings and the buildings of downtown Akron. The weather was perfect and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Because it was so clear we were able to see downtown Cleveland from Akron (which is about 30 miles away). On the way back to the air dock we were able to swing close to the house and see our neighborhood. Enjoy the pictures!!

Picture descriptions: The first picture is a the blimp landing on the launch pad in front of us. Picture 2 is Goodyear park and Goodyear Lake (frozen over). Picture 3: The large brick buildings on either side of the express way are the Goodyear buildings. Brent used to work at the brick building on the far side of the express way. Right in the very middle of picture 4 is our neighborhood. Picture 5 is a view of the Goodyear Blimp Air Dock. Picture 6 is a view from inside the blimp. I think you can tell what picture 7 is. :-)

Blimp Video

Here's the video Brent took of the blimp taking off.

3 Year Pictures Are Here!

I have posted the kids 3 year pictures on our website if anyone wants to take a look. The website address is www.holstine.com. Enjoy!

What have we been up to?

I haven't talked to many of you in a while so I thought I would catch you up on some things we've been doing lately. We are getting our former guest room set for painting. It will now become the babies room. We moved the guest bed out of the room and put it in Brandon's room and he has been sleeping on it successfully for a few days now. I think he likes having a "big big boy bed". Natalie, however, likes to remind us that Brandon's bed is bigger than hers. We may end up getting them twin beds, but this was a fast fix so that we could get into the guest room to paint it. I need to wipe down the walls and tape up the room so that Brent can start the painting. The plan is to paint on Saturday. Then I will be able to start putting the room together. I'm so excited since I didn't really have the opportunity to put a room together for the twins. They came so quickly after we moved into the house.

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday. It was just a routine checkup, meaning no ultrasound. I took the kids with me because the doctor and nurses were asking to see them again. They hadn't seen them since they were probably 6 weeks old. The kids were able to hear the babies heartbeat and they really enjoyed that. They kept asking the nurse and the doctor what they were doing to mommy. It was pretty funny to hear their questions. Everything checked out fine and the doctor says we're moving right along. I can't believe how fast the time is flying this pregnancy, but I guess the kids keep me pretty busy!

Yesterday the kids had their 3 year checkup. They did really well for the doctor and the nurse. This was the first time they had their blood pressure taken. The nurse said that the cuff was going to give their arm a big hug. They thought that was fun and sat there really still while she took their blood pressure. I had to change them into "robes" for their checkup, which the doctor let us take home so we could play doctor at home. They were just going to throw them away she said, so the kids are having fun with those. The checkups went really well. Natalie is 3ft .5inch tall and weighed in just under 30 lbs. Brandon was .5 inch under 3 ft. tall and weighed just under 29 lbs. The doctor said that everything looked great and that their language and development were very good. We don't have to go back until 4 years (barring any sicknesses). They didn't even have any vaccinations so things went pretty smoothly.

One other update....Natalie is getting pretty adept at using the potty. Sometimes she gets a little too busy playing to tell us she has to go, but otherwise she goes most of the time. She even discovered that with the help of a step stool she can go all by herself. Or as she says it "I don't need you momma!". What a relief it is to change nearly 50% less diapers. Now if we can get Brandon interested. He has no interest at all.

Well this is what we've been doing lately. I'll try to keep everyone updated better!

Happy Birthday Natalie & Brandon!

Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying their birthday at Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday. It was so jam packed with people we had to wait in line to play the games, but the kids didn't seem to mind as much as the parents did. :-)

Here's a picture of baby #3!

We had a good appointment at the doctor's yesterday. He told us that everything was looking great with the baby. I've labeled it to help identify what you're looking at better.

Pump It Up

We took the kids to Pump It Up on New Years Eve to let them run around and jump a little. Pump It Up is an indoor playground with inflatable slides and bounce houses. They had a lot of fun with Daddy (Mommy couldn't do a lot of jumping)!

The Kids Enjoying Their New Keyboard

Here's a video of the kids performing for us on their new keyboard (at Grandma's house). It's a little long so I hope you are all able to download and watch it without too much trouble. Enjoy!

The Snowman

Daddy helped the kids build a snowman on Saturday. Here's how he turned out.