winter coats

behold two videos. probably not funny or interesting to anyone but me. i wanted to have greta try on her winter coat from last year to see if it fit. and then i remembered that bought a winter coat for otto last year that was marked way way down. i normally don't buy clothes ahead of time for the next season. i know you can save lots of money doing it, but i am terrible at guessing how big my children will be in a year's time, and if i guess incorrectly, it's money wasted instead of money saved. anyway, the coat was a great deal so i bought it. not knowing at the time what a little peanut otto was going to be. (and by little peanut, i mean that his weight is off the bottom of the growth chart. meaning that virtually every other boy his age weighs more than him). anyway, he looked like randy from a christmas story. otto's coat is a bit big to say the least. he kept falling over in it....it was hilarious. anyway, here are the videos. since we tried these winter items on, greta keeps wanting to put them on again and "pretend we're playing in the snow".

me mi mo meta....greta!

we've been singing "the name game" a lot this summer and greta has picked up on it pretty quickly. supposedly, being able to play with sounds in words (changing the sounds around, making 'nonsense' words) is a good skill for reading/phonics/phonemic awareness....blah blah blah. i would always sing this with the kids i taught and they loved it, so i figured greta would too and i was right.
greta will sing this song for a while, running through the names of everyone and every family unit (patrick, emily, tom, sarah.....holly, jesse, caroline, owen.....) she can think of. this video was taken at lunch after she got home from her first day of school, so i am guessing that there is someone named "max" in her class. take it away, greta.....

HELP!

this is what otto is resorting to while his sister is at school. do you like his headbands and sunglasses? something tells me he's missing her. something else tells me he's hoping for a brother.

coney island

the kids and i went to coney island with grandma and grandpa hansbauer, aunt tina, and the ford cousins (jacob, hannah, cassie, and ellie). this is always a fun trip to do right before the start of the school year....and this year, greta joins the crew of kids headed to school!! (more on that in another post). here are a few pics from the day, and a short video of ellie and greta on the "froggy jump".

otto gets practice

here is otto, changing the baby doll's diaper. we're trying to get some practice in, because we're gonna need a little help next march. yep, we're having another baby! due date is march 2nd, but i will have to have another c-section so most likely the baby will arrive a bit earlier....possibly february. (and no, 2011 is not a leap year).
i am 14 or 15 weeks along (i can't remember) and am feeling pretty good. the first trimester of this pregnancy was not too bad, but definitely worse than with greta or otto. i felt some nausea, lots of killer headaches, and was unbelievably tired. like, i could sleep for days i was so tired. but i think i've turned that second trimester corner. people keep asking if we are going to find out the gender of this baby like we did with the other two, and i think so. i know that we have one of each....but there are plenty of surprises (let me tell you!) the day of delivery that i think we'll take the surprise at the 20 week ultrasound, thank you very much.
we feel so blessed to be adding to our family yet again, and can't wait for greta to be a big sister again and for otto to become a big brother. and yes, we will have to go from "man to man" defense to "zone"....we'll do our best. :) so in the meantime, we'll keep letting otto practice his diapering skills.....

go reds!

went to a game with the nawroths (thanks again!) and had so much fun! greta's favorite part was probably the peanuts. my favorite was the pretzel sticks. we were out WAY past bedtime, which might have been part of the cause of the horrific morning we had at gymnastics the next day. but no matter. go reds! greta and otto were holding hands walking back to our car and it was too cute. everytime i took a picture, they let go. and then everytime i was in between shots, they would hold hands again. i have about 10 blurry shots of them walking and NOT holding hands. but you get the idea.....