December highlights!

Yeah, I finished this just in time for the end of December deadline!  A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  We spent Christmas at the Krafve farm with the whole family.  Christi announced that she is helping to add to the cousin population in July 2014!!!  Joy keeps talking about the new baby cousin that is coming!
Danny and I are celebrating 10 years of marriage on 1/3.  Since Noah is still pretty young, we decided to keep it low key and head back to where it all started in La Crosse, WI for a couple days.  We are looking forward to putting our feet up!
Below is a video that captures what our life has consisted of during the last 6 weeks or so.
It starts with Noah expressing his love for balls, specifically football.
Then it continues with Joy singing one of her favorite Thanksgiving songs from PreSchool.
After that is 2 clips of Noah practicing some verbal expressions.
Then, Joy sings at the Advent Service at her Preschool.
Next is Danny and the kids doing what they can to entertain now that we are stuck inside more.
And then, Noah does the actions to his favorite song, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".
After that, we put the kids to work.
Then, Joy and Noah do actions to Laurie Berkner's song, "I'm Gonna Catch You!"
Next is Joy performing in her Christmas program.
And finally, it ends with videos of the kids preparing to go tubing and actually tubing.

Sorry it got so long.  I guess they've been extra cute and fun this month.  Enjoy!

2 months already!

I guess I've been busy since our last post.  Since it's been so long, I'll just give some background info for the video below.
It starts with Noah letting Joy pull him on his beloved truck.  Joy did a great job being careful!
Then, we finally got around to doing fireworks. Joy loved them, Noah did not.  :)
Then there are a couple goofy videos of my nonstop chatter box, Joy.  Danny was playing with different settings on the camera and Joy was happy to entertain.
After that is a clip of our morning ritual, to wave at dad out the front window when he leaves for work.  And, a taste of Noah putting Joy in her place.  ;)
Then, Noah shows his excitement about Elmo and his love for his Grandpas!
And it ends with the kids on Halloween.

We are gearing up for a Thanksgiving in Cedar Rapids, IA, Christmas on the Krafve Farm, and Rylee's first birthday party in between.  I love this time of year!  Especially when it is time for the golf courses to close!  Watertown golf course closes after Sunday and Waunakee will stay open until the weather is more consistently cold.  Danny and I are also excited to celebrate 10 years of marriage soon after Christmas.  Time sure is flying!

Enjoy the video!

Joy is 4!

Joy is now 4 years old.  The video below captures what her day looked like.  She is truly blessed to be so loved by her family and friends.  We thank each of you who were involved in celebrating her birthday. 

The Kids Went Golfing

We finally got the kids out golfing!  It was back on August 15th.  We had hoped to get them out more this summer but Danny's schedule and ours just didn't coordinate very well.  Both kids enjoyed themselves as you'll see in the video below.  Since then, Joy has started preschool in the afternoon 3 days a week.  She loves it!  She goes to Eastside Lutheran School literally 5 or 6 blocks away.  I will include her first day of school pic below as well.  She turns 4 in just 3 days.  I will try to get videos uploaded in the next week or so again of her birthday and few cute random videos of Noah.  Enjoy!

Our Little Dancers and some extra

Hi.  This video is of Joy on the last day of her first-ever dance class.  She REALLY enjoyed dance and she will most likely be continuing, but probably not at this location.  We are feeling a bit shocked at the price of dance, especially for an almost 4 year old, so I am shopping around a little bit at the moment.  Joy is also very excited to start Preschool, 3 afternoons a week, on August 21.  Where does the time go??  There are 2 more videos below this as well.



The next video is of Noah, and some Joy, dancing around the house.  Their favorite song at the moment is the "Bumblebee Song" by Laurie Berkner.  If you watch/listen close, you can hear Noah singing along by saying 'Bah, bah, bah" - his approximation of 'Buzz, Buzz, Buzz".  He requests this song nearly every time we get in the car now too.




This last video is a compilation of different cute or funny things the kids have been doing the over the last 1.5 months.  Joy is playing with her friend, Zach, in one of the clips.  And, in case you can't tell what's happening in the last clip with Noah and the golf clubs, he is frustrated with them and bites the cart a couple times.  I guess he has a little golf etiquette to learn before he hits the golf course.  ;)

Our babies dance the same!

Wow!  I am behind!  Life just keeps flying by.  I have a few new videos to share of our silly kids.  This first one if of Joy dancing when she was about 10 months old and then goes into one of Noah dancing, at 14 months old.  It seems pretty obvious that they are sister and brother.  The hospital definitely didn't switch any babies on us!





Here are a few video clips of our crazy fun kids...

Busy Barns Adventure Farm

Grandma and Grandpa Krafve came to visit last weekend!  We had so much fun!  We ended the visit by going to Busy Barns Adventure Farm out by Fort Atkinson.  Here is some video we captured of the day...

Kids being kids!

Here is a video of Noah and Joy playing together.  Just this morning, Noah walked into Joy's room while she was getting dressed and very happily said, "Hi Joy Joy" or more like "Hey DeDe".  They are so fun, most of the time.  :)




And here is a video of the kids playing on Daddy's new putting toy.  They enjoy it as much as he does!

Noah is 1

Noah is 1 yr old!  That went fast!  Below is video of his first birthday party.  It was small celebration with family.  The first video is party highlights and the second video is a series of video clips pasted together to show you his progression from first steps to walking.  He is all over and into everything now!  Enjoy!

Winter continues, but we're having fun!

Hello from the Rainbows on St Pat's Day!  The kids are growing and keeping busy.  We are soaking up our last few Saturdays with dad before his 6 day weeks start, whenever the weather warms up.  Joy has been really sweet lately and very interested in playing with her babies/stuffed toys.  There are two younger kids that go to our larger church body whom she has named her babies after.  She will spend hours reading them books, putting them to bed, taking them for walks in her stroller, etc.  This baby play has re-emerged since we started taking care of a 6 month old twice a week.  Joy has one swim class left and the experience has been very positive and fun for her.  Lastly, Joy is going to start preschool this fall.  We got to visit last week.  She has been talking about it ever since and was tearful the rest of the evening because she didn't want to wait until her birthday to start preschool.
Noah continues to be a bundle of fun.  He isn't talking much outside of: mama, dada, ge (Joy), key (kitty), and eeee (eat).  He also just started walking by holding onto just one of our hands or with push toys.  He is so proud of himself.  He turns 1 in just 1.5 weeks!  I can't believe it.  We are having a small celebration with family, balloons, and cake over Easter weekend for him.  Below are some clips of the fun we've been having despite the continued cold weather (which isn't all bad since that means we get to see more of dad).  :)

random stuff

This video is a peek at what's been happening in our house lately.  Danny got a new golf toy for putting and the kids love it.  Noah insists that we help him walk most of the time.  And when he is not walking, he is throwing a ball around.  Joy is in a swim class and is really enjoying it.  She put her head under the water once tonight, but only once because she was worried the fish would get her.  :)  They keep us busy, but we love it and them!

Noah is crawling!

Hi.  Noah is crawling, finally!  He started right around his 10 month birthday.  His pattern, so far, is to hit milestones about a month after Joy did.  If that holds true, we can expect him to walk on his own around 14 months.  And, yes, he has started walking, with the support of our hands.  Noah is very excited to be able to get around on his own.  He has developed a love for toy balls, evident by him throwing and rolling them all over the house, creating obstacle courses for the rest of us.  Noah has been sick for the past week with a cough and REALLY runny nose.  We had him checked for an ear infection and other things last week and he got the all clear.  So, we are anxiously waiting for him to get better because he is pretty uncomfortable.  He also remains our little snuggle bug.  Danny and I really enjoy all of this baby bear's affection.  The video will show how busy this little big guy is lately.



And, our sweet 3.5 yr old, Joy, has become a kid and officially has left her toddler self behind.  She has lots of opinions and ideas (good and bad), loves her little brother so much he is nearly smothered everyday, and is crazy about books.  She has piles of books around the house that she bounces between throughout the day but doesn't use 25% of them.  Of course, when I try to put some away, she has an opinion about that.  And, the first thing Danny has to do when he gets home from work is play freeze tag with her.  If she really begs, the whole family might even join in sometimes.

We did an impromptu photo shoot of Noah and Joy in their Packer gear.  Here are a few of our favorites.

Noah picks on Joy