We're back

Ok, we were never really gone. Just not very good with updating.

Here's some fun facts:
Orrin is growing a ton. Scott and I both lost the bet on when he would walk, Aunt Becky wins again! He took his first real steps on December 10 while a friend was visiting, but didn't start really walking until about two weeks ago (Jan 27th). We were visiting Leeum that evening and Orrin watched him run around for awhile, then picked up a football and walked across the room. He's been going ever since.

Orrin is talking more and more every day, too. There are too many words to list, but here are some of the cutest:
"Ow"=Orrin
A cow says "Mmmmmmom"
"Hi Da"
A lion says "Roar" (he really gets into this one)
He shakes his head and says "uh uh" in response to almost any question

I think this might be my favorite age so far. He knows enough words to be terribly cute, but not enough to talk back!

His favorite things to do lately are feed the dogs (a few pieces at a time, takes forever!), "help" me in the kitchen or with laundry or whatever else I happen to be doing, watch elmo videos on the computer, feed his fish, unload cupboards, and look through books. I think he would like to play outside if we could convince him to leave his hat and mittens on. We've only managed a few minutes at a time in the snow. He hated wearing shoes and boots until a few days ago, now he is obsessed with them and is constantly bringing me shoes to put on. He constantly babbles and giggles and is generally a joy to be around! Tantrums are even getting much shorter, he seems to get that it won't get him very far.

And the pictures:

Playing in the dog crate

"helping" with the laundry (these clothes are usually scattered throughout the kitchen within a few minutes)

Just a pretty view from the deck early one morning

Orrin's Christmas picture. The only way we got him to sit still for more than a second, and keep the hat on his head was to play muppet videos on the laptop under the camera!

First time in the snow, he wasn't all that enthused

A budding prodigy!

We are noticing he may have inherited a little bit of OCD (take your pick which one of us he got it from). The driver of this jeep must always be facing backwards. We mess with him and turn it forward, but he always notices eventually and turns it back around.

"helping" in the kitchen. Its a bit of a hazard for me trying to cook, but it keeps him occupied, otherwise he is hanging on my legs yelling "ot" (up).

Another of Orrin's favorite toys. Not so much ours. :)

I got him a donkey for Christmas - he LOVED it! Preparing him for his future pet.

With his cousins. He was not in a good mood, Scott got him to smile by singing Manamana - one of his favorite muppet songs.

More Christmas presents. He was a lot more interested in the table full of food that day! He would sucker anyone nearby into giving him something.

Loving his Christmas present from us - 3 fish!

"helping" Daddy install a shower door.

Digging out from the snowstorm.

Lots of toys, but usually the favorites come from my kitchen cabinets. He played with this thing for a few days, but has moved on to my canning funnel lately.

A Valentine's Day treat from Grandpa. This is the first time I've given him his own piece of candy (usually we'll just share little bites of whatever yummy things we are eating).

He definitely liked it and is asking for more here.

For dessert tonight, we had some chocolate covered apple slices.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Two month catch up in pictures

New House

Ok, this is terribly late! But here's the story: The very first people to come through our house in July liked it but decided to keep looking. Well they came back through about 6 or 7 weeks later and wanted to make an offer, but at the last minute, their buyer fell through. She mentioned to her realtor that maybe we would consider a trade. Our realtor mentioned it to us and we didn't take it too seriously but said we would take a look at the house. A few days later, we saw it and realized it was pretty much the exact house that we had been looking for. It took a few weeks to get everything worked out but we closed in October and moved a week later. The whole process went very smoothly and all of the people we dealt with were just wonderful. It was a great experience to be in the closing with the two realtors and the other couple and be able to discuss how it seems that God was at the center of the whole thing.
So we are pretty settled now. Still some unpacking to do, but we're tackling it slowly. We've met some of the neighbors and everyone seems very nice. Lots of kids for Orrin to play with, and lots of dogs for Spot and Daisy to bark at. Pretty much everything we need is within walking distance, which is awesome. Emmons Lake and Lakeside park, the high school/junior high/elementary school (and its accompanying playground), the new Caledonia library, and the grocery store. I haven't taken any pictures of the new house yet, so I guess if you want to see it, you should come visit! :)

Orrin stuff

Well, somehow between all of the house showings, we have managed to have some fun the last few weeks. Orrin is cruising along furniture and climbing all over everything lately. I found him inside the bathroom cupboard one day, throwing everything out. He finally learned how to go up and down stairs, and is quite obsessed with that now. A couple more teeth have popped through, too. We don't think he is too far away from walking, I say by Halloween, Scott says by mid-November, and Becky says by February (so little faith in her nephew!). :)
Best of all, he loves to "help" me with the laundry. I don't mind. Although trying to clean the house for a showing with him around is pretty much impossible (very thankful that Mom M comes and gets him when necessary!). He has an amazing knack to know where I'm going next with the vacuum and plant himself there.

So lets see, we went to the beach with his aunts, uncle, cousins, and grandpa. Orrin spent hours shoveling (and eating) sand, exploring, and crawling into the water and just staring. Just ask me how I know that Orrin ate more than one handful of sand (except don't, its gross).

Then we went to the Hudsonville Fair, where we learned that Orrin LOVES rabbits.
He also fell for this guy. Someday Orrin, someday. (well, someday when you are grown and can afford your own and let me come and play with it)Cows were pretty cool, too.

This one left Orrin pretty slimy.
This picture does not do it justice, but Orrin really gets into blueberry pancakes.
We returned to the fair with some of Orrin's good friends. They were loving watching the rides.
And we played at Gun lake one fabulous Sunday with my family.

More to come. Up next, the great story of our (hopefully) new house.

Numbers

Can I just say that I love that I married a math major. When we were first presented with a house trade idea last week, we needed a pros/cons list to see if this (or any house for that matter) was really the house we wanted. Except Scott can't stop at pros and cons. So he came up with a couple formulas so that we could assign any house a value, essentially a percentage of the things that we want in a house weighted by their importance. We actually had five different methods, and then took the average of those numbers. I love him.

So there's a little insight into our nerdiness. Orrin is doomed.