They're Home!!!

After almost 2 years Grandma Lyn and Grandpa Jerry (or as Andrew calls them Grandma and Grandpa Missionaries) came home from Austria and completed their assignment to serve as missionaries for our church. We were so lucky to be able to go to Utah and welcome them home. Originally we thought we'd just wait and go out over the Christmas Holiday and spend some good time with them then. Then our plans changed just a month or so before. It worked out pretty great that they came in two days before the Thanksgiving holiday.  We were able to fly in just about and hour before they landed in Salt Lake City and so we stayed behind and found their gate without them know. Mind you they'd been traveling for probably the last 18 hours and it was 4 am in Austria when they landed. But we were excited to get the first hugs and chat with them a bit before the 19 other grand kids. Who I might add...were anxiously waiting behind security for their turn.

Andrew giving grandpa a long-awaited kiss in person

It was a wonderful reunion! 21 months is a long time to be gone and Andrew was only just a small baby when they left.

This was just before they left

I loved seeing how excited all the grand kids got, especially over the last few weeks before they got home! Some made paper chains to count down the days. Others made countdown clocks on their ipods/phones that showed down to the number of seconds until Grandma and Grandpa returned from their mission. We all couldn't wait...it was like Christmas morning.

After all the hugs and pictures we headed to their house and had a "waffle night" My parents served the Young Adults who lived in Graz, Austria. As part of their assignment they would do institute one night a week, FHE one night a week, my dad taught English and my mom taught piano, and with each of these activities my mom was involved with cooking food. Many many meals and snacks for each of the events. Friday nights were "waffle nights" and the YA loved American waffles. So to make them feel right at home we had our own family waffle night and stay up until after 1am chatting and laughing and catching up.

It was fun to see my parents just walk around their house in amazement and notice the little things they did without for so long. A large kitchen sink, a disposal, a dishwasher, a garage and then realizing their entire apartment in Austria could fit inside their master bedroom at home. They were in a bit of a culture shock.

We had a great afternoon the next day when they showed us some of their souvenirs and gifts people had made them. They talked to us about the many dear friends they had made. Each one of us siblings were able to visit them at some point during their mission and seem them in action as missionaries, meet the YA they worked with, see where they lived and tour the beautiful country of Austria. Such a neat opportunity to be able to share a small part of their mission with them.

The celebrations continued. for about four days straight with a little Thanksgiving mixed in the middle. It was so wonderful to have them home and be together as an entire family....probably the first time in 5 or 6 years that we had EVERYONE together. We are so grateful for their service as missionaries and felt truly blessed for the sacrifices they made to leave their family and serve the Lord.  They are wonderful examples to me and I wish I could be there today as they reported and shared the experiences they had with all the wonderful people they served in Austria.

Enjoying the Fall

It's funny how even though I went through a fall last year here in Texas, this weather truly throws me off. The trees are still green and now that it's November we are finally to pulling out the pants each day and maybe a jacket here or there.  Finally there is that fall crispness that is in the air. Don't get me wrong I LOVE it. But it just doesn't seem like Fall to me until the weather changes. Since the weather has been nicer, we've been getting out a lot more to the parks which has been a lot of fun for Andrew. There are so many great parks that are really close to us and so we've tried to test out a few of them and find our favorites.

Texas State Fair
Fall time here in Dallas means it's time for the Texas State Fair. We loved going last year and wanted to go again. Although, life's been so crazy that the only weekend we could go was the very last weekend it was open. We were able to have Stephen's Aunt Janet come and join us too!

 We live close to a train station, so this year we decided to take the train into the city for the day. Andrew was very excited to be riding on a "choo-choo train". Of course, we filled ourselves with yummy fried foods. I'm always so amazed at the many different things they think up and then try to deep fry. This year we tried some fried alligator,which wasn't too bad. But of everything I tried I think my favorite is the fried cheesecake. You can't go wrong with cheesecake...Yum!

Andrew's First Train Ride to the fair. 

Most of the animals were not hungry with tons of people trying to feed them all day long, day after day. But we did find one goat who was ready for a snack.

One Happy Boy!!!

He loved watching all of the different animals. The piglets feeding were quite intriguing

Listening to a concert on the steps with Aunt Janet, eating fruit snacks, and dancing...life doesn't get much better than that for a two year old. 

Last year, just a few days after we went to the fair, Big Tex caught on fire and burned down. This year he was back and we had to get a family picture by Big Tex.

  We played hard and had one tired boy on the way home. 

Pumpkin Farm

With different organizations I'm involved in, I have made some really great friends who also have had preemies babies. They do play groups every once in a while and it's really nice to chat with other preemie moms. Mom's who have experienced similar things with their kiddos, who's children, although very different from one another, have many challenges to overcome and who are also involved in a variety of therapies. Sometime's it's nice to know you aren't the only one out there.

Anyways...this last month we headed to the Pumpkin Farm together with our kiddos. Boy did Andrew have a ball. Seriously he talked about going to the pumpkin farm for almost a week! His favorites were riding the tractor and of course walking around and seeing all the pumpkins. We actually had to break out the jackets this morning and despite my gps directing me to some cattle ranch out in the middle of nowhere(a funny story for another day) we found our friends for a fun morning. They had a great petting zoo with some long horned cattle, sheep, goats and chickens. Andrew was pretty brave and would stick his hand out with the food, but as soon as their mouth or gigantic tongue would reach out to grab it he would drop the food for them. Except for this one goat who saw Andrew's cup and came right up behind him. It was pretty funny.

 Going on a hayride around the farm!

We came back three times because there was always a long line to sit and drive the tractor. Finally after lunch all the field trip kids had gone home. He could have stayed there for hours. 

Big Longhorn Cattle

Each of these five boys were all born at 30 weeks or earlier. Seeing them all together like this was a lot of fun! They are sure cute! 

Carving pumpkins

I have truly enjoyed how much Andrew has gotten into everything this year and after our visit to the pumpkin farm, he was all about pumpkins...all the time. Everywhere we went he'd spot some sort of pumpkin. So when it came time to carve a pumpkin he was pretty excited too. He specifically requested a happy pumpkin with circle eyes, a triangle nose and ears.

 "Helping" daddy

After we were all done Andrew wanted to give his pumpkin a hug. 

Trick or Treating
We went pretty easy on the trick or treating this year. Our ward was doing a trunk-or-treat the night of Halloween. Which made things easy! Andrew got the trick or treating thing down pretty good, but after 9 or 10 cars. He could careless about the candy and just wanted to walk around. Which was fine by us and he had a ball. We spent about an hour with the ward then came home and in less then 10 minutes handed out the rest of our candy. (Yeah our neighborhood was insanely busy) It was pretty awesome! Lights were out before 8:00 at the Holden home and we crawled into bed to watch movies. It was a great night!

Happy Halloween from Russell, Mr. Frederickson, and Kevin the Bird

For our costumes this year we decided that we should incorporate Andrew's walker into his costume. So we originally thought of just doing an old man. Then it kind-of morphed into this...So went as the characters from the Pixar movie "Up".

They were the easiest costumes ever! I love that! Just made a quick boy tie and tied a few balloons to his walker. Stephen was a good sport again and dressed up too...I guess my teaching years has made me a kid at heart, because I love dressing up for Halloween!

We had beautiful weather on Halloween. So I let Andrew go outside with his walker for a bit, while I was cooking dinner. He just LOVED the fact that there were balloons tied onto his walker and that they were following him. I could hear his laughs and giggles so I grabbed my camera. I'm so glad I did because I got some darling pictures of our little Mr. Frederickson.

 Love these Boys!

Camping with a Toddler

Camping in the fall has become a new favorite tradition of mine. We went last year and loved it! So when our ward was planning a ward campout. We decided we'd try it again.  I would have to say I was a bit nervous just thinking about camping with a toddler, but Stephen was pretty confident everything would work out just fine.

Stephen had gone on a campout a few weeks earlier with the scouts in our ward and ever since then, just out of the blue Andrew would ask to go camping, although he has no clue what he was really asking. So when we told him we were going camping and sleeping in a tent, he was pretty excited. Then we told him we were going to bring his walker with us camping and he was even more excited.

He held onto his walker then entire way there. 

This was a first for us to actually get to the campsite and set up a tent before it was dark. Andrew was in heaven and kept himself entertained the whole time just walking around. We had an awesome place with a view over a lake with grass around our campsite....a definite plus with a toddler.

 After dinner we got together for a big bon fire with the ward and of course enjoyed some scrumptious dutch oven dessert. We sat around talking with friends and lost track of time. It was 11:00pm and Andrew was still going strong. So....we finally decided to head to bed. Andrew was a bit scared to go into the dark tent, and it took him a bit to settle down, but then he was great. We put him between us to go to sleep and after a little squirming he crashed. We moved him over onto the mat next to us and he slept like a log the ENTIRE night. I really couldn't believe it. Stephen and I however, didn't seem to sleep much and not exactly sure why.

Andrew checking out the tent and loved looking out the windows

The weather in Texas during October is pretty much perfect. We've had a pretty wet fall, but we lucked out and got nice weather for our camping weekend. Growing up you head to the mountains to go camping....where the temperature usually drops quite low during the night...even in the summertime. For some reason that is ingrained in me. I packed for a cold night. Warm pj's, layers, hoodies....etc. Well, we did not need any of it. We slept on top of our sleeping bags and used our hoodies as pillows. (because that was the one thing we forgot) Maybe that's why I didn't sleep...it was a bit too hot for me for camping. (I think the low that night was 72 degrees) I'm used to getting into a cold sleeping bag, pulling it over my head and not wanting to get out because its too cold in the tent. Aaahhh well...

 Our View

The next morning we took a little walk around the Raptor Center, packed up and headed home. I would say camping with a toddler was a success...but next time we need to stay longer. It's so much work for just one night. We're hoping to get out one more time this fall and we are keeping our fingers crossed that Andrew does just as well.

Logic of a Two-year Old

Andrew is starting to get such a funny little personality. It's so great to see him grow and figure things out. I wanted to write a few of the moments that make me laugh, so I can remember his little two and a half year old personality....as well as a few recent and random pictures from the last month or so.

Lately, he has started to pull out this fake-laugh from almost nowhere and because we laughed at him once...or maybe twice...okay all the time. He gets a real kick out of himself, thinks he's hilarious and does it all the time now.

This two-year old in our house cracks us up these days with his logic.

We were playing outside one afternoon and I mentioned how hot it was. It noticed he was sweating and asked if he was hot and wanted a drink. His reply...."Andrew IS hot." Then continues to blow on every body part he can see. His fingers, his arm, his knee, his toes...because that's what you do when things (i.e. our food) is hot. You blow on them.

Chilling on the couch watching a show with his favorites...remotes

For a few month's he went through a phase where he would bite things to show that he was angry. He would bite the couch, his toys, his arm, and sometimes mommy. After a time out, I'd come up and talk to him about what he'd done and I'd usually show him his teeth marks on what ever it was he bit.  Then I'd tell him that he gave ouchies by biting it. I knew it was starting to sink in when we were doing some feeding therapy on chewing and biting.  I was showing him how to bite a new type of food. He looked at me with a concerned look on his face and replied. "Mommy give it ouchie? Say you sorry"

I love how hard he is concentrating on the task of coloring. The smallest things are so hard when you are still working on sitting in a chair. 

Naming body parts is one of Andrew's past times. He finds it so funny to name and label everything. I'm sure like most two-year old kids, finding his belly button is one of the funnest body parts to find. I was on the floor working on a project one day and he walked over to me in his walker. He bent down and lifted the back of my shirt up. Then asked, "Mommy, where belly button?" Nope, sweetheart not gonna find it there!

We've had a blast going to a sensory gym for kids with special needs with a few friends. He hated the ball pit at first, but now it is his favorite part. 

Now that it's fall, the sun doesn't rise as early in the morning.  One morning this week it was a bit cloudy and rainy which made it still pretty dark when he woke up in the morning. His little logic was spot on...."mommy it's very dark. The sun is broken"

Trying to convince mommy that he can take his afternoon nap on the couch

And just one last one...
As we sat down for lunch one day, my stomach was making weird noses and growling. Between bites of chicken nuggets, he causally reminded me to "say excuse me, mommy" Guess all reminders to say excuse me after bodily functions applies to stomach growling too.

He is so into reading scriptures and the Book of Mormon right now. Found him like this with his blanket on his bedroom floor this week.

Being two is such a fun age...yes there are many tantrums and times where I'm completely exhausted, but someone told me once to enjoy the stage they are in as hard as it might be some days, because you never know what's around the corner...it might be harder.  That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I truly love seeing him learn, explore and become a little independent person.

Road Trip to Illinois

By the end of the summer Stephen and I decided we needed to get away! Get away from the Texas heat and the stress of everyday life. So we quickly planned a little getaway up north for Labor Day weekend.  We drove about 12 hours to visit Stephen's Sister Meghan and her family who live in Illinois.

Not knowing how Andrew would do on the 12 hour car ride, we thought we'd leave at 4am....our thinking was that he'd sleep for the first few hours and help shorten the amount of time we needed to entertain a two year old. Boy did that backfire on us!!! We should have known....because he NEVER sleeps in his car seat. So he took a quick 45 minute nap in the morning and then we had a tired and cranky boy on our hands for the rest of the trip.

But it was all worth it! We had convinced Stephen's mom, as well as his brother Jeremy and his family to drive down from Michigan and meet us. So we had a little mini family reunion with about half of the Holden family there. Meghan and Micah were awesome hosts as we had eight people crash at their house. And most importantly we had an wonderfully relaxing time. We played at parks, spent time at the pool, relaxed in the backyard while all the grandkids played, had a girls afternoon of lunch and shopping, went to a hummingbird festival and of course got lots of hugs and playtime with Grandma! It was hard to see this much needed get-a-way come to an end.

Andrew remembered and loved visiting with grandma! Boy has he missed her!

Slides are a favorite of ours! 

Playing in the backyard...he loved jumping on the tramp! 

Having fun at the hummingbird festival! 

I think the little girls had the loved the girls lunch and especially the shopping and trying on shoes! They worked really hard to convince mom that they could grow into the high heels. 

Okay, these kiddos crack me up. We sent them outside to play after church. After a few quiet hours we found them soaking the ground to make the worms come to the surface. They had a huge pile of worms on the tramp.....awww the memories you make with cousins. 

And since we had all the Holden grandkids together we had to take a picture. Trying to get seven kids to look at one camera...let alone smile is quite difficult. This one actually turned out pretty good...

Once again, Andrew loved playing and walking with Grandma. Just the other day the doorbell rang and Andrew and I were upstairs. He looked at me with big eyes and said "It's grandma!"  Needless to say he misses his grandma! 

It's Never Just a Short Ride

We've been excited to be able to get out and ride our bikes this summer, especially now that we've gotten a seat for Andrew. There are so many wonderful trails near our new home and we've loved exploring them all and seeing all the different parks and nature preserves that they all connect to.

We enjoy going for rides after dinner. Most of the time we'd say..."lets just go for a short ride tonight." But then we always want to see what's around the next bend or around the next corner. Sometimes we end up getting lost and trying make our way back home before dark, is always an adventure. 

Andrew loves the bike rides too! He asks to wear his helmet and go bye-bye in his "bike seat". I love riding behind Stephen and him and seeing Andrew hold out his hands as we go fast down the hills. Makes me smile every time. 

One Saturday in August, we decided to put the bikes on the back of our car and head up to a state park close by.

It was a beautiful little trail with lots of trees! Which in August here in Texas means lots of shade. In 100+ degree weather, a little shade is always welcomed. 

We had a great morning ride, and probably went about 10-12 miles... which for us was a lot!

Afterwards we found some tables and enjoyed a little family picnic lunch. We brought Andrew's walker and he thought that was pretty fun. He loved to go and explore on his own all the trails, the river and I think he enjoyed a little freedom of walking on his own.

My boys....I just love these two!