Pack

This is how Heidi helps pack up toys.

1 year!

Heidi turned one! She had her first taste of cake and she really
liked it. The video shows the aftermath.

Train store

This is what it is like to follow boden around the train store by
Papa's house.

Merry Christmas!

This is a day late, but merry Christmas! Boden and Heidi are having a
ball at Papa and Amma's house.

Promenade

Heidi is walking with uncle Robbie. Check out the film.

Starez

Here is a video of Heidi taking on the stairs at the new brown house
for the first time. Easily conquered.......

Buzz

This is what happens to Boden when he has had cake and ice cream.

Hind legs

Here is a video of Heidi standing by herself. She has been doing this
for a while, but it has been difficult getting her on the camera.
What makes this a bit more fun is that she is doing this with a loaded
diaper.

All powder

This morning Heidi got her last taste of breast milk.

Destroyed

It doesn't look like much, but this is bode with his first snowman of
the winter. Unfortunately, he decided to destroy it rather than have
his picture taken with.

Sno!

My, how boden has been excited about snow coming, and it finally came!

Are you staring at me?

A video of Heidi dominating the stairs at auntie Liz and uncle Mike's
house.

Basketcase

Mesa

This is not officially sanctioned by mom and dad. We are just
choosing to not notice. Although, it is pretty obvious that we do
notice when we take pictures of it....

corny ii

here is a video of some of the fun boden had playing in the corn on papa's farm. not too many kids got to play in 100 tons of corn on thanksgiving!

Corny

Boden and his cousins are being corny.

Eat out

Dad and the kids are living large and eating out.

Let's do dishes!

In the back!

Boden got his first ride in the back of the truck!

Baggy

It is already starting.

bath 2x

where is boden?

shhhh!

don't tell, but heidi is playing with daddy in mommy and daddys bed when she is supposed to be sleeping.

no legs

nothing runs like a bode

boden got a chance to drive papa's combine tonight, with uncle mike. the video is a bit shaky because the camera man was skipping through a field whilst carrying heidi. they aren't actually harvesting any crop, because the grain head just broke and boden is taking the combine back to the shop.

everybody sleeps

i have that sesame street song running thru my head.... you know the one? 'everybody sleeps, everybody sleeps, everybody close their eyes, dah dah dah dah....' ok, i don't really remember all the words, but do you get the drift?

this past week, both heidi and boden, have taken naps in some new places and with some special people. heidi did not nap well on friday during the day, and though she tried, just couldn't possibly keep her eyes open at supper. she started rubbing her eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep. too cute!!! reminds me of some stories about her papa at the dinner table..... ;-)

speaking of papa..... papa and grammy were over for a short bit last sunday afternoon and papa decided to stretch out and catch a little nap. boden insisted on getting papa all set up with stuffed animals and a blanket, then climbed in with papa to sleep too. with the wiggly bode, i'm not sure how much of a nap papa really got.....

below are some pics for your enjoyment of the occasions:

into mcthin air

it is hard to see boden in this photo because of how high he is. we went to the playground at mcdonalds and the kids sure enjoyed it. boden had fun climbing around on the structure and heidi was enraptured watching all of the activity. it took boden a while but he eventually worked his way almost all the way to the top, all by himself.

look

so, it has come to my attention that blogger is not letting you comment on our posts! sense we love to hear what you have to say, i poked around a bit and changed a couple settings. try it and see if you can post now. if you can't, please let me know!

had to, had to, had to post this pic. i'm afraid you can't really see the expressions good enough in the small size. click on the picture so you can see it bigger and get the full effect. when i first looked at this picture, i laughed and laughed! heidi is looking right at me, who knows what she is thinking by the look on her face! i think she may be starting to realize what a crazy family she was born into.... :)

also, if you didn't notice (the only reason why you couldn't have would be if you were so intently studying heidi's face), but really? who dresses boden these days??? it certainly couldn't be his mother??? :)

trouble

i think we are in for trouble with these kids. if you have been keeping up on our blogs, you may remember a few posts ago when i told you how boden was all kissing on the little girls at church? well...... heidi seems to be entrancing boys already herself. we have noticed from the beginning that grandpas, uncles, and the such seem quite taken with her, and often people we encounter from time to time seem to be taken under her spell. this sunday though, was one of the worst. we went to 'el ranchero' for lunch (if you have never been there, would recommend it. it is a locally owned mexican restaurant.) anyway, heidi was all kinds of making eyes at the male waiters and bus boys. turning all around in her high chair to flirt between bites of mushy baby cereal. i would say at least 3 or 4 of the guys came over and knelt down by her and were all touching her head and hands and speaking sweet nothings to her in spanish. one guy actually rolled her away at one point (the high chair was on wheels). we were pretty stunned at first. eric and i exchanged looks and i got up and followed. he rolled her over to the register where you can buy candy out of a jar and grabbed a couple 'laughy taffys' to give to boden and heidi. it may be all fun and cute at this point, but it really causes one to seriously stop and wonder about the future..... :)

not down

heidi pulled herself up to a standing position for the time! the photo actually shows her second time, but the first time looked just like this.

ready

cousin nathan is soon ready to be a dad. he did a really good job of feeding heidi tonight at mcdonalds.

block head

this video has been in production for about a month and a half. it is timeless, though...

now on tour!

he is not super proud of it, but mom and heidi are his only groupies. check out the video that the paparazzi caught:

edible comb

heidi likes to chew on her comb.

in character

you know that boden regularly (almost everyday) plays that he is a character, other than boden. his favorites are clifford, little doggie, macy, and lion. he will then last all day being that character, following it through to the level of not even responding to his own name. the rest of the family quite often is a character too. like when he is clifford, dad is jorge, mom is emily elizabeth, and heidi is cleo. yesterday morning, when i got him up early to go to toddlerville, he could barely lift himself off of his pillow, but he was already telling me that he was clifford. then today, we were looking through some photos from the last 2-4 weeks, and on a couple of them he pointed out himself as the character he played that day. like 2 weeks ago when we were camping with his cousins and went up mt pisgah, he was a lion (which he was, quite loudly, in fact). then about 4 weeks ago he went to the fair with auntie liz, and i guess he was a little doggie (auntie liz will have to verify). its crazy what capacity his brain has to soak up and store thigns. just shows that if a child had the experience that an adult has, their mental abilities would be quite formidable.

workin for the big money

the steenwyk men hard at work:

tixe

what does that spell??? we weren't sure either.

boden is really getting into a fun stage where he can remember and answer questions about his day. (he has also recently started lying, so i suppose it is worth a grain?) anyway, it is really fun to talk to him about what he's learned in sunday school or what friends he's played with in nursery or what he did at daycare/preschool. he also has this almost unquenchable thirst for naming letters that he sees - in books, on tshirts, on cereal boxes, on signs, in stores, in line at qdoba.... you name it, he is wanting to say the letters. sometimes he wants you to listen and watch him say them, other times, i find him all pointing to letters (say, on the note cousin claire wrote him that is currently on the refrigerator) all whispering the letters to himself under his breathe.

putting the two together.... on wednesday, we were eating supper and talking about what he learned at toddlerville that day. we found out that he learned about a triangle. he told us that a triangle has three points. we later saw in his backpack that they did a triangle worksheet, so he was right on about that. he then told us that he learned about 't i x e'.....hmmmm we are both stumped..... we ask him again - 't i x e' we must have asked him 4 or 5 times before it dawned on eric that he is in the habit of naming letters as they appear -backwards. ohhhh 'e x i t'! eric asked boden what color the letters were - red! :) wonder how many times he looked at the exit signs above the doors on wednesday. must have really made an impression on him :) so, does that mean he is dyslexic or we just need to teach him to name letters from left to right???? :)

ladies man

this morning after our church's women's bible study, i went to pick the kids up from nursery. as i'm getting all our stuff together, i notice boden is giving a pretty little girl gentle kisses. she sorta walks around her mom and he follows her and corners her to give her a couple more gentle kisses. i sorta laughed, called him, and we went out to mingle and get a snack. as we were getting a snack (which usually is boden's high priority), i notice he has walked away from me and is circling a different pretty girl around her mother trying to give her gentle kisses as well. all the while, he has this sweet little smile on his face. we have noticed before that boden seems to take a liking to girls and will try to befriend them or follow them around. but this is the first time that i have noticed any kissing type advances going on. and these were two different girls in the span of five minutes! i'm afraid we have a little ladies man on our hands....yet another thing i'm not sure how to handle.... here i thought once you got thru the first year it was supposed to be easy sailing...... :)

splish splash!

this is heidi's first big girl bath:

stairs

boden and his cousins on mt pisgah.

tenzing boden

climbing another mountain.

park in hair

on our way back from oh, we stopped at the rest area in monroe for heidi to eat. low and behold it has a park! so we got a little play time in. in this photo you can see heidi with her new haircut and boden doing who knows what in the background.

dog's life

heidi really likes dogs too, just like her brother.

kick grass

boden is teaching uncle mike how to mow.

fly

boden got to fly over the dirty black truck!

standing

boden is out-standing in papa's field.

happy lappy

heidi and papa.

top ten list

boden's top ten list:

10. hugging and loving on heidi so much that we needed to institute a "no hands on heidi's head" rule

9. peeing outside

8. opening a new bar of soap

7. watching the tigers before going to bed

6. getting boxes in the mail that need a screwdriver to be opened

5. singing veggie tale's songs

4. climing into heidi's jumperoo

3. talking to amma on the phone

2. walking on and hitting mommy's back to try to help it feel better

1. splashing in his pee on the floor of the bathroom

picklehead

daddy met us for lunch at the park for the picklehead concert. it was a beautiful day! here is boden and daddy enjoying one of their favorite songs!

hairy bath

bode is getting a post-haircut bath.

cry babies

so, we got heidi and her cousin shane all dressed up in matching outfits to take some pictures of them together. the following video is what they thought of the whole deal:

wilson

hiddy ho!

little charlotte

just a swingin'.

street

here are the kids as they take in the street performers in downtown holland.

krol photography

just had heidi's 6 month pics done by krol photography. she is sweeter than sugar! to view the pics -

go to: www.krolphotography.com
go to 'client proofing'
our password is ELASteenwyk
click on heidi-july 2009

her 3 month ones are on there as well. don't think i posted them before... boden's 3 year pics should be coming shortly as well! along with a post about his 3 year old birthday!!! stay tuned!

love

heidi loves uncle robbie.

splash pad

boden is having a ball at the splash pad park in medina!

albums

for those of you that can't get enough pics, or just want to peek at all the things we've been doing this summer that we haven't gotten around to posting, check the albums on the right. i added pics to may and added a june and july album.

heidi - 6 months!

so, this post is way overdue as heidi will be 7 months this coming weekend, but i thought we needed to record the stats. so here they are:

height - 26 1/4 inches - 60th percentile
weight - 14 pds 7 oz - 25th percentile
head circumference - 42.7 - 50th percentile

she has gone down in height some (if you don't remember :), she was 90th percentile last time), but the dr said that it could be she wasn't stretched out enough and is most likely somewhere btw the last two times' percentage. he said that her weight is steady and that is what they watch first. with 6 month milestones, she is right on. so, she checked out a.o.k!

a few things about heidi (some of these bleed over into her being almost 7 months):

- she has cut her first two bottom teeth.
-she is babbling all the time with all kinds of high pitched coos and 'ba ba ba', 'da da da', and 'na na na'
-she loves her big brother, as he adores her. they can amuse each other for quite some time. it is so precious to hear them get each other laughing hard at the same time.
-she loves to eat! she nurses 5 times a day (though in the last couple days we have tried dropping one. so far so good.) and eats two full meals of oatmeal or rice cereal and stage one veggies and cherrios.
-at about 6 weeks she slept like a champ. and for a long time i would feed her at 8pm and we would not hear another peep out of her until 7am. a couple weeks before turning 6 months, she started waking again in the night. at first we thought that maybe it was a growth spurt, so i'd feed her in the night when she would wake up screaming. this continued on for two weeks or so. decided a growth spurt shouldn't last that long and maybe she just wasn't getting enough to eat. so we started feeding her cereal. she ate this eagerly, but still was waking in the night. guessing it was just forming a habit and/or sleep aid, we did some tough love nights. very hard. the last few nights we haven't heard a peep out of her (except about and hour in. she did that before. cries for a bit and then goes back to sleep). so, here's hoping i didn't ruin it by telling you all about it :)
-seems to have some beginning stages of preferring mommy. don't quite know what to do with this as boden has always been a daddy's boy.
-smiles that make your heart melt.
-wants to grab at everything. i mean everything. especially at the table. she is so interested in what we are eating and doing. boden was not like this at all. boden still does not care what we eat. we'd really like him to :)
-she sits up by herself quite well for several mins. still not brave enough to leave her that way unattended though...
-has started pulling up her butt and knees, but has not made it to knees and hands yet.
-squirms all over the place. she never stays where you put her for long.
-can stand pretty well if holding onto someone or something.
-likes her bath.
-has tons of hair.
-has a little excema (sp?)


below are a couple pics taken the week she turned 6 months. can't believe she has been with us for half a year now! crazy!

wet undies and trees

we were exploring around pokagon state park, and when we got down to the lake boden started taking his pants and undies off so he can go in the water. we made him wear his undies figuring he should be a little decent. in the picture you can see him and uncle robbie play in the water. the other picture is boden checking out an old rotted tree stump we were exploring earlier.

curley

now that boden is 1 day short of completing 3 years and he has taken on a curley slide for the first time!

need napkin!

smelly

boden has really gotten into flowers lately. on our hike today he liked smelling these flowers. he also enjoys getting flowers from grammy's garden, some of which he has in his room right now.

hike

heidi is enjoying her hike by the pigeon river.

paradigm

boden is thinking inside the box.