The Veldmans: April 2014

I've had "do blog" on my to do list for quite some time, but never seem to have the time or energy. I just realized how long it has been. So, this post will be filled with lots of pictures.

We have been quite busy over the past 3 weeks. Nate has been traveling some with work, so that leaves me as the single parent. Which of course means that it's the opportune time for one of the kids to get sick. Poor Ava was not able to catch a break. Once her 3 week bout of diarrhea finally stopped she ended up with a horrible respiratory illness (probably pneumonia, but they didnt' x-ray her). This consisted of 103 fevers, cough, and tight breathing that kept me up at night because I was worried she wasn't exchanging air. Finally after 3 1/2 days of steroids and antibiotics we started to see some improvement. We are quite thankful that Grant was able to dodge this one.

Other than that, Ava has been taking swim lessons twice a week this month. She has her test out next week. We'll see how that goes. At least she's now moving forward rather than backwards when she "swims". She's getting pretty good at riding her new bike. She rode all the way to Target and back the other day. We've been trying to get outside as much as possible. Grant would live outside if he could. He loves to look for "pup pup's" and "trucks" (which includes anything with 4 wheels or more).

My baby turned 18 months yesterday. He's saying new words almost daily. Unfortunately you have to live with him to understand him. Otherwise everything sounds like "shit or cock" to the untrained ear. He's getting better though. He's still a deviant little thing and seems to do whatever it takes to get attention...positive or negative.

Speaking of new words, Ava is learning them too. Monday after arriving home, she shared her newest word...dammit. Yes, Ava said her first swear word. Grant was hitting the fireplace (negative attention) and Nate said, "Dang it Grant". Ava followed that up with a "Dammit Grant". I was upstairs and heard it. I asked where she learned it from. Her response was, "I taught it to myself". What a genius we have!

We spent the past weekend in IA celebrating Easter. We were able to go down Friday morning and come back Monday. We had a great time. Nate and I got to do dinner with friends Friday night while my parents watched the kids. We never get to do that, so we really had a good time. You can see our other fun activities from the pictures below. We hope that you had a great Easter!

No this picture is not from months ago, just a couple of weeks ago. Yep, we got more snow. Thankfully it didn't stick around for long, and it was warm enough that I was able to take the kids out to play in it.