The Nye Family

Jansen still does origami for hours every day. He makes hats, dragons, swiss army knives, rings, clogged arteries (yes, there is a tutorial for that), and always abides by his rules of "no cuts, no glue, no tape."

This picture makes me laugh. It was a cold, rainy Saturday, but we made the kids work outside with Nate for a little while. I know that my kids have plenty of struggles and worries. And being a kid really is hard. But Nate and I are also always trying to figure out how to make them appreciate the wonderful life they have. Sometimes I wonder if we do too many fun things. And sometimes I feel like they don't have enough opportunities to really struggle through something. They think the world has ended when we run out of Nutella. We are trying to find the right balance of work and play. 

Sweet Emmy always volunteers to help Jansen with his jobs after school. I don't know when it started or why she does it, but she always says, "I'll help you Jansen!" BUT. When it comes to other work and her own jobs she is asked to do, she is pretty pathetic. I know part of it is her age, but she is so easily distracted and realllly drags her feet when asked to help with simple tasks. She is known for getting sudden tummy aches and leg pains when she needs to do something she doesn't want to do. She also hates to disappoint us or get in trouble. Today she yelled "HEY!" very rudely at Jansen and when I asked her to please not do that and told her it was not an okay voice to use she told me, "Mom, I was just starting a song." Riiiiight. 

Emmy loves baths. She asked me to take a picture of her after one "with her eyes closed."

Leah is so fun right now. A lot of work, but we all adore her. The kids still, every single day, ooooh and aaaaah and love on her when she wakes up in the morning. The other day she made her way in her walker over to some plants I have and pulled one down. It was quite the unpleasant surprise. I think her absolute favorite thing to do right now is have us hold her hands and help her "walk" around the house. She is not even 9 months old but wears 18 month clothes and pajamas.Her favorite food is probably clementines. 

We love to play outside, and we especially love if it's a Saturday and Dad can play too.

This is a Sunday evening pretzel making party using Nate's grandma's recipe.

I love having little helpers like Natalie. She loves to feed Leah her bottle. Natalie is Leah's biggest cheerleader and loves to see her reach milestones or do something she's never done before.

We were so lucky to have Grandma Kim send us some Seahawks gear. Sad ending for our Hawks, but we sure love cheering them on. 

This girl loves bath time too. Yes, that's my foot in the picture. I sit on a plastic Ikea stool that I put IN the tub while Leah bathes. 

January and February have brought us some beautiful days and some cold ones. Obviously not that cold - we didn't even put on coats this day to head to the bus stop, although I wish we had. I just wrapped a big blanket around Leah.