Air Force Museum

Who knew that THE National Air Force Museum was so close to us in Dayton, Ohio? We spent last Saturday learning all about aviation over the last century.

Spencer thought this was the coolest place ever. He kept running from airplane to airplane saying, "Let's go find more airplanes!"
I thought it was incredible how quickly the airplane advanced. The first flight was in 1903 and only lasted 12 seconds. By 1914, the start of WW1, the airplane completely transformed the face of modern warfare.
Brant and Spencer in an F-4 Phantom. They could have spent all day playing with all of the instruments in the cockpit.
Spencer was in his element and seemed pretty confident sitting alone in an F-16 cockpit.

In the kitchen

Spencer loves to help us in the kitchen. As soon as he sees we're going to make something he pushes a chair into the kitchen and says, "I help you!" It's hard to resist that so we end up getting a lot of "help" from our little man.

Brant and Spencer are making bagels in this picture. There are few things better than Brant's fresh bagels dipped in honey.

In this picture Spencer just finished helping me make pumpkin bread (his very favorite treat). He made a nice mixture of salt and sugar and was very proud of himself.

Spencer is definitely my boy because he loves chocolate. Who needs to eat the whole donut? Just eat the chocolate frosting off of the top! I can always tell when he likes something because he is constantly saying, "yum, yum, yum" as he chews.

Sledding!

Columbus, Ohio has already had over 25 inches of snow this February alone. One more good storm (scheduled for this weekend) and it will be the snowiest February on record for our new hometown. I'm a warm weather kind of gal so this has been a hard month for me. Seeing how excited Brant and Spencer get when they play in the snow almost makes it worth it, though.

All bundled up.

As much as Spencer loves the snow, he's not a fan of putting his snow suit on. He usually only gets his binky at night, but putting the snow pants on was so traumatizing that we thought it would help. Once he found the goggles in the snow box he insisted on putting them on and also that Daddy put his on.

Having fun with Grandpa.

Christmas

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas at Brant's parent's house about an hour south of Columbus. Danille, Brant's sister, was also there so we had a lot of fun catching up with her. We sang Christmas songs and opened a present on Christmas Eve.

Spencer really caught onto the idea of opening presents this year. We discovered, though, that he can't open presents that contain cars until the very end. Books and pajamas pale in comparison to the matchbox cars he got from his cousins. :)

He did love the tent/tunnel he got from Grandma and Grandpa Christensen. He still plays with it everyday.

A few days after Christmas we went to the Columbus Zoo to see the Christmas lights. Every tree is covered with lights and it looks amazing. The only problem is that you have to go at night and it's FREEZING. We did find some exhibits inside. Our favorite was the aquarium. Spencer could literally spend hours looking at all of the fish swim by (so could I).

Brant took Spencer bowling on his day off. Needless to say, Spencer had a blast. Rolling a giant ball and trying to knock things down, it doesn't get much better than that.

Christmas bells are ringing!

It's really starting to feel like Christmas. Last night we picked out our tree at a lot run by the boy scouts. It's not the picture above, but the one below. After getting our tree we were driving around looking at Christmas lights and found a little Christmas fair going on. Spencer was so thrilled to see reindeer there. He knew what they were right away thanks to our collection of Christmas books that we've been reading lately. They had several ice sculptures and even someone making them in front of everyone. How exactly do you get into the profession of ice sculpting?
The houses here are gorgeous. The following is a picture of the fire station. Seriously, how many towns have a fire station that looks like this?
Spencer was so excited to go to the library to see Santa today. He kept saying, "Let's go see Santa!" I think he prefers Santa from a distance, though. This is a picture from the 2 seconds he was on Santa's lap. I hope he's not scarred for life.
Speaking of scarring children, maybe that's what we did when we woke Spence up at 4:45 AM last Friday so we could get some good deals. We just went to Target (well, and Old Navy since we were already up) because Brant's Christmas present was there at a great deal (a GPS). Even though it may have looked like child abuse, Spencer actually had a really fun time. Here are my boys putting shoes on so they're ready to shop!
Here's Spencer playing at Old Navy. He looks pretty happy, doesn't he?

Fall in Columbus

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween! I think it's Spencer's new favorite holiday. He was so excited to be "punkin boy" for Halloween. He really caught on to trick-or-treating and now whenever he wants a treat he'll come up to me and say, "trick-or-treat!" Sometimes it works because it's so cute.

He was so excited for real trick-or-treating (after having a practice run at the church's trunk-or-treat).
We picked our pumpkins at a pumpkin patch this year. The tractor ride was pretty cool. There was also a corn maze. We just followed Spencer and he made it through the first try, without getting lost.
Our three pumpkins.We also did a little hiking in Hocking Hills (about 2 hours south of Columbus). It was beautiful. Actually, fall in general is gorgeous in Ohio. I've never seen so many colors and the weather has been perfect almost every day.

Spencer's 2!

Spencer turned 2 last Tuesday! He is such a fun and adorable little toddler. He loves to laugh and is almost always happy. He's especially happy when cake and ice cream are involved.

I made this cupcake cake from a kit that my sister, Amie, got for me. It's got different cupcake forms that go together like a puzzle. I could have made a fish or a turtle, but thought the bear with balloons fit Spencer the best.

Spencer got cars (thanks Emily and Brian!), a book and cd (thanks Pam and Rich!), and a train set (thanks Mom and Dad!) for his birthday. He loves cars, books, music, and trains so he was a happy camper. He could have stayed up all night playing.

On Spencer's birthday I took him to see "Up!" at the dollar movies while Brant was at work. He loved sitting in his booster chair, eating popcorn, and watching the movie. Happy birthday, Spencer!

In other news, we are now the proud owners of... a minivan! We were looking for a little sedan for Brant to drive to work and came across this baby. It was a great price and why wait until you have 5 kids to buy one? Brant drives our Camry to work and I get to drive this around. I love all the space. Now I can fit a stroller AND groceries in the trunk!