Convo with Ellie

Little Miss Ellie is keeping us on our toes these days.... has been for some time, to be honest.
She's helping me write this post, actually

Mom: What's your favorite thing to do these days?
Ellie: Umm, eat popcorn.
Mom: Who is your favorite friend at school?
Ellie: Jordan!!
Mom: Why?
Ellie: Because I like Jordan.
Mom: What is your favorite game to play?
Ellie: Barn game.
Mom: What's your favorite thing about our new house?
Ellie: We have a purple room!!

...But just today when we were pulling into the garage, Ellie said to me: "Mom, we have a cool yard."

Dad: What's your favorite color?
Ellie: Green ... and orange!
Dad: What's your favorite food?
Ellie: I like pa'sghetti!

Now she's tickling Katie mercilessly. Gotta go.

Katie: 16 months!

Our little Katie has had a busy month, making more progress with walking (but still being pretty lazy about it...), learning new words and cracking us up with her frequent laughter.
Her personality is coming out in full force these days, for good and for bad (when food is delayed or things are taken away from her...).

Got a short video this weekend to show off some of her latest tricks. Enjoy!

Baby farm animals

 
Even though Brian finished his "Ag" job last week, we still found occasion to go to a farm exhibit at Rockford's Discover Center museum this past weekend. They had a special interactive visit area with baby chicks, ducks, rabbits, goats, lambs and pigs. Cuteness overload.
They let the kids hold many of the animals, too, which Ellie and Katie both enjoyed. To be honest, I probably enjoyed it just as much as they did :)
I'd say there will be plenty of posts on here about Discovery Center fun in the coming months. It's a pretty amazing resource for the kids, with changing exhibits, interactive learning centers and (Ellie's favorite) a water play area. Too cool.
 

Stair master

Katie adores stairs these days and is happy to climb up and down for hours (if we'd let her). At least she's getting pretty good at it so we're not as worried about a tumble.

Changes...

I can't believe I've neglected the blog so much that I haven't even formally shared the biggest news in our little family since... well, since the arrival of Katie bear.
Though most of you already know this, I should make it "blog official" by saying that we're moving. Over the next few weeks our whole little Lafayette life will be packed in boxes and/or loaded on trucks bound for Rockford, Ill., which is my hometown and the location of 2 new jobs for me and Brian.
We are thrilled, of course, by the jobs we've tied our family's future to. But there are unknowns and the normal scary parts of setting off to a new place. We also have "knowns" in Rockford, like my mom and brother's family. Ellie is over the moon excited about being closer to her 7-year-old cousin, Mason. Overall we'll also be closer to cousins Jay & Alora in Nebraska, and we'll be closer to aunts and uncles. We're about the same distance to our St. Louis-area family, which isn't ideal... but we'll only have to travel half as many times for family visits, so we're looking forward to making the trip south more often.
The past month or so of prep has been exhausting, as we've made plans and said good-byes. But Brian and I are confident in the decision we've made and the course we've set for the family.
As I write this, I'm up in Rockford on the tail-end of my first day at the Rockford Register Star. It's somewhat unbelievable for me to be back in my hometown and awaiting the arrival of the rest of the family (almost for good) at the end of this week. (Brian still has some work to finish up in West Lafayette before coming here to start on the job May 6...) But while I'm nervous about many things in this transition, I'm confident that Brian and I made this decision together and we're excited about this plan for our family. No change is simple or easy, but this is where we will build the next phase of our lives together as a family. Look out, Rockford... we're ready to take this place by storm :)

Zoo opening

 Here are some shots from our opening day trip to the Columbian Park zoo. It wasn't as warm as we'd hoped... but we still had a good time seeing the animals who were out; Ellie had a good time engaging the emus (below) and the wallabies (not pictured...)

 We also go to see some 3-day-old baby goats! Ridiculously cute!! Love this zoo and can't explain how much we'll miss it :(

She walks!

More details, and hopefully video, to come... but wanted to share that Katie took her first wobbly step this morning! Yay!