Catching up with Santa

Hi everyone! I am trying to catch up on the family blog. Here is a photo of Jens with Santa and as you can see he has really grown in the last six months since I posted pictures of his birthday. Jens is walking, talking, and telling everyone what to do. He did really well visiting Santa with his cousin Kaleigh.

In addition to time with Santa, we headed off to Arkansas for Christmas with Robyn's family. The 27th of December was Sigrid Hinchliffe's (Robyn's grandmother) 90th birthday! All the aunts and uncles were present for the holiday and everyone had a great time. Jens helped open everyone's gifts and even a month later when some new toy shows up in the house, Jens says: "Oh Santa brought me another present!"

I learned to laugh and crawl, then sit and stand. Now I can walk if you hold my hand. But the fun has just begun. Look out, I’m turning two.

Hard to believe that our little Jens has turned two! We had a fun party at the local park & it was a beautiful day for a party.

Jens enjoyed himself and has started to catch on to the fact that it was his birthday.

Via La Mexico!

For those who haven't heard Robyn and Jason got away on a little romantic vacation to Mexico for Valentine's day. We went to Cabo San Lucas for 5 days and left Jens at home. Memphis, the dog was a really great babysitter too. Just kidding, Robyn's mother Sue (aka Nini) came and spent 5 days with Jens and the two of them had a fabulous time (much to our surprise), but we knew Nini could handle that high maintenance little boy.

So, we ran away to Cabo and had a great time sunning (and burning) ourselves on the beach. We had a decent view of the ocean from our room and enjoyed the all inclusive resort where we stayed. It was really nice to get out and spend some time in the sun, since we see so little of it here in Portland in winter.

Moments of Childhood

Ok, I got some cute photos the other day of Jens. In Jason's childhood, red hat with a little bunny on it and Jens was really freaking cute. Nana Betty saved all these things from Jason's childhood and now Jens gets to run around looking cute in them.

Jens is still busy trying to terrorize the world, wait I mean to say he is very curious and experiments with everything. No, I change my mind, he's a terror! But appears to be an intelligent little terror.

The Toilet Crusades

Yes people, that's right my boy is a toddler. A monster that can run, run away and say no! arghh. So here is today's question, what can a toddler use a toilet for? Potty training? No that would be way too obvious.

In case you haven't seen our house we have 5 toilets, yes people 5! Four and half baths in the house, they are tiny but we have five a dream come true. But 5 toilets means 5 different opportunities for Jens to cause trouble. Since 3 of the toilets are in "music studio space" that is 3 opportunities for students to leave doors open and for Jens to conduct science experiments.

This morning, my bathroom door did not shut all the way and I found that Jens had unraveled a roll of toilet paper into the toilet, pulled it back out and swirled it all around the toilet and bathroom floor and all of this in less than 10 minutes of being "unattended." He had also managed to reach 3 containers on the bathroom counter full of my jewelry and make-up that he could not reach last week, of course that was dumped on top of the wet toilet paper.

Then I tried to squeeze in that morning shower that I didn't get before daddy left for work. Well Jens likes to play peek-a-boo while I shower. Because I was in the walk in shower, Jens could easily walk in and out while I showered. Now once again in less than five minutes the shower curtain begins to ripple. Low and behold he has pushed the entire bathroom trash can into the shower while I am showering!

So at this point in my story it is only 8:15am, the day hasn't even started. So I must ask my audience is anyone else out there even remotely exhausted by the mere concept of this "busy boy." If you have any energy left....read on the day only gets better!!!

Thank God there was music class, lunch, and a 3 hour nap today. Then when mommy has to teach piano and the babysitter doesn't show up - Jens figured out he can use the toilet for entertainment! Today he proceeded to take his veggie snack chips and dump the entire zip lock bag of chips in the toilet and swish them around and then just for giggles eat a few before mommy figured out their was an odd silence in the room. And you know if the room is quiet the kid is up to no good!

So if that wasn't enough Jens proceeded to get a case of toilet paper from Costco open and start dropping entire rolls of toilet paper into the toilet. In case you have not tried it they float really well, but can no longer be used for the original purpose that toilet paper was intended.

So that was pretty much our toilet day and no I didn't take pictures, I didn't want to encourage Jens to continue any of this! But the good news is Robyn's mother comes for a week starting tomorrow and she can save me from my own child! That and Jason and I will be on vacation for a few days (God Bless my mother for flying in to give me a break!)

Last month, Jens decided that the sea shells on display on the back of the toilet go into the toilet bowl really well. They make this great gurgling sound as they drop down.

Jens is a Busy, Busy Boy

Jens is now 18 months old! A year and a half! It's hard to believe my difficult little colic, clingy boy has grown up into a smiling, talking, opinionate little twit (hee hee hee I'm not kidding people). Jens now likes to have "tea" with mommy, notice in the picture with the blueberry covered fact that he has a ceramic espresso mug, being used as his tea cup, with a home brew of chamomile tea, because this baby does not need any help in the wired department.

We made it for a good thirty minutes one afternoon pouring tea back and forth between the espresso mugs and the tea pot before Jens threw the mug and broke it into a million pieces. Of course that was followed by Jens saying "uh oh" ass soon as the mug hit the tile.

Jens has a favorite new toy is a firehouse from his grandmother Betty. He has discovered he can almost stick his head through the firehouse doors as he pushes the door open and ells "Peek a boo". He still enjoys being taken for a ride around the house in one of his many push toys.

Christmas in MinneSNOW-ta

Well this year we headed off to Minnesota and they too had snow on the ground, but it was much colder than Portland. The highs were a balmy 15 degrees. So enjoy some pictures of Jens at Christmas. We took a little trip to the children's museum (Jens loved that!) and we had a great time with Jason's family. If you look at one of the pictures, Jens was pushing a pink stroller - it belonged to his cousin Lily. Jens would not give that stroller up, he thought it was great.

SNOW in Portland!

Wow we had snow before Christmas this year. It snowed and snowed and then snowed some more. Jens really wasn't sure about the snow - he had a very hard time walking and kept falling over. Memphis the dog really enjoyed herself through.

Music Class

It has been a while since my last post, time has just gotten away from me (imagine that). Here are some photos of Jens and his new little friends from music class. I added a baby music class to the Studio this fall and it is a lot of fun. We sing lots of songs and dance around, Jens really likes it. Last month he was going around and around in a circle and he said "I'm Dancing" it was pretty cute. His favorite activity is playing peek-a-boo with the scarves.

Fall is here

It's hard to believe that we are already in November! I am trying to decide where my September and October went. Jens has been very busy. He walks, he talks, he is opinionated and a royal pain in the rear J For anyone who knows our drama, Jens is still not a good sleeper.his average wake time 5 am if we are having a good night, the bad nights are awake for 2 hours or more starting around 2-3 am. I signed up for a baby, but at 2 am when all my friends with babies are sleeping this is what I know I didn't sign up for! But as my newest parenting slogan goes "it is what it is"

Despite that Jens is charming, oh the charm! The cute is the only thing that saves him most days. He say "hi" hi-ya" "hey there" and several other words, his favorite is "kitty cat" Jens has been feeding himself and is very insistent on eating all by himself and let me just tell you it's a mess! I spend more time soaking, bleaching, and praying the stains come out – but he's a happy child.

Grandma Betty came to town and we had a nice visit to the "Pumpkin Patch" really we walked down to the local nursery and took photos. We went to a pumpkin patch the weekend before, but Jens melted down before we could get any photos with pumpkins, but there are nice photos with sunflowers.

Enjoy the fall! The Oregon rains started this weekend at cyclocross, I will post some mud photos!

Visit to Arkansas

Well we had quite the adventure to go visit Robyn's parents in Arkansas in early August. Robyn discovered the joy of 6 hours of flying with an almost 1 year old all by her self - lucky, lucky, mommy! Not really - sweet Jens picked flight day as his day to skip all his naps, we flew stand-by on Northwest airlines and there was only one seat left on the plane out of Portland so Robyn and Jens went and Jason tried 2 more flights and finally got out the second day. We had a great time visiting.

Jens got to see his grandparents, his Uncle CJ, and his great grandmother! Jens had about 3 baths every day, by the time he was done feeding himself in the high chair, crawling in all the dirt outside, and be viciously licked by puppy dogs! He also the cats were great, especially the yellow and white cat Merlin, who is in the photo. Jens was very busy discovering his new territory at the Robyn's parents and even found that he could perfectly fit in the dog's water dish (oh that was real exciting). Also the great joy in Jens' eyes when he found the over sized frying pan and how well he could fit into it, the week was a lot of fun at laughing with Jens as he discovered new things to do with his time

Birthday Party!

Can you believe it - Jens is already one! So we celebrated with a small party in his honor - he was only there an hour before nap time, but none the less we had a great time. Jens got to have some actually birthday cake - yes just a small bite - mom let him smear frosting all over his face that was his favorite part. Jens had a party on Saturday and on his actual birthday - cousin Kaleigh and Aunt Janice came over with another cupcake for him and to sing to him.

Swimming lessons

Jens has been doing daily "swimming lessons" with mommy at the local pool. We are officially an "angelfish" and Jens is doing really well - he is getting used to the water and will kick around a little bit and float on his tummy. Most of the time he just really enjoys watching all the big kids goes down the slide, but he does love floating around and splashing. Daddy even got to take Jens out for some pool time too.

Fourth of July Fun

Oh My Gosh! It is July 18th and I haven’t done a teampfeifer update in forever! I have been updating the photos on Flicker, but not adding them into the main body of the blog. Well the whole family has been busy trying to survive summer. I think it is the usual problem we all face – how to fit everything into a 24 hour day. Well let me just say – Jens manages to fit it all into a 24 hour day, usually by waking at 3:30 am every morning – yes people my child still wakes up way to freaking early! I haven’t even bothered to take a photo of it, because there is no sense in pretending to be happy at 4 am in the morning!

But anyways, onto the Fourth of July – since Jason had the day off of work, we went to the swimming pool with Kaleigh and Janice – as you can see by the picture – Jens loved the pool. We have been taking lessons for the last 3 weeks. Really we just pay some sweet college girl to sit in the pool and look bored while we “work on our skills” - but it is just about having fun and getting Jens used to the water.

Also if you look at the photos –you can see Jason’s farmer’s tan on his arm from his entire bicycle riding J

After going to the pool, we went to a Fourth of July party at some friends house – Jens wanted to play in the pool, so Jason helped him out with some dunking, which Jens thought was hilarious! Also Jens got to try and hit the piñata that they have for the kids every year.