Parker's First Birthday

Although Parker doesn't turn 1 until March 22nd, we celebrated his birthday with family this past weekend. Both Grandparents, cousins Kylie and Wyatt, Uncle Dana and Lori all attended a Saturday party honoring the birthday boy. The little prince enjoyed eating his first cupcake (he liked the cake, not the frosting), pulling on his balloons and smiling for the camera. There was definately a John Deere theme to the day as Parker got toys, a wagon and a riding vehicle all associated with the brand. Parker also got some little people to add to his Fisher Price collection, a truck, a T-Rex, the before opened Nebraska chair and a little airplane rocker that came 2 days too late. I think the little man made out just fine. Happy Birthday Parker!!

Two little hams

Whenever we get the camera out and ready, Madison says, "Cheese" and Parker just begins to smile. Neither one is camera shy. Also, today Madison's teacher said Madison sang the whole song, BINGO, and included the clapping at each point. Her teacher mentioned that later during circle time they sang Bingo again. Madison was the only one that got all of the clapping correct. She loves to sing and dance. She tells us, "My name is Madison and I like to dance."

So proud of Parker

This morning, Parker was playing with his Fisher Price shape sorter. He took and lifted the full container of shapes and dumped them all out on the floor. Then one by one he placed each shape in the container. He did this six times in a row. Then he was playing with his Elmo blocks and stack four of them on top of each other (built a tower) knocked it over and repeated the exercise. He was so proud of himself. Great job Parker! (Sorry no picture of this yet, just some random playing)

At super last night, he figured out he could turn around in his highchair. Yes, our little charmer..a.k.a troublemaker.

Playing catch-up

It's been a busy week for us. On Saturday, we took the kiddos to Target for the Dr.Seuss story time. We enjoyed this event last year. On our way to Target, we asked Madison where we were going, she stated, "Target to get cookies." When we arrived at Target the area where they had the Dr. Seuss story time was completely full. Madison made herself at home by walking around the crowd and grabbed a place underneath a table to read books on her own. Parker just listened.

Tuesday evening around 6:00pm before dinner, Madison was screaming like she was in pain. After talking to her for a while, I determined she was constipated. Little did I realize she would cry in pain as nothing would happen, Darin and I held her, rubbed her feet and back, tried to massage her tummy. After about 2.5 hours we decided to take Madison to Children's Mercy. Darin took her in and they administered enema. No luck, no movement. Dr. mentioned to provide her with a stool softener with her water, limit milk and bananas. Darin and Madison arrived home at 11:00pm of course Madison was really hungry. We sat down at the dinner table and I heard quite the "explosion." Madison turned her head towards me and smiled. Yes, there was success. The next day I took the kids to school, the entire drive Madison stated, "Mommy I am so better."

Fun weekend

My parents made a surprise visit to see us this weekend. Darin and I had a date night Saturday by going to En Chamas (Brazilian grill). We had a wonderful time together. Mom and Dad took care of the kiddos and enjoyed "spoiling" them. Here are some pictures of the weekend.

Some funny little stories

Over the past few weeks Madison's stories and imagination continue to grow. Here are some things we've overheard or she has shared with us:

- Madison was walking with her sippy cup of water and lost her balance. Her sippy cup hit her lip and she said, "No thank you water, I don't like that."

- On a recent trip to Vancouver, Darin brought back a stuffed animal- moose for Madison. When he gave it to her she said, "Oh thank you daddy (pause) I love it."

- Reading books with Madison and I asked her if she was a monkey, she said, "No I'm a princess." Then I said are you an owl, she said, "No I am a big girl."

- Getting ready for bed, Madison says, "Parker's sleeping, Daddy's sleeping, Mommy is going to rock Mady, and Mady will rock and sleep later.

- We went to the Crown Center and for lunch we ate at Streetcar. While eating Madison said at the top of her lungs, "I speak Spanish. I speak Spanish." Then see began to sing Dora the Explorer and count to 20 in Spanish.

- Madison received a recordable storybook from Grandma, when she opened it and heard Grandma's voice, she flipped each page slowly. After the story was over, she said, "The End. Thank you Grandma."

Happy Valetine's Day!

Well it's a belated Happy Valentine's Day! The kiddos had a great day at school. Madison's class celebrated by passing out Valentine cards to friends. Then they had a snack

which included one large cupcake, one small cupcake and one cookie. Oh yes, it was a sugar high Monday night! Parker's class made handmade cards with their handprints. It was a fun day for both. Hope you had a wonderful day!

Some news on the job front

The last couple weeks I’ve been working on transitioning my new responsibilities. I have had responsibilities for Business Unit Management of ITWorks and managing our Tier One Client and Associate Help Desks. The Business Unit (BU) Management consisted of pricing and packaging, sales and contract support, operations analysis, planning, forecasting, new business development and the overall BU profitability. The Tier One HD’s supported our clients (Hospitals) and also Cerner associates and I had a large team answering the phones and managing the day to day operations.

My role and responsibilities are changing with some restructuring. I will no longer be the executive over the Help Desks. That is moving to another team. I will continue all my BU responsibilities for ITWorks and will add these same responsibilities for Cerner’s Hosting, Application Management, Upgrade Center and Global Managed Services divisions. We are in the process of consolidating teams, learning more about these businesses and creating common reporting. It will be a big change, but also an exciting challenge. This will more than double my responsibilities and influence at Cerner. We will be determining the future direction of a large portion of Cerner’s business. There is a lot of responsibility with this new roll and I look forward to working with the new members of my team.

Latest Storm Pictures

Thought we'd share some of our latest snowstorm pictures. The first is my first pass in cleaning our driveway. Yes, it is a straight line in my world. Then we have on of a snow drift in our back yard. The last two are pictures of me cleaning the streets. Yes, you read that correctly. Two days after the snow and the city still hadn't cleaned the streets. So I cleaned a path for Jen to get out to a more travelled road. The pictures were taken by our neighbors who found it amusing that I was clean the street.

New Pictures

Some recent pictures for everyone to enjoy. The first is Parker learning to stand. He's been able to hold himself up for a few minutes each time. This weekend he even went an entire 10 minutes before falling. He's also learned to sit up. We are getting closer to a walker every week. He is very proud of himself when he does things like his sister or eats food off our plate.



The second is Madison showing Jen how to use the Ipad. Madison loves playing cut the rope, ant smasher, toddler quiz, the Wheels on the Bus game, Tozzle and playing on YouTube. Madison has learned not only how to play the games, but how to advance several of them or start over. I was most impressed on Sunday night playing the toddler quiz with Madison. Four flash cards popped up on the screen and Madison was suppose to pick out the Turnip. She pointed to the Banana and said Banana. She did the same to the apple and corn. She then pushed the Turnip to answer. Well done Madison.




Picture number three is Madison when she doesn't want to do something. The bigger the lip, the bigger the problem.





The final picture is Parker at school sitting at their table

drinking some water. He's growing up faster than Jen wants...