September

Here is a quick snapshot of what we did in the month of September. We had beautiful weather all month!


We gave Seda food for the first time. I think the first thing we tried was avocados. As I write this in September, she's tried avocados, sweet potatoes, rice cereal, applesauce, pears, and a few commercial baby foods. She doesn't eat a whole lot, but does like to play with her spoon while we eat dinner. She sits at the table with us in the high chair.

We did our last camping trip of the summer in early September. It was for my work picnic. We had the picnic at the Lake Linden campground pavillion, and then afterwards, a bunch of people, including us, stayed the night. It wasn't exactly a wilderness experience - we were the only tenters in what is basically an RV park - but it was fun anyway. Willow had a great time going around and around the little paved road on her bike with my coworker Dave's three boys. Here's Josh and Seda sitting around the campfire.

Teeth! Seda got her first two (the bottom front) teeth in September. The teething hasn't bothered her much, but she does drool a lot. Here she is with one of her favorite teething toys. I haven't had much luck trying to get a photo of the teeth, but they're darn cute.

One Sunday, we took a hike to our secret apple tree with my coworker Mariah and her husband Jerod and baby daughter Mayona. Here are me and Willow up in the tree knocking down apples. The tree caused some strife because Willow wanted to climb it the entire time, but we didn't really trust her to do it by herself quite yet, and we also wanted to chill on the grass and eat our picnic and drink beer rather than be constantly up the tree with her. The girl loves to climb...next year we have got to get her a monkeybar or something for our yard.

Here is Seda with her new friend, Mayona. Mayona was born August 22, so I guess in this photo she is about a month old or maybe even less - I can't remember the exact date we did this hike.

One night, Willow and I had a girls night out and went to the Calumet Theatre for "Seussical the Musical". It was a good show and Willow stayed entertained for the most part. I didn't get any pictures of us at the show, but here we are on the way out the door. We both wore our black tights and red ponchos. :)

One more thing, for the record: Seda had her 6-month appointment in September. She was 14 pounds, 4 ounces, which is the 11th percentile, and 25 inches long, which is the 9th percentile. Looking back at Willow's stats, it seems like Willow was about the same! So maybe Willow's small size wasn't so much related to her prematurity but more that we just have small children. :)

August

August was a fun month. I think. It's November now and I don't remember a whole lot. Hey, just trying to be honest. At least I am making an effort, however lame it may be, to document this year!

We didn't do a ton of hikes this summer. But this one that we did - it was up in Keweenaw County and ended up at the mouth of the Gratiot River, on the other side of the river from where you can get to by driving and where we have camped before -  was a new one we hadn't done before. It wasn't one from the book so we couldn't check any off that new-decade resolution we made, but it was a good one anyway. I read about it in a letter to the editor someone had written to the paper. I think it was because they were trying to get people to donate to a fund to buy this land to preserve it or something. I am not sure if they succeeded or not; we hiked a ways down a sandy trail only to find it was blocked off and had "no trespassing" signs up. We hiked back a ways and took the other fork, and that one was OK too. The trail was longer than we expected. Willow got whiny and we had to carry her too. It ended, as I said, at the mouth of the Gratiot River, where it meets the Lake. We hung out on the beach awhile and Willow went swimming. We had to sort of rush to get back though, because we wanted to go to the Co-op member picnic at McLain's. All in all, it was a trail we would do again. We'll just be more prepared next time with a lunch, swimming stuff, and more time! Here we are on the trail.

Here's a random shot I thought turned out nice. Seda in the Vinka. We took similar ones of Willow when she was a baby.

A big event of every August is the county fair. This year, by chance we met up with Scott, Sharon, Aspen, Garrison and Jari there, which was fun. Willow did all the rides as enthusiastically as usual, and a bonus was that this year, she was tall enough to ride the dragon "roller coaster". But the highlight was riding a real pony. She is still very into horses, ponies, unicorns, pegasuses (pegasi?)...anything equine. We bought her a cowgirl hat at the fair too. This isn't the best photo, but it was the best one we got of her on the pony.

We made a quick weekend trip to Duluth in August too. Josh's cousin had a wedding reception there. Mark, Amy and Ava happened to be camping in Bayfield that same weekend, at the same campground we went to in June. So we met up with them and camped there Friday night on the way to the  reception, which was Saturday. It was a blast, and went too quickly. I wish we could've camped with them for a week. Willow and Ava had a great time playing on the beach, and even went out on Mark and Amy's boat with Josh and Mark. Here is an especially cute picture of the two of them. Ava is exactly 2 years younger than Willow.

This is Seda's first time on a playground swing. I love this photo. Needless to say, she loved it!