Biking

I've been trying and trying to carve out an hour of my life to update this blog, but it's just not happening...I don't foresee it happening in the next couple weeks either, so I decided a little bit is better than nothing. I'm doing a quick weekday morning before-work post.

We picked up a bike trailer for Willow (thanks, Beth!). So far we've only used it once, but I hope we have many more rides ahead of us.It was fun! We have a paved bike trail just a couple blocks from our house that goes along the canal.


















Then two weekends ago, Josh's friends Nick and Chris both came up to do the chain drive bike race. It's the one Josh and Chad did last year. Chris is missing from this photo, but here are the boys before their race: Marty, Josh, Chad and Nick.
















Josh was happy with his time for the 16-miler; he improved over last year's time by quite a bit.

Have a good Thursday!

ABCs

Hello,

We've actually had a very eventful weekend - Bridgefest, visitors, the Chain Drive bike race, we had a party last night...and I don't have time for a post right now, but I wanted to post something .

Here's Willow singing the ABCs. She actually can sing the whole song, but this is the best we could get her to do on camera. I was having issues with blogger uploading the video, so I tried something new - I uploaded it to youtube and put in a link.

click here to watch the video.

I'll post more soon!

2 corrected years

Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been so long between posts. Our weekends have been busy lately...although June is shaping up to be even busier! Josh is working long hours lately too - this is the busiest time for lawn irrigation.

There isn't much news anyway, but I have some photos to post. I'm hoping this computer holds up - lately, randomly, the space bar and the letters N and B stop working. Then later they start working again. It's hard to make much sense without those things. We really need a new computer soon - this one is ancient.

Willow turned 2 years old corrected on May 22. I wanted to update her age "ticker" at the top of this blog, because the little ticker thing was an infant. But they didn't have a "big kid" ticker option for the preemie version that shows both ages. So, I went back to a plain old age ticker. Which is probably good anyway. "They" say you're supposed to stop correcting at age 2 anyway and the kid should be "caught up". I'm not so sure I agree with that...at least not for physical milestones anyway. I'd rather compare Willow to the chart for her corrected age - at least then she is on the chart! :) Oh, the big kid ticker I ended up choosing was a little girl with a winter jacket throwing a snowball. It was either that or a fairy princess girl with a wand. It will be winter soon enough, I figure.

Spring has finally arrived here. Willow's been spending lots of time outside, with Linda and with us. We also got Linda a car seat, so she can go more places with Willow. I think they will both be happy to get out of the house a little more!

The first few photos are indoor photos, just hanging around the house.

I just thought this one was a nice smile. I think I was tickling her, actually.
















What she is doing a lot of the time: RUNNING! I thought this picture was funny because it pretty much sums up a 2-year-old. When she runs she lets you know...by yelling, "RUNNING!" while she runs. She also points to runners when we're out in the stroller and says "RUNNING!".

















Perusing Time magazine:















Little beggar girl:
















In her robe with a barrette in her hair.



















The rest of the photos are outdoor photos. We love playing outside!

For Mother's Day, we went out to McLain's park. We were about the only ones there. Willow was running around like a...well, like a toddler. Getting into everything. Here she is heading down to the beach, and on the beach throwing rocks for Scouty. (Happy birthday to Scouty, too, who just turned 9!)


















Willow definitely loves living near the water. One of our stroller routes is down on the bike path along the canal. She loves it so much that as we're leaving the driveway in the sroller, if I turn the direction away from the canal, she points towards the water and goes "that way!". If I keep going in the "wrong" direction she puts up a fuss. "that way, that way!". She gets over it, but then every time we pass a cross street where she can see the water, it's the same thing, pointing and shouting "that way! and "wala!" (her word for "water"). I like to walk by the water too, so I do it as much as I can. When I do turn that way, she cheers.

With dad and her favorite new toy - the sandbox! Grandpa made it for her. I don't think I ever mentioned in this blog that my dad recently retired - congratulations Dad! Linda assigned him the sandbox project, and he had it done in no time. The sand is from the beach on Big Traverse where we got married. When I got home the day it arrived, I asked Willow, "what did Grandpa bring you?" She said, "dirt". Ha.
















In the yard, chasing Daria. There haven't been many sundress days. This was one random hot afternoon. (Andi, you might recognize the dress!)
















Smelling the tulips.
















Willow loves to explore in the vinka (sp?). I like that we sort of have a little forest right in our yard. When I was a little kid, my friend Susie and I played every day in this forest in our neighborhood. It was a vast forest, dark and dense, with miles of trails. When I went back to it as an adult, it was just a little square of trees. But it seemed so huge to us back then. Maybe Willow will feel that way about our yard.



















I'll end today with a quote I found in a magazine at work, by no other than teen pop star Justin Bieber. You might have to click on it to make it bigger to read it.

Who knew the kid had so much wisdom? :)

The circus

Willow and I went to the circus yesterday. I am sort of opposed to circuses but I thought it would be worth it to let Willow see an elephant in real life. It was pretty fun! We sat in the seats and for the most part she watched the show. At a few points she got really excited about something and would point and scream/laugh. At halftime, they opened up the floor, and you could pay extra to do various things like ride the elephant, ride the camel, get your picture taken with a snake, etc. Obviously I should've anticipated there would be stuff like this, but I didn't, and had no cash on me! Bad move. Luckily, I think Willow is still little enough that she didn't really mind. At least we got to get up close to the animals. She did really want a balloon and said "Boon, Willow", a few times. Man, did I feel like a bad mom. I will not make the same mistake if we go next year. The one thing that was free was talking to the clowns, so we did that, and they stamped Willow's hands with a smiley face stamp, which was pretty exciting for her. After halftime the show was getting a little long and Willow had the wiggles and was hungry so we left a little early to beat the traffic jam. Here are a couple photos.






















The other news of this week is that we have new stats for Willow - she had a doctor's checkup on Wednesday. She is now 21 pounds and 31.5 inches tall. She's still following her curve for weight, which is below the charts for her real age and at about the 7th percentile for her corrected age. I even looked in my preemie book at the growth chart for "premature girls who weighed less than 1500 grams at birth". On that chart she is at about the 10th percentile. For height she gained some ground, and is nearing the 5th percentile line for her real age. Woo hoo! Anyway, the doctor said she is doing great and we are no longer concerned about her size. She's just a small kid.

Pretty soon she'll fit into mama's shoes. :)

Easter

Hello,

On Easter we went out to my parents' camp, where my mom had and easter egg "hunt" for Willow. I think she is just the right age for this - she really loved it. After she found all the eggs, we'd distract her, take a big handful of eggs out of her basket, and go hide them again in a different part of the yard so she could keep going. I think she would've hunted eggs all day if we let her. It was a pretty nice day out there, even next to the lake. Nice days have been rare this spring, so that was lucky. Here is a photo and a video of Willow on her egg hunt.





She got an Easter basket from Grandma too.




















Licking the beaters from the whipped cream. We had strawberry shortcake.















On her chair at camp.















At home, hugging Elmo and Da.




















Last night, with baby Margot. Willow really loves Margot, and talks about her all the time. We often get together with Ruth and Chad on Friday nights, and yesterday morning, I said, "Willow, it's Friday!" and she said "Margot". I don't know how she knew!















Giving her a snuggle.















And finally, I had to include this photo - I think it is awesome. These were my shades when I was little. Doesn't she look hip?

Spring!...and winter again

Hi,

This may be another pretty boring post; not much has happened. We did finally get some spring weather a couple weeks ago. Finally all the snow was gone from the yard (and dog poop, thanks to Josh's efforts), and we were out enjoying every minute of it that we could! Willow is so much more independent than last spring, scampering around the yard. It's going to be such a fun summer!






















Then this weekend, winter came back with a vengeance. Can you believe this picture was taken April 17? What a drag.
















Last weekend Willow had Maisa over to play.
















They had a good time. One highlight of the visit was when Maisa went pee in Willow's potty. Willow's been talking about it ever since. She calls Maisa "sa-sa", and every time Willow goes to sit on the potty (which she calls the "boopa"), she points at it and says "sa-sa", then we talk about how Maisa went on the potty and how Willow could maybe do it too. She still loves to sit on the potty and read her books. But she'd prefer not to actually pee in the potty - I guess she'd still rather go in her diaper. Oh well. At least she likes the potty. When she is ready to potty train, she is going to have the coolest undies ever, which I have to show off here because this is literally the craftiest thing I've done since before Willow was born. I couldn't find undies locally that I liked for her, so I ordered some white training pants online and then got some Elmo iron-ons and put them on the underwear. Check it out:















Speaking of big girl stuff, this is pretty exciting: as I type this, Willow is taking a nap for the very first time in her big-girl bed. Just this morning we finally brought it into our bedroom and removed the crib. Of course we haven't used the crib for anything other than a blanket storage unit for several months, but it was still there and taking up all the room where a big-girl bed could go. I'm not sure how this will go at night, but it's exciting that it's even there. I love sleeping with Willow, but I also would really like to have our bed back....yes, I have very mixed feelings about cosleeping. If we ever have another kid, I am not sure if we will do it or not.

(don't mind our bare bed - the sheets are being washed right now)















One little funny thing I want to get down for the record before it ends: Willow loves her little cookie monster and big bird figurines. She calls cookie monster "cookie", and she calls big bird "Habeeb". Yes, Habeeb. Sounds sort of arab or something. I don't know where that came from but it is pretty funny.

Here's a final photo for you. Willow with her artificial nails. Seth was her manicurist. Ha.

Random photos

Hello,

I haven't been very good at taking pictures lately - I have a bunch of random ones to share today, and also a couple videos.

First I wanted to post this picture from Willow's birthday in Puerto Rico. After my last post we got a lot more pictures from Janna, who has a really nice camera too. I already did the Puerto Rico post, but I did want to show you this one photo of the birthday girl with Grandpa and Auntie Jill, who were turning 60. Pretty cute.
















I go to a monthly meeting called KNAP (that's Keweenaw Natural and Attachment Parenting). Willow always comes, and last month Josh came too. It's a great group of parents and kids, and the meetings are pot luck, so there is always tons of good food. We hold them in a church basement. Anyway, Here's a shot of Willow with her friend Penelope. We've known Penelope for a long time; she used to come to La Leche League, she goes to KNAP, and now she also just joined Willow's music class. I think her and Willow sort of look alike. They're the same size with the same hairdo, anyway, though Penelope is a few months younger.















A couple weekends ago we took Willow to a concert. It was during the day on Sunday, so we were excited to go see some live music that wasn't too late at night to bring Willow. It was a really good time, and there were some other kids there too. Here's Willow dancing with some other girls. She was the littlest, and the bigger girls were competing to be the one to "take care of" Willow. It was pretty funny.
















Josh and I went out to Mont Riply for their "slush pit" end-of season day. They have a contest to see who can do the best splash into the slush pit. A lot of people skim across the water and make no splash at all, but Josh went all-out with a costume and everything. I'm not very good at taking video so you almost miss the crotch grab he performed during his spread eagle. I thought he should've won, but apparently some other guy did a backflip. Oh well. It was a great day of spring skiing, nice and warm and sunny with soft snow.



The rest of the photos are just basically our everyday life around the house. Winter is dragging on, and I have to say that I will be very happy when we can get out of the house a little more Here's Willow playing with some of her little figurines. Most of them were mine when I was a kid. (Notice those 80s staples of a care bear, a fraggle, and even Starlight, Rainbow Brite's horse). She loves playing with them.















Linda and Willow have made a couple different houses for all the figurines. Here's one of them. It has a cookie store and a music hall. Willow is lucky to have such a creative nanny!



















Coloring at her little table. Look at that wild hair! It looks like that often. It seems like it is turning out pretty frizzy and wild, unlike most babies' fine hair.















Lounging with a good magazine:















Here's Willow with her two best friends, Elmo and "Da". I've mentioned before how much she loves Elmo, but in the past few weeks, Elmo and Da have become buddies. Da is called that because she's a cat, and since our cat's name is Daria, Willow calls all cats "Da". Anyway, as I said they're best buds, and sometimes they even kiss. ;)















Seth was over one Saturday to brew some beer with Josh:

















Here's Willow smelling the beer. Don't worry, smelling is as close as she will get to it!















Willow is becoming quite the talker, and has several 2- and 3-word sentences. She is also learning to count and counts to three easily...Linda says she does to four though we've never heard it. Here's a little video of her counting.