Thursday, August 30, 2007

Growing Fast!

Julia (and parents) are excited to see how grown up Finn is becoming. He is now able to play in Julia's old Exersaucer and really enjoys himself! He spins around in the chair and tries to play with the little toys. Very fun!


Julia and Finn both had their check-ups at the doctor yesterday. Happily, they are both continuing to grow as healthy children. Julia was excited to be part of the main focus again at a doctor's appointment. For the past year, she has been observing Mom at appointments to check on the progress of the pregnancy, then observing Finn get poked and prodded at his appointments. Julia has learned how to be a very well-mannered patient!

I'm sure that you're just dying to hear their stats! Here they are:

Julia surprised us with measurements of 39 1/2 pounds and 39 1/2 inches! That's an increase of 4 1/2 pounds and 3 3/4 inches over the course of one year. She continues to hold her status in the 97th and 95th percentiles!

Finn weighed in at an impressive 13 pounds 12 ounces and 25 inches! Over the past 2 months, he grew 1 1/2 pounds and 1 inch. That's a lot of growing! Interestingly, when Finn was born he was above the 95th percentile on the charts; however, his weight and height are now in the 30th and 50th percentiles respectively. Maybe his body misses all of the extra nutrition from inside Mom's belly and it's difficult to keep up with such a hefty stature in the outside world?!

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Picnic

Yesterday we decided to take a walk to the UWRF campus and have a picnic. In a few days students would start returning, but for now, the place was pretty dead. We walked along some of the trails behind campus that cross over the South Fork of the Kinnickinnic River.
We ended up eating at some picnic tables outside of the new University Center. Afterwards, the kids wanted to look around a bit.

Finally, here's a video that Mandy shot of Finn jumping from one picnic table to another.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Birthday Girl!

This past Sunday, Julia turned 3 years old! We traveled to Wisconsin Rapids on Friday and had a party at Mandy's parents' house on Saturday. To keep the numbers down, we just had our parents, siblings, and grandparents over to the house. Julia has been talking about her birthday for many months and so she had plenty of time to make plans. And the plans were as follows: it would be a princess party, with pizza for the meal, and cupcakes for dessert. Oh, and the word "pink" was uttered a lot too.

So when the time came, Julia donned her princess dress, complete with crown and princess wand, and handed out princess necklaces to everyone as they arrived. Along with the necklace, everyone also received a princess blessing (To the unaware, a princess blessing consists of Julia shaking her wand and then lightly touching it to your forehead). To facilitate different tastes and to make it more fun, a little pizza bar was set up. Everyone could choose their toppings to put onto English muffin halves which were then baked for a few minutes. Ever the non-picky eater, Julia's consisted of olives, mushrooms, pepperoni, and cheese. The pink cupcakes for dessert were topped with pink frosting and fairy dust (clear sprinkles). But before we all had the cupcakes, Julia opened the preposterously plentiful pile of princess presents.
Julia did a great job on the presents, even with everyone watching her. Her new princess backpack will come in handy when she starts preschool this Fall. I spent some time over the past few months getting a special present ready for Julia. I commissioned an artist to create a digital image based on photos of Julia, her princess dress (including crown and wand), and her stuffed pal Teddy Bunny. I then got the art framed for her to hang in her room. Below is a picture of her after she opened it and then a picture of the original artwork. It was a really good weekend. Even the three hour drive wasn't bad - Finn actually slept a lot of it this time.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Let's get started with what people really want...

NOTE: Click on any of the pictures to open a new window with the full sized image.

Julia loves choosing and cooking recipes from her Sesame Street cookbook.

Even though they're small and few in number, she's always proud to see the bounty of vegetables from our little potted garden.

A family shot while in the butterfly garden at the Minnesota Zoo.

Julia likes Finn, but Finn really likes Julia. He'll stop fussing to listen to her sing and his eyes will follow her all around the room. Even though these pictures are posed, they're still pretty darn cute.

And sometimes Finn can occupy himself...even if it is with a finger in his mouth.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Welcome!

First, to anyone who has visited our previous familial internet enclave, let me explain. UWRF is planning on taking away the ability to use PHP on their users' personal webpages. I started using PHP to help make the process of creating a new page easier and faster while also being able to use some nifty tricks to make the site...well, niftier. I really don't want to go back to static HTML and so instead tried thinking of alternatives. We didn't really want to pay to have the PHP site hosted somewhere else, so we thought a nice free blog like this would do the trick. In some ways it'll be even better. We can post a few new pictures every week and update with some simple info or fun things that the kids (and us) are doing. The info will be more informative and much more up to date.

One nice thing about this setup is that the comments will be commenting directly on what is said. So, unlike a generic guest book, there can actually be somewhat of a conversation going on. So...by all means click the comment link and give it a try!