Who Needs a Spell?

Certainly not Finn! At least not a spell to make people think he's cute - it's obvious that he is. In any case, here he is after he got into some of Julia's dress up outfits.
Finn also enjoys being an upside-down baby. The only bad thing about it is that sometimes he wants to do it and he doesn't properly inform us, i.e. he unexpectedly throws himself backwards while we're holding him.
This video is quite dark, but it's still funny. It shows Finn running around the kitchen with me chasing after him with the camera. Direct link here.

My kids are crude, I've raised them well. Here's Julia talking on the phone while doing her bathroom business.
Finally, to anyone who's interested - A few months ago I started a blog to use as a place for me to talk about the stuttering therapy that I've been doing for the past few years. Here it is: http://tblhabm.blogspot.com/

Easter, MoA, Dancing

Here's two pictures of Julia and Finn having fun doing an Easter egg hunt. They got to color eggs, but we hid plastic ones for fear of misplacing a real one and getting a stinky surprise a few days later. Finn did fine finding his first two eggs, one in each hand. It was beyond those initial two that gave him issues.

Jason and Tracie were visiting on Easter weekend. We took the short trip over to the Mall of America and spent part of the day there. Julia got a kick out of the park in the mall and she was really excited to see some characters that she knew.

Julia had her 2nd dance recital tonight. She did a really great job and had lots of fun. She was wearing bright pink with a crown she made herself.

Walking, Signing, and Housing

This really is supposed to be a multiple-times-a-month type thing...seriously.

Finn's been doing a lot of growing, learning, and exploring this past month. He's been walking for a number of weeks and each day that goes by he's getting better and faster at it. Now he's to the point where if Julia bumps him or grabs something from his hand, he takes it all in stride, literally.

Besides the walking, Finn also started to repeat his first sign back to us. For several months now, mainly at meals, we've been showing him some different sign language words. Then one day, he started doing "more" back to us when he was finished with his food! "More" was the first sign that Julia learned too. It's quite exciting because even that simple form of communication is the first true form of communication we've had with him - where it's very clear what he wants because he's using a word. The side effect is that we can't really turn down his requests for more food after we taught him how to do it.

Julia has been having some fun of her own. And it's not all just hanging out with her ultra cool dad.

We also took the kids to the Minnesota Children's Museum where Julia had a lot of fun seeing the Sesame Street exhibit. Here she is pretending to be a turtle.

This month was also a time of firsts for Julia too. She got her first tattoo! She used to be afraid of the UWRF mascot, Freddy the Falcon, but now she'll be the first to tell you that "he's not scary because it's just a person inside a costume."

As for the non-kid news - We've been looking at houses off and on for several years but within the last few months started to a little more seriously. Last Saturday we saw one we really liked. Sunday we decided to make an offer, Monday we made the offer, Tuesday the sellers accepted the offer! We close on the house in May and we're very excited...but I don't think the realization has really sunk in yet. Below are a few pictures from the online listing of the house.

Super Post!

Ok, so just imagine that this is actually split up into three posts and posted over the last three weeks. Nobody wanted to see any pictures anyway...did they? I'll start with the most current and work my way back.

Last weekend I went to UW-Eau Claire to see the President. No...not the current one, the next one. The doors opened at 11:00 am and the event was scheduled to start around 12:30. I knew there would be a line, but I didn't want to get there TOO early. I ended up making the hour drive and getting in line about 9:50. At this point the line was probably a half-mile long already. I ended up not getting into the building until around noon...so I spent over two hours out in the 20 degree-ish weather. I passed the time by trying to stay warm and chatting with a woman in line next to me. We were from different eras...my first foray into presidential politics was casting a vote for Gore in 2000, hers was supporting Eugene McCarthy's run for the job in 1968. Still, generation gap be damned, it was fun sharing the time with a like-minded person.

To anyone somewhat familiar with UWEC's campus, here's a map of lower campus with a crudely drawn line of where the line was. The event was held at Zorn Arena and that's where the line started. When I got in line, it was at the very bottom of the hill (follow the green line!). A little while after that, the line was up around the hill and out of sight. The first picture after the map is looking back, up the hill. The second is looking toward the front of the line (which can't be seen).

Once in, we got a great bleacher seat. It was nice being able to sit, be warm and watch the excited people stream in and fill the place up. Below is a picture of Senator Obama speaking and then a similar picture but pulled back to see more of the crowd.

It was an awesome experience.

I found out later that before addressing the people inside, he went outside and talked to the many people who got turned away. I thought that showed a whole lotta class. Here's a video of that speech, outside of Zorn Arena.

A few weeks ago Julia had a friend sleep over for the first time. Julia and Sophie had a lot of fun together, although it was pretty obvious that Julia was not at all used to having to share her toys.
They danced...

Impatiently took turns playing on PBSkids.org...

And even fought over an Elmo doll in the confines of their sleeping fort!


When Mandy's parents came to visit a few weeks ago the surprised us and brought Mandy's cousin Alexis along. It was a very happy surprise for Julia, who is very fond of Alexis. Julia got a lot of special treatment...like getting her hair done up.
Finn wasn't left out of the fun though. He got some help riding around on his little car.

Finn's 9 Month Stats

We had Finn's 9 month appointment a few days ago and here's how he's stacking up:
Height: 28 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 pounds, 3 ounces (30th percentile)
Head circumference: 18 inches (60-65th percentile)

Here, have a look at a couple of shots of the wee one:

Under 30 (and holding)

When someone would ask me how old I was turning, I would say that I was going to be 29 and that I'm ok with that, but that I'm not so sure how I'll feel next year at this time. They would usually respond by saying that 30's aren't a big deal. The teller at the credit union even said that 40's are the new 30's. But I'm not sure how much stock I put into what they any of them said because...well, they were all old.

My birthday was on Saturday and my parents came to visit Friday night. I took Friday off of work to see them when they arrived. They stayed with the kids that night and Mandy and I went out for Indian food for the first time and are looking forward to going again. We have a great little theatre in River Falls where you can see nearly brand new movies for cheap and the food they sell is equally as cheap. After dinner, we went and saw the movie Juno, each had candy, and shared a drink, and it only came to $8.25. The only drawback to the place is that after going there I can't justify going anywhere else to see a movie, i.e. if they don't get the movie in town, I won't go see it. If you have a chance to see Juno, we both recommend it. I don't remember laughing out loud that much at a movie in a long time and it was a great story too.

On Saturday my parents took us out for lunch - I got to choose the place. I chose The Winzer Stube, a German restaurant in Hudson. My parents left Saturday afternoon, but not before having a little birthday treat that was all Julia's idea. For her 3rd birthday in August, Julia had pink cupcakes with pink frosting. Several weeks ago, Julia decided that since my favorite color is green, that I needed to have green cupcakes with green frosting. So that's what I got!
Sunday was another busy day. We dropped off Finn at a friend's house and the three of us went to Minneapolis and donated a trunk-full of clothes to Sharing and Caring Hands. From there we took Julia to see Sesame Street Live. She had been looking forward to it for weeks and she was pretty thrilled about it. It took her awhile to take it all in, but she really enjoyed it and it was a fun experience for us too.


So, I had a good birthday weekend...and I could really handle a few more four day weekends too, birthday or not.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Julia had been asking to play downstairs for awhile, maybe a half an hour. The game was on and I wanted to see Manning lose so I told her that we could go downstairs as soon as the game was done. There was only five minutes left; who knows how long that would take. She was quite patient and eventually the game was done and she mimicked me when I raised my arms in triumph. Before heading to the basement I grabbed the book I'm reading - being down there for more than a few minutes gets boring because Julia goes through and plays with the different toys pretty good by herself, just needing some comments and replies to her statements from the adult down there with her.

Once down there, she immediately went for the many bins of fake food that she has to compliment her kitchen set. I settled into the little rocking chair that we have down there. It's cold in the basement and colder in that chair - it's a faux wicker thing that is made to be outside. The chair used to be in Julia's room, but when Finn came along it got relegated to the basement to make more space. As I began fanning through the book to find my place (bookmarks are for losers), Julia was asking me about whether or not I like different types of foods and if I would like that as part of the meal she was making for me. I was reading, she was talking to herself about the different foods and sometimes saying things that I felt needed a response, so I would give one. After awhile she moved onto some toy musical instruments and then her chalkboard. After drawing a chocolate chip cookie she exclaimed that she made an "M". I looked up and there was a few sideways straight lines that really did look like a tilted "M". I'm sure that it was an accident, but she was proud of making it and I was proud that she recognized it. I gave some generic, but genuine praise and went back to reading.

She moved back over to the food and started talking again. It wasn't anything that sounded like I need to reply to it, so I just kept reading. After a few moments, something she said caught my attention.
"...to help me go to sleep at bedtime."
"What was that, Julia," I responded. She had stopped playing with the food and was looking at me.
"You used to rock me at bedtime so I could go to sleep."
I immediately knew what she was talking about and why, but I wanted to hear her say it. I wanted to hear more from her memory. I wanted to hear her version of what will always be a pleasant memory of those times with my young daughter.
"What do you mean?"
"You would rock me because I didn't want to go sleep."
"Rock you where?"
"In that chair," she said, pointing at me.
"We would rock you in this chair?"
"Yeah, you would rock me to help me go to sleep because I didn't want to go sleep."
We looked at each other quietly for a few moments and then Julia told me she wanted to go upstairs. We put things away and went up.

That particular memory, which I'm sure neither of us had thought about in a long time, was brought back to Julia when she saw that not-so-comfortable chair in the basement. Her words brought back the same memory for me. I'm sure it meant different things for each of us, but it was pleasant for all. Not only was it a good memory that rose to the surface, but it was a feeling that we, as parents, had done some things right so far.

Rockin' in a Winter Wonderland

Ok, maybe not rockin', but "Building Snowmen and Sledding in a Winter Wonderland" didn't sound quite as good.

After we had gotten some snow, Julia wanted to build a snowman. The snow was too powdery and so it didn't pack very well. What she ended up with instead was more like a snowblob. But, she still liked it a lot!
Julia also got to sled down a hill for the first time. We had pulled her around the yard in previous Winters, but this time we went to the park and she got to really go fast. We were pretty surprised that she wasn't scared and she actually went down several times by herself. Finn had to stick to staying on flat ground though. Here he is enjoying being pulled around.

Happy New Year!

Let's have a look at some Christmas pictures of the kids, shall we? That's kind of a rhetorical question - you don't get much of a choice since you chose to come to this blog, unless you have a slow internet connection, in which case...if you don't want to see the pictures, quick! close your browser window before they load!

To everyone who's still here...



Julia enjoyed "helping" Finn open his presents. Next year, he probably won't appreciate her generosity quite so much since he'll have a better understanding of what's inside the gift wrapping.

Our blogging New Year's resolution is to make sure we get least four entries a month. And to keep them chock-full of links!

Flower Girl Preparations!

Jason and Tracie -- look out! Your future flower girl has picked out her outfit for your wedding. Do you love it?! Julia was very proud of the outfit she pulled together. It consisted of a couple dance leotards, tutus, gloves, and a ribbon crown. Later in the evening, she added 3 more leotards/tutus and her ballerina slippers. It was a sight to behold! What a fun spirit she has...if only we all had the confidence to pull off such an ensemble!
As I think back, Julia had a lot of "pink" in her weekend. Let me explain another pink incident... We read her the Dr. Seuss story "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" for a Saturday night bedtime book. While I was making some Christmas candies, I noticed a recipe for oobleck in my Family Cookbook. This got me pretty excited, so I told Julia all about it after we got home from church on Sunday. What a fun (yet messy) experience! Of course, Julia decided her oobleck had to be pink, instead of green like Dr. Seuss.
Check out the oobleck dripping from Julia's fingers! She must have stood on her stepstool playing with this stuff for 30-45 minutes! Overall, I'm awfully proud of myself for coming up with such a fun activity - pretty good, wouldn't you say?! HA!