Today's the Day

Today is....


Did you guess it?


Ben and Jerry's Annual FREE CONE DAY!!! Ice cream lovers everywhere, head to your nearest B&J's ice cream and enjoy your favorite one. FREE cones only come one day a year! :)

Just a quick reminder from your friendly neighborhood ice-cream fan!

Watch them grow, but don't blink or you'll miss it...

We went to pick apples the other day, which has become something of a fall tradition for us. We usually make 2-3 trips to the orchard throughout the fall and enjoy lots of fresh apples for eating, as well as lots of yummy baked goods, and home-canned applesauce throughout the winter. Joshua remembers last year's apple picking fondly, and he's been asking everytime he eats an apple all summer when we can pick apples again. It's quite hard to explain to a two year old who's in the process of eating an apple that there are no apples available to pick!

My kids have had a nasty cold all week, and by midweek we were suffering from cabin fever from being inside--however, where can you take your under-the-weather-kids that you're not going to run the risk of making a lot of other people sick in the process? With the perfect weather I decided on the apple orchard, much to Joshua's delight. So, the kids and my younger brother (visiting this week from MI, yay!) picked apples while I took pictures.

While snapping pictures, I realized this was one of the few things we have photos of Joshua doing each year. I can't believe it's his third season in the apple orchard already--and it's crazy to look at the pictures of Joshua from last year and think that Lydia will be that big next fall. I thought you might like to see some shots from previous years, in addition to the pictures from this week.

Anyway, the weather and the changing seasons have me a bit nostalgic today--where does time go?

Joshua, Fall 2006Look how tall I am, Mom!

Yum, Yum!
Content to sit and munch

Joshua, Fall 2007

No wagon this year, I can do it "by self"

"So, Big" (And, I realize, the only year he's facing forward)

Lydia and Joshua, Fall 2008

My newest apple baby (no, I didn't really let her eat a whole apple)

Look at him grow...

Back to the wagon, now pulling it himself

On the Move

It's been a busy week. Thankfully, it's been less stressful than last week, but still filled with somewhat notable happenings.

Weve enjoyed the weather, continued to watch the Olympics and spent time with friends, but mostly we've watched our kids grow up. They both seem to grow and change every day and it is hard to believe it, or keep up some of the time.

Joshua has taken up singing in the past week or so. We were shocked about a week ago when he sang, nearly perfectly no less, the "ABC" song. I knew he recognized a few letters, but didn't have any idea he knew the song and he's never really been in to singing even songs he knows well. (He loves to hear us sing and it's a big part of his routine, he just never joins in.) He's followed it up with renditions of "Jesus Loves Me" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" as well as "I'm a Little Teapot" as well as many made-up songs and snippets of TV-show themes, etc. All of our car rides recently have included hearty serenading, sometimes to the dismay of the stressed driver. All-in-all there's just nothing like your child singing almost anything in his sweet little voice. My favorite, however, came while we were walking the other night. Joshua was singing away to himself and started skipping along. Here's the conversations that ensued:

Joshua: "I'm skipping mommy"

Me: "I see that, why are you doing that?"

Joshua: "I'm skipping like 'myLou'!"

Lydia has decided that days of sitting and observing the world around her are over. And, she seems to think that one form of mobility at a time is not enough--she wants it all, and she wants it now! On Saturday she started full-blown crawling (defined by me as up on all fours, moving all limbs to locomote). On Sunday it was cruising--around the room and from item-to-item by Tuesday. Today we found out that she can climb up stairs...Yikes!

I've been instantly transformed into crazy child-proofing parent--except I've been lulled into complacency by 18 mos. of relative calm. I've gotten used to a child that knows what will support his weight or that you don't climb up if you can't get down. Now I'm trying to see things through a newly-mobile little one's eyes. Whew! It's just crazy to turn around and find Lydia someplace entirely different than where I placed her. The only time she's still is when she's sleeping...

Joshua is doing as well as can be expected with her ability to move to get the things she wants. Most of the time he's really proud of her--but when she takes something of his he's left lying around he tends to get really upset. We're trying to work on the "if you don't want her to get it put it away or up high" but he's not really gotten that concept yet. He's become quite the little boss recently and advises all of us (especially Lydia) about what we should or should not do.

It was mildly annoying at the time (but humorous in retrospect) when he decided to tell me when to pull out into an intersection the other day. Let's just say there's a reason that you have to be 16 to decide that on your own--his judgement was just a bit off, but he was very emphatic. As soon as the car in front of me pulled out, he started yelling "Go mommy--go now!" He is quite the champion on what the different light colors mean though. :)

Anyway, we're looking forward to enjoying a relaxing weekend and hopefully catching up on things around here, since we're leaving at the end of next week for an extended weekend with our extended families in Michigan. We're really looking forward to it, since we haven't seen any of them since June!

Painting, Parks, and Fireworks, Oh my!

Ah! The weather has cooled from July's hot, often humid "air conditioning" weather to a more pleasant August warmth. August is my favorite of the summer months, long warm sunny days following by cool and refreshing nights, and just a tinge of fall creeps in.

We have been busy trying to absorb as much of that atmosphere as possible over the past week. Joshua is currently highly enamored with fireworks, so much so that he cannot stop talking about them even while watching them. ("It was green, Mommy--look, red AND purple, ooh silver...") We've been able to view them not once, but twice this week, so he's considering it a succesful one. Tuesday night's show was viewable from our deck (another of the perks of living in the heart of a small town) so we put Lydia to bed before they got started. Last night was following Concert in the Park, an annual outdoor orchestra concert, and not near the convenience of her bed. So, I was a bit tentative about how she'd do well-past her bedtime with extremely loud booms, but snuggled in Daddy's lap she didn't even flinch at the noises (past the first one, of course) and even seemed to enjoy watching the colors and lights.

We've continued to make daily visits to the local parks and it's more and more fun to watch Lydia. She starts bouncing and squealing when she sees the swings! Joshua is a little monkey and can't get enough of jumping and climbing on everything, though he scares me sometimes, because when it comes to park structures, he has no fear. We took a detour on our walk to the park this morning and swung by the fire station. Several of my friends with little boys have mentioned that our local fire station is happy to give tours pretty much anytime assuming there aren't any emergencies. We haven't taken advantage of it as of yet, so our completely unscheduled morning seemed like a good opportunity. Joshua was definitely in awe of the trucks, although a bit hesitant lest touching something should cause the sirens to start sounding. He got to climb into the jump-seat on one of the older trucks and probably could have spent the rest of the day climbing in and out. He also got to try on our friend Paul's helmet. It was way too cute! Alas, the sponteneity of the trip did prevent me from capturing any of it on film, but it was fun. I have a feeling we'll be returning at some point not too far in the future, so maybe next time.

We've also been trying to get some projects done around the house. The most recent is re-paining our deck as time allows. Joshua has insisted on "helping" James paint, and really for a two year old, he does a great job. The brush, however, is a bit worse for the wear. ;-)

I love keeping you all updated on our life story in pictures, BUT, my babies only sleep so long, so I should probably get something done with my remaining few minutes.

I do not like them, Lydia I am, I do not like Green Peas, no ma'am...

Lydia had her first taste of peas today. We were expecting it to be a pretty good introduction, peas were Joshua's favorite vegetable. He LOVED them, and still does to this day. James and I both enjoy peas. Well, let's just say, words are not needed to show you what Lydia thought, so without further ado:

Wow, who knew seven month olds already could make some of these faces. Hope it brought a smile to your face--it certainly did ours! We'll try peas again and keep you updated. (Update: She did eat some of them after I mixed them with one of her fruity favorites.)

Summer Fun!

I simply cannot believe we're past the halfway point in July. For those of us here in the upper Midwest, that means we're on the downside of summer. :(


Have I mentioned that we love Madison even more when the weather is warm--there's just so much to do outside and much of it is very family friendly. In the past few weeks we've enjoyed the farmer's market regularly, gardened often (and actually had our first "crop", snow peas, although the rabbits certainly got more than we did), and enjoyed several events around town.



On Wednesday night we went with our life group to Concerts on the Square, a mid-summer tradition here in Madison, involving the Madison Chamber Orchestra playing live music on the steps of the Capitol building. People either pack a picnic, or purchase food from local vendors set up on-site, spread out blankets on the capitol lawn and enjoy dinner and the music (and in the case of a group with eight kids 3 and under, a lot of child-chasing). This was our first time attending a full concert--the other couple of times we've planned on going it has rained or had too great of a threat of inclement weather, although we did happen on one by accident last summer. We had a blast and so did the kids, and they did surprisingly well for how late they were up past their bedtimes. Joshua enjoyed tearing around chasing a few of his friends and befriended a dog named Moxie, and Lydia played with her toys and her friend, Addie. :) Too cute!

Yesterday we headed out with friends in the morning for Madison's new splash park. It's hard to decide whether the best part is how much Joshua enjoyed it, or the fact that it is free so we can go often! The weather has been hot and muggy here all week, so he had a blast running through the sprinklers and splashing in puddles.

Speaking of Joshua, he's officially been in underwear for the past two weeks and this Sunday, assuming we experience no major relapses, we're declaring him officially potty-trained!!!! We've certainly had a couple of accidents along the way (most notably a nasty one at the park the other day, which I'll spare you the details of, but I'm sure you can imagine if you know anything about the lack of amenities in park bathrooms combined with the stickiness of a certain bodily discharge...ick!) but we've been dry most days and even most nights recently. I'm starting to not be constantly worried when we're out and about, but have definitely re-learned the value of keeping a full set of spare clothes on hand at all times. It's somewhat ironic, potty training has been one of the hardest things I've undertaken as a parent so far, and I've spent a lot of energy working on it over the past 18 months. For all that energy I don't really feel like it got me too far, but when he was ready to do it, it's really gone quite smoothly. As usual the first few times are the hardest, and that first accident in public is daunting, but after that you realize again that it's all just a stage... (I think that should be the mantra of parenting!)

Lydia's sitting on her own now and rolling and scootching wherever she wants to go. Her funniest move is a scootch which she does on her back that looks like the upside-down wiggle-worm crawl. She's decided to put real crawling on hold and focus on pulling-up and cruising instead--so watch out world! She's also eating all sorts of solids now, and it's super fun to watch Joshua get excited with each new thing she tries. :)



I'll try to keep this updated more often, but it seems that life happens way too fast to blog about these days! Have a great weekend.

Down on The Farm (Sort of)

Summer is right around the corner here in Wisconsin and we're enjoying it. The kids both love to be outside where there's plenty to see, and usually Mommy is glad to indulge them. We've been trying to do our local errands (groceries, library, bank, etc.) as walking trips recently too. This is one of the things I love about living in the heart of a small town. Roads aren't too busy for walking nearby and places aren't too far away to prohibit the effort.

We're trying to do a lot more local eating this summer and we've become members of a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm where our once-a-week delivieries start in June. (Yum, Yum!) We're also still regularly frequenting the farmer's market that assembles twice weekly on the Capitol square in downtown Madison. Completing the trifecta of local eating efforts is our personal vegetable garden.

Epic (James' employer) has a really neat project that they've run the past couple of years. The land the current campus is built on is former Wisconsin farm land, so they chose to keep several of the barns and outbuilding as the "Epic Farm." It's complete with a pasture for several horses and cows and they've provided pre-tilled garden plots to employees willing to take charge of them for the summer. We decided to make the effort this year and were fortunate enough to get one of the available spaces. We're growing the usual garden vegetables as well as a few celery plants (a tribute to James' family's roots as professional celery growers) with the basic goal of building awareness in our kids of where food really comes from and the effort involved in growing it. (Added bonus: nothing tastes so good as a fresh-picked, home-grown vegetable!)


Joshua also loves to watch the horses and cows and it's the most up-close and personal he's ever been with an animal that large! Lydia's not quite sure what to think, but she's certainly alert these days and trying to discover as much as she can about the world around her. (The downside to this is that naps are a big inconvenience to her goal of world exploration--hopefully we can get all that ironed out soon.)


So, that's what we've been up to these past few weeks, hopefully Joshua doesn't run out of patience for the project weeks ahead of when any real produce starts to appear. We'll hope the animals can get him through the watering and waiting phase.

Memorial Day weekend brings both Bratfest and James' family to town, so we're looking forward to it, as well as an extra day off!

Bittersweet

I don't think I fully understood the meaning of the word "bittersweet" until after I became a mom. There's always this tug-of-war inside me as they move into new stages, new phases, new challenges. The one part of me is so proud and happy to see them becoming more skilled, confident, and interactive people. The other half knows that I'll never get these precious baby days back--that once a stage passes it is gone for good and I'll be left only with whatever memories I manage to store away.
These feelings are at the forefront of my mind right now since the past couple of days I've primarily been sorting through the kids clothes, switching out sizes (Lydia's mostly) and putting away the clothes they've outgrown. Everytime I do this I become pretty sentimental. It's fun to get the new clothes out, but sad that they'll never wear the old ones again. (I'm also always in shock by how much time/space/energy keeping kids stuff in some semblance of order takes!)Unfortunately, I neglected to sort out the gender neutral clothes as Joshua outgrew them, so I also had to take out all of his previously outgrown clothes and sort through them to find the items Lydia will wear too. As you can see from the photo, this created a chaotic living room which Joshua thoroughly enjoyed. :-)


Lydia is three months old today, and boy has the time flown. She's started laughing this week and when you hear it, you just can't help but crack up too! She's getting big (as evidenced by the new clothing size) and as of last week weighs almost 13 pounds and is a very long 25 inches!


All of us are doing well, although we wish spring would come back--we've been plunged back into very March-like rainy 40 degree weather. :-( But we're thankful that we're all healthy again and look forward to sunshines return!