3.30.2010

Icky!

Eliza has gotten her first cold this week.  I can not complain since she is 49 weeks old!  She has never had a runny nose with teething, so this is the first time I have had to walk a367665982_68bdd55d88round with Kleenex in my pocket.  She isn’t terribly sick, for she is still interested in playing and overall in a pretty OK mood.  She is just a bit more tired than normal and likes to be held a bit longer (which is never a bad thing).  I had the same bug last week and have had a hard time kicking it, but hopefully it will be out of our house soon!

*4/27/10 Looking back we have since discovered that Eliza was not sick but cutting her 1 year molars!

3.23.2010

Pulling Up

Eliza has been pulling up on everything this week.  We can’t leave her in a room alone for long at all.  She has also figured out how to crawl out of rooms to find us.  She lets out such a squeal when she does.

3.17.2010

Blocks

Eliza’s favorite new toy is her box of blocks (Lego Duplo blocks, to be exact).  She loves to take them out one at a time and then put them back in.  It is a great time filler.  She can’t build any towers yet but Kirk does and then lets Eliza knock them down.

3.16.2010

11 Months

Eliza is eleven months old! She LOVES broccoli and can never get enough. We found the first thing that she will not eat…tofu. She is enthralled with ceiling lights (on or off). Eliza will smack her lips together when she is hungry and she is now saying dog and bath. She is crawling a lot (forward now!) and has just started to pull up. Eliza has moved up into size 3 diapers. Hard to believe that a year is almost here!

Learning to Stand Up

After a week of crawling all around, Eliza was on to bigger and better things…

3.12.2010

Overcoming Your Fears

  I know that I have been missing in action for a long time. I have been very busy making sure my house is as secure as a castle. With a new sister around my job has become even more of a burden. Around Christmas a new moving "thing" came into our house (I can't understand what my parents call it but it is some tall thingamajig). At first I was very scared of it and for good reason! Things would fall out of the sky and hit me! But after sleeping on the idea, I realized that I had to overcome my fear. And I was also seeing a trend that food often falls from this high place. So, yes a toy or cup might hit me, but I am also seeing a great opportunity.

I have reached the promised land! I have witnessed food falling from above. Manna from heaven, raining down like a gift. I have learned that it is best to face your fears head on because you might find out the result is better than you could have imagined.

So yes, in the past I went to extreme measures to get away from this thing, like jumping into the shower with my mom (that is a post in and of itself but I had good reason! It was scary!). I have turned over a new bone. However, I still stay on the pads of my paws just in case I do get hit by non-edible items!

3.08.2010

It Keeps the Upper Lip Warm

I know that you’ve all been waiting for some pictures of my glorious mustache, so here you go!  Yes, Andrew grew a much better ‘stache and definitely looks the part.  Me, I just look creepy.  Thanks to those that donated to help students learn!  We raised a little over $1,000 (but with only a handful of growers this year, that wasn’t too bad).  But we did beat St. Louis, which was a goal of mine, and nationally, Mustaches for Kids raised over $320,000!

 

Yep, we definitely got some strange looks out in Broad Ripple with these stylish ‘staches! I was very happy to shave on Saturday morning.

3.07.2010

Sticky and Sweet

We took a day trip this weekend up to the Maple Syrup Festival in Rockville, IN (near Turkey Run).   It was great fun to get out of town for a day.  The sun was so wonderful to see and it felt like spring is here to stay (which it probably isn’t, but I’m ignoring that).

The first part of our day was at the Parke County Fair Grounds.  They had a pancake breakfast with maple syrup and the best sausage patties we have ever had!  I had pretty low expectations of the food.  I have had my fair share of mediocre “breakfast with the firemen” or the Lions Club.  The food always tastes like it’s just out of the box, but this was different which was a good thing since we had to wait in line for about an hour to get our plates (in the picture above you can see all the people standing and waiting).  The pancakes were flavorful and the real maple syrup couldn’t be beat.  We were even able to purchase about 4 pounds of the sausage to take home.

One of the sugar camps in Rockville is run by the Smiley’s but we have no relation to them and they didn’t offer a “family” discount (although Kirk did try to talk them into cutting him in on a share of the “family” profits at the next shareholders’ meeting).

 

Eliza hates the sun in her eyes and we don’t have any sunglasses that fit her yet, so Papa gave her his for a moment’s relief.  (Sorry to have posted both of these pictures, but I couldn’t decide which one I liked best.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We practiced with the camera’s timer feature and got a group photo.

After our bellies were full we went to visit some of the different maple syrup camps.  The mud was so bad, you can see that even a tractor’s tires weren’t enough to get into the back woods.  They had to wrap some serious chain around them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syrup is boiling away!  It takes about 70 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eliza loved watching the steam and all the people.  She didn’t take much of a nap because of all that was going on.

On our way to the Smiley’s Sugar Camp we passed this old school.  The building hadn’t been used for 35 years.   There were large trees growing up to the door as well as inside the building.  The school was built in 1920 and served as the only school in the area, averaging a graduating senior class of about 8 people per year.  They listed all the graduates, and we could see Smiley’s from the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s.  I’m sure we’re somehow distantly related!

 

 

 

The floors had mostly collapsed as well as the roof, so as we looked in the windows we could see the sky.

The morning was simply gorgeous!  We had a great time and look forward to doing more day trips with Eliza this summer.