"Breaker 1-9, Breaker 1-9, I've got a silly PaPa."

I think we had a little too much fun with the walkie-talkies. At one point, Lucky kitty was wearing them and meowing to the little girl on the other end. Ryan and Ben pulled off that ruse quite well.


They fit Addie a little better than PaPa.

Walker, Michigan Baby

We had some fun video of Margaret discovering her walker and terrorizing her sister and I, but I think the following video will trump that. We knew that she was getting close to walking on her own. We also knew that with Emily babysitting our friend's son, Carter, Margaret would be working hard to keep up with him, despite being a few months older.

Last night seemed like the perfect storm of being ready and slightly cranky. We present The Amazing Walking Baby.

More photos!

With some help from my dad I now have the photos that I took from this past weekend with my parent's camera. Here are a couple of them. The rest on Flickr. Thanks dad!

Yes, that is a carrot from my mom's garden!

Fall Harvest Fun

This fall we have been busy with lots of fun activities. Below are some photos of some of the adventures over the past week or two. Addie had a school field trip to see them make apple cider and a hayride back to a pumpkin patch where she was able to pick out her own pumpkin.



Last Wednesday Margaret got up the courage (or she was just finally ticked enough at me) to crawl from the living room to the kitchen. Since then there has been no stopping her. She finds everything that she is not supposed to have and puts it straight into her mouth. It's amazing how much trouble a 9 month old can get into in a days time.



Over this past weekend we all went home to celebrate my mom's birthday. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner as with my family. We also had a chance to spend time on the farm and time with Michael's family as well. Margaret and I stayed with my parent's and spent Monday with my grandparents. Margaret LOVED grandma Suiter's food. It was a nice treat for her (and me). On Tuesday my mom helped me take to her follow up appointment in Cinncinati. Good news on that front. The doctors released her from follow up status! We will only have to take her back if we or her normal doctor feel like she needs to be seen by them. I'm glad to be able to close that chapter of Margaret's life and move on.



Enjoy the photos! If you would like to see more of them check out our flickr site.

We've been a little distant lately

Especially here on the blog. Life always seems crazy, then they somehow become more so.

First, our camera died. Attempts to revive it were fruitless. Then Mom came to the rescue and lent us her old one. Well, I'm not sure if we ever got around to telling you, Mom, but it lasted about a week - maybe two.

But we weren't totally cameraless. We took some great video of the girls... and never got around to posting it. Ug.

Then, we thought we had this whole bathroom redux planned just right. I do think that it would have been... had the plumbing not proved to be too much for me. Even though the plumber was able to come out the next day, it set us back just enough to throw off the weekend, then I was out of town on business. It's taken a lot longer than we would have liked. But we're getting there.

On top of that, our roof leak has returned.

Well, we finally replaced the camera. After much research, out past experience and our new priorities, we finally settled on one. We like it a lot so far and I'll post some of the first pictures at the end of the post.

The bathroom is nearly functional again - we'll be showering at home this weekend. We still have some drywall and flooring work to do, but that will come along.

During one of my many, many trips to Lowes, I found an elasimeric product for sealing roof leaks. I've applied two coats already and am hoping to get one more on before it turns too cold.

Despite all of the crazy projects going on, we have made the choice to slow down from time to time. We've been thoroughly enjoying Addie's soccer games. We'll be signing her up for the spring league, so there's more to come. She loves it and is one of the best on her team. Emily has been taking Margaret once a week to the Bouncing Babies story hour. They both have fun with it. I've signed up to play league basketball this winter on my department's team. We've been playing pick-up games this summer and had a lot of fun. I must say that I am one of the very few who shows up with his own cheering section - complete with pom-poms!

We also got a nice surprise the other day. Lynn and Marv Freeman, our friends from Austin, were in town. They were here visiting some family, and discussing how nice the area is. When they were told that a lot of it was because of Whirlpool, they though, "Maybe this is where Emily and Michael live!" A quick review of the phone book confirmed it. We had a nice visit. Short. But it was great to see them.

So much else has happened. Too much to list.

Fear not, family and friends - we're still here and we'll keep blogging.

Oh, yeah. Emily has been canning apples. She and a friend are splitting the duties and using their own kitchens. Emily plans to do 50 quarts for each family. Her friend has been canning pears and will do apple pie filling. That's three cases full of apple sauce next to Addie. The new camera has a wide-angle lens which allows us to get so much into this shot taken from the dinning room table.

Deer feasting on the apple scraps. Emily's big requirement for this camera was a large zoom. It has 10x zoom and she has already put it to good use. Taken from inside the house.

Margaret is growing and changing all the time. She seems to be taking a parallel path on the walking and crawling. She seems to get better at both at the same time.

Our soccer star! Before the game, getting ready with her team, and some warm up kicks before-hand.

The last piece of cultured marble going up and a close-up of the Mountain Granite pattern that we chose.

More pictures here.

Goal!!!

Addie is the super star of our house at the moment! During her first game she made a goal and was the "player of the week" from her team (Green Butterflies). Then she scored 3 goals during the next game! She is really good at soccer and is LOVING every minute of it. We have some fun video of her first game/ practice that we will have to edit down and add to the blog when we get a chance.

At school she was the "student of the week" last week also! She is loving all day school. In fact, everyday when Michael comes home she does this little chant thing saying "All day kindergarten, all day school". And to top it off, today is her 5th birthday. She took to school today, cupcakes her and her best friend decorated yesterday.

Margaret is a super star in her own right too. She is starting to crawl, but only when she is really motivated. For the most part she is content to just sit watch everything around her. Today she also stood on her own for a good 5 seconds . It was really cute because she didn't realize that she was holding onto two toys and not my hands at first. When she did realize I was not helping her, she decided to sit down carefully. I have some adorable video of Margaret playing that we will edit down add too.

We hope that everyone is safe and sound and not flooded. I'm just thankful that we our house is up high on top of the ravine since it is still raining for the 4th day straight.

Back to School

It's amazing how fast the summer can fly by! We have been nonstop busy this summer and then our camera died on us! So the lack of photos is due to the lack of camera. Michael's parents are letting us borrow their old camera (thanks!) but due to battery issues we can only take 2-3 photos and then it needs to be recharged. BUT we do have some new photos to share.

Addie started school yesterday and these are photos from her first day of Kindergarten. She was very excited about school this year. Her first day went well. She likes her teacher and can not wait to dive into the reading and writing. Each child in her class has their own journal to draw/ write in every day. I'm sure she will love that part. Next week she will start going all day. Addie's excited about taking her lunch to school and spending the whole day like the big kids.

Addie is going to play soccer this fall. Her season starts on Saturday and goes through mid-October. She talks about it everyday and is ready to get on the field. We will have to update everyone on this topic after her first game.

Margaret is growing and changing everyday. She is eating all sorts of food and loves her sippy cup. Her main goal with her sippy is to get the little water that is in it out and all over herself! Margaret is trying hard to keep up with her big sister. She is not crawling yet but she is rolling and pushing and pulling to get where she wants. Her favorite thing to do right now is to hold onto your hands so that she can pull herself up and walk around the house. She is getting really good with walking. Michael and I both think that there is a chance she might walk before crawling. But who knows!