Mission Accomplished

I believe it was a few months ago I posted summer goals: to get Laura's hair in a ponytail, and teach Alex to swim.





While he might not have learned to swim, I think these photos are a priceless reminder of how innocent childhood is!

Happy Birthday to Sissy, Happy Birthday to Sissy

Today is officially Laura's 1st birthday-by this time a year ago she had been in the world for approximately 7 hours. All of what has taken place for us in the past year seems surreal between work, the house project, school, and the addition of another child. Laura spent the first 7 months of her life in a tiny rental, and being carted around from rental, to farm, to Grandma Bonnie's, etc. It's almost as if she knew not to make herself mobile until after moved into the farm, so I'm thankful for that.

She's not walking yet, but she's close-takes a few steps here and there, but is still most comfortable sitting on her butt and crawling where she needs to go. Which is perfectly fine, she's still within her developmental milestones and it's much easier just chasing after 1 vs. 2:).

To sum up the year, Laura has been an amazingly easy baby-she slept through the night within the first 2 months and has never really looked back (aside from a few nights here and there). She's had a seemingly healthy year (knock on wood), considering how rough that first year can be when kids are in daycare-literally picking up every virus on the planet. I tried my hand at homemade baby food for her, and it really benefited her w/ regards to variety of healthy foods-and it also helped our pocketbooks. She's easy going, but I can see she's going to be ruling the roost w/ regards to her brother very soon-she's a tad more temperamental than Alex which is quite entertaining listening to them on a car ride to or from work. It usually goes something like this-Alex looks at her and says something, Laura's response in a sassy tone-"AAH", to which Alex response "Sis", and then Laura replies w/ a shrill scream, as if to tell the world that she is the boss. She's the loud mouth making a spectacle when we go for dinner, flirts w/ most people in passing at the store when they comment on her blue eyes, and as long as she's fed, and her diaper's clean-you rarely don't see a smile on this little girl's face. She truly has been a blessing for me this past year. Happy birthday little girl.

I've started to make movies for each of the kid's during their birthday's-they're just choreographed pictures recapping the previous year. Here is Laura's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa_l15OzC2k.

Happy 4th of July

Due to the house project last summer, we didn't get a whole lot of time for rest or relaxation-with that usually comes going up north for a trip or two. This summer we were determined to get up there at least once each summer month, and this past weekend was it for July. It was nice for Alex to have little one's to play with for a change (aside from sitter kids), they played in the sand, water and lit a few sparklers. Alex and Laura also got to experience their first parade, Alex really enjoyed looking at all the big equipment; Laura, not so much. Her and I found a swing at the local park, and entertained ourself.

It was fun while it lasted, but we were ready to come home Sunday and have a day to ourselves. So much packing and resituating goes into it when you have kids in tow, so it's nice to have that extra day to recoop, do some laundry, and just hang out. We lit a few more fireworks off at home, and we all slept in for a change (that means til 7 a.m. for us) so that's what I consider our holiday:).

In other news, Jason is working on our siding and the house looks beautiful. It's amazing how used to Tyvek a person can get, it's almost as if I forgot what the house could potentially look like. I'm glad I opted to make a few annual baskets-at first I thought, what for-why put beautiful flowers in front of a project. But there's hope it will be done by the end of the summer (maybe the siding by Laura's birthday even!), so I'm glad I have some flowers to dress it up even more.

I'm done with my Economics course, so I can officially relax for a good month and half. Computers will start arriving any day now, so I'll post for Laura's birthday and then I'll probably be MIA for the next month or so.

Hope this finds everyone well!