Mmmmmmm….

National Coffee Day.  Yes, please.

Smells Like Wisconsin

Beer brats.

’Nuff said.

Celebrating the End of Summer

Did I just say that?  Why yes, I did.  I LOVE fall.  LOVE.  So I am very much looking forward to cooler weather.  To celebrate the close of summer, we took the girls to the splash pad over Labor Day weekend.

Anna’s 4 mo stats

I’m a little behind on my blog picture/story posting but I’m catching up, I promise!

Today was Anna’s 4 month well baby visit and she did great!  The doctor asked what she can do now:

• Roll from back to front (easily)
• Roll from front to back (even though she did this early, she seems to have forgotten and doesn’t do it regularly)
• Giggles and smiles a lot
• Puts feet and hands in mouth regularly and as often as possible
• Plays with toys in bouncy chair
• Starting to play with toys that she grasps – really likes rattles, fuzzy animals, etc.
• Grasping her hands together

The doctor was pretty surprised that she is already rolling from front to back since she is still swaddled (HA, kid – I WIN!  The last time, but still) and because she is "a big baby”.

So how big of a baby is she?

Well…

Weight: 15lb 8oz (68th percentile)

Height: 27 inches (umm……. REALLY off the chart this time)

So here is a number to explain to you that while she’s 15.5lb already, she’s not “big”… her weight-for-length ratio is in the 7th percentile.  This means she’s a really long baby for her age (off the chart) and that while she weighs plenty, by no means is she “fat” – her body is working hard to keep up with her length.

And so is her mama.  Tonight she is wearing 12 month pajamas.  SOB!!!!!!!!!!  She really can wear 9 month stuff very well but just for grins I put 12 month pajamas on her to see if they would be too big and they weren’t.  That broke my heart a little.

So you all knew I was nerdy, right?  And I had been planning to do this for a while.  Here is a chart showing the three girls’ weight to six months (I know Anna isn’t 6 mos yet, but may you want to make a guestimate based on this chart):

(Anna is the green.)

And here is length:

As you can see, Raven and Anna were pretty close weight-wise at four months (only a 1/2 lb difference), but LENGTH wise… Anna is the same length now at 4 months that Raven was at 6 months… and, well, Julia still hadn’t been there at 6 months.  So I am excited to see where she ends up.

She did well with her vaccines though it was a rough day for her at daycare and at home tonight.  Here is hoping that tomorrow is better.

Forgive me for not doing trend lines and all sorts of other fun graph-y stuff… I’m… umm… up way too late tonight and have a serious lack of brain function. 

later,

erin

A Child’s Vocabulary

Two words are in heavy use for both Julia and Raven’s vocabulary of late, and I can only attribute it to daycare (though if I pay attention to myself more, maybe I’ll find that it’s me?).

Those words are: “actually” and “serious”

I laugh often when they think up ways to use them.  A few examples…

I am making dinner and Raven says to me, “Can I have a banana?  Cheese?”  I say, “With dinner.”  “What is dinner?”  “We’re having ravioli with chicken.”

Raven: “I don’t love that chicken actually.”

This morning, while getting ready for daycare, Raven is joking around, laughing, and generally having a good time.  She says, “Mommy, I am funny!” 

Julia: “You’re not funny.  This is serious.”

(Goodness help me if I can tell you what was serious about it, and I then joined Raven in her giggling, much to Julia’s chagrin.)

You will hear these words in conversation daily… something actually, something serious.  Typically used correctly.  Much time spend recalling conversations with Adam and having a good laugh as our kids continue to grow and learn and expand their world.

erin

Durango: Day 3

My birthday!

We left Durango today to head to the Great Sand Dunes.

As mentioned in a previous post, the Great Sand Dunes has been on my bucket list since flying over it in 1998.  Considering that we live mere hours from it now, I was very excited to go there for my birthday.  It was really amazing and each of us enjoyed seeing such a work of God nestled in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

Here we are miles – and I mean MILES – away from the Sand Dunes, and yet you can see them.  When I first saw them, I though, is that the Sand Dunes or is that a mirage? But, it really was the Dunes.

It was pretty neat to suddenly have our eyes assaulted by the desert in the middle of the mountains.  It was a little hard to comprehend at times.

Proof that there are mountains nearby.

Normally there is a river/stream that runs in front of the Sand Dunes and you’re able to walk through it / play in it, but it was late in the summer and we’ve had a dry summer at that, so the entire river/stream was dried up.

In this next picture, you can see the paths that people take/make to climb the highest dunes.  I’ll say this much – I don’t think I’ll ever make that trek.  Walking across hot sand with a cloudless sky at high altitude…? Difficult for me to envision making it all that way.  You can see people congregated on the first dune in the front – that is where we walked to and took a load of pictures.

Here Adam is standing on the side of that “small” dune.  We could understand quickly why we saw families were dragging sleds out – the sides of the dunes were very slippery to stand / be on and we had to keep the girls off of them as you would find yourself quickly sinking in the sand and sliding down the side of the dune.

The girls really burned some energy on the dunes – the would run way ahead of us and watching them tired me out – simply because walking across the sand was hard at times – and here they were, running like wild!

When we went to Canada five years ago, we saw large versions of these – cairns – and it was neat to see small cairns throughout the riverbed.

 

The Sangre de Cristo mountains.

All in all this was probably one of the neatest things I’ve done for my birthday in the last few years… so glad we were able to do this!

Durango: Day 2, Part 4

Oooh!

Finally in Durango.

We enjoyed quite a bit of time at Ska Brewery in Durango the afternoon of the 18th.  We drank beer, played games (Julia and Daddy – Daddy taught Julia how to blow on die before rolling them), took a bunch of pictures, and enjoyed a band for a bit as well.

Durango: Day 2, Part 3

Not Durango.

We actually went to Dolores on the way from Four Corners back to Durango.  Dolores is a very small – but it has a brewery.  Would you believe we visited a whole lot of breweries?  Unfortunately this brewery wasn’t open, but we got a lot of fun pictures of small Dolores.

Durango: Day 2, Part 2

Ha, have you noticed that hardly any of these pictures are about Durango?  Oh, well!

These are our pictures from Four Corners.  It was really cool to be there even though it’s just a monument in the middle of nowhere.  It is on Native American/Indian grounds.  It was interesting (though we didn’t get a picture of it) to see a sign that stated that Indians do not practice or allow cremated remains of the dead on their land and said that cremated remains were not allowed at the site.  We could only assume that there are people who want to spread ashes at Four Corners and that’s not allowed.