Girls weekend

As you've seen over the last couple of days, Alex and c were off having grand adventures in Utah this weekend. Me and m has no problem holding down the fort :o) After a crazy night of work Friday night (m came back with me and slept in the pack-n-play while we finished up), Saturday was officially declared PJ day.  Lots off goofing around:

And a little cheering for badgers.

Bear's never looked so good :o)

Last Ride

Special guest post by Grandma Jean...

Well, Ranch Camp has come to an end. 

Charlotte had a great last ride Friday on her favorite horse, Romeo, and left with his picture in her hand.  Stay tuned for next summer when she will probably be learning how to gallop :)

On her last night she learned how to play the guitar.

Alex & Charlotte should be arriving in Madison shortly.  Thankfully, Grandpa listened to Charlotte's

instructions in the car this morning:  "Drive faster, Grandpa.  If we miss our plane I will cry!"

Ranch Camp continued

Special guest post by Grandma Jean...

It has been a busy week.  We went golfing, swimming, rode a bear and went horseback riding again.  we met Daddy & Grandpa on the 9th hole and watched them tee off.  Went Grandpa made a practice swing, Charlotte helped out by saying "oopsy daisy!"  Then "good job" when he hit the ball.  (And it was a good job - about 1 foot from the hole for an easy birdie.)  Daddy also got an "oopsy daisy" on his practice swing followed by "good job".  (sorry tho, no birdie)  Charlotte was great on the driving range and putting green, and we have enjoyed watching the Ryder Cup golf tournament today, with her pointing out that "we were there" when she saw the course.

Feeding Mike's horses some carrots was fun.

Ranch Camp

 (In Utah with Gramma Jean & Grandpa Norm)
Special guest post by Grandma Jean...

Charlotte is a traveling pro, so the airplane trip to Utah on Monday was easy, except that her bag got lost so we stopped to pick up some pajamas, and slippers.  She of course walked right by the pink bunny ones over to find car slippers which she told me were just like Noah's.  Tuesday was a busy day, but the highlight was horseback riding.  C did not hesitate at all to lead Romeo, brush him and ride him. A snack of a popsicle, provided by horsewoman Paula, was the perfect ending to a great experience.

Fishing with grandpa was successful after we got stronger line for our big fish!

More  to come!

4 months!

Great checkup today for m. She's sticking tight to the 80th percentile curve for height, weight and head, and weighted in at 15.5 lbs (still a giant). Plus it was way fun to see her smile with the doc. Hurray for happy girls.

the state of m

Well, we're about half way through the crazy which is the month of September.. Sitting in the 4 day window at home between trips where we desperately try to reestablish routine and catch up on laundry. Oh and did I mention there are 18,100 people on campus at work this week for our users group meeting? Just keep swimming... Just keep swimming... Just keep swimming.

Anyway, during all this crazy m continues to amaze. We have her 4 month checkup next week so we'll know more about how much of a giant she is then, but I'll tell you now she's huge. She's also
-a great sport about traveling and sleeping in places other than her room
-getting used to airplanes (did you know it is in fact possible to change a poppy diaper in your seat with your seatbelt on of you're desperate enough?)
-loving baths in the big bath tub where she can float around
-starting the grab and bring to mouth phase (note to self - wash toys more often)
-getting much better at sitting and standing supported
-still nursing like a champ

Someday I'll process the pictures from this last weekend, but until then here's one from ROC (where both girls took full advantage of the play area)

Artist

We have the best daycare in the world.  For lots of reasons.

But especially this:

No wonder she doesn't really like tummy time with me - not enough paint!

There's a great view from up here...

So m continues to be giant, which is awesome in many ways. In addition to just being big, she's also getting really strong and stable. She loves to practice standing by putting weight on her legs, and is getting reasonably good at sitting up when supported. She went on her first stroller ride without a car seat on Friday, and we've been playing around with other sitting positions as well:

Corner of the pack 'n play

Testing out the high chair

But the best new thing by far is getting to play more with Daddy :o)

Adventures in flower girl

Thank you Jean for passing along some additional wedding pictures :o)


As you may have picked up from the previously posted picture, Charlotte was one of the flower girls for Caroline's wedding last weekend. She was mostly excited, but didn't really understand most of what was going on. What she did understand is that there were umbrellas - and they were WAY fun to play with.

She pretty much played with umbrellas during the entire time allocated to photos prior to the ceremony. It was a good look for her, but not quite as good as the one she adopted while relaxing and waiting for the actual ceremony.

Sleep over

I'm going to be sleeping alone tonight, but I can't possibly be sad about it because of the cuteness of the cause...


A couple of days ago they started talking about a sleepover. I'm not really sure what started it, but it evolved into a major event. This afternoon they made a special trip to go get matching PJs

Caroline & Chris - Sorry for the Justice League shirt on little c 

I promise we're not actually picking DC over Marvel!

Dinner was complete with blue ice cream, and bath time was a continuation of the party.

It's now 8:30 and they've holed up for the night. C in her bed

And Alex in his:

These guys kill me :o)

All dolled up

Both c and I were lucky enough to get to be in Caroline and Chris's fantastic wedding. Unfortunately we were too busy being in it to take many pictures, but we did get this one. And it's a keeper :o)

Can't wait to see what the photographer was able to get!

First day of school

We had a fabulous weekend in Chicago celebrating Caroline's wedding this past weekend. I'll post more about that later but the big update for today is that we had, for the very first time, two girls in daycare.

C moved up to the raccoon room, and m started in bear cub. I wasn't that worried about c since this is now her third room at the center, but m's teacher could tell that I was a little anxious about leaving this morning.  I felt better when I got this in an email around 11:
So far all is well.  She ate fine from me and is sleeping.   Fell asleep in her bed no problem.   Very smiley and happy.   She sure can burp and poop, holy cow!!!

Baby awesome's staying awesome that's for sure :o) Day one was officially a success. Here's to many more just like it.