Strawberry Season

Rowan was very upset that she had to sit in her car seat on the way out to the strawberry field. We told her what we would be doing and how much fun it would be, and how you can eat strawberries there....but she was still upset.

She actually picked a few berries. Sorry for the butt shot.

Yummy!

Andy said our berries weighed in just over 14 pounds!

Hard working hands.

We went strawberry picking today in a little town just Southeast of our house. Rowan picked about 3 berries (of various colors) and ate about 4 berries. The rest of the time she just played with the straw in the field. Andy and I picked about 14 pounds of berries and surprisingly, I was able to find room in the fridge for both trays. Now the challenge for me is to process the berries and make jam or sauce tomorrow. I will not be able to on Thursday or the weekend because of work and other obligations. So wish me luck on my first ever canning adventure! If I'm successful, I will go back out to the farm sometime within the week and pick more berries. That way I can share some jars with friends and family.

Rowan picked this one for you!

Summer Fun

We went to the nearby park today and Rowan had a lot of fun going down the slide. It was the only one that didn't have a puddle of water under it.

Rowan is very proud of the fact that she can now climb the ladder all by herself. She is becoming more adventurous each day.

Of course, she has picked up some behavior from watching other little kids - such as climbing up the slide.

Rowan paid very close attention to the park maintenance man that was mowing the lawn. She is still very intimidated by loud noises. Sounds that upset her include: lawnmowers, power tools, the blender, the vacuum, a hand mixer, thunder, airplanes, motorcycles, trains. I wonder how she will handle fireworks on the 4th of July. We have 2 weeks to prepare.

Finished Deck

We are pretty much all finished with the deck. As you can see, in the top photo we still need to nail up the lattice around the bottom of the deck. But at least the kids can play on the deck with less fear of falling over the edge!
Still need to call the inspector and have the deck approved. Wish us luck!

Harvey is 9 Months old!

Harvey is pulling up on everything. Today he got to borrow a friends walker. He thought it was pretty cool to "walk" around on the deck.

Harvey's First Self Serve

After having several battles over spoon control (most of which I won), I finally decided not to enter the fight today. I gave Harvey the bowl and spoon and told him he was on his own. From the looks of the pictures, it seems that the sweet potato won!

Spring Update

Harvey just loves to play with noses and mouths.

Watch out Dad!

One of Rowan's favorite snacks - Cultured Cottage Cheese.

Spring has sprung and a tooth has erupted! Harvey finally has his first tooth at the tender age of 8 months. The one next to it looks pretty imminent as well. Teething is hard for Harvey and he wakes at night in pain. We have resorted to giving him the triple treatment at night - Orajel, Tylenol, and Hyland's Teething Tablets. Good thing is, we only have had to do this treatment a few times. He is getting really anxious to eat crackers now. He does well with baby puff snacks, melba toast and graham crackers. Harvey is a pretty good eater. He will eat most age appropriate foods. When he drinks from a bottle, he is very "grabby" for it. He seems rather proud when he sits and holds it all by himself. And so the independence begins!
Harvey is crawling all over the place and is now pulling himself up on people and some small furniture. When Rowan is playing on the floor, he will immediately crawl to her and either grab at her toy or climb on top of her. She doesn't appreciate his learned skills.

Rowan has been doing very well. Her speech therapy is going fine. The therapist recently discussed with me the transition we could take when Rowan turns 3. At that age, she would continue speech therapy within the school district. We have a lot of options on how to handle the transition and we aren't exactly sure what we will do at this point.
Right now her clarity is at on average 60%. The therapist's goal is to get her to 70-75%.

Rowan continues to do excellent with her pottying. She might have an accident every 2 or 3 days. When she started using the potty, we did away with the diapers all together. She does not use one at night and has really only had 1 night time accident. She always communicates to me when she has to go. She started wanting to do everything by herself, but is now asking for help half the time. Sometimes she wants help with basic things that she could really do on her own.

Now that our deck is mostly done, Rowan loves to play on it. She has a plastic tricycle that she has recently learned to peddle. It took about 2 days for her to understand the coordination of peddling and turning her handle bars for direction. Now she zooms around on the deck. Its fun to see....until she gets close to one of the unfinished sides of the deck!

I am currently working on some sewing projects for the kids. I have made one summer dress for Rowan and I am almost done with some overalls for Harvey. I'm pretty much down to the button holes/buttons stage. Hope we can get some good mileage out of these "custom" clothes.
I'll try to post photos of my sewing projects soon.

I have recently attended some church meetings about safety policies. This is applicable to my job as the nursery volunteer coordinator. I found out that everyone that helps in the nursery now needs a background check and should also have some extra training. Also, the records and sign-in logs need to be updated. So now I have to spend time creating new forms on the computer. Andy and I recently had our backgrounds checked and we sat through training. So now we can both officially volunteer in the nursery. This Sunday we will work in there together. It might be full since there is a churchwide meeting that day and a lot of folks might come. Hope the nursery isn't too chaotic.

Andy is still working in Hartland for SCS. The company is being consumed by a larger company, a bank. They will be moving to the other side of Hartland in a bigger, nicer office....but details are still being arranged for the final transition. It looks like we will be covered under Blue Cross/Blue Shield instead of United Health Care. As far as I know we will be PPO and not HMO. But nothing has been finalized at this point. The whole transition is glitchy and no fun.

That's about it for now. Thanks for reading all of this!

Adding the railing and back stairs!

This is the progress made on Wednesday, April 30, 2008.

Update on Deck

Deck Day 1

Each post is in a 4 foot deep hole.

Andy and Dennis did a great job for Day 1. Andy is thinking that they may even get to some decking on Day 2. Hope all goes well and that no injuries occur! :)

Yay Rowan!

Here is an update on Rowan's potty success. This past Wednesday we drove to Green Bay and visited the Weisensel grandparents. The three days we were there, Rowan wore panties and didn't have any accidents. She used a potty the whole time. When we got home on Friday, she got out of our car and p layed in the back yard (and had an accident). Since then, she has only had one accident up in her room and has been using the potty. She has been wearing panties or shorts. Last night, we were at a restaurant with the Allord grandparents and Rowan mentioned the potty. I dropped my fork and quickly took her to the bathroom. She sat in the tiny stall, on the big potty and actually went. I was so proud of her. When she got back to the table, her ice cream had arrived. I bet that helped her feel special.
So to recap, she has gone 4 nights without a diaper and no accidents in bed and during the past 5 days she has had only 2 small pee accidents....and no diapers. (Time to knock on wood)
Good for you Rowan!

Google Ron Paul

New Shorties

When looking through my image folder on my camera, I came across several photos that Rowan had taken without my knowledge. This is one that wasn't the floor or the curtain.

Harvey's new orange stripe shorties. They are sooo cute!
I really want to learn how to knit shorties and longies (pants) myself. They are great as a diaper cover and clothes all-in-one.

Here he's showing a little leg. We probably shouldn't encourage the practice of hitchhiking skills just yet.

Wisconsin Chainsaw Stump Massacre

Upon digging in the earth mound, Andy discovered that the creator of the previous patio used bricks, metal bars, and other junk as filler. In his terms, these are "evil, evil people". In order to drill holes for posts he may have to rummage through the entire mound to locate and remove items that will not cooperate with an auger for hole-drilling.

Easter Photos

Rowan and Aunt Carolyn (Donna's sister)

The exciting egg hunt!

Harvey doesn't need Easter eggs to make him happy.

Sorry it's been so long since Easter, but we didn't get any photos on our camera and had to wait for other cameras to be developed. Thanks for the shared photos Grandma A.!

Bye Bye Lilac Bushes

We started pulling out the rocks alongside the patio. Our friends that took the pavers came today to take the rocks. I think it will take two more days to get all the rest of the rocks on the other sides out of here. We cut down the lilacs. Janea snipped them into smaller logs and branches and burned them in the firepit. You might be able to see the smoke in the background. Taking out the stump will be interesting. The kids were fairly well behaved when they were outside with us. Rowan inspected the yard and Harvey sat in a stroller with some rattles.

Andy was one hard working man.

Pavers are Gone

Back Patio Remodel

We have just taken the beginning steps in redoing our back patio. It was a raised earth patio with pavers on top and large rocks in a retaining wall. Over time, the earth underneath has eroded and animals have burrowed under the stones. This has left the surface of the patio very dented and "wobbly". As the kids get older we feel that using this patio poses safety issues. Not only can they fall/ride off the side, the ground bees and other bugs bother us all.
So we have decided to pull up everything and build a wooden deck with a railing. Fortunately, we have found a family through the Jefferson Co. freecycle program that is willing to pull up all of our pavers and rocks. In return they get to keep them all free. This family runs a daycare and has a lot of dirt and muddy areas that need better structure supposedly. In any case, we are very happy that we do not have to pull up and transport all of the pavers and rocks.
We got all of our lumber delivered to us this past Saturday and Andy spent the entire day shuttling it from the curb to our garage using a wheelbarrow....3 boards at a time. They are very long and very heavy. I couldn't help him much since I had to watch the kids and also help out at the funeral home.
So, here are photos from the first step of our project. Pavers are being pulled up.

Milestones

Rowan continues to learn something new everyday! Now she is 2 1/2 years old. She can dress and undress herself, feed herself (including self-serve from the fridge), count to 3, and is making leaps and bounds in her speech development. She is still not attempting to say k, c and g consonants but I'm sure they will come soon enough.
Rowan is becoming quite the independent little girl. Every day she proclaims, "I do own" or "I do by myself!" a dozen or so times.
She has a strong desire to take care of Harvey at times and wants to feed him, dress him, undress him, and change his diaper. But most often you can find her yanking toys out of his hands and scolding him, "No Owbie! That's mine!" even if it's really not her toy.
I took this picture of her in her boots because it reminded me of a photo of myself when I was younger - standing in jammies and winter boots.





Rowan still loves to play in the water and really loves to play in the sink. She tries to help wash dishes every now and then.











Harvey is now 7 months old. Time is passing quickly. It seems that wherever I go, many women describe him as a flirt. A lady at Wal-Mart called him a "lady killer" yesterday. It doesn't seem to matter what age the female is, Harvey charms them all.

Harvey is now doing very well at sitting on his own. He tips over about 30% of the time. He is rolling over quite a bit and is starting to do the "army" crawl. He is quite capable of moving about the room now and reaching Rowan's things (much to her dismay).

Harvey is now eating oatmeal, peas, pear sauce, sweet potato, carrots, squash, blueberries and bananas. His only disliking is for broccoli and green beans at present. He gums up teething biscuits with glee and boy does that ever make a mess in the high chair.
Harvey's growth is amazing us still. He is about 21 pounds and has a long torso. Today I broke open the 24 mo size onesies for him. Maybe the 18 mo size shrunk in the wash, but it's not so easy to snap over his diaper - whether its a disposable or a cloth diaper. So here's my baby boy - 7 mos old...wearing a 18-24 mo size onesie and 6 mo size pants.
I'm also pretty sure his shoe size is a 3/4.
Oh and he outgrew his bucket carseat. So now I have to carry him to and from the car, or transfer him to a stroller.

Harvey is also babbling a lot. He can say da da da and lba lba lba. And he can blow raspberries.

We look forward to watching the kids grow and learn. Their relationship with each other will be interesting to watch too!