An Outing with Grandma and Grandpa

Jason's parents both took the day off Wednesday so that we could all go together to visit Purina Farms. It turned out to be the perfect outing. There was just enough to see so that we could go early and be home before the oppressive mid-day 100 degree heat crushed us. Not to mention, the attention span of a 3-year-old is only so long. There were enough interesting things to see and do to keep Sierra interested, to amuse Kaia, and to be finished before either of them had had enough.

We first went into the barn, where the upper portion had a play area. The kids could drive tractors through corn, walk through a tunnel, and swing on a rope swing. Sierra loved the rope swing. She loved it so much that after we had seen everything, we had to go back through and do the rope swing again.

Grandpa helps Sierra with the rope swing

In the lower portion of the barn, we could see different animals: miniature horse, donkey, quarter horse, cows, sheep, and rabbits. There was a small petting area with piglets and a chicken with funny hair and bunny. We went to the cow milking demonstration and Sierra got to milk the cow. She was very tentative, and then the cow picked her foot up and bumped Sierra's hand and Sierra didn't want to touch her again!

It was hot, so we were sure to drink plenty of water

Sierra looks a little unsure about this whole "milking a cow" business

Kaia clowning around with Grandma, leaning way back and laughing

Just outside the barn, there were two enclosures with different types of chickens, ducks and geese. Kaia was riding on my in the mei tai and a goose honked loudly. And she mimicked! The goose honked again. Kaia "honked" back.

From the barn, it was a short walk over to the dog show. The show was pretty short, probably in part because of the heat, but we got to see dogs doing agility, frisbee tricks and dock jumping. Oh, and there was also an "agility" pot bellied pig!!


We took a short tour around the pets building with dogs and cats and then ended our trip with a ride around the grounds on a tractor-pulled wagon.

The wagon ride put Kaia right to sleep.

Runners, the next generation

There has been an explosion of new babies among my college cross country teammates. I last saw Jen and Amy at Suzanne's wedding in March. At the time, baby Addison was just a couple months old, and baby Jack was still residing internally.

Since I was going to be in St. Louis, Amy arranged to make a trip here with Jack so we could all get togther again with all the babies present. We met downtown at a creperie for breakfast (Sierra opted to stay home with her dad), where we juggled babies between bites of breakfast, which was delicious.


I'm so glad we had decided on a lower key afternoon. We went to the running store and back to Jen's for a bit and then headed to my in law's place. We spent the afternoon lounging, chatting, letting the babies swim, and juggling various napping babies.









After dinner, we had a brief mei tai lesson (Jen wants to learn back carries!) and then my friends and their little ones had to head out. :-(


(I'm sure I'll see Jen this winter, and we've started talking about a larger cross country reunion for next summer that I hope materializes)

Eleven

Kaia is eleven months old. (actually, today, she is 11 months and 11 days old.) I can't believe we are mere weeks away from her 1st birthday! How fast the time has gone. I feel like her first year has just flown by! It's such a difference from Sierra when I was always looking for "what's next."

While crawling is still Kaia's primary mode of mobility, she is walking more and more. She tries walking several times a day and will link together 10 and more steps before losing her balance and plopping down on her bum, or deciding that she's finished and lowering herself down in a deep squat so she can switch to crawling.

She's a little comedian and it's fun to see her silly personality emerging. If she notices that something makes you laugh, she will keep doing it. Lately, she's been shaking her head back and forth like a "no" motion, but it's more wobbly and deliberate than that so it looks really funny. She likes making noises with her mouth and will stick her tounge out of her mouth over and over again saying "lalalalalala" and say "aaaaaahhhh" while bouncing her hand over her mouth opening to change the sound. She knows the difference between "mama" and "dada" and does the signs for "milk," "dadddy," "all done," and she waves and points.

Three weeks ago, we were just starting to see the bumps of her teeth emerging, and now, she has three top teeth and one bottom tooth fully poked through her gums. A forth top tooth as well as the other front bottom teeth are also working their way out. No wonder she's had some rough nights. Like last night, for example. Oh, these are trying times for baby girl's parents. Like so many things, Kaia is doing teeth her own way. Usually, babies get the two front bottom teeth, then the two front top teeth, and they fill in from there. Kaia's first three teeth were all on the top.

Our little Kaia-bear still growls and sometimes she will growl while she is nursing. She has another reason to call her Kaia-bear as well. When she is trying move across a hard surface, whe will modify her crawl to a bear crawl, moving along on her hands and feet, knees off the ground. Gets her where she's going without hurting the knees.

Her little round cheeks are indicative of what a good little eater this baby is. Despite the limited number of teeth, she will try anything that's soft enough to mash up. She has the funniest face when she tries something new. You can just see her little brain analyzing whether or not she likes it. Lately, the big favorite has been strawberries. She goes in cycles of preferred food. One day, she'll only eat strawberries and throw everything else on the floor. The next day, only meat. I figure that as long as her diet is balanced by the end of the week, there's really nothing to worry about. Not to mention, she still has breatmilk several times a day, so that should round out anything she might be missing.

I continue to be amazed at how quickly Kaia's babyhood is slipping away from us. She is such a busy, active, whirl of constant motion. My dad swears he has never seen a busier baby. She is always doing something: pulling books off the shelf, taking things out of a cabinet, banging something on the floor or on the table, practicing her crawling and walking on climbinb up the stairs. On the few occassions when she actually settles down and is still and asleep in my arms, I am trying very hard just to hold her close and enjoy this little person as she races toward toddlerhood.

To Madison

The highlight of our trip to Madison was picking up Jason at the airport. I got turned around in some construction, so he was already deplaned and in the baggage area when we got there. I walked in with the girls and told Sierra that we were going to see Daddy. She was looking and looking but got distracted by all the people and didn't see him until we were almost in front of him. Then her face exploded into a huge grin, she jumped in his arms and squeezed and squeezed. I was wearing Kaia, so I just kept her in the carrier while we walked back out to the car and got Jason's things loaded up. J, of course, wanted to give his little girls some love. She acted tentative at first, like she didn't want to go to him, but then Jason took her and she just buried her little face in his neck and clung to him. She just stayed there, tucked into her Daddy's shoulder. It was so cute.

We had actually been in Madison since the previous day because my parents wanted to take their grandbabies to the Madison Zoo. We got a late start and it rained much of the way up, but when we arrived around 11am, the skies at cleared and it was actually a little bit cooler than it had been. We started with a snack and then toured the main part of the zoo for a couple hours. We noticed some picnic tables along the lake at the back side of the zoo, so we took a break for lunch. Then we came back in to see the children's zoo, ride the carosel, ride the train, and go to the play area.

We checked into our hotel and took the girls to the pool.

The next morning, I ran 10-ish miles on the Middleton Trail system, which was really amazing. I picked up the trail less than a mile from our hotel and took it to the Pheasant Branch Conservancy. The trail went through a lot of wooded areas, and under roads so that you don't have to stop and wait for traffic, you can just move right along. I took a loop around the the conservancy, which has some open prairie area that were filled with wildflowers and some wooded areas with little bridges over streams and past the recreation area with soccer fields and a playground.

After shower and breakfast, we did a little browsing in the area and then went to the National Mustard Museum. Oh yes, there is a National Mustard Museum. We didn't write the address down, so I called a friend to see if she was near an internet connection and could look it up.

Me: "Will you please look up the Mustard Museum in Madison, WI"
Kathryn: "Oh. My. God. Only if you send me a postcard."
...
"And you may have to send Jessica some mustard."

(mustard care package will be in the mail soon.)

We found lunch in the area and then parted ways, my parents home and the girls and I to the airport.

(zoo pictures will be coming when we get home next week)

Celebrating with Colton

Colton celebrated his 3rd birthday last week, and we were invited to a little party this past weekend. It was mostly family, but since I've been friends with Casey since age 3, and we spent countless hours at each other's homes over the years, I suppose I'm about as close to family as you can be without being a blood relative.

The heat continued, but we had cake outside in front of the fan and tried to eat our ice cream before it melted.

So glam

Colton opened a few presents. Here, Sierra is checking out his new truck. Hey, girls like trucks, too!

Casey had told me she was going to fill up the little pool for the kiddos, but I completely forgot to pack Sierra's swim suit. It turned out okay, though, because Casey came through with shorts and a swim shirt that belong to Colton. The attar was just fine with Sierra.

Skill Builder Sampler Block 4 and Challenge Block

This week's block in the Skill Builder Sampler was the pinwheel parade. I'm not really sure how much I like this one. I thought I would try and do something a little different with the dark background but it doesn't really make me super excited. I think when it's mixed in to the quilt with other blocks, though, it will be great.

This light colored one is a nice contrast. This is last week's optional/challenge block. Okay, so they're all optional, but the sampler is set up to have three weeks of blocks, then a catch up/skills week. I didn't finish this block last week, when the skill we were practicing was to design our own block. I had already designed it, though, and I wanted to make it, so here it is. I love star blocks!

Summer reading

Sierra and her cousin read on the couch during a rare quiet moment. If only we could have more of these. Usually these two are running through the house at top speed, often yelling something at a high decibel level. This evening, they pulled sheets and blankets out of the hall closet and were walking around claiming to be "blue ghosts."

Yesterday we went to Kate's house again so Sierra could play with Claire and Lise. The girls sat few minutes while Kate read them a book, titled, appropriately, "Sisters."

I love this photo. Sierra and Lise look totally serious about the story. Claire is thoughtful. And that's Kaia's "devious" expression.

Stonefield Village

Despite the heat last weekend, we went forward with our plans for a picnic in Nelson Dewey State Park and a visit to Stonefield Village. It has been years since I visited Nelson Dewey with my family, and I forgot how beautiful it was. We found a picnic area up on the bluff that looked over the Mississippi River.

The mosquitos were pretty thick until it started to rain on us, but despite bugs and weather, we had a good time. Nothing stops Sierra!

After lunch, we went for a short hike down the trail to an overlook, and then we went across the street to Stonefield Village. Stonefield Village is set up like a mid 1800s style town and there are replica businesses that you can look in to see the tools that were used and get a small peek into the way people lived.

There was an outdoor farm with chickens and sheep.
We saw the train go by and went through the covered bridge.

There was an old train car to look inside and Sierra and Harmony climbed up to the top bunk.

Sierra investigates the equipment used to make brooms.

The schoolhouse

Grandpa Bob and Sierra look at all the different things in the hardware and harness store.

I'm sure glad I don't have push my baby around in one of these carriages!

Also glad my coffee grinder fits on my counter top!

Here's a view of how the buildings looked. They are laid out in a horseshoe shape with lots to look at, including a millinery, blacksmith shop, fire house, law office, and drug store.

I was mildly amused by the "Furniture and Undertaker" storefront.

Sierra investigating the cheese making process.

When we had our fill of the 1800s, we were back on the road home. Sierra and Kaia were asleep before we had travelled 15 minutes down the road. What a busy day!