Sunny Saturday

It was an absolutely gorgeous day today. Austin was out door-knocking. After breakfast Emily & I went up to the playground by the new athletic complex. It has all kinds of cool slides, but Emily just played in the pea gravel for 30 min. (go figure). Then we both walked home. Emily literally walked (or ran) all but two blocks, and it's exactly a mile away! It took us 40 minutes to get home, which included a brief stop to inspect water flowing into a storm drain, but it was fun!

While Emily was napping I also worked on a little experimental project. I dug a hole in the rocks on the south slope of our backyard landscaping jungle and planted a couple hills of pumpkin seeds. I've always wanted to grow pumpkins, and I figured the most I'm out is $.99 for the packet of seeds. I'll keep you updated on the progress.

19 months old

Emily is 19 months old today. We are both excited to finally be able to wear shorts/skirts, although her poor knees & legs sure take a beating without that extra layer of protection! Some fun stuff going on:

• You can catch Emily trying to sing almost every day. Usually it's a bit of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." It usually goes, "Twinkle...Twinkle...star...how...wonder". Sometimes it's random ABC's. Recently she even started singing/responding to the "Wee Sing Silly Songs" tape that runs continuously in the van. Her favorite song on that tape seems to be "The Ants Go Marching." She says "Hurrah!" on cue. :o)
• Speaking of the van, that is also Emily's favorite play area. She shrieks with delight as soon as she's let loose from her car seat, and I swear she would be happy playing in there for an hour if you let her. I can unload and unpack an entire grocery shopping trip and then still have to carry her kicking and screaming back into the house. It's actually quite convenient and might really come in handy this summer as we sit around waiting for parades to start!
• Emily also really enjoys playing with watering cans as she pretends to feed/water everything.
• Emily recognizes basic shapes (see videos). She knows the names of a lot of letters and numbers, but in no particular order and not necessarily connected to a written character.
• On a not-so-cute note, Emily says "Ouch!" really loud anytime you do something she doesn't particularly care for. This includes washing her face, wiping her nose, removing her from playing in the van, etc.

The May video player is posted below and our May pictures are updated on Winkflash. Happy viewing!

Ahhh...cookies

Last night I treated myself to a 30 minute professional massage by a lady in Denver. I had designated birthday money specifically for that purpose. Of course, that's a pretty sad statement considering the fact my birthday is June 24! I had literally been carrying cash in an envelope at the bottom of my purse for almost year. Anyway, it was wonderful. I do believe that if we would ever find ourselves independently wealthy I would consider indulging in massages on a regular basis... :o)

On a not-so-relaxing note, I ran errands in Waterloo today with Emily in the driving rain. I now know why I haven't really ever attempted that before. Toddler+Umbrella+full shopping cart in Target parking lot = comical sight.

Yesterday I received the email asking for baked goods for Orchard Hill to distribute to the storm victims and clean-up volunteers in Parkersburg. I was ecstatic--finally a great reason to bake up a storm without trying to figure out who was going to eat it all (besides me)! I happily dug through my recipes and loaded up with supplies this morning. I had just put the first pan of ginger cookies in the oven this afternoon when I received the second email--they were overwhelmed with the response already and didn't need anything more until further notice. Bummer dude! It's okay, though. I didn't have quite enough molasses for the second batch of ginger cookies anyway. They will freeze until VBS in a few weeks, and they are currently Emily's favorite treat--straight from the freezer. I just suddenly find myself extremely well-stocked with baking supplies. Now I just have to figure out how to use the 2 1/2 dozen eggs sitting in my fridge... ;o)

I finally did it...

After several weeks of suffering through an incredibly annoying squeaky swing at the park in the middle of town I finally remembered to throw the WD-40 in the stroller. I am happy to report that all the swings at Prestien Park in Denver, Iowa are now squeak-free. :o)

Memorial Day

After the craziness of last night, today was about as close as you could get to perfect weather. Denver had a very short parade and then a program at the cemetery. Emily was fascinated by all the flags and flowers and told everyone so. She also loved the High School marching band and kept asking for more "sound". ;o) My dear friend, Angie Doorenbos, visited us this weekend, too. We had a lot of fun catching up and just hanging out.

Wild Weather

By now most of you have probably heard about the storms that rolled through our area last night. Praise the Lord we were spared! Actually, we were quite oblivious. It rained REALLY hard and we got quite a bit of hail (up to 1"), but we never got any strong wind or the eeriness that usually proceeds a tornado. The lights flickered, but never went out. The sirens didn't go off, and we weren't even watching TV closely, so we had no idea how bad it was until people started calling to see if we were okay. Unfortunately, there were many people who were not okay. There are all kinds of connections to the devastated area. I just found out one of the families from my mom's group at church lost everything. They have 4 young children, including 2-year-old twins, and she just had a double-mastectomy last month. It sure puts things in perspective!

Grandma's Graduation Video

For anyone who's interested I've posted a graduation video I had fun putting together for Austin's mom to the May video player. It's at the end, so scroll through the videos using the arrows in the bottom right of the player.

AAAUUGGHH!

Sometimes I feel like this when I step on the scale, too...

Toad in the beans

Emily & I found this toad sitting in our bean patch this afternoon. :op

Happy note

We had new neighbors move in two houses down today and Emily & I stopped by to say hello. TJ & Candace Bucholz are a young couple coming from Orange City, IA. They have two girls ages 3 & 3 months and a friendly dog. We are very excited to get to know them more!

Also, after her bath Emily asked to sit on her little potty chair without a diaper on. Nothing happened (and I had no expectations it would), but it's a big step in the right direction! :o)