3.24.2006

dr. vold + anne

These are from my check-up with our obstetrician, Dr. Vold (Calvin was 7 weeks old). Dr. Vold and Anne (his assistant) were very kind to a very cranky me through nine months of vomiting, discomfort, and a lot of hormones. They were probably almost as glad as I was that Calvin is now an outside baby.

And Calvin was very glad to spit up on Dr. Vold.

maggie's friends

Maggie is on my lap, helping me write this post...

Maggie's very best friends are the Green children. Connor (pronounced "Con-NERT" by Maggie), Noah, Esther and Lydia. Before Christmas Jen (the Green mama) was taking the three older kids to some sort of Christmas activity at Warm Beach (actually not-so-warm) and kindly invited Maggie to go along with them.

Here they are, having a fun and blurry time. Maggie says, "Mrs. Green took pictures of us, and she said 'say cheese' and we did!", and "That's Con-NERT in the blue jacket".



Mags rarely gets candy, so she thought the candy cane was one of the best parts.



Con-NERT is going to marry Maggie someday...Maggie is sure of it. She tells us all the time.



I'm not sure what that is behind the kids...why does a Christmas tree need freaky lips? Maggie says it's just a talking tree.



Maggie thought the pony was really neat but did not want any part in riding it. She says the pony was too big for her.


Looks like everyone had a great time.

day at the farm

Here are some older pictures I couldn't pass up. Deidre Shannon came to visit us back in October and we took her to The Farm. (This is where I got to work during our first fall here in Washington. One of my duties was wrangling any pigs that got loose...a little different than my previous jobs.)



Maggie loves The Farm, and this was the first time she wanted to hold some of the animals. She told me that she loved this kitten "so very much".



She kept this pumpkin in her room for months and was quite upset when we had to throw it out.

sean with his babies

Sean and Calvin are cooing at each other here. Calvin loves it.



Here is another picture from Sean's phone. Maggie thought we needed a picture of her with Dada and the shrieking monkey that Uncle Herbert gave her.



Each of the babies covets one location in particular. First we have Maggie...



Then Calvin...



And don't forget Newman...

maggie says...

"Do you miss your husband?"
- to me, while Sean was at the Shepherd's Conference

"Where are the cheese ones?"
- digging through a bag of fruit snacks...fortunately, we weren't able to find any

"If I give away all my stuff..."
- reciting 1 Corinthians 13:3

Part of a conversation between Maggie and GG...
GG - "What color are Mama's eyes?"
Mags - "Blue"
GG - "What color are Newman's eyes?"
Mags - "Green"
GG - "What color are GG's eyes?"
Mags - "Hazelnut"

This is clearly a house that drinks too much coffee.

valentine's socks

I am not a very good sister-in-law. I'm actually not a very good in-law or out-law or any kind of relative to anyone when it comes to this kind of stuff. I have very good intentions, but then I get distracted by one or a hundred other things.

It is especially apparent that I'm not a good sister-in-law when my sister-in-law is the kind that sends my daughter (and now my son) a special gift every Valentine's Day...Valentine's Day? Who gives gifts to people on Valentine's Day? Brooke does. And on time, I might add. Hmmm, I still have Brooke's birthday gift sitting on my desk...her birthday is in October.

So, Annie Grook, here you go. Everyone can now look at your beautiful socks on your cute neice and nephew. Maggie asks to wear her "stripey" socks all the time. Even with her party shoes. Calvin hasn't told me what he thinks about them, but he does seem to leave them on slightly longer than any of his other socks. At least 30 seconds.

stuff you do when you're four months old

Calvin had his 4-month check-up on Wednesday with Dr. Haugen. He is now 26 inches long, weighs 15 pounds, 15 ounces and his head is 44 centimeters around. At two months he was in the 90th percentile in each category, but now he's in the 95th in length and head size and has dropped to the 75th in weight.

So we have a tall, skinny, big-headed boy. Here he is, a little irritated about something. Oh, and yes, that is a cloth diaper. And yes, it is ridiculously overstuffed - he was about to go to bed.



Here are two of his hard-earned circus band-aids from his four shots. He took the first shot like a man but had a hard time after that.


Maggie was very concerned about her brother throughout the process, but was excited to receive her own band-aid to put in her purse. Here she is pointing to the band-aids.



Since he is so big, he thought that last night was a great time to start sitting at the dinner table with the family. He even talked his dad into sharing a little tomato sauce with him.




UPDATE...

Grins commented about some pictures of Maggie with her band-aids, so I dug them up to share. These are actually from her 2-month shots, so it's even more pitiful. I don't think we took any pictures of Calvin's 2-month shots...it looks like Maggie was wishing we weren't taking any of hers.



Maggie had fancy-pants name-brand band-aids instead of generic circus ones...looks like Garfield and Bugs Bunny. But instead of Fuzzi Bunz she's stuck with some saggy diaper. It wouldn't be fair to have the nicer band-aids AND diapers.

3.11.2006

calvin riding in the car

Today we took my brother to the airport so he could go home after visiting for the week. We had a great time with him, and I'll be posting more pictures later on to prove it. For now here are two that Sean took with his new fancy phone...

Here is Calvin displaying some very fat cheeks, a little bit of a grin and a pronounced man chin...



The trip was apparently exhausting, so Calvin decided to take a little nap holding his new "Pat the Bunny" from Uncle D.

3.03.2006

maggie goes to the dentist

Maggie was a very compliant patient.



She is probably the only person ever to think the worst part of going to the dentist is the light shining in your eyes. Even the cool sunglasses didn't cut it...

06SR - ben + maggie are friends

Are you afraid of this man?


One afternoon Maggie and I went to hang out in the main lodge with a few people, including Ben + Katie Hanson. By the time Maggie wanted to sit down, there was only one seat left at the table, and it was next to Ben. He was telling a story very excitedly in a loud voice, and Maggie kept a close eye on him as she was pulling her chair out. As he got louder, she started moving the chair away from him, never taking her eyes off of him. Ben noticed that she was scooting her chair away, and asked her, "Maggie, are you scared of me?". Without taking her eyes off of him, and continuing to move the chair away, she matter-of-factly said, "Yes I am".

As you can see from the next picture, she later decided that Ben is actually not so scary.

06SR - more pictures

Maggie with her dad before megabox (for those of you interested in megabox, and who isn't, as far as we know this was the first time it was played in the snow)



Here is the-almost-first-picture-of-Calvin-smiling. I was a tiny bit too late, so he looks...mmm...I don't really know. Intoxicated?



This is Mag's good friend, "missah tuh-wee-sah"...aka Teresa Weinberg.



Here is another really good friend, "missah fwisk".


At Double-K, where we have the Snow Retreat, they were short on workers, so they recruited Calvin to supervise the mixing.



Although he was having fun here, during the last part of the ride home, Calvin was not a happy camper. The only thing that kept him quiet was Micah's pinky-finger-pacifier.

06SR - some pictures of sean

I know they're supposed to be pictures of our kids, but I wanted to post these too...

Here he is "singing" his duet of "Flower In the Rain"with Jaci Velasquez. This year's rendition was made particularly special because of David Zimmer's (autographed) silver ladies' silk shirt.



Here is another picture from Tony Kevin. Notice the hat - made by Annie Grook.



Here is Sean with part of his posse of guys. That would be Tony on the left, Jesse Martin's head in the background, Micah-the-intern-Lugg videotaping and Chuck Weinberg in the blue hood. Sean is of course enjoying the power of wielding the megaphone.



Here he is, apparently thrilled to be getting ready to go home in our sweet ride. That's the intern there in the back. We like him.

06SR - mo's small group

Here is the small group I get to be a part of - we're only missing Keri in the picture. I love our group! Poor Calvin is the only man.


Here are two weird pictures that I couldn't pass up. Kimmy claims this is a normal kissy-face. You can decide for yourself. I think it's freaky.


This disgusting picture of Felicia is more related to our kids...Calvin left that lovely deposit on her shoulder. He claims that he did not have anything to do with the giant wound on her chin. Actually, she got that tubing down a hill and had an even nastier scrape on her side.

06SR - fun in the snow

(Well, at least it's less than a month since I last posted - maybe I can get back into doing this more regularly. By the way - thanks for all the comments! I know I haven't been very good about responding, but thanks for looking and commenting!)

Our one28 Snow Retreat was the first week of February, and I have a significant amount of pictures to post from it. However, if this does not satisfy your snow-retreat-picture-longings, check out this page on the one28 site for a ridiculous amount more.

Here are Maggie and Calvin ready to go out in the snow.



Calvin resembled a large, red, fleecy star fish.



Here are Ben + Katie Hanson (who are expecting their own little man baby in July) and LaShani escorting Maggie to the field. By the way, Maggie thinks the bus that's in the background is really cool and can't wait to ride in it.



Here is how to make a snow angel...



Maggie's super-cute friend Ellie Sarr brought her sled to the snow retreat...



Ellie loved riding in her sled until she fell, face first, into a snow bank. Then she decided that Maggie could ride for awhile.



Maggie convinced Patti Frisk to drag her around for a long time.



Then it was on to throwing snowballs. Thanks to Tony Kevin for these pics...