Saturday, April 28, 2007

Ten Months Old!

We've been enjoying the weather and getting out to garage sales and the park. Just this morning I walked over to a sale that seemed to need a little help with their pricing: children's clothes were 50 cents each. They could have gotten at least a dollar or even 2 for some of these things. Then they were selling a plain, beige phone (that's not even cordless!) for $5. Not gonna happen. By the way, we have one of these types of phones that I'd be happy to unload on someone who might want it. Otherwise maybe Stephen would like to play with it.

This is the first year since 1995 that I haven't been in Des Moines for the Drake Relays. Though I haven't watched many of the actual relays, walking along the painted street after all the students have colored their squares, wondering if I'll be able to park on my own street (wait I don't miss that), and even running in the road race . . . days like these I miss Des Moines! I'm also sitting here trying to think of someone I know in Champaign who has a truck to help us pick up a table. Kevin, what are you doing for the rest of the day . . . ?

Speaking of Des Moines, we'll be there Memorial Day weekend when John graduates from high school. I hope we can see many of our friends during that time, but we'll also be in town for a whole week in June when Ryan teaches at a jazz camp in West Des Moines.

Since it's a monthiversary, I'll need to write down on Stephen's calendar some of the things he's been doing this month. He does scoot around and roll quite a bit, but hasn't figured out the crawling thing. Yes, babies younger than him are even beginning to walk. We wonder if he'll skip right to that. He does stand at furniture for awhile before falling down. One of the funnier habits he's gotten into is finding the "O" on his alphabet ball and spending quite a bit of time just touching it. He sometimes touches the "Q" but quickly figures out that it just doesn't feel the same and moves 2 letters over to the "O." He's been looking at books some, too, especially the ones that have textures to explore. Our shopping trip this week was rather quiet because he was interested in feeling the tiger's whiskers in his new animal book. He does really enjoy peekaboo, and even plays it by himself. Yesterday I was reading some German phrases from a daily calendar I have and he giggled and giggled at that. I didn't quite understand what he thought was so funny. Oh - and how can I forget the food! He LOVES carrots! Feeding him had been so discouraging for me up until this point. Sure he'll eat rice puffs, but I wasn't wild about him filling up on those. I really wanted to get more than a spoonful of veggies in him. And on Wednesday he kept opening his mouth and essentially begging me to put more carrots in his mouth. Yeah!!! I never knew feeding a baby could be so much fun. And the diapers -- those changed literally overnight! He's sitting by me now clapping. We just got done singing BINGO and I think he wants an encore.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

A Momentous Occasion


Clockwise from top left: With Betty Esch, a friend from Peoria who now lives in Morton. With Janis Wilkinson, my cello teacher from Peoria. I played with her in the symphony this morning. With Evelyn at Avanti's last night. With Betsy Jones, Heidi, Heather, and Emily's violin teacher from Peoria.

Monday, April 23, 2007

On to Play in Peoria

I'm excited to go perform the children's concerts with the Peoria Symphony tomorrow. Dad is coming soon to pick me and Stephen up to take us. Among the other performers are my first cello teacher and my high school orchestra conductor.

We had a really nice weekend with Emily. Ryan and I were able to have a nice dinner - just the two of us! Yesterday we enjoyed a picnic with our friends Susan and Ercan and some of the Turkish students on campus. The weather has been wonderful!

The picture on the right is of Stephen with our little friend, Maria Mae. As soon as he decided she might be fun to chew on, we rescued her from his grip. She just turned one month and she and mother Sue are doing very well!

Friday, April 20, 2007

Happy TENTH Birthday, David Weeks!

David is 10! I called to wish him a happy birthday yesterday and he just seemed so grown up! We talked about what they are doing out in California. I also had brief conversations with Elijah, Noah, and Joshua.

Here are some of my favorite Davidisms:
"Why do you have no hair under here?" -said as he sat on a man's shoulders and looked under his hat
"No way, Hozey Wozey!" -his own version of "No way José"
"Liberty History Farms" -you'd have to have been to Des Moines to guess this one
"Mom, I want to go hear the water pumps!" -he meant that he wanted to listen to the bagpipes that practiced in our parking lot
"No, you have to do 2 scoops!"

Auntie Em is going to be here soon and Ryan and I will be able to go out to dinner. First time in a LONG time! I am also finishing up a math book and getting ready for a set of performances with the Peoria Symphony.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Midwifery Bill

Here is an article from the Chicago Tribune about a midwifery bill that is being considered in the Illinois House. I have several friends who have even gone to Springfield to speak with lawmakers. I think it's exciting that direct-entry midwives may soon be able to practice in Illinois ...

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Poor Bunny

So I was trying to take a picture of Ryan, Stephen, and this bunny tonight. Here is my best result. Ryan kept throwing the bunny down. It was supposed to be cute.

We had a pretty nice weekend. Ryan has been busy putting together a presentation that he will give tomorrow. I have another math book for Perfection Learning that I have been working on.

Here is a photo of Will and Stephen from Will's birthday. We went out for lunch and the boys did pretty well. Maria and I enjoyed the Mexican food!

Stephen is still just rocking on his hands and knees. Today he did a face plant on the floor so I think that he is afraid to be too aggressive because that really did seem to hurt him.

Tonight I caught him playing peekaboo by himself. He does enjoy the interaction, though, so we play a lot of that game.

We got out with the jogging stroller today. It was so wonderful! Didn't go very far but the weather was nice for a quick little exercise.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Spoiled?

Here is Stephen with my mom lying on one of the quilts that made her famous (at least in Joliet). See this story from Friday.

Ryan and I both had quite busy weekends. I had symphony Friday evening, Saturday afternoon and evening. He had recitals Friday and Saturday evenings and work all day Saturday. It was time to bring in grandpa and grandma. So my parents came down on Friday afternoon so Stephen could get used to them being here before I left. He has been clingy lately (normal for a 9-month-old) and I didn't want any of them to have a miserable evening.

We had dinner with the Wells and Roesslers and then left my parents with the little guy. He did so well with them for the whole evening! (Except he now refuses a bottle and just went to bed hungry.)

On Saturday morning I asked if we could all go out for breakfast since The Original Pancake House is a pretty great place to go eat and I knew we'd have time. We also had lunch with Ryan during his lunch break. Then I went to rehearsal and again Stephen did just great! He slept much of the time. We had a nice fish dinner prepared by grandpa and then I went back for the symphony concert. The soloist, Robert Hedlund, sang well; I enjoyed performing with him as well as several other choirs.

After I came home and saw that Stephen was safely in bed and fed, I bopped over to our neighbors' (my parents were here with the boy). Our neighbor had just remodeled his kitchen and was having a party to show it off.

Today we enjoyed talking a bit about Roman 8 and having a small communion time before my parents had to leave.

Ryan is on his way back to school for practicing and rehearsals for the evening. Stephen is sleeping on his "new" bed. He started rotating himself in his sleep and a crib just wasn't working any more. Here is his new sleeping situation:

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

phone service out

There was a storm today with a small power outage. Afterwards we were not able to get online. We think we have the internet back but the phone service people said that our "gizmo" through which we hook up our phone is now to be used as a paperweight. They're shipping us another one. But in the meantime we won't be able to get phone calls. Ryan's cell works, though ... 515-229-8621.

We got our wedding video in the mail today. Stephen is watching it with us.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Feet

We tried to take some creative pictures with feet last night. Here are the results of that attempt:




Stephen didn't quite understand what we were trying to do!