citilife: christie, markus, and willa

Kitchen Work Starts Next Week

2010-05-15T00:38:00.002-04:00

That's right folks. The long awaited 2010 Weidner Kitchen Remodel is about to begin. Stay tuned.

Willa's first haircut

2010-05-15T00:36:00.001-04:00

This week Willa had her first haircut. It was basically a trim but it was still a pretty big deal. She started off kind of timid, but warmed up pretty quickly. By the end, she was ready for her glamour shots!

Happy Birthday to Willa!

2010-05-08T22:21:00.002-04:00

We haven't been very good about updating the blog lately. A toddler, two full-time jobs, a houseguest for 2.5 months, and an upcoming major home project have all taken up our free time these last few months.

I couldn't let this day pass without acknowledging our favorite little girl's birthday. Willa turned three today and it was a wonderful day. She has shown a new sense of maturity in just the last few weeks - she's willing to play independently which allows Markus and I to get a few extra things done (or done more quickly), her language continues to explode, and she's bouncing and balancing and hopping and skipping and jumping around. She's so much fun right now!

There are some tantrums, but not like we experienced a few months ago - and even those were mild. She's a good listener, which she's proud of, and overall seems to be a happy little girl.

Occasionally our patience is tested, but on days like today, Markus and I are both reminded of our lucky we are to be parents of such a beautiful, caring, smart, energetic, healthy, funny little girl.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Willa!

This kitchen won't last

2010-03-16T21:34:00.001-04:00

Yes, we are finally doing a kitchen rehab... after only 5 years of talking about it. It's going to be awesome:

Liebherr 30 inch refrigerator
Bartazonni 36" dual fuel range
Bosch dishwasher
GE Monogram Advantium Speedoven
and a wine fridge... TBD

I'm also hopeing to do a cool AV system with speakers mounted outside for entertaining!

Here's the old kitchen in case you forget how we still rock the 80s hard.

Willa's first visit to the dentist

2010-03-16T21:28:00.001-04:00

Here's Willa before the dentist...

Here's Willa AFTER the dentist!!

Note from Christie: Please excuse how awful I look! It's allergy season and I was still half-asleep. We wanted to share the photos of Willa's visit, so I'm taking one for the team. :-)

December - February Photos

2010-03-08T14:19:00.002-05:00

We are long overdue on some posts, but it's been a hectic few months.

The holidays are always hectic. In January, Christie's travel picked up as she prepared for her project launch. January and February were heavy work times, while Markus did extra daddy duty to pick up the slack.

Willa has had the normal winter colds, the occasional bad day (whining, tantrums, no nap or any number of things), but is mostly having a great winter. She's fully potty-trained now, which is wonderful! Her vocabulary and language are both pretty impressive. I'm her mom so I'm supposed to think that, but the pediatrician commented that she has "sophisticated language skills". Perhaps all of my over-talking is paying off for her! She loves to sing and likes to play pretend games now. Her mind is growing. Often times, she's Gunner or Cole (my parents' and sister's dogs) and I'm the other, or she'll say "I'm making pizza dough, who wants some" and we all pretend to eat the pizza.

She loves to sing - actual songs and made-up ones. I get lots of special requests at bedtime ("Mommy, sing a song about Coley" or "Mommy, sing a song about Curious George and the Bunny"). I'm no singer or songwriter, that poor child, but she seems to like whatever song I come up with no matter how poorly I sing or what the words are.

The other thing that makes us laugh a lot is also language-related. She's started understanding past tense but doesn't conjugate verbs correctly yet, or get the pronouns right (everyone is a her), or get the prepositions quite right. I love it because it's been fascinating to hear her language develop and it's so cute and funny to listen to. See below for examples:

"The squirrel flewed!"
"I tooked the cup and blah blah blah"
"I sawed the XXX"
"Zachary put it in her foot" (instead of on his foot - poor Zack!)

Now that she talks in 8-9 word sentences, all of these mix-ups make us laugh out loud. The other thing is that she's very particular about her clothing. She picks out her underwear (organized by character because she has so many pairs courtesy of her Aunt Zee, and just like Zee, Willa is indecisive, so Mommy is trying character piles to help...maybe if she can narrow down to Dora underpants, we'll pick underpants faster...experiment results forthcoming!), and usually her whole outfit - pants and/or skirt (she loves skirts with leggings), socks or tights, shirt, and shoes. She knows what she likes, and she definitely likes to mix patterns (see NYE photos - plaid, hearts, pink, purple, a bit of everything).

Following are lots of albums from the past few months. We post a lot on Facebook now, so maybe we can convert all of the 5 blog reads to Facebook readers. We post video there, too - it's easier than posting here (I can't figure out how to do it). Work has finally calmed down for me - I get 5 whole weeks at home after 6 or 7 trips Jan-Feb. We should be able to post photos more frequently now. Oh, and a kitchen renovation is forthcoming so we'll post those photos, too.

Look how big Willa is now:

New Year's Eve

This album includes a video of Willa swaddling her Baby Marketa. Click on the picture to see the photos and the video:

2010-01-23

This is another album that has 2 videos in it from our Snowpocalypse in February. Click on the picture to see the album and the videos.

2010-02-06 Snowpocalpyse I

Fireplace Install

2010-01-08T00:18:00.000-05:00

2009 Holiday Slide Show

2010-01-08T00:17:00.000-05:00

Enjoy!

Willa and Abby watch T'Choupi

2010-01-07T23:40:00.000-05:00

Snow Photos

2009-12-20T23:56:00.001-05:00

OK, I tried to post a few snow photos directly from my phone but they don't auto rotate. So... I took them down. I will have to pull them off and rotate and repost them tomorrow. Sorry! I'll make a full album and post the whole thing (beyond the few I put on Facebook)

Willa on the steps

2009-12-18T00:12:00.000-05:00

Underpants - a test run

2009-11-22T21:02:00.004-05:00

This weekend, we took a big step. Willa has been doing so well at peeing on the potty that we let her try out her new underpants. She did great!

She had no accidents all day Saturday. That night, in the excitement of a juice box and a visit from Aunt Liz, Uncle Luke, Jill and Stacy, she started to pee a little but stopped herself and said, "Mommy, I sit the potty." We ran upstairs and she finished her business. Accidents will happen; I was just glad that she stopped herself and saved the rest for the potty. A good sign, I think!

Today, we did underpants again and no accidents again! We switched to a pull-up when we went out to dinner (I don't think we're quite ready for underpants away from home yet). It seemed like she turned a corner about a week ago - she started peeing more frequently on the potty instead of just in the morning, and while I was away this week, the teachers at school said she started peeing on the potty there, too.

I gave her a hug once and said, "I'm so proud of you!" Now Willa tells me, "Mommy, I'm so proww fuv you" for no reason at all. It makes me laugh each time.

This is a big milestone for Willa. I can't wait to tell the pediatrician at our 2.5 year checkup on Tuesday. Next stop, poop (on the potty)!

Fashionista

2009-11-03T08:33:00.000-05:00

Willa rides her bike

2009-10-25T18:36:00.001-04:00

Willa got some practice today riding her bike around the courtyard!

Willa goes pee!

2009-10-05T23:31:00.003-04:00

Big news - Willa peed on the potty tonight!

It's been a long several months and I don't mention it much on here, but she's known when she has to pee and poop for a long time. She just wouldn't sit on the potty to do it. Tonight, she willingly sat down and after a drop came out, she wanted to get up. I cajoled her into sitting back down and sure enough, she peed on the potty!

She was excited, I was so proud, we did high fives, fist bumps, hugs, kisses, and stickers all over her little body. Willa put the Sesame Street stickers in a circle around her hemangioma, which I thought was funny. Then she transferred them to her wrist and made a bracelet. She loves making circles...I was so excited, I didn't care how many stickers she wanted to have.

Let's hope this pee pee on the potty thing continues. Way to go Willa!

Late August/September update

2009-09-18T13:47:00.003-04:00

1. Willa's school closed for one week before the new school year started. Willa and I stayed at Didi and Pop-Pop's house and had a visit with her Grammy, Aunt Krista, and cousin Emma while in town. Willa stayed all week, I stayed until Wednesday (see #2). Willa had a great time and I suspect the family did, too.

2. Markus and I went to Montreal - alone! - for a long weekend to celebrate 5 years of marriage. We had a wonderful time - shopped, ate, rode bikes (on the road - quite a milestone for Christie given her fear of bike riding...hmm, breaking bones as a child couldn't have anything to do with that?...), ate, walked, drank our favorite beer brewed in the outskirts of the city, and soaked up the nice weather and culture there. Markus wants to move there. Seriously.

3. Willa had pneumonia. Seriously. We came home and a cough from 3 weeks prior had re-surfaced. Since I was on vacation the day after Labor Day, I figured what else could be better than a doctor's visit? They diagnosed pneumonia and wheezing, which resulted in 2 more hours at the radiology lab waiting for a chest Xray to confirm no "structural" problems in the lungs. No structural problems found, azithromycin started, problem solved within days.

4. Christie found out she has a deviated septum and "stiff" eardrums. Years of allergy suffering finally taking their toll, apparently, since there have been more sinus and ear pains this year than in my entire life. Started a course of heavy-duty antibiotics and steroids to reduce inflammation and get rid of any possible infection. Must return in 5 weeks to see if the problem was due to infection-related inflammation, or if I'm still having problems, must get imaging to look for "structural" problems. What is it with structural problems? Here's hoping the pills do the trick. Otherwise, surgery (eww, nose surgery) is how they correct this problem...oh, and the ENT told me I could get tubes for my ears if they remain problematic. I thought tubes were for 2-year-olds?! What the heck?

5. As a result of the septum issues, I am returning to the care of an allergist after a 10 year hiatus. I'm sad about this...thought I could manage with my regimen of pills, nasal sprays, and eye drops. Allergy shots are probably likely to be part of my life again (I got them for 15 years, then took my 10 year break). I'm so excited. Not.

6. Christie turned 33! Hooray for old age! Well, I'm not old, but I'm no spring chicken either. But I'm not as old as my Dad either - he turned 50 on September 15!!! Ha ha! I have crow's nests around my eyes (or eagle's nests as I originally called them when I forgot the name - Markus corrected me, thankfully - but some days I feel like they look as big as eagle's nests!), well, that's enough. I'm pretty healthy (save the nose/ears/throat/allergy stuff), I have a family I love, I'm employed, we have a nice home and food, so what's their to complain about? I could come up with stuff, but I'll save it. Markus took me out for a nice dinner and his brother, Luke, baby-sat Willa. What a stand-up 25 year-old-guy, huh? Baby-sitting his 2-year-old niece who adores him. How lucky are we?!

7. Markus got braces today. 18 months of hell, as he said. On a conversation about an hour ago, he wondered if he should have done it. I told him he'll be very pleased with the results in 18 months. In the meantime, I've roasted squash to make him some delicious homemade curried squash soup for his dinner and jello for dessert. I remember the post-orthodontist visit tooth/mouth pain. I'm sure after a few days, it will get better.

Next up - travel. Lots of travel. Between Markus and I, one or both of us is travelling each week between now and the last week in October (one week together for a family vacation to Florida, though Markus is going to Seattle for a conference, taking a redeye and meeting us at the Philly airport to head directly to Florida - exhausting!). Blog updates may be sporadic given our schedules. We're still here, mostly healthy, and Willa is awesome (as usual).

Happy Fall and stay tuned for more updates and pictures!

Hemangioma, part 2

2009-09-09T13:42:00.002-04:00

Willa, pointing to her hemangioma : "Mommy, whatssat?"

Mommy: "What did I tell you it is? Do you remember?"

Willa: "Eee billy (pause) joba"

Mommy: "That's right, hemangioma."

Willa: "Ee billy (shorter pause) joba"

Hemangioma

2009-08-21T22:52:00.003-04:00

Willa, pointing to the strawberry hemangioma on her chest: "Mommy, whatssat?"

Mommy: "It's your hemangioma."

Willa: "Ihman (pause) joba"

Questions and Answers

2009-08-15T22:56:00.004-04:00

So the other night, I put Willa to bed and went downstairs. I turned on the monitor and could hear her drifting off to sleep as she drank her sippy cup of water, or so I thought. After about 15 minutes, I hear:

"Hi, how are you, Lookaaas (Luke, who is Markus' brother)? I'm fine. Yeaaaahhhh. Loookaaaas. Loooooookaaaaaas. Loookaaaas."

And on she went. I think she sang happy birthday in there, too. She went on for at least 5 minutes, talking to herself and calling for her uncle Luke.

We've been teaching her questions and answers, or ways to respond. Please/Thank you/You're welcome. How are you/I'm fine. Why/Because. I love you, Willa/I love you, Mommy. See you later/see ya lada. She's apparently figured out the concept, based on the exchange I heard the other night. Sometimes she'll ask "why XXX" and then immediately say, "Because". Saves me some time!

She loves talking on the phone and often can't wait for the how are you part so she can answer.

Markus' dad arrived for a visit on Friday, so Willa's been enjoying her visit with "Ireland Pop-Pop". Tonight, she followed him around saying "Eyelin Pop-Pop, what doing?" Oh, "what doing" is her new question. We hear that so much more than why. I'm changing her diaper - "what doooing?" "Changing your diaper." "Why?" "Because you peed in it." "Yeaaah." Then I start putting Butt Paste on. "What doooing?" "Putting Butt Paste on." "Bu Pees."

Markus started telling Willa she's nosy since she's always asking questions, so now she walks around saying she's "noazee".

Today, we went to the Please Touch Museum. Luke works there and was on-duty today so he arranged for tickets for us. How nice! We rode the carousel and Willa said the whole time, "I don't like it. Git off Mommy." Then when it was over and we got off, she cried because she wanted to go back on. Indecisive like her mother.

She started combining sentences in the last few days.

"I don't like it Mommy. Take it."
"Grape fell. Git it Mommy. Pick it up Mommy."
"Climb up Willa's new bed. Lay down."
"No this music, Daddy. Pretty singing, please." Pretty singing = opera to Willa. She calls opera "opalawa". Then she claps if it's a live version of a song and the applause is heard on the air. It's funny.

And so many more I can't think of at the moment.

Oh, she's up to 18 or 19 with the counting, and can go to 20 in French (with some help)! She's got red, orange, green, blue, pink, and yellow down pat. Sometimes knows purple. The fact that we buy obnoxiously bright colored shoes for her (i.e., bright orange) has helped her learn her colors (go get your ORANGE shoes, Willa). She knows circles, and loves to draw them. She makes circle after circle after circle when she draws at her easel. Tonight, I wrote her name (and of course, I drew a circle around it). Then she started making all these lines with the marker (she had temporarily forgotten about circles) and said W-i-j-k-l-l-l and then I don't remember, but a bunch more letters and straight lines on the paper. And then, "I did it!" She was so proud that she, ahem, wrote her name.

I know this may not be as fascinating to our faithful blog readers (Mom...um, Aunt Sue, do you still check?), but I wanted to try to capture more of what Willa's saying and doing. Now that she repeats almost any word, it's impossible to keep track. So, no pictures tonight. Just words. Trying to make sure we don't forget the things that make us smile.

W for Willa

2009-08-10T20:28:00.001-04:00

Yay!

2009-08-09T19:05:00.000-04:00

/O.CAN.KPHI.SV.W.0188.000000T0000Z-090809T2330Z/ DELAWARE PA-PHILADELPHIA PA-CHESTER PA-MONTGOMERY PA-

659 PM EDT SUN AUG 9 2009...THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR SOUTHEASTERN MONTGOMERY...EAST CENTRAL CHESTER...PHILADELPHIA AND DELAWARE COUNTIES IS CANCELLED...

THE LINE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS HAS MOVED INTO NEW JERSEY.A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 PM EDT SUNDAY EVENING FOR NORTHERN DELAWARE AND NORTHEAST MARYLAND AND NEW JERSEY AND EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH ALSO REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1100 PM EDT SUNDAY EVENING FOR

SOUTHERN DELAWARE AND NORTHEASTERN MARYLAND.LAT...LON 3953 7521 3955 7524 3946 7538 3946 7541 3943 7542 3942 7548 3946 7555 3950 7557 3952 7554 3957 7553 3962 7558 3982 7540 3983 7521 3991 7496 3980 7492 3977 7488 TIME...MOT...LOC 2258Z 334DEG 35KT 3980 7515 3956 7549

Family dinner!

2009-08-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

Willa's new bed!

2009-08-09T18:48:00.000-04:00

July pictures

2009-08-05T22:22:00.003-04:00

Scroll down - I posted earlier tonight. This post is pictures-only! The albums aren't edited so you'll see lots of pics.

July 4 - we went to a ceremony at Independence Hall then hosted a big bash for our neighbors and friends. Lots of random photos of people you may not know. We were graced with the presence of local celeb Fergie (long, white hair), a former block resident who now live 2 blocks away and owns 3 very cool bars in the city.

July 29 - Willa's one teacher is a pro at toddler hairstyling. On this day, she French braided little pigtails! Willa smiled and then broke out the ham.

August 1 - we decided to get some "nice" pictures of Willa. Her face is changing and her legs suddenly look so long in these pictures I think.

August 5 - hot off the presses, pictures from Willa's bedtime tonight in her new bed!

Willa-speak, sentence style

2009-08-05T21:46:00.003-04:00

We're onto full-blown sentences now, along with advanced words (helicopter, anyone?).

Some of our favorite Willa sentences:

"I do pickup" = I have the hiccups.

"I someone" = I hear someone (we say this each night when Daddy walks in the door and she gets so excited)

"Willa do" = I will do it myself, thank you very much.

"Wrap up" = Cover up [object - could be baby, fork, water bottle, little horse] with a napkin, dish towel, wash cloth. Leads to frustration on Willa's part, so Mommy or Daddy must help. Such a mother hen, trying to swaddle her things.

"Good minning, Mommy" = Good morning

"My come up" = I want to come up into your bed and snuggle with you and Daddy.

"Amanee sunnle" = Family snuggle!

"Amanee walk" = Family walk - she loves these!

"Amanee trip in Willa's caa" = Time for a trip in the car. She loves "Willa's caa" and looks for it each morning on our walk to school.

"My go potty" = I have to pee/poop. She's not going in the potty yet, but knows when she has to go. A step in the right direction.

"Rockabye baby Willa. Mommy sing." = I want Mommy to sing Rockabye Baby to me and personalize it with "down will come Willa, cradle and all". We do this at least 10 times each night before bed (and I pray Markus isn't listening on the monitor); Willa likes to switch up the name - sometimes we rockabye baby Stella, or Daddy, or our neighbor, "Kaffryn"

"Hap berday dear Kaffryn" = Happy Birthday Kathryn! Our friend, Kathryn's, birthday was July 3. At least once each day, Willa breaks out in song to wish Kathryn another happy birthday. Still, even though it was a month ago.

I can't think of any others right now, but she makes us laugh with her new statements. Many of her sentences have progressed to 5 or 6 words. She's also counting to 14 by herself in English and French. She loves to count. I guess most kids do. And the alphabet is coming along; we watch Elmo and India Arie on YouTube almost everyday singing the ABCs. She moves her mouth along with them and can recite most letters by herself. She misses E - J sometimes, but with prompting can get through the whole thing. It's so amazing to just listen to her (and any other toddler, she's just the one I see everyday) and hear how much they already know.

Finally, big family news: Willa's sleeping in her "big girl bed" for the first time tonight! I'm away this week, but Markus tells me she was so excited when the mattress was delivered Monday. They set it up tonight without the bedframe, so it's nice and close to the floor, and she loved it. Markus said she went to bed without a problem. What a good girl. I can't wait to see it when I get home. Markus took some pictures tonight and uploaded some older ones, so I'll load them to the site in a separate post.

-Christie

Sunday

2009-07-19T18:42:00.000-04:00

Morning: walked to Old City and home via Headhouse Square Farmer's Market

Afternoon: Puma store, Kmart, NY and Company

Beautiful day!

Listening to Black Eyed Peas now!

June catch-up

2009-07-08T22:07:00.003-04:00

I think if we aim to post monthly, we might be able to achieve it! June was a busy month for us. I was back to my old job and things were going full swing. I had 3 business trips and Markus had 1; finally we had some family time together in the third week in June. I'll start my normal travel schedule now, which is every three weeks. I've been home for three weeks and it's been pleasant. I think this interval will be manageable for all of us.

Willa is wow. I don't know how else to say it. She surprises us each day with something new. We're not always pleased (i.e. when tantrums became more frequent) but most developments are good ones and we enjoy watching our little girl grow. Luckily for us, the tantrum/sharing problems lasted all of 3-5 days and haven't resurfaced since then. I know they'll likely return at some point, but we're enjoying the lack of them right now.

Willa's language is quite good, I think. She puts 3-4 word sentences together now and repeats everything. Yes, we're watching our swear words. She repeats everything. Lots of words have "ees" on the end right now (milkie, covee for cover, coppy for helicopter, etc). It makes me (Christie) smile. I love listening to her talk. As I was leaving for my last trip to Indy, she and Markus watched me leave from the patio. I told her I loved her and she said "I love you" back. It was the first time and it was a wonderful farewell. She spent a weekend at the shore with her Grammy and Pop Pop last weekend; the funniest part was when Markus' mom called him and then Willa started saying "Maa-kees". So now she'll call him "Maa-kees" sometimes, especially if she's trying to get his attention. What can you do but laugh? Then Markus taught her to say my name, which is "Kee-see". I love toddler talk! She can count to 10, sometimes stumbling in the middle but can get to 10 with some reminders. She also surprised me with being able to recite most of the ABCs! Again, if she misses some and we start back with the right letter, she can pick it up again. When she gets to W, she says W Willa. Smart girl. :-)

She's curious about what's going on around her and likes to know who people are. She's keen to recite peoples' names so much so that at school, she's known as the shout out queen. We do early drop-off at 8 am, so she's one of the first to arrive. As each child arrives, she shouts their name and runs up to give them a hug or a point to the arm. It's been neat to see her recognize people at the park or in the neighborhood, too. Since we drop her off early, I don't know all of the kids in her class or the school but she knows her friends when we're out and doesn't hesitate to say their name and start talking to them. That little brain of hers remembers a lot - more than I realized!

Physically, she's doing the almost-run/walk-really-fast. She hasn't quite mastered jumping yet - the first time she got air under her feet, she fell on her hiny. She likes to hold onto something and jump for now (she's smart like that). Something that has become a pasttime at this point is hanging. At the park, she loves to hang on the bars. Or she'll grab onto the bottom of the swing, lift her feet and let her little body hang and swing. Her core strength must be quite good to be able to do this! Markus also taught her how to climb some of the equipment at the playground, which is great except that now she climbs to the top (which is taller than my head) and then I have to try and catch her if she falls. If only I were 6'1" like Markus! She's daring and adventurous and strong.

She's not signing nearly as much but she's saying more French words. She loves to watch Elmo's Song on You Tube...anytime we're near a computer, she says "Elmo Song". As soon as it comes on, she gets a huge grin on her face. Since she turned 2, we played a few bits of Sesame Street and she likes it okay, but isn't captivated for really long periods of time. However, we have these French books with a character named T'choupi. He's very popular with French-speaking kids. Anyway, Markus searched for him on You Tube and found videos. They're 5 minutes each and wouldn't you know, Willa loves them. We watched at least 10 or 12 different episodes last Sunday! I'm hoping that some of this French will be retained in her brain. Markus and I are going to Montreal for our fifth anniversary (!) in September and will pick up more T'choupi books to help Willa continue to learn French (or basic French, anyway). T'choupi has a little teddy bear called "Doudou" and Willa loves pointing him out in the books now, too. He squeaks in the videos and is very cute.

She had her 2-year physical in June. The pediatrician is pleased with her growth; to think she was barely on the charts when she was born! Look how far she's come:

Weight = 28 lbs, 9 oz (50-75%)
Length = 34.65 in (50-75%)
Head = 19.25 in (75%)

Those are the highlights, I think. Now that we're able to post from our Blackberries again, we should be able to post more often (and avoid super long posts like these!). We've posted some pictures in the last few days, but there were several albums from late May - late June that we skipped. Here are some photo highlights - enjoy!

Three Plates of Sloppy Joe!

2009-07-07T20:00:00.001-04:00

Our little girl was HUNGRY tonight.

Awesome Website

2009-07-07T17:36:00.001-04:00

timeanddate.com

Willa and her baby...

2009-07-06T19:36:00.001-04:00

We are enjoying a nice night on the patio and having some success getting Willa to eat her pasta. Yay for progress...

Mobile

2009-07-05T13:16:00.002-04:00

For the longest time I was unable to post to Blogger from my
Blackberry. Suddenly it looks like my problems are gone. And of
course now there are so many other places for me to share info. In
fact Facebook is arguably the best place to do this. However it does
lack some of the features that I think make Blogs relevent still;
namely tagging and the ability to easily embed rich HTML content on a
post by psot basis.

Alas I am unsure of where my time is bes spent. Facebook offers the
slickness while Blogger is more of an "archive" tool with its robust
searching and chronological indices.

I guess post everywhere...

I will try.

--
Sent from my mobile device

More artwork from earlier this year

2009-07-05T12:40:00.001-04:00

More of Willa's artwork...

Willa's Recent Artwork, July 2009 Edition

2009-07-05T12:36:00.001-04:00

We haven't been great about posting anything, much less Willa's artwork. Here's a glimpse of what she's been up to lately.

4 July 2009

2009-07-05T12:28:00.003-04:00

I think we're kind of overdue for a post... Waaaay overdue. Anyway, we had a great 4th of July with friends. We started out the day at Independence Hall and then did a big BBQ with friends from the neighborhood. I think it was one of the nicest days we've had in what has become one of the nicest Summers in memory.

Mother's Day, a budding artist, and a birthday celebration

2009-05-21T14:43:00.002-04:00

A lot has been happening in our lives lately, which means we haven't had much time to update the blog. I was re-reading some of our very early posts last night and it's so weird to think where we were in our lives when we started this blog and where we are now.

Our first posts remind me of the movie "The Money Pit" where this "dream" house ends up costing the couple so much money...we can relate. The good news is that three years later, we no longer have those house-related problems that first plagued us. The house is in good working order and thanks to some renovations and updating, it looks a lot nicer on the inside. We're glad to call this house our home (most days, anyway).

Willa's birthday was on May 8 - what a great day! I made mini-cupcakes and took them to school for afternoon snack. The kids loved them, and I was so happy to be able to visit school and watch Willa interact with all of her friends. She loves everyone in the class, as evidenced by her constant "where's XX (insert any of the 16 kids' names here)" anytime she's not at school. After school, Daddy came home and per our usual Friday night routine, we blasted the Friday Night Floor Fillers from BBC (dance/club music for those not familiar). Willa loves it, and on that Friday, we put on her sunglasses and gave her a little glo-stick like so many club-goers have, and we danced around the kitchen. We're fools, I know, but we have fun. :-)

The next day, Markus' family came down to celebrate Willa's birthday with us. We gave Willa her gift, a water/sand table. Because she plays with sand at school everyday, we're using it only for water. She loves to play in the water, so much so that our water usage has increased a unit in the last month. As guessed, she loved the table, and so did her three cousins ages 2 - 6 who were visiting. I was so glad that kids of all ages like it. What a fun toy!

On Mother's Day, we went to our Mother's Day place, Marathon Grill. This is where we had my first Mother's Day brunch when Willa was still in the hospital, and we've decided to continue the tradition. We had a nice breakfast, Willa loved her sausage (big surprise), and had lots of fun during two play sessions at the park. I left that night to fly out to Indy for the week. Came home on Thursday and have been enjoying two weeks at home before returning the first two weeks in June.

Willa's continuing to blossom socially and developmentally. She talks to people and animals ("Hi Puppy" or "hello" to people) on the street when we take walks. We do early drop-off at school, so she's there before most kids. I now have a little more time to spare when I drop her off, so I've watched her greet the other kids as they arrive. She runs up and says "hi XX" and points or waves. She's so excited to be there everyday, which makes me so happy. Her memory is impressive and just this week, I tested her counting skills and she counted to ten by herself! She sometimes gets stuck after 6 - she jumps to 9 - but when I remind her of 7, she goes in order to ten. We usually count the steps in our house or when leaving or coming into the courtyard. Now, if I don't count, she'll do her own number sequencing as we climb or descend stairs. It makes me smile. She's learning!

Her former nanny, Valerie, bought Willa some new French books when she visited her family in Belgium. I've been reading them to Willa and she continues to say some new French words. I also borrowed some Spanish kids books from the library and read those to her. I'm so hopeful that she'll enjoy languages like Markus and I do.

She loves to color and do art projects. I just bought a book about art projects for toddlers so that we can continue to foster her imagination and creativity. She loves to sing, and her new favorite song is Elmo's Song. We still don't watch TV with Willa, except on rare occasions, but one night we watched Elmo's Song on You Tube and she liked it. Now she asks for Elmo's Song at times, and we usually oblige. She gets big smiles and sings along with the "la la la la, la la la la" part. It's so cute.

We've taken lots of home videos and if I ever figure out how to load them, I will start sharing them with you. Some are hilarious.

We have some pictures taken over the course of the month, and one album contains pictures of the artwork that Willa has done since starting at Beginnings in February:

20090508

20090509 - Willa's Birthday w Fausts

20090513 - Willa in the setting sun

20090514 - Willa the hipster

20090516

200920090519 - Willa's Artwork Feb-May 2009

Happy Birthday, Willa!

2009-05-08T23:48:00.002-04:00

Two years ago today, I unexpectedly went into labor and remember being so surprised when the doctor announced it was a girl. I was convinced we were having a boy. I don't remember a lot about that day due to the anesthesia for my c-section, but I cannot forget hearing the doctor tell us it was a girl and my response, "It's a girl?". I was so excited!

In the last two years, we've seen our little 5-pounder develop in so many ways. She's now 27 pounds, walks, talks, sometimes demands, laughs, cries, makes us laugh, makes me cry (and maybe Markus, too), and is simply the most precious person in our lives. Her personality has developed so much since her first birthday, I guess in part because she can now talk.

Her language skills have exploded, as everyone said they would. She's now putting two and three word combinations and short sentences together. She remembers people who she hasn't seen recently, recognizes peoples voices on the phone, likes to sing and dance, is pretty opinionated about the clothing and shoes she wears, likes to eat, play at the park, and be a helper to her mommy and daddy.

Many days, we're tired at the end of the day, but I don't think either of us would want it any other way. We've been so lucky to have Willa as our daughter for two years now. She brings us so much joy and laughter; I know her third year will be full of more exciting developments, though we hope the terrible twos aren't too terrible!

Happy Birthday, baby girl!

Vacation

2009-04-29T15:15:00.002-04:00

Christie posting here. We had planned a family vacation and decided that a cruise might be nice - we'd unpack once but get to see different places throughout the course of the trip. I'd done some research and read that other parents recommended getting a room with a balcony so that the parents could read or hang out outside while the kiddos nap or after they go to bed at night. I was so glad we did this! The room was a bit bigger, which was nice, and the balcony was a nice - and shaded - area for Willa to play.

We flew to San Juan on April 19. We had received upgrades to first class, which made the flight a lovely experience. And we had nice big seats, which meant we could spread out and recline, which allowed Willa to take a nap. Hooray! We had a day at sea, then went to Aruba, then Curacao, another day at sea, Sint Maarten, St. Thomas, and back to San Juan. We flew home on Sunday and Willa and I were upgraded again. And this time, she slept for 2.5 hours. Hooray again!

We thought it was a good trip and we had a nice time. We both liked the Celebrity cruise line (from our cruise when I was pregnant) better than Royal Caribbean (this cruise). We also think we're done cruising for a while. Traveling with Willa should only get easier, so we'll probably stick to hotels and resorts, especially ones with pools and playgrounds. As you'll see in the photos, she loves the pool. Wasn't so sure about the ocean, but when I positioned it as an opportunity to wash hands (one of her favorite activities) she was game.

We took lots of pictures and I didn't spend too much time weeding through them. I uploaded most, so forgive the tons of photos. It was more an issue of not having hours to spend going through and picking out the top 10 or 20. So, if you have 20 minutes, look through them all...or speed through and pick only a few. Your choice. :-)

In other news, today was my last day at Elsevier. I'm returning to my old company, but I've taken a position with more responsibility. It does mean travel again, but I'll also be leading a team so it was a good opportunity overall. We'll see how Willa (and Markus) does once I start traveling. At the start, I'll be making two late Sunday/first thing Monday through Thursday trips per month, but after I get the team up and running I should be able to cut back on the travel a little bit. I'm excited and apprehensive (mostly from a personal perspective and wondering how Willa will adjust to me being away), so we'll see how it goes.

And now, here are the pictures.

20090419 - Vacation - Travel Day

20090420 - Vacation - 1st Day at Sea

20090421 - Vacation - Aruba

20090422 - Vacation - Curacao

20090423 - Vacation - 2nd Day at Sea

20090424 - Vacation - Sint Maarten

20090425 - Vacation - St. Thomas

20090426 - Vacation - Travel Day

Family Portrait

2009-04-27T22:18:00.000-04:00

A picture

2009-04-07T21:56:00.003-04:00

Courtesy of Christie's parents, from a few weeks ago. We know posts have been sparse; hopefully we'll have some time to post photos soon. For now, we present Willa all decked out for swinging in the sunshine:

From Drop Box

Willa speaks French!

2009-03-10T21:32:00.003-04:00

Last night, I was reading Willa one of the French books we bought in Montreal. We read it pretty regularly. Last night, she repeated one of the words to me (toujours, which means always) after I read it. I was so impressed! We were just talking to her old nanny, who used to speak French to Willa everyday, and she asked if Willa said any French words. She will be so excited!

Not to brag or anything, but Willa also knows Spanish. Not really, but she no longer refers to her water as water. It's "agua". She started that in late January and hasn't stopped. Not sure where she picked it up, either. Could we have a budding linguist here?

Markus and I were talking last night about the fact that there are so many international people with their kids at the park. There are several Italians and French, a Spanish couple, and yesterday we met a Dutch woman whose husband is German. Willa should have no trouble learning any languages; what an interesting mix of friends she will have as she gets older. We're thrilled about that, as Markus and I have always been interested in languages, travel, and other cultures.

Willa is blossoming. More new words all the time (tonight it was applesauce, achoo, and asparagus - we weren't practicing "A's", it was a coincidence), and she talks all the time. She's talking in sentences (incomprehensible to us) - she just jabbers while she plays. We can understand her words, but when she starts reading her books aloud or talking while she plays, we have no idea. She giggles like crazy, still loves her new school, has pooped on the potty and peed a few times, got over a nasty diaper rash that started because of a bout of diarrhea, weighs 27 pounds (we're in 24 months clothing now!), likes to dance and sing, climbs the stairs in upright form now rather than crawling, is independent, feeds herself, ummmm....there's more...likes to pick out her own clothing and the shoes she will wear (already?!), has started asking why, has NOT climbed out of her crib yet, ate raw asparagus tonight (3 pieces, so it wasn't just for show, she really likes the stuff), eats like a champ much of the time, loves ice water as opposed to warm or not-ice-water (I think because she likes to shake it), gives hugs and kisses, and is still our favorite little girl in the whole world. Our favorite little girl who will be two years old in just 8 weeks. It's going so fast...which is why we take pictures. Check below - I made a few posts and included lots of pictures to catch you up on the last month.

Willa tries to eat her Tadoodle

2009-03-10T21:17:00.003-04:00

So my dad and my sister bought Willa this Tadoodle set for Christmas. These particular Tadoodles have a sponge-like top and they work kind of like stamps - you put the Tadoodle on this certain part of the holder and it activates the ink, then you can color with it.

The Tadoodles are sitting in the office within Willa's reach. She was playing with the Tadoodles. I was doing something, Markus was doing something (he was in the office I think), and at some point, I took Willa in the kitchen for lunch. I looked at her and noticed that her mouth was yellow. She loves to suck on these Tadoodles! She even got yellow ink on the back of her onesie...it made me laugh. Then I grabbed the camera.

200920090308 - Pretty in blue

Mommy goes away

2009-03-10T21:08:00.004-04:00

My job doesn't normally require travel, which is a main reason that I took the job. I had to go to London last summer, which was a great place to have to go for work. I don't mind occasional business trips to interesting locations. In early February, I was asked to take on another project, which would require at least one trip to Germany. I said yes, so I was sent to Munich for five days the last week of February.

Markus, of course, is a pro at taking care of Willa alone (though he did confess that he was a bit nervous about this trip because now she's so mobile and full of energy). Everyone was fine here in the US. I was fine in Germany, though tired from long days of work. I'd go to the Munich office and work, then come back and do work with my US colleagues after dinner since it was the middle of their work day. There was only one English TV channel, so it wasn't like I had anything better to do.

My mom was able to join me on the trip, so it was nice to have a travel buddy. We tried a traditional Bavarian restaurant the one night. The sauerkraut was delicious, the sausage was okay. The taste was good, but I prefer a crispier crust rather than a soft (slimy?) boiled sausage...anyway, what was absolutely delicious were the pretzels. Oh, the pretzels...pretzels are one of my favorite foods, and these were not quite life soft pretzels but similar. And you could get them with butter. No wonder my pants were tight when I got home.

I digress. So my mom and I were able to sightsee together on Saturday, so we did some walking and shopping; she had done some sightseeing alone earlier in the week while I worked. We were so lucky - the weather on Saturday warmed up to 50 degrees and sunshine. It was warmer there than it was at home. We flew home on March 1, which is when the pictures below were taken.

Willa hung out with Daddy and Uncle Luke (who crocheted the black beanie that Willa models in some of the photos), and we also have a picture of a school project. Willa's theme that week was community helpers, so they colored a paper about letter carriers, then the school mailed the paper home to demonstrate what the letter carrier does. I know, she doesn't understand all that, but it was cute to open up the envelope. We have lots more art projects now, they do one about every day. We haven't taken photos yet, but there was a doctor's kit (made by Doctor Weidner), a picture with cut-outs of mice, and last week they made aliens (the theme was space). We'll do an art porfolio soon for Willa. For now, here are pictures from March 1.

200920090301 - Willa's mail and laying on the floor

Willa and a friend in the high chair

2009-03-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

I don't remember what was going on at the time, but Willa looks exhausted here. She and baby were taking a break in the high chair on 2/17.

From 20090217 - Willa and baby in high chair

Valentine's Day at Seger Park

2009-03-10T21:01:00.004-04:00

It's been about a month, so I realized we're due to post some pictures. We spent Valentine's Day doing our usual Saturday morning routine - wake up and get dressed, walk to Reading Terminal Market to be there right at 8 (hey, puts the early wake ups to good use), buy our produce and meat, and then get coffee and scones for breakfast. It's been fun, because there are some regulars there we've begun to recognize and we usually make small talk with our neighbors at the next table thanks to Willa.

After we returned home and unpacked our loot, we took Willa over to the park. She loves the park, which I probably say in every post. I'll say it again - she loves the park. Markus and I were just saying last night that we're so glad we live right across the street - makes it so easy to go. If we lived just a few blocks away, I don't think we'd go as often. And it's so worth it! Willa burns energy, makes friends, we make friends and see people we know, the house isn't torn apart because we're outside, and Willa sleeps better (3 hour naps, people! From a girl whose naps are usually 1 h 45 min, 3 hours is such a treat).

Valentine's Day was really the first time this year that it was warm enough to play, and Willa became very interested in the area for older kids because there's so much more climbing. Wanna see her having fun? Click on the picture below:

20090214 - Valentine's Day in the park

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T19:49:00.001-05:00

RTM on a Saturday morning

2009-02-14T08:42:00.001-05:00

Snow at Khan Park

2009-02-04T08:02:00.001-05:00

Beginnings

2009-02-03T22:27:00.002-05:00

As most of you probably know, Willa started at a new daycare yesterday. Anyone who knows me knows that I am anxious and get nervous easily, so you can imagine that I was pretty anxious over the weekend. How would Willa do? Would she cry? Would it take weeks for her to adjust? Should we have left her at the other daycare?

I don't know if it made any difference, but I talked to Willa about it a few times over the weekend. I figured it couldn't hurt because I've read that at this age, children understand far more than they can say.

On Monday, I took her to Beginnings, the name of her new school. She was a superstar! She got down so we could take her coat off and then off she went! She followed a classmate into the potty* (see story below about Willa's interest in the potty) to watch and then started running around. I called during naptime and the teacher said she did really well in the morning - a few whimpers in the morning, but she did the art project, which was making sheep with dixie cups and cotton balls. I was told she did really well with the art project, too, so that made me smile. She ate her lunch and took a nap. All great signs for a first day! When I went to pick her up, she was having fun but ran up to me right away. I know she was glad to see me, which is a nice feeling.

Today, she did great again - no crying at dropoff, played, ate her lunch, took a nap, and is already making the teachers laugh. She's got three teachers and helpers from Temple University's early education program, all of whom are very nice.

I was sad to say goodbye to her teachers last week and will miss some of them a lot, but I do feel good about Beginnings. I like that she's in a nice, big room with lots of windows and it looks out onto a little playground that's just for her school. It's two blocks from our house - how can you beat that? They include potty time in the daily schedule for kids who are interested (but there's no pressure if the child doesn't want to), they do art projects each day, and there's a weekly tumbling class we can sign up for. We saw the tumbling class during our tour and Willa was verrry interested, so I think we'll sign her up. She's such a climber monkey (she climbs up onto her highchair in about 3 seconds flat now), I think she'd love it. Oh yeah, they provide snacks, so I only have to pack a lunch, and they have a huge refrigerator where I can keep her half-gallon of milk and her lunch bag; the other place had a dorm-size fridge and we weren't supposed to send any food that required refrigeration so I would send field-trip types of packed lunches...

She's been tired this week, I suspect from all of the changes. Her normal bedtime was 8/8:30 and she'd wake up around 6:50. This week, she's been going to bed at 7:30 without a fight and sleeping til 7:15 or so. She's eating a lot, too, so maybe it's a growth spurt (example: Sunday morning breakfast - 1 Kashi waffle at 7:30, 1 bowl of Life/Cheerios/All Bran cereal mixture with milk at 8:30, 2 breakfast sausage links at 10:00). Since she's tired, she's cuddly and snuggly, and I love that because I know someday all too soon she will refuse.

We're attempting to take more pictures and video, and now that Markus is back into blog posting mode, we hope to update the site a bit more frequently. Check back soon!

* Potty interest: Willa is very interested in watching this whole pee-pee process. She likes to watch it happen and provide sound effects (pssssssshhhhh - she can't say 's' properly just yet, they sound more like 'sh') while you go. She's very clear on what needs to be done with toilet paper. She'll sit on her potty, fully clothed, and will reach for toilet paper. She goes through the motions and sticks the T.P. in her potty. Then she gets more T.P., "wipes", sticks it in her potty and repeats until we stop her. It's quite funny, especially considering she's still got a diaper and pants on! It is at this point that I'm glad she's clothed because she also likes to reach down into the potty and pull the T.P. back out...we're working on explaining that it should stay in the potty. Anyway, next we wash our hands. Good hygiene is very important! Then we do this all over again the next time I have to pee and Willa is in the room. I never thought bathroom trips would be so full of entertainment (or that I'd be on such display!).

Mosaic

2009-02-01T23:03:00.000-05:00

I think these were all taken on Thanksgiving Day.

Willa and her baby

2009-02-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

Willa Movement Series

2009-02-01T22:24:00.001-05:00

Baby Loves Disco.

2009-02-01T14:54:00.002-05:00

At Shampoo...

IMG00126-20090201-1453.jpg

Thursday Bathtime

2009-01-29T19:20:00.001-05:00

Bathtime!!

IMG00120-20090129-1919.jpg

I'm back

2009-01-29T19:15:00.003-05:00

After a long - too long - hiatus, I've returned to the blog. Yes, I'm still posting at Facebook and yes, I'm busier than ever... But, I will find the time to parallel post to this site. In fact, there are ways of tying the two together which I've tried in the past. The bottom line is that I'm going to make an effort.

I've relinked my blackberry to the blog which was probably the major reason for my inactivity. We'll once again be posting extemporaneous photos via Blackberry...

Oh and the music below is from an Australian band.

Empire of the Sun - Walking On A Dream

2009-01-29T18:55:00.001-05:00

A very important word

2009-01-20T21:39:00.001-05:00

I can't believe I forgot this one. She started saying it in early November. We haven't practiced too much since then, but we will continue to work on it.

bama - OBAMA!!

New words mid-January 2009

2009-01-17T09:54:00.007-05:00

Willa has a few more new words that I wanted to keep track of:

1. Tata - tickle
2. Ooyoo - orange
3. Doodzie - Lindsay
4. Bataa - Bartosh (little boy at school)
5. Wye-wee - Riley (girl at school)
6. Koo - school
7. Wazzit - what's that
8. Juh-juh - Justin
9. Owee - ouch
10. Moymoy - Mwemwe (the nickname of her primary teacher at school)
11. Pata - pasta
12. Ka - cat (finally!)
13. Liya - Olivia (teacher at school)
14. Mee - Mia (friend from school)
15. Ree - Sriram (friend from school)
16. I can't reproduce it in my head, but she did try to say Joaquin today (another friend from school)
17. Woo - Luke (uncle Luke!) - not to be confused with "woo woo" which is dog
18. Hiny - no translation needed
19. Heddo - hello
20. Boto - lentils
21. Javi - Javi (short for Javier, friend from school)
22. Lexa - Alexa (friend from school)
23. Berga - Burger
24. She attempted to say broccoli, but it was a jumbled mess...A for effort, though!

And a few new signs:

Water
Milk
Fish
Brush teeth
Cereal
All done

She caught the cold that I had, so she coughed all night long and woke up a few times. I feel bad for her because I know how I felt with this cold (and I was taking cough medicine, Mucinex, and eating cough drops). As of this morning, our daughter has become a non-stop snot machine. Her nose will not stop running!!

Before her cold, she did many funny things this week. When you say raise the roof, she starts dancing and pushes her hands toward the ceiling. Future club kid?

She's also become very interested in her food. This week, I made sloppy joes and she garnished it with cheerios and peanuts. Sounds unappealing to me, but she ate it! The next night, I strained the brother from the chicken soup I had made, so she had a bowl of noodles, chicken and vegetables. She added cheerios and popcorn to it - and ate it! Every bite had to have a cheerio or piece of popcorn. I figure if that's what it takes for her to eat the dish, it's okay with me. Last night, I heated some sausage and chicken for her, put cranberry relish in the other part of her plate, and put a little pizza sauce on the side (she likes to dip her food). She ended up dipping her spoon in the pizza sauce and then in the cranberry relish and eating it. Yum!

She also had pinkeye last week so we've had to give her eyedrops. By the third day, she was reaching for the eyedrops and trying to put them in her eyes. It's amazing how much these little people observe.

No pictures today; just stories. Hopefully we'll have some photos soon. Now, back to wiping a certain little girl's nose...

Willa - Future Fashion Designer?

2009-01-05T20:32:00.005-05:00

So Willa has this habit where she insists on looking in her closet and picking out a bow (coat, which in this case is a hoodie or sweater). Girlfriend likes to layer, I guess. If we're anywhere near her room and she doesn't already have a hoodie, sweater, or fleece on, she walks into her closet, points, and says "bow". I pick her up and she has to pick out the bow to wear.

Yesterday, she was wearing a blue and white argyle shirt and black pants. We went through this little exercise and she picked out a pink hoodie. A short while later, she wanted to pick out another bow. So I picked her up and let her look around the closet, thinking we'd do a swap. She reached into the back of her closet, where some of her outfits for spring (Christmas gifts) were hanging. She picked out a green dress. The green dress is size 24 months; 18 months fits her well right now, but she certainly still has room to grow in this size. Needless to say, I knew it would be a little big.

Willa insisted on wearing this dress, so we took off the hoodie, put on the green, flowery dress, and then had to put the pink hoodie back on. The pink actually worked with the dress; if the leggings had not been black, the outfit might have looked alright. The dress still had the tags on, which I thought was fine, that she'd have this dress off within five minutes. After an hour or two, I figured I should rip the tag off.

She took a nap and then we went for a walk (still wearing said dress and hoodie). The bundling up process covered everything but her pants, so she looked okay. It was kind of nice, so we decided to swing by the park for a few slides. At this point we realized that her dress was hanging out of the coat and that she looked ridiculous. Markus tucked her dress into her pants, giving her a bubble butt and bubble belly. When we got home, we took these pictures to remember Willa's first foray into fashion. Oh yeah, this was taken at the end of a busy day of playing, hat-wearing, and napping so her hair is all disheveled, too. As if she needed any help looking crazy.

20090104 - Crazy Willa Outfit

I made a few other posts tonight so scroll down if you'd like to read more and see pictures from Christmas.

Pictures from Christmas

2009-01-05T20:26:00.003-05:00

We had a very nice Christmas and were fortunate to see many members of our extended families (who were all very generous, particularly to Miss Willa). The best part is that we didn't get sick after Christmas this year! We were exhausted after all of the excitement and were thrilled to have a long weekend to recover.

Willa enjoyed Christmas, but I think her favorite part was being an elf: handing out presents, and helping put the trash in the bag. She's very much into putting things away right now. I know this will not last. But it's nice right now. Anyway, she got lots of new toys and clothing and has been enjoying many of them on these long holiday weekends that just ended. The little people, her purse, Legos, crayons, rocking horse, puzzles...time to start phasing out the remaining baby toys to make room for the new ones. We cleared out the coffee table from our family room area so that she has space to roam around and spread out her toys and play.

Here are some photos from our trip to the Boyometro, as we call it.

20081225 - Christmas and Christmas Eve Pictures

Willa's Words at 20 Months

2009-01-05T20:12:00.009-05:00

Here goes...

1. Apple
2. Manna (Banana)
3. Nyyyye (Nice, which means cat)
4. Mao (Meow)
5. Puppy
6. Woo Woo (former word for puppy, until she started saying puppy this week)
7. Baa (for sheep/lamb)
8. Happy (today's new word)
9. Boo (Boot; today's other new word)
10. Book
11. Mee (Eat)
12. Cwacka (Cracker)
13. Takoo (Thank You)
14. Bebe (Baby)
15. Potchy (Tchoupi, which is a character in one of her little French books)
16. Peepee
17. Poopy
18. Potty
19. Wawa (Water and Willa)
20. Bow (Coat)
21. Dao (Belly - don't ask me, but she lifts up her shirt constantly and shows us her "dao")
22. Ear
23. Nooo (Nose)
24. No No No (no need to translate)
25. Yah (Yes)
26. Eye
27. Deet (Feet)
28. Doo (Shoe)
29. Niw (Milk)
30. Nye-Nye (Night Night)
31. Wack (Quack)
32. Ear
33. Hair
34. Hanna (friend from school)
35. Sadie (friend from school)
36. Didi (for Didi, which is what she calls my mom)
37. PopPop
38. Doody (for Dani, which is what she calls Markus' mom)
39. Maa (Max - friend from school)
40. Nao (Nell - friend from the neighborhood)
41. Harley (the dog next door)
42. Alan (our neighbor with the dog)
43. Helene (our neighbor with the dog)
44. Mommy
45. Daddy, sometimes called Di-Da
46. Elmo
47. Waydo (Radio)
48. Psss (the sound of peeing)
49. Yay
50. Hi
51. Ball
52. Wayzee (Raisin)
53. Chee (Cheese; another new word today)
54. Cup
55. Up
56. Down
57. Out
58. More
59. Bye Bye
60. Wow
61. Ott (Hot)
62. Ahhh (after a long sip of water)
63. Bean
64. Cookie
65. Bottle
66. Two
67. Five
68. Momo
69. Key

Wow, more than I thought! I'm sure there are more, but her vocabulary is expanding so rapidly. She's also learned some new signs. Now she can do the signs for:

Eat
More
Please
Thank You
Shoes
Socks
Cracker
Banana
Bath
Sleep
Hat
Bus
Hurt

That's all I can think of. Not bragging, just trying to keep a record of what she can do and when. :-)

Has it really been 6 weeks?

2008-12-22T21:48:00.006-05:00

Yes, I guess it has been that long since our last post. Now that Willa is walking and getting closer to running, our evenings are very busy while she's awake and then we get ready for tomorrow when she goes to bed.

I feel like new things happen everyday, it's hard to keep track of it all. I'll try to do a separate post of Willa's words, but it's safe to say her vocabulary is definitely expanding each day. Here's a quick list of what she's doing now:

- Walking - walking fast, climbing stairs (up and down), chasing cats
- Talking - I would say she has at least 25 words. If I do that separate post and list her words, we'll see where she's at
- Potty-ing - We bought her a potty chair and set it up in the new bathroom. We put her on it most regularly in the mornings and she pees most mornings. We aren't putting too much focus on it but would like to start introducing the potty to her. She says pee-pee and can make a "pssss" sound (smiling all the while, of course).
- Eating - we've had some challenging eating days because she's just too busy to want to eat. It has been fun to watch her learn to use utensils, though. In the last week or so, she's able to feed herself with a spoon and still have bits of food on the spoon when it gets to her mouth! She fed herself baby peas on the spoon tonight. We clap and make a big deal anytime the food stays on the spoon and gets into her mouth. She claps and says "yay", too, to join in the fun.
- Bathing - Willa loves our new bath tub. It's mostly her tub - she likes to lay on her belly and put her face in the water, splash with her hands and washcloth, and use cups to fill and spill water.
- Dancing - She likes to bounce her little hiny! If a good beat comes on the radio, she'll start moving around. We were at a wedding this weekend and she danced at the reception; sometimes she even turns in a circle like a true dancing queen.
- Dressing - Now Willa likes to help pick out her outfits. She's always pointing in her closet to a "doe" (coat, which is actually a sweater but she calls them all the same thing) that she wants to wear. If you see some pictures with sweaters that don't match, you know Willa picked it out. :-) She also knows lots of her body parts now, and particularly loves the eyes and nose. She about pokes your eye out...again, still working on the gentle/careful idea, and in discovering her nose has started picking her nose sometimes. Thrilling.
- Playing - Santa came early to Lombard Street. Willa got a few new toys - I think her favorite is Baby Stella. My mom bought a Baby Stella to keep at their house; Willa liked it so much Santa brought her one to have at home. She puts Baby Stella on her belly and pats her hiny and says ni-ni (night night). Willa hasn't learned gentle yet, though, so she pats poor Stella pretty hard. She loves that baby doll, and the pattern/puzzle game she got. She also got Baby Signing Time DVDs - we watched one yesterday and tonight she was doing a few more signs!
- Signing - She's been doing the sign for "more" for a few months now, but she's also started doing the signs for please, food, sleep, and bath. The DVDs are entertaining (we enjoyed watching and learning the signs, too) and I like that she's learning another language.
- Being a comedian - I think I've mentioned this before, but Willa is a ham in front of others. Our good friend, Marie, got married this weekend and was kind enough to invite Willa to the wedding and reception. She enjoyed herself, particularly at the reception. While we were eating dinner, she walked onto the dance floor by herself and proceeded to wave to people, dance, pull up her dress and point to her belly, do a downward dog yoga pose (hands and feet on the ground and hiny up in the air) and look through her legs to see who was watching, walk around some more and wave and say hi...what are we in store for as she gets older?! Later, though, she was walking a little too fast and fell on the floor. She was okay, but after that she mostly wanted to be held. It was also about 9 or 9:30 by this point, so it was pretty late (her normal bedtime is 8). We were so proud of her good behavior at the wedding and at the rehearsal dinner.

As I mentioned, Santa stopped by our house this past weekend because we won't be waking up at our house on Christmas morning (til next year, anyway). Willa liked ripping the paper sometimes, but then she'd get distracted. I was glad she only had about 10 packages to open for that reason! Christmas should be interesting...

Now for the pictures:

20081127 - Thanksgiving

20081130 - coloring

20081214 - Holiday Brunch

20081220 - Marie and Ian's Wedding

20081221 - Christmas Morning

Willa-Daddy Day - video from Seger Park

2008-11-12T22:10:00.001-05:00

Markus took this video from his new Blackberry and uploaded it to Google video. I'm embedding it here so you can see it. It might be grainy because it was shot using the Blackberry instead of a proper video camera, but you'll hear the noises and be able to see Willa heading down the slide head first. That's the only way she goes down when she does it herself - what a daredevil.

Leaf Peeping in the Wissahickon

2008-11-12T17:03:00.002-05:00

On Sunday we went on a family excursion to the Wissahickon, near our old house in East Falls. It's beautiful at this time of year because of the leaves and it provided all three of us with a good opportunity to do some walking. Willa particularly liked walking in piles of leaves.

I'm feeling lazy and don't have time to edit the album, so you'll see lots of pictures if you click on the link. View the ones you really want to see. :-)

20081109 - Leaf Peeping at the Wissahickon

Finally, Busy Bees (Willa's daycare) was closed yesterday, so Markus took the day off. We call those Willa-Daddy days. She loved it! They went to the park and she played for almost an hour. Markus took some video on his new Blackberry (his new favorite toy) but I haven't been able to post it because it's on his phone and this is Christie writing the post. Here are a few pictures, though. Willa climbed up on the bench all by herself and was very proud. We call her a climber monkey because she's at it all the time.

20081111 - Willa conquers a Seger Park bench

Bathroom Catch-Up

2008-11-12T16:50:00.004-05:00

Wow, we're late with the pictures! We take photos each day but Markus only posts them on Facebook and we haven't had much time to update the blog. We had an Election Night party, a day of recovery, and a neighborhood party this weekend.

The bathroom is progressing. We didn't order enough bullnose tile initially because our design changed after we started construction. They're special order tiles so some things can't be finished (like the toilet) until after the bullnose is in and installed. Anyway, the shower and tub are now tiled and all of the tile is grouted. We are meeting with the glass guy tonight for the shower door, and I think the marble for the counter and shower base and thresholds has been ordered. Soon, soon, I think we will be done! Oh yeah, they're supposed to paint this week, too.

If you don't feel like looking at all of these, the best ones that show most of the bathroom and capture what it looks like right now are in the Day 16 album.

For now, here are links to the days 8 - 16 (current):

10/31 - Day 8:

20081031 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 8 (Friday)

11/1 - Day 9:

20081101 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 9 (Saturday)

#

11/3 - Day 10:

20081103 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 10 (Monday)

11/4 - Day 11:

20081104 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 11 (Tuesday)

11/5 - Day 12: This is the only picture.

From 20081105 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 12 (Wednesday)

11/6 - Day 13:

20081106 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 13 (Thursday)

11/7 - Day 14: This is the only picture.

From 20081107 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 14 (Friday)

11/8 - Day 15:

20081108 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 15 (Saturday)

11/10 - Day 16:

20081110 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 16 (Monday)

11/11 - Day 17: This is the only picture.

From 20081111 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 17 (Tuesday)

The Great Pumpkin

2008-10-30T22:51:00.004-04:00

Tonight was our annual pumpkin carving contest on our block. We live on the best block in the city, I think. We don't have just one or two cool neighbors. We have about 20 cool neighbors and we all hang out and have a great time together.

We met on the one side street where there's a dead end, so there's no traffic. Willa and her friend Theo practiced walking and showed off their costumes. Neither liked the headpiece to the costume, and Willa didn't last in hers for more then 15-20 minutes. Theo liked his bear costume a bit more, I guess. We didn't get a full-view shot of Willa's costume, but Seger Park (across the street from us) is having a Halloween festival tomorrow afternoon so we should be able to get more pictures then. Stay tuned...for now, here's a sneak peak at her costume and some of the very cool pumpkins that our neighbors carved.

The Barack Obama pumpkin(Barack O'Lantern?) was the winner based on the votes of all who attended. He won by a landslide. The pumpkin carving, I mean. Just to be clear.

Oh, I also posted some more pictures of our bathroom renovation - scroll down to see those.

Here are some pictures from our party tonight:

Bathroom - Days 6 and 7

2008-10-30T22:46:00.002-04:00

The guys doing our bathroom are doing a great job. They're fast, do good work, and they clean. And when I say clean, I mean clean. They're nice guys, they talk to Willa each morning and evening, and I'm just so pleased! It makes writing the check(s) a little easier, especially considering I'm this excited and I can't even use the bathroom yet!! (This is Christie, by the way).

Markus took a few pictures on day 6 (Wednesday) and day 7 (Thursday, today). It should be finished in another week or two. We can't wait!!!

Day 6

20081029 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 6 (Wednesday)

Day 7

20081030 - 2nd Floor Bathroom Day 7 (Thursday)

Renovation

2008-10-27T19:46:00.003-04:00

Our bathroom project is underway finally and work begain last Thursday.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

And just for reference, this is what the bathroom used to look like:

Willa Walks

2008-10-26T23:03:00.005-04:00

Willa decided to start walking on her own today. This came after roughly 7 months of "assisted" walking. Lately, her grip on our fingers had loosened so we knew that she was starting to find her own balance. Today, we took a family walk to Franklin Square and upon entering the childrens play area we put her down on her feet and she took about 7 or 8 steps toward the slide and grabbed on! She did this several more times taking at times up to 20 steps before stumbling.

Later we visited our own Seger park across the street and her walking continued with more confidence and a greater sense of balance. Then, tonight we captured this video. She still split between crawling and walking obviously, but she knows how to walk and can walk at this point.

We're so proud.

If the movie below doesn't play, just visit this link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2387110998217677809

Major step

2008-10-25T09:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Markus came home and said the daycare teachers said Willa has started taking steps - without being goaded or forced!! She did it at home, too. We stood across from each other and Willa walked to me from Markus' arms!!! She only takes a couple steps at a time, but I think we're moving in the right direction.

Some of you know, but the reason we were so anxious for her to start walking is that the CHOP neurologist said they would discharge her at her next visit if she was walking by then. Her next visit is in November, so we were getting down to the wire! But now it seems like she'll definitely be walking (if not running) by then. We're so excited!

The other thing the daycare teacher said to Markus is that Willa was very happy yesterday and said Willa was dancing all day long. She asked "Does Willa dance and shake her butt a lot at home?" Markus told her, all the time. Last night, she came home, stood against her high chair, and promptly started marching her feet for a few steps and shaking her hiny back and forth. She's pretty good at the hiny shake now, so we're going to take some video.

I know we keep saying it, but we really will post some video sometime soon. There are too many funny moments now.

This morning, Willa started dancing in our bed right after she woke up. She was sitting up and starting moving her hands. We turned the radio on and she pointed. We said "radio". She said "way-doe". New word!

We'll post some pictures of the bathroom, too. In two days, our bathroom has been demolished - there isn't even a floor anymore! I opened the door yesterday and was glad I didn't take a step or I would've fallen in! They're doing the rough-in today, moving some plumbing, etc - we should see some major progress this week and cannot wait. It's a very exciting project for us - good bye to the yucky, ugly, outdate bathroom. Hello to a bigger, cleaner, more modern and stylish bathroom.

Oh, Willa is making the hungry word/sound now. Gotta go!

What is Willa doing these days?

2008-10-17T21:46:00.002-04:00

I figured the last post could tell you a little bit about what she's doing now. The pictures capture some of these things, but not all.

In just the last week, Willa has become fiercely independent at mealtime. She has fed herself finger foods for several months now, but she started wanting to use utensils with assistance this week. She puts her spoon in her yogurt, lifts it up and turns the spoon upside down (so all the yogurt runs off) and very deliberately puts it in her mouth and sucks off the coating of yogurt for 20 seconds before doing it all over again. If we try to help her hold the spoon properly, she gets angry. If we use the utensil to try to feed her, well, she just won't eat. The daycare teachers have noticed the same thing. This is a good step, by all means, but certainly has given us some new challenges until Willa's fine motor skills improve! One night I fed her cereal and milk because I knew she liked it so much that she'd let me feed her. Tonight she ate her bunny-shaped cheese crackers and Multi-Grain Cheerios (dry) for dinner because she refused to eat the chicken and carrots I had put in a bowl for her. I guess it's better to eat something rather than going to bed on an empty stomach...

Last week, she also started using the sign for more when she wants more of something. We're working on saying more please and thank you in sign language, but so far she's only doing the more sign. It's very cute.

Willa talks a lot, starting with "hi, daddy" every morning (no matter who gets her out of the crib). We hear lots of boos, bye-byes (LOTS), and most of the other words I've mentioned before. Oh, how could I forget? She says "Willa" now! Sounds like Wawa. It always makes me smile. I don't think she understands that she's Willa, but she can say the word.

She's started blowing kisses. Each morning at daycare drop-off, I blow her a kiss. Sometimes she reciprocates. Usually not. Last weekend, we were out for dinner and she was waving at a man dining alone. He was nice enough to smile and wave back repeatedly. Then, without warning, Willa blew him a kiss!! She's also friendly during walks in the stroller, always waving at people. Or, when we get out of the elevator at daycare, she says "bye-bye" and waves to the other people in the elevator. Think she's a social butterfly?

I think those are the big things. She's not walking voluntarily yet, though she can (we've seen it). She can sit on a curb and stand up and sit back down - good gross motor skills that I think require more skill and balance than walking - so I think she just lacks confidence about her ability to walk or stand unassisted. When she finally walks, I don't know what we'll do. Probably fall over from shock! :-)

The rest of the pictures

2008-10-17T21:31:00.003-04:00

To continue with the updates, we have two more short photo albums. I feel like I'm posting a lot of pictures but I guess most of you don't see Willa very much. Comment if you think I'm posting too many pictures or not enough, please. BTW, this is Christie. I'm not going through the business of trying to switch user names.

These photos were taken last Sunday night after Willa's bath. We played upstairs for a little while before bedtime. Her hair was so nice and clean and soft. It always is until she eats her next meal and puts her hands in her hair...

20081012 - Playing on Third Floor

Speaking of hair, one of Willa's teachers loves to do the kids' hair so sometimes when I pick Willa up or see her when she gets home (Markus usually picks her up), I see a new hairdo. Thursday, I had to pick her up and saw that Miss Tina had done pigtails again. They looked so cute - I think all little girl pigtails are. We took some pictures (note her additional bangs since the last pigtails pictures a few weeks ago - I swear they cut her bangs at daycare because her hair looks different from the initial trim I gave her - but I digress):

20081016 - Pigtail baby playing in kitchen

Friday night party

2008-10-16T22:39:00.008-04:00

Last Friday night, we and some of our neighbors decided to enjoy the nice weather with dinner and beers out in the alley behind our house. One particularly good neighbor had just swept the entire street, which was good because Willa crawled up and down throughout the night. Her white pants will never look the same...

Her little friend, Theo, and his parents stopped by later in the evening so the kids had great fun walking up and down the alley (and up and down and up and down). The mommies and daddies were pretty tired! This is the last post for tonight. I'll try to post the rest of the pictures this weekend. Final note: this was Christie making these posts. It's such a pain to load the pictures using Markus' account, then log back in to publish as me. I went to the trouble tonight and it still shows Markus as writing the posts. Boo!

20081010 - Waverly Friday Night Party

Hello? It's for you...

2008-10-16T22:27:00.008-04:00

Willa has liked the phone for many months now. It beeps when you push buttons and it lights up. What's not to like?

As her vocabulary has expanded, she has started using some phone terms (hi, bye-bye). About two weeks ago, she started talking on the phone. She holds it to her ear and is so pleased. Then she goes back to pressing buttons and making the phone light up. When we put her on the phone, she'll now say bye-bye if the other person says that to her. She babbles on and on, too (she's her mother's child, what can I say?).

These aren't great shots. She usually crawls toward the camera as soon as she sees it now so I had to be a little discreet. You get the idea, though. The phone is very much fun for baby girl.

20081005 - Willa on the phone

Playing in her new closet

2008-10-16T22:09:00.009-04:00

I know, I know, we have so much catching up to do! We have many pictures, so I'm going to make a few posts to break it all up.

This set of pictures is from October 1. We had put Willa's room back together and she loves playing in her new closet! She crawls inside and then opens and closes the closet doors to play peekaboo with you. It's so nice to have new floors that don't look or feel yucky, to have a proper closet in her room (meaning one that is standard depth - her old closet could only accommodate baby hangers), to have a cute little girl ceiling fan that is full of pastel colors, and to look around and see lavender. We decided it was time for Willa to have a more gender-specific room. Rest assured, we are not going all princess with her. We're staying away from that because it's inevitable that in a short time she'll be into the princesses on her own.

Here are some pictures of Willa playing in the closet, laying down and patting her hiny on her floor (after we said "baby go night night"), trying to lay her head down on a pillow, and looking nice and clean after a bath.

20081001 - Fun in Willa's Bedroom

What a long strange trip it's been...

2008-10-08T21:23:00.001-04:00

http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1223064000000&chddm=3930723&q=INDEXDJX:.DJI&ntsp=0

Crash!

2008-09-29T23:29:00.002-04:00

So, there was a big crash today. Don't sell into this market. Hold everything and just hope for a miracle.

Vacation photos and Willa's new words

2008-09-24T21:54:00.003-04:00

Finally, I've had time to load the vacation photos, add some captions, and link them to the blog. I think Markus posted off and on during the trip, but in sum, it was a nice trip. Weather was a little warmer than we had planned so we had to buy some short sleeve shirts and shorts for Willa and improvise on the outfits to make sure she wasn't overheated. By the end of our trip, we realized she just wasn't going to take any naps so we did lots of walking and sightseeing. We'd have some down time each day so Willa could play, but she was pretty much full-force the entire trip. On the train ride back to Montreal on the last day, she slept much of the time. Then she slept for much of the plane ride home. Overall, she was a very good girl most of the time. As long as the bread basket was filled during dinner, she was well-behaved there, too.

Here's a link to the photo album:

20080829 - Montreal and Quebec

In other news, she's at that point where she's saying new words almost everyday. This week we heard out, bye-bye, up, weeeee (as she was going down the slide head first), hello, and finally, finally, she said yes tonight. We've been hearing no for months now! Her other words are mama, dada, no, more, book, numa-numa (which means cup/drink), and nye (which means nice). Willa says "nice" when she pets the cats because I'm always saying "niiiiice" so that she learns to pet them instead of smacking them...so far she only says nice, she doesn't pet the cats nicely. They're very tolerant, thankfully. She says bah-boo a lot, but we haven't figured that one out yet. I think it might be dog because she says it most when she sees our neighbor dog. The other sound she makes a lot is gah-doy, on repeat (gah-doy gah-doy gah-doy). No idea what that means. My mom heard some other baby saying it in a store last week, so maybe it's part of the secret baby language. At any rate, Willa chatters nonstop and we're glad that we're starting to understand more of what she's saying.

New this week, too, is that Willa helps when we're dressing her. She puts her arms through shirts now and pulls them out. Finally, and we'll have to get video of this, Willa has become a dancing machine. It started with just a little shake of the hiny but now she moves her arms around, too. It's quite funny to watch.

She had an allergist appointment last week and at that visit she was 24.7 pounds, up two pounds from her checkup a month ago. She's finally getting some baby fat and a cute baby belly! That's probably enough news for one post (or Markus will harass me for typing too much). We'll post again soon!

Lots of pictures

2008-09-15T21:46:00.002-04:00

The office is kind of reassembled, or at least the computer is, so we've started getting the pictures off of the camera. Lots of pictures! I'll post a few small albums tonight and get to the vacation photos later this week.

It's a big birthday week in our families - today is my dad's birthday, tomorrow is Dennis' birthday, Wednesday is my birthday, and Thursday is our niece, Emma's, birthday. Happy Birthday to everyone!!

Now to the photos.

August 18 - Willa's walking toy arrived and we let her test it out. She loves this thing and it apparently helped her :-)

August 23 - Wearing sunglasses and playing with Abby at a picnic

September 6 - I realized her hair was long enough to wear pigtails so after her bath, I slicked it back and took pictures.

Walking Milestone

2008-09-11T18:03:00.000-04:00

Willa took steps from standing!

Willa has a boyfriend!

2008-09-04T22:51:00.003-04:00

On Willa's report card today, in the Things I Liked section:

Was happy and liked laughing with my friend Sriram

I guess little Sriram is a charmer! He is a cute little boy - has Willa found herself a daycare boyfriend? We'll keep you posted. :-)

Boarded

2008-09-03T18:06:00.000-04:00

Boarded

2008-09-03T15:57:00.000-04:00

Goodbye Montreal!

2008-09-03T15:55:00.000-04:00

Sleeping

2008-09-03T09:38:00.001-04:00

We're back on Canada's VIA Rail to Montreal. Baby didn't sleep well last night so she's having a little nap.

And Christie is reading the newspaper.

Tuesday Update

2008-09-02T17:08:00.002-04:00

This morning we started out with coffee and a coissant on Rue St Jean. We then walked near the St. Roch neighborhood and then cut through Montcalm to see the Parc des Champs de Bataille which is kind of like Valley Forge in terms of signifiance. We did a nature walk and then descended about (200-300 meters I think) a million stairs down to the St. Lawrence where we walked north to the Old Quebec port area.

After returning to the hotel for lunch we then walked the Rue Grand Allee Est which is a beautiful commercial corridor with restaurants and shops. We checked out Rue Cartier and then headed back down to the Chateau Frontenac via the Boulevard Rene Levesque Est... Anyway, it was a lot of walking and we're back at the hotel to wash up before dinner and then bed. We have an early train back to Montreal tomorrow and then a few hours before our flight home.

Last full day of vacation

2008-09-02T15:34:00.000-04:00

In le parc Francaphonie

Vieux Quebec

2008-09-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

Quebec City

2008-08-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

So we are in Quebec City now. The train from Montreal was very nice today and we sawy about 4 hours of Canadian farms. After arriving here at around 4:30 pm we walked around and found dinner (see pic). The city is as many usually say: very "European". Without a doubt the influence is so strong that you could mistake this for many large EU cities.

Anyway, we ar in a very un-French Courtyard Marriott but our location is excellent. I will try to put a pin in our Google map tomorrow.

Bonsoir!

Dinnertime

2008-08-31T19:24:00.000-04:00

A Tatum Bistro, 19h.

Heading home for the night..

2008-08-30T20:34:00.000-04:00

Anringon train - next stop Peel.

Park Visit

2008-08-30T10:43:00.000-04:00

En route to train by shuttle

2008-08-29T14:08:00.001-04:00

Here's a shot of us on the shuttle to the Dorval Station. The only problem is that when we got there, we got mixed up and ended up taking a different bus which brought us to Lionel Groulx. From there we took the Metro to Peel and that was it. Fun times!

Bye bye Pennoni

2008-08-29T10:09:00.000-04:00

Have a good week!

Family Holiday Starts Now

2008-08-29T09:51:00.000-04:00

Here we are in Market East Station waiting for the R1 bound for the airport.

Vacation, finally...

2008-08-28T21:14:00.002-04:00

We're about to leave on vacation and if anyone is interested in tracking our progress, we'll be updating this google map with places we go and things we do in addition to regular posts here on the blog...

View Larger Map

Where has the summer gone?

2008-08-26T22:02:00.003-04:00

We've been slow at updating the site this summer. It's been a busy one for us between work and visits with family and friends. Our 2008 home renovation project is underway, which means no office access (and no computer) access until late next week. We're off to Montreal and Quebec City for a long weekend to celebrate our fourth anniversary and to get away from the construction zone.

Willa is doing something new almost every day. In the last few weeks, she's begun chattering nonstop. We can't understand most of her words, but they're repetitive sounds which is a good indication. She knows what they mean based on her expression and the way she says her "words", like bwezee, buday, luh luh and several others. The understandable words are mama, dada, beh buh (baby), boo (that's book without the 'k' sound), te you (thank you), and la la (the kids at school can't say her name so they call her La La so we've started saying it, and now she does!). Our neighbors say they hear her talking away and get a big kick out of it. I have a feeling she'll be a chattermonkey like me.

She's not walking yet, but the neurology folks tell is it's not for lack of strength. She just needs more confidence, so we have a walking toy that she loves. She's always on the move and one of these days she'll forget to hold on and will take off. She does some cute things now, like give kisses, blows kisses, lays down and sticks her hiny up in the air and pats the floor when you say "night night", and plays peek a boo with you - and with the other baby in the mirror. She laughs most of the time, except when her teeth are bothering her!

Two of her molars have broken through and I think another one or two are on the way. Speaking of teeth, she loves to brush her teeth - she does hers while I do mine, then I do a follow-up on her teeth to make sure they're clean (I think she just likes sucking the water and fruity toddler toothpaste off the brush). Oh, she can feed herself now, too, as long as you put the food on the fork. She really wants to do it herself and we let her try (and then clean up the inevitable mess).

She eats well, both in quantity and in what she'll eat. She's totally off baby food and eats what we have for dinner. Last night she had some Indian food and loved it. Last week she had pork and couldn't get enough (I think it's partially that she likes salty food). She likes her veggies, too - broccoli, peas, carrots and potatoes are favorites, and she loves fruit, too - melon, berries, stone fruits. She tried grapes yesterday and cucumbers today and I think she loves the cold, crisp/crunchy texture. It probably feels good on her gums. And of course she looooved the three bites of water ice I let her taste last night. It was red raspberry so she had a lipstick look going on.

So, each day really does seem to bring something new and we find ourselves continuing to laugh and smile at our little girl each day.

We'll try to update from Canada or after our trip. That's right - baby girl has a passport! We'll have to scan in one of the extra photos from the passport photo session; the look on her face is pretty funny.

Oh yeah, the construction - we're finally getting the third floor shower retiled, a ventilation system installed on the third floor, replacing the floor on our bedroom (second) level, gutting our master/family bathroom, rebuilding Willa's closet, and replacing the stairs going to the basement, and a few other odds and ends. It's messy because work is being done all over the house but we're excited for the end result. Markus has been taking pictures throughout the process so we'll try to post a gallery at some point in the process and then be sure to add all of the "after" pictures.

I know this was a long update, but we were pretty far behind. After we return from our trip, we should be able to update more consistently. Happy Labor Day!

Sunset on Sansom

2008-08-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

It's a beautiful morning!

2008-08-17T10:12:00.000-04:00

Measuring up

2008-08-12T17:09:00.002-04:00

Weight 10.26kg
Length 77.4cm

Gotta love philly car share

2008-08-09T09:56:00.000-04:00