Fun new things!

Elizabeth and Kent sent Alison some things all the way from New York! Jordan and Sophie were here this weekend so today was the first chance I had to try them on. Alison really needed fall clothes so their timing was perfect. I've never seen a cuter kid than Alison today in her outfit. It's hard to get good pictures now that she's chasing after me when I'm trying to take the picture, so I don't think these do it justice.
After dinner I was cleaning up and Alison came over and snatched the colander. She thought it was the best toy in the world. I looked over at her playing and just had to laugh. Why does her hair have to be so crazy? I had in a cute ponytail with a hello kitty tie and then Ben was playing his chase game with her and that was the end of the cuteness. While Alison was playing with the colander, Ben got out his guitar. I always love listening to him play and I wondered if our family had ever heard how great he is. So, if you haven't heard Ben play and sing before, here you go. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. The shaking at the end is Alison trying to get the camera and I apologize it's so short.

No More Monkeys

Alison loves reading and we normally read lots during the day. The other afternoon I pulled out 'No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed'. We've read it several times but this particular day she loved it even more than usual and spent the rest of the day saying, "No more mo mo's". The video doesn't do it justice...it was super cute.
It always amazes me how Alison learns things. The other day she started saying, "baa, baa" in a really low, raspy voice. I have no idea where she heard it like that, but she couldn't stop doing it. It made me laugh but was slightly embarrassed when she was shouting it through the grocery store.

Here's a story for you

First, if you would like a more thorough story about our trip to Chicago, check out my sister's rendition of it. She tells it much better.
http://www.changchapter.blogspot.com/

My story about Chicago was short because an open house was sprung on me and I was frantically trying to get our house ready to show. Yes, I know it should have already been done since the house is on the market, but I tend to get a little anal about the nitty gritty details no one else cares about. The open house was scheduled for Sunday from 2-4. Ben and I rushed home from Church, chowed down some lunch, finished some last minute details and then waited for the Realtor. We thought for sure she would be at our house by 1:30, but as 1:55 rolled around I asked Ben to give her a call and let him know he was going to be in big trouble if he had the dates wrong (I guess we would at least have a super clean house to get out of it). She let us know she was putting signs up around the neighborhood and would be there in a few minutes. She pulled up right as a couple was walking up to the house and Ben and I skidaddled out. We went back to Church to work on some things. We got a call about 3:50 from the Realtor saying she was going to start locking up and gave us the update on the one couple that came the entire afternoon. A few minutes later she called back and asked if there was a trick to the garage door. Um, push the button?! She informed us that a couple had come by to look at the house and started in the garage, however she didn't know they were in there and went about shutting up the house which included shutting the garage door. Yep, she shut them in the garage!!! Ben explained to her where the button was inside the garage to open the door but we coulddn't get her to understand the directions. The whole time we're frantically trying to get her to comprehend finding the bright red illuminated button, the poor people are stuck in the dark garage. Welcome to our house, we will shut you in the garage until you buy our house! Well, you can guess it...they didn't want to buy the house. But, just wait. There's more. The couple did finally get out of the garage and a few minutes after we hung up with the Realtor we got yet another phone call. She now informs me that she's locked herself out of our house and her purse and knitting materials are in our dryer. I make the trek home to let her in, only to find that she's locked the door from the florida room to the living room. Ben and I didn't even know it could lock and difinitely don't have a key for it. I think this might be the end of open houses for us.

Saturday we helped Kyle and Lydia load up there apartment before they headed to Nebraska. After all the hard work we treated ourselves to cider and donuts at the cider mill.Alison has done some really cute smart things the last couple of days. Saturday at the cider mill she walked over the diaper bag, fished out the wipe container, took my hand and put the wipes in my hand. I was pretty impressed at her coordination but was even more impressed when I got a big whiff of stinkiness and realized that she was telling me she needed her diaper changed. I put today on Ben's calendar awhile ago as a day I was going to sleep in and he needed to get up with Alison. Just my luck, today was the first day in Alison's life she slept until 9! I was wide awake by then, but I figured she wouldn't need a morning nap since she slept so late. Around 10:30 I was sitting in the living room, sipping some coffee when Alison came in, picked up her blanket with one hand, walked over and grabbed my hand with the other hand and pulled me to her bedroom. I was laughing so hard and couldn't believe she would actually be tired. I read her some books and laid her down. She laid in her crib for about 30 minutes softly talking to herself and then fell asleep. It's almost as if she just wanted some quiet time. Alison always keeps me laughing.

Playing in Beth and Nathan's apartment.












Lake Michigan. In a matter of weeks, Alison and I saw both sides of the Great Lake.



Eating our first Chicago style hotdog. Sadly, Alison slept through the experience.







Michigan Avenue








Millennium Park












The city and Navy Pier at night.

The Full Report

We had many adventures on our trip to Chicago. We got on the train in Detroit at 6:15 pm, Monday night. The train was supposed to leave at 5:45 but the conductors were stuck in Pontiac so we had to wait for them to drive down to Detroit. This should have been my first clue to just get in the car and drive. My brilliant plan for the trip was that Alison would eat some dinner, read some books and then crash for the night and I would watch lots of Gilmore Girls. Of course none of that happened. Alison wouldn't sleep and we didn't arrive in Chicago until 12:30 am (2 hours past when we were supposed to). So we didn't get to bed until 1 am, which is 2 am to us! I did however enjoy seeing the city at night and found riding through western Michigan to be absolutely beautiful.Tuesday morning we slept in and after lunch we drove to the historic town of Long Grove. The brochure said they had a confectionery and you could sample lots of chocolate. What could be better than lots of chocolate? The town was cute and fun to walk around, but this was the confectionery we were so excited about seeing. It was a little house that sold a couple of truffles. So, here are the girls at the confectionery. The buildings were not stroller friendly so we mainly walked around and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Alison had the most fun pushing her stroller around on the bumpy brick pavement. Sorry, again the video is sideways...someday I'll learn.

We thought it would be fun to eat lunch at the Cafe that had a beautiful deck over looking a little stream and water mill. Beth and I checked out the menu but decided it was too expensive since we had already technically had lunch. As we were walking away I commented that it smelled really strongly of flowers and then I looked down at Alison to find yellow petals sticking out of her mouth. She had eaten a flower while we were looking at the menu. I panicked and started scraping petals out of her mouth. Beth just stood there laughing. Not so helpful, but I knew if a nurse was laughing it must be okay. Our final stop was at the popcorn store to get some kettle corn and a drink.


Later that evening we decided to go to the Botanic Garden. Conveniently the Metra is right behind Beth's apartment so we just jumped on and headed north. Beth and Nathan have only been in Chicago a couple of weeks and haven't had much of a chance to do exploring. So we didn't know exactly where we were going, but we knew the general direction. Some people on the train heard us talking and asked if they could help us. We said we were looking for the Botanic Gardens and everyone started discussing where we should get off. Beth and I just sat there and listened to the banter and then all of the sudden someone shouted, "You get off now!" so we bolted off the train. We stood in the empty stop and realized that no one had taken our money to ride the train nor did any one tell us what to do when we got off, so we just started walking. It couldn't be too far, right? We walked about 2 miles...it was a lovely evening and the way the train is scheduled we were pretty much stuck there for awhile anyway. The only thing we knew about the garden is that it closes at dusk and dusk was quickly approaching. About the time we were going to give up, we spotted a sign. Victory! Just as luck would have it the garden was closed due to flooding but the guy told us we could come back in the morning. I just laughed and we began the 2 miles back to the Metra. We finally got to the station and a train was approaching and we ran to catch it, which woke both of our sleeping babies up. It drove right past us and we were left looking like idiots...again. If Beth or I had any baby weight left it was all gone by the end of this day!



This all we saw of the garden











Waiting for the Metra














The man you can see in the back gave us the wrong directions!





Day 2 to come...

We're on our way!

Alison and I are about to board a train to Chicago. We're going to Beth, Nathan and baby Kate. I'm anxious about the traveling, since I've never stepped foot on a train and it's a 5 1/2 hour trip. As my dad would say, I'll have a full report when I return.

Amelia Bedilia

I remember reading Amelia Bedilia books when I was a kid and the past 2 days I've felt like I was living in one of her stories. I took Alison to the park to play on the big yellow slides, but there were bees! Yikes! So we went for a walk along the lake, but there were tons of not so dressed MEN laying out in the sun to tan (um, awkward). I got an important phone call while on the walk and soon after I answered a woman walking behind me burst into song. She had headphones on and was joyfully singing along with the music. It was terrible and I couldn't seem to shake her. I tried several ploys to get her to pass me, but nothing worked and my entire conversation had an obnoxious singer in the background.
We left the park and headed to Kroger. A lady from church runs the floral section which happens to be right in front of the doors you walk in. She spotted us and asked if she could give Alison a balloon. Alison definitely burst her bubble when she cried as the balloon was handed to her. We brought it home and the cats lost a couple of pounds playing with the string.





On to today. I knew today was going to be busy and we would be out all day, but I was not prepared for the adventures that were to come. We headed out and Alison was munching on some crackers (I learned this morning that she hates real oatmeal. Baby oatmeal=good, real oatmeal=quickly spit it all over the floor). I handed her a sippy cup full of applejuice. A couple of minutes later I took it back and found only a few drops were left. I thought she must have been super thirsty and was wondering what I was going to give her the rest of the day. We got to our first destination and I went to take her out of the car seat. She was completely drenched from head to toe, including the seat, in applejuice. So much for being a spill proof cup! Thankfully our good friend Jesse let us borrow some clothes, but that also meant she wore boy clothes all day!

We eventually got home and I just took everything off so we didn't get the borrowed clothes any dirtier. Ben got home soon after and we spent some time in the living room playing. Walking seemed to really click with Alison tonight and she was doing wonderfully! We took her outside to pick some raspberries. She loves standing there eating as much as she can get her hands on. She surprised us by walking up and down the path and we were so excited to see her doing so well. I was having fun video taping but it's sideways. Why, oh why, do I turn the stupid thing sideways! I was turning off the camera and Ben said, "Would you mind getting Alison before she..." and then kurplunk! Before he could finish his sentence Alison faceplanted on the cement. I scooped her up and ran inside to clean her up. Her face was all scraped up along with a big scratch down her back and leg and she was covered in dirt. I put her in the bath and we talking about how dumb we are for taking her outside to walk around when she just started walking, like 5 minutes ago. Oh, what were we thinking! But the story doesn't end there.

Alison's laying in the tub and I'm washing her off, when out of nowhere, Milo falls into the bathtub on top of Alison. He used Alison as his springboard and left big scraps down her legs. I scooped her out of the tub, yelled for Ben, and sat there to cuddle a very sad little girl. I just felt terrible. I totally understand she's going to have some bumps and bruises, but tonight there was way too much blood for my liking.
We just made some scones using the berries we picked and everything came out great. At least we ended the day on a good note. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

ALISON'S WALKING!!!

Mark this day in your Calendars...September 1oth...Alison walked on her own! At 13 months and 10 days, it's about time. I just told Ben yesterday that I feel like we've been saying for eternity, "She'll be walking any day now." In fact I was worried she would start walking when he was in Romania-2 months ago! The past couple of days Alison has been standing on her own for up to 20 seconds. We were really excited and would cheer for her, but I realized that we were holding our breath while she was standing and cheering when she sat down. No wonder she hasn't walked yet; we cheer for her when she sits! That's confusing. So today I would super cheer any time she was standing on her own and the second she put a hand down I would stop. This afternoon she was standing and I was cheering and all of the sudden she walked across the living room. Not one or two steps-like 20. Everyone told me she would just take off one day and they were right. I started crying, swept her up for a big hug, and called Ben. She did it a couple of more times, but the video I got was terrible. I was just too excited to concentrate on video taping. A few notes before you watch these clips: Please excuse the obnoxious noises I'm making, I apologize for the second one being sideways and the random baby is Mckenzie...I was babysitting today.


I thought the day just couldn't get any better. I've waited and prayed for Alison to walk for so long. She's been changing a lot lately and it just blows me away. This will probably be the most video filled blog I will ever post, but it just was one of those days. We have this "dance machine" that has a microphone on it and Alison just figured out how to use it. Later she was "singing" into a hammer and then put it on Mckenzie's mouth to make her sing into it.


In the video, Mckenzie is sitting in this chair, the way it's supposed to be used. Alison tries to be the baby when Mckenzie is here and she spent a lot of time climbing in and out and trying to get the tray on. Notice her mismatch outfit and one sock. It was cold and I can't keep socks on this girl!



I think I've mentioned Alison new love for bananas. Her love has turned to obsession and she now points and says "na na" and this morning she said clear as day "banana". It's all she wants to eat and I confess I've let her eat multiple in a day. Today:3. THREE!!! I think there's a law against eating that much potassium! At dinner tonight I gave her all things she loves: rasberries, mixed veggies w/ mozzerella and ravioli, and all she could do was scream for bananas. The pediatrician told us that this would happen, that she would be really picky and probably only eat one good meal a day. I'm thankful for the warning and that she atleast picked a fruit, but I wish she wouldn't have picked something so...well, all you moms out there know what I'm trying to say.

Our day ended with Alison yet again cracking us up. Ben was giving her a bath and called me in to see her funny faces. Randomly he had blown in her face and she paused took in a breath, as if she was inhaling his puff of air, and then giggled.


I'm so thankful for our little ball of joy. I love watching her learn and grow and I know I will never forget this day.

A fight to be Princess!

The Marlow's came over for dinner tonight and then Dan taught Ben how to make scones. I absolutely love it that Ben can cook! Jesse is only 6 weeks older than Alison so they have fun playing together. Jesse discovered the princess chair right off the bat. Dan (Jesse's dad) didn't really appreciate me documenting this event, but it was way too funny! Alison quickly went over and tried to sit in his lap. That's what she's doing in the picture and at one point they were both kind of in the chair and it looked like a kodak moment, but I was too slow with the camera.




We met Kyle and Lydia for lunch in the park today. Sadly it might be the last time we see them for a long time. Thankfully both of our parents still live in Lawrence so we still have a chance of running into each other over the holidays.













Alison fell in love with the slide today. We had to leave the park with her kicking and screaming because she didn't want to get off. When we got home and I saw this picture I saw a little me. My dad has a picture of me going down the slide and my face looks just like Alison's here. I think technically the picture was for some retirement home advertising, but for some reason looking at Alison today it made me go back to that day dad took us to the park.

Alison's first ponytail!!!

Alison's hair has been growing like crazy and we're so excited for her to have "little girl" hair soon.
Alison and I both got colds this week and have been cooped up in the house. When I'm sick I just want to lay on the couch and watch movies, and when Alison's sick all she wants to do is sit in her princess chair and watch Elmo. If I hear the Elmo theme song one more time I think I'll puke.

It never ceases to amazes me how Alison picks things up. She got a toy boat for the bathtub for her birthday that has a shape sorter on it. She has figured out how to put the shapes in yesterday (during our long afternoon bath trying to vaporize all the snot out) and tonight while I was filling up the water she picked up one of the circles and put it under the spout to fill it up with water and then drank it. Besides her love for water, I thought it was very intuitive of her. However, this has a bad side of it. I started babysitting Mackenzie, who's 5 months old. When Mackenzie comes over, Alison all of the sudden wants all of the chew toys and rattles and wants to roll all over the floor. Why in the world was she not doing this when she was supposed to?! I can't keep Mackenzie from rolling over. I lay her down and she flips over and then screams because she doesn't want to be on her tummy. Alison never did that! I couldn't ever get her to roll....until now...when she should be walking.

Mackinac; part 2

This was what we woke up to. Isn't it beautiful?
Tuesday morning we got on the ferry and headed to Mackinac Island. Alison slept through the whole ferry experience, but that may be a good thing. It went really fast, especially for being a big ferry. We stepped off into what felt like a whole new world. There are no motorized vehicles on the island so all transportation is by horse or bike. Everything was Victorian and the landscape was magnificent. We mainly just walked around the island and oohed and awed at every thing. We stopped for lunch and bought some famous fudge.
We stopped to play on the little school playground. FYI, Alison hates swings, so it was amazing we got this shot.
the town churchThe Grand Hotel which we're told is really cool, but we refused to pay the $10.00 just to get on the property so this is all we got.
Now this is the part of the trip where I expected Alison to completely lose it. There were horses every where and she hadn't gotten scared of them yet. When we were in Kansas we took her to the farm to see my Dad's horses and she screamed in terror, so we expected her to do the same on an island full of the scary creatures. But she just sat in her stroller quietly and looked at them. I'm telling you what, kids are so unpredictable.We took the long, steep walk up the butterfly house.
We stopped for awhile and rested in a field. The boys played frisbee, Alison napped and Lydia and I sat and chatted. They're actually moving to Nebraska in a couple of weeks so I was thankful to have some time with her before we part.
It cracks me up how Alison always has her feet crossed and hands folded. She really is a little princess!

Trip Mackinac; part 1

Our fun filled weekend started with a trip to the zoo. We have a season pass and Alison and I have been quite a bit this summer, but this was the first time Ben was able to come with us. Unfortunately the zoo closed earlier than we expected so we only had 45 minutes to walk around.


watching the polar bears

Early Monday morning we headed out to Mackinac. Alison sat in her princess chair in the bathroom and read some books while we got ready to go. Our good friends Kyle and Lydia decided to join our spontaneity, so we picked them up on the way. Even though the drive was 5 hours it went pretty quickly. We made it to Mackinaw City in time for a picnic lunch. We found a park that was right by the Mackinac Bridge and had a lighthouse you could go in (we opted not to carry Alison all the way up).
Kyle offered to push the stroller to the beach so we could stick our feet in. I was impressed with his efforts and it gave us all a good laugh.
Standing in Lake Huron
Kyle and Lydia

After our lunch we headed across the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula. If Ben were typing this post he would now inform you that people from the UP call people from the Lower Peninsula trolls because we live under the bridge. We drove another 45 minutes to Sault Ste. Marie and saw the Soo Locks.
We tried to give Alison several breaks to crawl around. After we watched a boat go through the locks we sat in a little park for awhile and enjoyed the beautiful day.
We got some ice cream at a local shop and then headed to our second destination in the UP. We found a park with a beach on Lake Michigan. Apparently it was the local hang out place for the kids and we were the oldest people there. I'm not even old, but it made me feel very out of place so we didn't stay very long.
Lake Michigan
Alison loved being able to put her feet in the water. However, it created a problem I didn't foresee. She wanted to swim and would try her hardest to wiggle out of our arms to emerge herself in the water. I only brought a couple of pairs of clothes since we were only going to be gone a day. Quickly all of her clothes became wet and I found myself wondering if the 'no shirt, no shoes, no service' rule applies to toddlers. We couldn't blame Alison for wanting to be in the water because we all wanted to too. It was crystal clear and the perfect temperature. Next time I plan a trip that involves water I'll make sure to budget more time.
We headed back to Macinaw City where we had hotel reservations for the night. They upgraded us to lake view rooms so we could have rooms next to each other. For being a really cheap place, it actually was pretty decent. This was our view from the balcony.
Lydia got this shot of Alison trying to escape from her balcony.
Our hotel gave us free passes to an indoor water park. We thought this would be a place Alison would absolutely love and we would all have fun playing. We were a little disappointed to find it really small and didn't have a baby area and the water was yellow. Ben said it was just well water, but it still was really gross. Ben found a little spout for Alison to play in and they splashed around for awhile. There were several fountains of water that poured into buckets that would occasionally dump over and there was one REALLY big one that made a bell ring right before it would drench the entire place. The first time that one dumped over Alison burst into tears. So I decided to help her have some fun and take her up into the jungle gym area. I picked her up, assured Ben that she would stay dry on the bridges and SPLASH!!! Before I finished my sentence a big bucket of water dumped smack dab on top of Alison's head. Of course not a drip of water went on me. She was quite upset, but we couldn't stop laughing. I hope I didn't traumatize her too much. So we resorted to the regular pool.

We spent the rest of the evening relaxing from a day of adventure.