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Pictures that move. (Grades are mine, then Josh's) [updated: 2.2.06] |
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Friday, March 21, 2008 Snow We will be driving up to Wisconsin this afternoon, pre-signing papers for our closing, and preparing for the movers who are coming at 8AM tomorrow morning. After a stretch of nice spring-ish weather that looked like everything would be peachy for the move, south-central Wisconsin is currently in the middle of a snow storm that's expected to dump as much as a foot of snow on the area. At least it's not supposed to snow tomorrow, so we should be able to get the snowblower out and take care of it. It's just the driving up there part that worries us a bit. josh, 10:15 AM || We are 18 comments. Read us! Thursday, March 20, 2008 Cuteyface pics of the random variety.  Taco Time make Ava happy. As well it should. These kids sure know when there's a camera around. :-) Ah, the ancient olympic sport of pig wrestling. I call this portrait "Toddler Eating a Graham Cracker." These boots were made for walkin' with Grandma. Too bad she didn't know the word "hat" yet when this was taken (she does now). This was the last of the Belleville girls' basketball home games we went to. :-(
beth, 5:42 PM
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We are 6 comments. Read us!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 I'm it. So Josh's cousin Melissa tagged me. She's not the first person to do it, either (I apologize to those for whom I didn't do this before -- I don't really have an excuse; consider this also a belated response to you). The deal: HERE'S HOW YOU PLAY. ONCE YOU'VE BEEN TAGGED YOU HAVE TO WRITE A BLOG OF TEN WEIRD, RANDOM THINGS, FACTS OR HABITS ABOUT YOURSELF. AT THE END, YOU CHOOSE FIVE PEOPLE TO BE TAGGED, LISTING THEIR NAMES AND WHY YOU CHOSE THEM TO BE TAGGED. DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE THEM A COMMENT "YOU'RE IT" AND TO READ YOUR BLOG. YOU CAN'T TAG THE PERSON WHO TAGGED YOU. SINCE YOU CAN'T TAG THAT PERSON BACK, LET HIM OR HER KNOW WHEN YOU'VE POSTED YOUR BLOG SO HE OR SHE CAN READ YOUR ANSWERS. You already know some things about me (for instance, that I hate television -- "Veronica Mars" in particular), but here are ten more you may or may not know.
I'm actually not tagging anyone, simply because I'm pretty sure most of the people I know who have blogs have already done this. Maybe not Patty and Andrew. You two can consider yourselves tagged if you haven't already done it. If you want. If not, I won't hold you to it. beth, 7:24 PM || We are 4 comments. Read us! Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Let me go right now to what's happening right now. Josh started work yesterday at his new job, so we're in Cedar Rapids right now. With oh-so-painful dial-up internet, by the way. Our apartment is somewhat spacious (well, the living room and one of the bedrooms, anyway, the rest is your typical cramped apartment-style) and for some reason has a fireplace, but other than that it's just okay. It's an apartment the company keeps for when they have people from another country working here for stretches, which apparently happens enough that they, you know, keep an apartment for them. Good news for us, as it's currently not in use and thus provides us a free place to stay for these two weeks. It is furnished, though minimally: a couple of arm chairs and end tables, a couple (not enough) lamps, TV and DVD player, small dining table and chairs, a couple of beds and a dresser (all furniture of the few-decades-old hand-me-down/Goodwill variety). There are also a few dishes, silverware, paper towels, etc., but we're mostly using our own disposable stuff while we're here. We also found out really quickly that the apartment was far from safe for a toddler, with the lower cabinets of the entertainment center (one of the first things Ava went for, as she loves to open and close things) containing such lovely items as sewing needles and scissors, matches, and a somewhat leaky jar of jewelry cleaner. We've now closed off basically all the cabinets that have anything other than kitchen towels or pots and pans and plugged all the outlets. The floor could still use a bit of a cleaning, though we don't exactly have access to a vacuum (and the fact that there isn't one here makes me really wonder just how long it's been since it has been vacuumed), but at least Ava's mostly walking now, so it's not quite as much of an issue as it would have been if she were still exclusively crawling. I suppose we might be able to bring our vacuum next week and then take it back home the next weekend to clean our house before we leave for good, but I'm not sure if we'll have room. We'll have to see. I've been reminded just how annoying it is to have to take a long walk from a parking lot to an apartment building door, and then up two flights of stairs to your actual apartment. And it's all a whole lot worse with a 16-month in tow. When we got here Sunday night we had to unload everything we brought with us for the two weeks we'll be here (clothing for three people, sheets, towels, our pillows, diapers, toys and books for Ava, our DVR computer, a couple of additional lamps, half of what was left in our refrigerator and freezer at home) plus some of what we need to move ourselves (all my live plants, some things too fragile/important to let the movers take), and it was brutal. We took turns taking trips to and from the car while the other one stayed up here with Ava -- an option I didn't have yesterday afternoon when I went grocery shopping and had to lug all the bags and Ava the whole way by myself. Yeah, I don't miss living in an apartment at all. And then there's the whole shared walls thing. I cringe every time Ava cries -- or screams. At least at home we can just let her cry sometimes, but here we feel like we need to quiet her down as quickly as possible so as not to disturb the neighbors, and that sometimes means giving in to her when we wouldn't normally. Hopefully we won't have too much damage to undo after these couple weeks. :-P So Friday evening it's back to Belleville for the weekend to finish packing, then back to Cedar Rapids for the work week, then back to Belleville where the movers are coming to load our stuff Saturday morning (the 22nd). We'll be leaving that house for good that day, going to Ames for Easter, closing on the new house on Monday, and the movers unloading on Tuesday. Then we can finally breathe. beth, 2:44 PM || We are 14 comments. Read us! Monday, March 3, 2008 Yes, we still have a daughter. And here, finally, is a video of her walking. She doesn't do it all the time (crawling is still easier some of the time, and certainly faster) and her balance isn't perfect yet, but she's getting better and better at it and doing it more and more. Another thing she's doing? Screaming. Yeah, that's a fun one. She started it about a week ago and does it very intentionally when she doesn't get her way or to get our attention. We're hoping it's just a phase that will pass, but in the meantime we're trying to figure out the best way to deal with it. On a much cuter note, she's REALLY taken to cute little animals, especially dogs and kitties. She makes these adorable happy noises whenever she sees them, whether the real thing, pictures in a book or a stuffed animal (and loves it when we make the animal noises, too). We have a big cat statue that sits on the floor, and she loves to go up to it and pat it on the head and "kiss" it. She's also started showing a real affection for a couple of her stuffed animals at bedtime, wanting to hug and snuggle with them in her crib. She never really did that much before. Oh, and last week she FINALLY had her fifth tooth break through. (She had had four since about August. Yes, you read that right. August.) A few pictures and a post about her vocabulary (which seems to be increasing every day) coming soon. beth, 4:52 PM || We are 9 comments. Read us! |
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Disc-shaped music. [updated: 2.2.06] |