Happy Birthday, Sadie!!

Sweet Sadie turned one on Sunday. She had a great and exhausting day. Grandma and Grandpa Zeman even made it from Dakota to help celebrate. Here are a few highlights:

Happy Birthday pancakes! I think she's still waking up.


Opening a few gifts before the party! It actually took Sadie a while to realize that there was actually a gift. She thought it was fun to play with the newspaper that came in the boxes. Then, she would put the wrapped gifts back in the box, then take them out, then put them in. We could hardly stand it (by "we" I mean "I", I hate not knowing what's inside a wrapped present. )we just had to show her how it was done. Thanks for the Wedgits Alexey, Gabriella, Robert and Michelle! They taste delicious.


Auntie Mia sent shoes. Sadie loves shoes, not necessarily to wear, but she carries them around the house and chews on them like a puppy. Don't worry. I put these in a safe place so she couldn't eat them.


We had a big birthday/Halloween party in Sadie's honor at our neighborhood Community Center. I guess being born three days before Halloween means that every single party from now on will be Halloween themed. I really like that idea. It makes things much easier for me. Sadie went as a black cat which was also the theme of the party. I can't wait until the princess themed party comes around. (short daydream about glitter and tiaras...)


Dennis and I went as Peace Corps Volunteers and Eli went as a first grader! (He refused to wear his monkey costume and I was too tired to argue.)


I take almost no credit for the cake. Grandma did most of it.


According to Sadie, it was delicious.






There was even a black cat pinata filled with lots of Halloween loot.


Eli with The Man With the Yellow Hat (who just happened to win "Best Halloween Costume")


The day after: cake hangover! Sadie was so exhausted, but there were still lots of presents to open. Note to self: next time you invite 60 of your closest friends to your child's first birthday party and put "No Gifts, Please" in the invitation, highlight and bold the "No gifts" part and skip the please! Who was I kidding? Of course people are going to bring gifts to a little girls birthday party. And yes, she is wearing Santa pajamas.


If you want to see more pictures of the birthday party, check them out here.

A Boy and His Bike, A Farm, and Halloween Hints

We ride bike from dawn to dusk. How will we survive the winter???

By wearing big, fat, fluffy coats when we ride!


A Sunday spent at Circle S Farm was a great way to enjoy the warm weather and the fall colors. They have a "Fun Barn" complete with slides and soft cushy straw to soften the landing! Sadie went down too.

Farmer Sadie says, "This looks like a good one!"


Did I mention that Ky was there?? Eli was quite pleased.

A hayride pulled by a tractor. Too exciting.


I'm working on Sadie's Halloween costume. Any guesses on what she'll be??

Coming next week-- pictures of Sadie's First Birthday Party. Really? Has it been a whole year already?

Fall Is Finally Here!

Last week was the week of falls in our family. On Thursday, Eli was being a monkey and jumped off the couch. He landed funny and instantly grabbed his foot and continued to cry for a good 45 minutes. Nothing could get him to settle down. I tried juice. I tried a lollipop. Finally, I had to get out the big guns--black olives-- to calm him down. It worked like a charm, but still his foot hurt. By the end of the day he was hobbling around, but did not want to go too far even after his friends came home from school and were running around and playing. I knew it must have hurt pretty bad. The next morning he refused to walk on it so we went to the Emergency Room. I highly recommend going to the emergency room at 8am as it is very peaceful and quiet and you can still smell the chemicals lingering from a good cleaning. We were seen right away and had a very quick visit. No bones were broken in the incident. But, even today he continues to limp and whimper whenever you touch that foot. So, it must be a pretty bad sprain. Poor guy.
On Saturday Sadie took her first really big tumble onto the cement. You know the kind, the tumble that you see but can't catch, then you hear the loud thunk that can only be made by a head hitting the cement, then you cringe and run as you hear the great big screams. I think it will probably be the first of many bruises for Sadie!
Here's a shot of her forehead.


Eli decided to take a picture of Sadie and me. I think we shall call it "Ode to knees". Isn't it artsy. I love the way the bottom of the picture is shaded. A technique called, "finger in front of the lens."

Apple Picking

We spent the day at Lynd Fruit Farm with our playgroup picking apples, buying loads of veggies, going for a hayride, and picnicing. It was an overcast ninety (yes, 9-0! Can anyone say global warming!?!) degrees so it was great weather for being outside with friends. We picked a very large bag full of apples and probably ate just as many.

Eli with today's first pick.

The first of many apples!

Sadie kept eating the apples off of the ground. She would take one bite and then move on to another apple and so on. Her favorite was the fermented mush that I had to drag her away from.

Walking around because she can. Her latest trick is acually being able to get herself up all by herself when she falls. She is a full-time walker now.

We can't seem to get rid of a certain French friend which keeps us all happy. Look at Eli. He's smitten.

The long waited for hayride.

Almost 1!

For those of you not keeping track, Sadie has less than a month to go before her first birthday. This constantly amazes me as she seems much older than her 11 months. She's walking almost full-time, not that she's good at it. Her balance is not good and she falls a lot, but she wants to walk all the time so she does. She walks about 20 steps now before she falls. She can't get herself back up without help from an object, so she crawls over to something, stands up, and tries again. She's so determined (with everything. I guess that's a good quality to have in life, but it can be very frustrating for me especially when she's refusing to take a nap)! She's also off of the bottle and only doing sippy cups which makes me very very happy. She gets table food except for breakfast and, if you haven't noticed by the size of her cheeks, loves to eat. She has yet to refuse any food. Well, she refused hard-boiled egg yolks once, but hasn't refused them since. Otherwise, you would think that every meal was her last meal because she eats a lot and enjoys every bite. She's practicing using the spoon and is so proud of herself when she actually gets the food to her mouth! Last night, we had couscous. She fed herself:

Eli had a class at the zoo. We met Ky there and Eli was just beside himself with excitement. Sadie went crazy over the tiger as the tiger was pacing right next to the glass. Everytime the tiger's face was right next to hers she screeched with delight. As the tiger walked away Sadie would sign more. Luckily, the tiger gave her more.

While at the zoo, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to ride the carousel:


Eli, Sadie and Sofia playing with their babies. Sadie looks less than thrilled:

Racing Eli down the slide. The girl has no fear. She went down all by herself and was signing more before she got to the bottom:

Crawling through the tunnel:


Buckeye Village had its annual picnic and carnival. There were lots of forbidden foods: cotton candy, popcorn and snow cones!! It was more than Sadie could handle. She was going nuts because everyone was eating except her. So, we gave her a snowcone without any syrup and she ate the ice! They had balloons, games, and face painting: