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:

A New Family Hobby!?!

I think I discovered a new family hobby that will keep everyone happy. It involves maps (to please dad), paper and stamps (to please mom) and a treasure hunt (to please the kids). It also involves taking trips to unknown places and often times a little walk through the woods. What is this new found hobby you ask? Letterboxing! Letterboxing (similar to geocaching only without the GPS) is relatively new to the U.S. but has been in England and Europe for many years. A quick search on the Letterboxing website will give you all of the details that you need to begin your first hunt. It involves searching for boxes that are hidden in parks, cemetaries, museums, etc. and collecting the stamps. There are several dozen hidden around Columbus alone! The idea is to make a really cool homemade stamp, but because of lack of time and materials, we just used one we had on hand, but I think I'll make one at somepoint that represents our family. This was a relatively easy hunt and it took us to a field at a Catholic University. The box was in a tree hiding at the end of a stick! It was very exciting. Eli and Sadie were so excited by the discovery:

Our very first stamp:

Posing with books and letterbox:

Yea for family fun!!!

Sadie's Latest Milestone

Sadie recently started taking a few steps. Lately, she's been taking off on her own, walking between large objects or going after something she desperately wants. Her balance is getting better, but she hates falling!

Our Friends

We had a going away party for some good friends that are moving to Sacramento. Not that this means a whole lot to you, but it means a lot to us. Constance was my first friend in Columbus and she is the reason why Eli, Sadie, Dennis and I have all of these friends.

Constance (bottom row, first on the left wearing white) is from France and is the jester of the group. Eli has always had a super-duper crush on her daughter, Abigail, who for awhile there ran around naked all the time. So, you can see the allure: French AND naked!! Her son Clarence is 6 weeks younger than Sadie so they were perfect pals too. We are really going to miss these guys. Bon Voyage.

Not Much Going On Around Here

It's been pretty ho-hum around here. I didn't even take any pictures in the last week. So, I took some today, just for all of you!

Eli and Sadie snuggling on the floor.

Proof that Eli is a little boy. He has a bruise above his right eye (your left), a bruise on his forehead, and what we think is a mosquito bite above his left eye (your right). It seems the mosquitoes have come out in full force over the last several weeks. Eli didn't have one bite all summer and all at once he got like 30! He was pretty miserable for awhile. Sadie has stayed bite free. She must not taste as good.

Sadie really doesn't like to sit still too long for books. She'll sit longer if it's interactive. This book sings a completely annoying version of Old MacDonald (thanks Robyn!) but she loves it!

Eli rode the train at the train festival. He really wanted to ride the train until he sat down. Then, he got a worried look on his face and held on for dear life. He was very brave.

Sadie Is 10 Months Old

Sadie is 10 months already. I know it's cliche, but time does really go by so fast. In fact, today was the first OSU football game of the season. Sadie wore her OSU cheerleader outfit to celebrate, but wouldn't you know the camera battery was dead so I couldn't take a picture. Anyways, Sadie has been doing lots of exciting things most of them with her hands: patty-cake, waving hi, blowing kisses, putting her hands on her head as if to say, "oh no!", signing "more", and doing actions to songs. It's so much fun.

Could Sadie's cheeks get any rounder?


Wrestling with Eli. Seriously, the girl loves to rough house. If you are sitting on the floor, she takes this as a hint that you want to wrestle her and she'll come over and plop down on you.


At the water table at the science museum. Notice her Thomas tat? Eli picked it out for her.

Petting the goats at the zoo. This is almost as exciting for her as seeing kittens at the pet store. Almost. She giggles with delight.

Bye-Bye, Ky!

Eli's BFF moved this week. While I'm very happy that the Kralovic's are moving up in the world and bought their first home, I'm very sad for Eli as he's heart-broken. He asks for Ky quite frequently and misses him to whatever extent a two year old can miss something, which I'm guessing is a lot by the way he says, "I want Ky" with his eyes welling with tears and his lip quivering from sadness. We are all very fond of Ky and his parents. They will really be missed. Luckily, they are only 15 minutes away so we can still get together for playdates and pizza!

A Really Fun Weekend

The weather this weekend was absolutely perfect: mid-seventies, low humidity and sunny. We took advantage of it and spent the weekend crossing off things on our summer to-do list. We went to Slate Run Historical Farm on Saturday. Oh, my goodness. My fascination with Laura Ingalls continues and it makes me think that I've really got to get Sadie a bonnet. This is a working farm so people are busy working and they love having help. Eli's personal favorites were the pigs. He kept saying "pigs. PeeeeYeeeewwww.....". The pigs are eventually butchered (which we're invited to watch in December) and for proof there are actually hams hanging in the smokehouse! The women were pickling and picking veggies. And Eli helped water the garden. Oh, and the best part, it's free!!!

Sadie loving every minute of the horses. The girl is crazy for animals.


Sadie and a ragdoll. Who enjoyed it more? Dad or Sadie?


Eli pumping water. It's a lot of work.


Carrying the water out to the garden.


Finally, pouring the water on the plants.


On Sunday we went to The Wilds to go on safari. We rode a safari bus through the open range and saw camels, wild horses, cheetahs, wild dogs, giraffes, rhinos, buffalo, and a bunch of different deer. It was pretty awesome.

I have to include this picture, because Eli was telling me "no picture, mommy" and Dennis is giving me the put-the-camera-away look. Yeah, it was a big two-year-old melt down moment. Eli wanted to be carried, we said he needed to walk. It was very traumatic for him. He was mad because he wanted to be on the bus and be done looking at the birds. We quickly got back on the bus so we could look at something a little more exciting.

They just opened up the carnivore exhibit. Look at the lazy cheetahs.

You can see all of this and more if you make the trip to Columbus. Plus, we have some great accommodations and I'm a pretty good cook. Come visit!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Eli!!!

Eli has really been looking forward to his birthday. He knew he was having a party, going to get to eat cake and was going to get to open presents. He was sooooo excited for today arrive. This morning he woke up and the festivities started. And I think he wasn't disappointed. It was a great day.

He had a huge stack of birthday French toast. After we sang "Happy Birthday" Eli sang "Happy to. Happy to." all day long. I got it on video, along with me asking him how old he is as I've been prepping him all week and he's said two all week, but today he said he was five!

His very own train and track!

Eli had most of the neighbors and some of his good friends over for his party. They all loved hitting the pinata, but no one managed to break it. We eventually had to just tear it open and let the kids run crazy picking up treats.

Eli's fire truck birthday cake. This is my second attempt at cake decorating. I don't know why I get myself into these things. I am my own worst critic though as Eli and the rest of the kids loved it.

One of Sadie in case you've forgotten what she looks like!