Houston

We just returned from an excellent weekend in Houston visiting Aunt Karen, Uncle Toby, Cousin Andy, Cousin Marilyn, and as a special bonus Uncle Mike. The trip has left Alice reeling with delight. She literally played herself to exhaustion every night and was then wired for hours after a quick nap. It was such fun seeing all the kids playing together now that they are old enough to acknowledge each other's presence.

Andy was especially good at dolling out hugs to the younger two. Marilyn was pretty chill considering that Alice was ransacking the toybox. Marilyn, by the way, is fearless on the playground. We visited a huge kid gym/coffee house and watched Marilyn run a baby obstacle course maybe seventy-four times. Conservative estimate.

Alice was blasted by that time and just wanted to hug me and moan. Though Alice did at the end drag herself up the padded incline to the top of the slide and called down "Hi" to all of us on the ground. She seemed to be stuck, and Marilyn tried to climb up and save her cousin but fell asleep halfway to the top. Ultimately Alice did her first solo slide to much applause from the gathered relatives and tiny snores from Marilyn.

We also attended a BBQ hosted by our good friends Cathleen and Daniel who lived in Chicago with us for many years. Their house is a bit of a kid wonderland with everything from complete model train sets to fully stocked kid kitchens. Alice even got to taste her first lollypop courtesy of Cathleen. The pops were made from organic juice of all things! We also saw our friends Dave and Bethany with their lovely daughter Violet. I didn't have my camera but Cathleen sweetly took some great shots and sent me copies. You can see all the kids here except for Andy and Marilyn who needed to hit the road as they had a long drive home.

Cardboard Tube Samurai Princess

This was a "2nd Halloween" costume suggestion for Alice from friend Joe. I wanted to post this picture to show how right on this idea is for our delicate little flower. Sorry not to have responded to the actual email, will reply soon.





This little boy in these photos is sweet Josef who is Alice's second cousin. The kids were playing in the toy room at Tony's Aunt and Uncle's 50th anniversary party. Alice brandished her swords at most of the attendees who were mostly liberal arts professors. She got a lot of Homer quoted in her general direction.

The big 01

We had a Monkey theme:





We had two adorable cousins in attendance:






There was cake:






And candles to blow out:





Boy howdy were there presents for all the kids:







And a general abundance of delightful chaos:






Thank you to the whole family for helping with this party and for everyone who traveled to come and visit us. A special thank you to Michelle for carrot cupcakes so delicious that they were eaten to the last miniscule crumb. Thanks to our family and friends, Alice had a wonderful day.

IKEA

My Mom is an architect and when she comes into town we tend to A) pick her brain for remodeling advice and B) use her big ole' work car to transport things that need transporting.

Which is why during these visits we tend to suggest family trips to troll the IKEA clearance section. This trip we found great deals on large doors for closet and kitchen pantry and Mom surprised us with a gift of a new kitchen island as an early anniversary present.

This would have been the perfect IKEA visit if this hadn't happened:


Did you see it? If not this video gives a better vantage point:


Even though all three of us were hovering over her, Alice still managed to slip and fall face-first into the wheel of our shopping cart. Tony and I were upset that Alice fell, but felt better once we ascertained that she wasn't seriously injured. Grammy however will never recover. My Mom's calls now start and end with worried questions about the status of Alice's sweet eye.

For all concerned parties please know that her eye is almost completely healed



Back to the IKEA-palloza. As we assembled the new kitchen island Mom was eyeballing our low kitchen ceiling (which Tony particularly doesn't enjoy) and she mused out loud that it might be possible to bump up the elevation slightly depending on what was hidden above the drywall.

Then she got that look in her eye that I remember from when I was a kid.
"You want to punch a hole through the ceiling, don't you?"
"Just enough to take a look! Do you think Tony would mind?"

When Tony came into the kitchen he heard about two seconds of Mom's proposal and to my surprise asked if we could take the whole ceiling down this weekend! With all parties consenting Mom sprung into action After cobbling a few cutting implements from the garage...
Viola!



As it turns out we do have quite a bit of space above our kitchen and large beams that can be exposed and painted if we so choose. The only sticking point is the gas pipe and electrical cord you see in the picture. Though Mom had a few solutions for that, the easiest of which was just encasing it in a false beam. Well, in truth the easiest thing would be to leave it exposed "warehouse loft style", but the point is we have options.

Another revelation was that when we opened the ceiling tons of cooled air poured down on us. It turns out we are losing a lot of energy cooling the guts of the house due to leaky ducts. This is a pretty easy fix, and since we are tearing out the drywall anyway we can hit two birds with one remodeling project and save on our energy bills. Hooray!

Father's Day- Fountain Park

After sleeping in a few minuets and enjoying his breakfast frittata/coffee/crossword Tony decided that he wanted to spend Father's Day outside. Barton Springs was our first choice of destination but it was so packed that the police were directing traffic in the parking lot. So we headed over to Fountain Park and gave Alice her first taste of running through the sprinklers via a city water feature! She had a magnificent time as Daddy was providing shade from the 100 degree heat.

Tony's cell phone started to die as the afternoon wore on and I was able to capture these murky shots of our picnic in the park. The effect almost looks intentional.






P.S. Alice was wearing a hat the whole day, but not in these shots. So no burned baby head to speak of.

Happy 1st Birthday Marilyn!

Last weekend we went to Dallas to celebrate the first birthday of our niece Marilyn.
Here is the sweetie-pie in her birthday dress:



The cake was made by Aunt Becky and the adults devoured the whole thing, though we did save a bit for the kids. This was the first taste of cake for both Marilyn and Alice. Marilyn seemed to generally enjoy her cake though she chewed it thoughtfully and quietly.


Alice however doesn't seem to be down with cake.


Alice did enjoy her cousin's toys.




I got a nice shot of the birthday girl making her entrance with some help from Grandpa.


Marilyn wasn't the only kid opening gifts. Alice enjoyed a wealth of new stuffed animals and Andy received this sweet superhero cape from Aunt Becky. I can't believe I caught him mid-leaping tall buildings in a single bound!

1st (official) Mother's Day

We had a rough night and Alice woke at 7am so Mother's Day started out sleepy

My Hero Tony took the baby away from earshot for a good three hours and let me sleep blessedly uninterrupted.

Tony and the baby brought brunch and three dozen tulips home.

We did some chores together and ate chocolate cookies.

Dinner was out at a fine establishment that served organic local foodstuffs.

After a fine evening walk we had ice cream at a local family owned business that I'm sure Alice will love when she is older.

Thus ended a wonderful Mother's Day.

By the end of dinner both Tony and Alice were half asleep and I appreciate them toughing it out.


This video shows the lengths Daddy and Baby went to trying to keep their game faces on for Mommy.


Thanks guys, for a wonderful Mother's Day. Now we must start planning for Father's Day.