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.

Alice decided to try out the Ergo

Imagine my heart melting when I saw Alice walking this bear to sleep. Erik and Nicole might recognize the bear.

Reading is fundamental

Ten erie minuets of silence had me worried. I hadn't been dragged into a game of trucks or climbed like a breathing jungle gym in ages. So I peek around the corner and see this



She just kept "reading" her magazine until I finished my work.

text message sent to Tony at 11am.

Your daughter just shut herself in the office and barred the door by sliding the window screen box between the door and the cat tree. I came around the bathroom side and got her out but you should be proud that she can at least partially barricade a room from Zombies at 1 year of age.

Brave New Cell Phone

After a decade of middling to minuscule customer service we have abandoned Sprint as our cell phone carrier and switched to Credo.

The service and price is the same but Credo gives a portion of it's profits to worthy causes and they offered us a month of free text messaging. The purpose of this post is to let our loved ones know that my cell phone number is back online (as Alice melted my old phone in a rampaging river of drool) and that we are now part of the texting world.

Anyone who knows us and likes to send messages on the fly have already been warned that we are cheap, technologically stunted, and thus have never been accepting of friendly missives via phone. I used to cringe when a lovely message such as, "Happy New Year dear friend!" would appear on my screen and grouse about the $2 Sprint just pulled out of my pocket.
I have never been a particularly tech savy individual (as seen: here)

But this is a new day! We are throwing ourselves into the "I can send an email while driving" world thumbs first...for a month.

Thank you Leanne and Brad!

Alice and I came home from a very hot walk (102 outside today) as walking around the block is her new favorite thing, and were greeted by a "just because" package from Brad and Leanne!



The book has beautiful illustrations of foxes and frogs. We joke about Leanne wanting to go outside in nature like a weirdo but Alice seems to have the same strange compulsion. They are bonding over this outdoor fixation.



I love the ducky shirt. Just love it to bits. Leanne made that duck, which as Alice pointed out, says "Quack".

Baby Vampire

Alice has grown fond of cherries. An excellent treat but bathtime is a more common occurrence these days.