Finally, a birthday post

Okay, I've been a total tool lately in terms of updating the blog, especially given that my girl just had her 2nd birthday... Sorry.



Here are some things for your enjoyment. First, Happy Birthday Allaine. I so love her smile here.

Second, given all the holiday and birthday presents, you can bet there was plenty of bubble wrap around, and A has figured it out.

Hope you enjoy, and we're trying to be better. I should have some pictures to upload as well.

Happy 2nd Little Girl

Allaine turned 2 last week. Wow. Wowwow. I still get the shakes thinking about it. I look at that first photo of her (sidebar of blog homepage) and remember how tiny and helpless she was. Humbling.

So we've had a camera malfunction that I haven't had time to troubleshoot, and G's camera may be about done for. There are a few photos on there, but we missed most birthday activities because it wouldn't turn on. I got a couple videos I'll get up soon. Here are a couple from my camera.


A gift from "Aunt" Marissa... prairie ecologist extraordinaire.


Allaine meets Curious George, and she seems to like him a lot.


Grammy Pruett sent her a horse calendar so she'd have horse photos on the wall. Kid loves horses, thanks to Meema Biller. Hopefully she'll get lots of time with them in the future.


Some new warm fuzzy winter clothes from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Ric

We're doing okay. Allaine seems to have turned the corner on her cold/flu thing, but G woke yesterday with the same and was in bad shape all day. I left this morning before they were up, but both seemed to sleep well and hopefully today will be a much better day.

Long delays

Hi all,

Just a quick note to say the blog is still functioning. We've just been covered up again lately. Allaine has been sickish (acting very ill at night and not sleeping but seemingly fine all day) and it has been a rough couple of days. Two nights ago I was up beyond 2 a.m. with her, and last night I got maybe 2 hours sleep total. We are really hoping for a better night tonight, or we may have to see the doctor. I think she's got a sinus cold/infection, but getting good signals and symptoms from her is tough at best.

On the whole she's great though. Last night at (ungh...) about 1:30 I'd given up trying to get her to sleep in her bed, and put her in the recliner with me. She slept for about 30-45 minutes before waking up and beginning to tell me about everything she's ever experienced, in some (considerably impressive) detail. She told me about the school buses that she saw, and the ones that I saw and told her about (she's really into school buses at the moment). She talked about all the people that were at the house yesterday using recognizable names for everyone involved. She talked about talking to Grammy Pruett (Purett) and MeemaPawpaw. She told me about Miss Bonnie, who cuts her hair, and about gardening and the cranes in the yard... It was an impressive if exhausting display of the fact that the kid is paying attention, and soaking it up, even if she isn't always completely coherent. More photos coming soon, I promise.

Christmas 2009 wrap

Working on smiles

We're starting to work on Allaine's "pose for the camera" face.

Nothing says thank you dad like that smile...

A better attempt, but still a little psychosis lurking in there.

Christmas 2009... um... 5?

You may have seen Allaine's new work bench in a previous post. Here she is figuring out how to use a claw hammer to pull a nail.

Societal voices

On Christmas night we ventured out to visit Scott and Betsie, local friends that some of you know from here or Missouri. Scott and I were discussing societal pressures and expectations while Allaine played with a new stacker toy from Uncle Bill and Aunt Gypsy. Don't know how the audio will be but the "voices" (played here by Scott R.) represent society's expectations, i.e. color within the lines, or don't stack those blocks creatively.

Thanks for contributing to our daughter's rebellion Scott! Rage Allaine! Rage against the machine!