Happy Holidays to everyone! Hope you're all enjoying your celebrations with families/friends. We've had a great time - visiting with my brother and Andrea and Mom's family in St. Louis, spending time at home and with Brendon's family here in Lawrence and looking forward to a visit from Dad and Margaret and family next weekend. Good times.

I would like to say, however, that a toy bomb exploded in our house. Addi's got so many things that I'm not sure where to put them all. They go to her room at night, only to reemerge and expand exponentially during the day, it's crazy! I think Addi's favorites are her build-a-bear "Teddy", doll stroller, doll cradle and cooking implements. She's become quite the little domestic. I'm wondering if I can retire my duties in that department soon. ;-) She's a little freaked out by the dueling Elmos still, but the rest of the family had a good laugh at their antics.

Yep, it's time for a new post.

Well, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving, with four holiday happenings and lots of family to see. It was a blast. Of course this past week was tough to get back to the normal schedule, but that's how it goes. Today, Addi and I went downtown with my cousin Bill, his wife Tara and daughter Ashley and a group of their friends to see the Christmas parade. The kids loved the horses and carriages, but neither Addi or Ashley were willing to sit to the end and see Santa - they were too hungry! So, Addi, Tara, Ashely and I left a few minutes early and stopped for lunch on the way home. It was a very nice morning.

I'm attaching some pictures of:
Addi's Thanksgiving walk with her Papa Jack, my sister in-law Jennifer and her new son Peyton (Addi's got a new cousin!), and some pics from the parade.

Yep, I'm finally posting Halloween pictures, as well as a few others. We've had a crazy few weeks. Addi had strep throat, which didn't respond to the first antibiotic. So, they put her on another and after 9 days of it, she rather suddenly broke out in hives, and is now covered in them. Aside from the itching and lack of sleep, she is in a pretty good mood. Here's what she's been up to lately - She sings her ABCs (most of them) many times a day, climbs on everything, hops wherever she can, has developed a desire to open and shut all the doors about a million times a day (just because she can) and recently has taken to stripping off her clothes and running through the house naked - yep, we have a streaker on our hands. Anyway, aside from illness annoyances, life is good and fun.

Some pre-halloween pics for your viewing pleasure: The Lawrence Zombie parade, trying on last year's monkey costume and picking out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch.

Despite Addi's ear infection, we had a very good time at Blake and Angela's wedding last weekend! Addi was very clingy (darn ear infection) and only wanted mommy for most of the night, but then broke out of her shell and ran around for the whole last hour or so. She even made friends with some strange blow-up alien her Uncle Blake found at the reception (probably very clean). The bride and groom both looked fabulous and seemed very happy. Everyone who attended had a great time. It was the perfect mix of formal and laid-back, and what a good group of people! Congratulations again you guys!

Just a few new pics for everyone. Addi is really a ton of fun to be around right now. She's giggly, talking up a storm and into everything! Life is good, except maybe for the ants, who keep marching inside to house to escape all this rain we've had this week. I think they maybe finding some tasty morsels too (cat bowl, dog bowl, under the high chair). Hmm, does this mean it's time for a really thorough house cleaning...anyone think I could get Brendon to help with that - doubtful ;-)

Happy 1.5 years old to Addi!!!

So hard to believe she's this old already. Here she is at one day old, one year old and today at one and a half. Crazy!

Need I say more...

So, my favorite things in life these days are:
1) Attempting to keep a straight face while repeating multiple times at the dinner table - "Addi that is not the doggy's food, quit feeding the doggy" Response: food is thrown on floor when Addi thinks mommy is not looking, but gives herself away with fits of giggles because she's just fed the doggy anyway - little stinker ;-)
2) Working on the cat trap - long story
3) Watching Addi figure things out - for example, we've been using the baby backpack some for quick trips to the mailbox, etc. and Addi loves it. So she decided at the store the other day she needed a backpack (calls it packpack). When she got home, she wanted to put her babies in it to take them for walks around the house. Way too cute!
4) Beginning to understand much of what my daughter is saying - with words! She's talking up a storm these days, often in two or three word sentences (i.e. mommy sit, doggy go, Addi wash, Addi brush mommy) and it's so much fun, except that when I don't get it she gets very frustrated with me. Plus, she's saying yep more often than no and mine only when she really wants to do something.
5) We had a great conference at work, which is great. Now on to mastering File Maker Pro and getting the office data organized, because something in life should be about order, don't you think (pretty sure this is my German heritage peeking through).

It's hard to believe that Addi's 17 months old already! I swear she just arrived, but at other times, I can't remember life before her. It's amazing. Anyway, here are a few new pics. I think she looks about 5 or 6 in the first one...

we had a very good holiday weekend here
at home, while my brother and his fiance
finished the ironman germany in new personal
best times!!! great job guys - and congratulations
on the engagement!

and the story reads "Contaminated fuel sold at Lawrence gas station" in today's paper http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/jun/25/contaminated_fuel_sold_lawrence_gas_station/ , so I am vindicated for my complaining. Thanks to Jes, Isaac and Jana for calling to let me know, even though I'd already talked to a station manager who admitted they were at fault. I have very good friends looking out for me!

So, we were having a pretty good Sunday (minus the whining about bad 1 yr. molars coming in) until this evening.

We went to Grandma Bubbles 91st birthday dinner - HAPPY BDAY BUBBLES! - and on the way home filled up with gas, as the gas light had been on for a bit. I was driving along like normal for a couple miles, when all of a sudden the car starts sputtering and completely dies on me. Of course Addi is conked out at this point (meaning she likely would've gone to sleep very easily once home), but not for long. So, I try to restart the car - more sputtering & on an uphill, so no pushing it to the side easily myself. All I can think is "it's bad gas" (and not of the dog or husband variety). So I throw on the flashers, call the wonderful in-laws (if I haven't mentioned how great Brendon's parents are on the blog, then it's WAY overdue - they are awesome) to ask for help, as Brendon is out of town this week for work. While waiting for their help, some nice men (seeing me desperately trying to push the car up the hill myself, cursing BP - probably pretty funny looking, I will admit) offer to help and we get the car up the hill and onto the side-street. Then I load Addi into the stroller for the 1.5 block walk home and wait for the cavalry. Once they arrive we try the car some more, with much more sputtering and some nasty looking, and smelling, smoke from the tailpipe and get the car back to the house, while I mumble about the bad gas BP has sold me. Then we try to figure out the car situation.

Now I need to thank Bubbles, as she is lending me her car for the next few days while she is out of town - again, my in-laws are wonderful! So, we trek back to Bubbles' house, get the Buick, come back home, call the tow truck, call the mechanic - so he won't be shocked when my car is magically there in the morning, and chase Addi around the house some. Inevitably she has no desire to go to sleep when there's such interesting stuff going on! :)

It's now 3 hours later, Addi is finally asleep (at 10:30), my car is waiting patiently for it's appraisal at the mechanic's and I'm still mumbling about the bad gas that BP sold me and heading to bed.

Did I mention that we REALLY need some reliable form of mass transit in the States!

We've had a very busy few weeks, although if you asked me "doing what?" I'd be hard pressed to tell you. It just seems that something comes up every day and before we know it the weekend is here again and we're busier than ever then too.

We had a good time today catching up with friends at lunch and playing in the pool with Jana and her little girl Emma. The girls had a great time running all over the yard, splashing around and eating popsicles.

Happy Father's Day this weekend to all the Dad's out there, hope you have a good one!

We also got a fairly good picture of the funnel cloud forming out to the northwest of Lawrence the other night. Scary weather around here lately. I suppose that's Kansas for you though. Of course we, and all of the neighbors, were outside watching.

We had a great long weekend down in Arkansas hiking, swimming, playing cards and enjoying our family. Addi was a big fan of the backpack, even trying to climb into it by the end of the weekend when she wanted to go hiking. She was also a huge fan of the tea set and dress up she got to do with her Grandma Margaret. In fact she's been bringing us tea daily. We just wish holiday weekends could be longer...