Violet's Blog

Welcome to the World!

2009-06-12T12:33:00.006-04:00

Our new baby has arrived! Please post a comment if you would like the link to our new blog.
Thanks!

Give me some Water!

2009-06-06T23:54:00.005-04:00

First, it's my due date today. And no baby. No sign that the baby is coming soon. For some reason I never thought I'd go overdue so it's hard to get my brain around, but I really am trying hard to let this baby come when he/she wants. Send us some good patience vibes over these next few days (and hopefully not weeks!)

Violet has been having so much fun playing in the water lately. The other day she put on her rain boots and transfered water from Porter's bucket to her sand box and to the cement under the porch. For a very long time.

Contemplating water.

Tonight she wore her new "baby suit" or bathing suit and spent some time jumping in and out of her pool and then looking at her cute little footprints on the cement. This is one of my new favorite pictures of her.Then we had a little photo shoot. This is her looking "nice".
Silly:
Surprised:

I'm still a sucker for her sleeping pictures. This week I went in to check on her and saw that she fell asleep with her Princess book literally on her head. And yes, her tank top does strangely match her sheets.*** House Pictures ***

Here are some detailed pics of how the drawers/cabinets work on the new entertainment center. This is one of the end drawers. Jon did finger joints on the edges which makes it even niftier!
Two whole drawers! There is so much storage here it's great! And already almost full!
And the middle cabinet.
And Jon cut down this very huge and unruly bush today. I wanted to keep it up for a little bit to see what exactly it did. And we found out what it did. It grew. And grew. And got in our way. So long, big crazy bush!
Oh! Yes, we do have another back door. Nice to see you!

We'll miss you, Great Oma!

2009-05-29T14:29:00.004-04:00

We are sad to say that Violet's Great-Oma (Jon's Grandma) passed away earlier this week at the age of 93. I'm so glad that she was able to see Violet twice - once when she was about 6 months old and again this past fall when she was almost 2. We'll miss you!!
It seems impossible to me, but I'm already 39 weeks pregnant! I'm due in a WEEK! AHHH!! Actually I feel pretty ready for this baby, and most definitely ready to be not pregnant! :). I have said it before, but whoever brings me an ice cold Corona with lime to the hospital gets to hold the baby first! Ha ha ha. I'm not kidding.

Here are me and Violet. She is sitting on "the bump"
I have been trying to take advantage of these last few days of being pregnant by eating snacks like this: (butter pecan ice cream with carmel, chocolate and whipped cream). Hm. I might have to make another one right now!
We haven't done bathtime pictures in a while! Violet STILL takes a bath in her baby bathtub. She doesn't know any different and it saves water. We got her Ariel and Flounder bath toys a while back and she LOVES to have them "fwim" in the tub with her. She's also getting pretty good at soaping herself up, and doesn't hate having her hair washed as much as she once did. Yay for that! Jon's job is to entertain Violet when he gets home from work so I can finish up making dinner. Her favorite thing to do with her daddy is go play in his trucks! Here she is in the Suburban. Now that she's found his stash of cereal bars in both trucks, she likes to play in them even more! :)
HOUSE NEWS

** It's FINISHED!! ** We are now the proud owners of a beautiful custom made entertainment center and a rearranged living room! YAY!! Plus I had SO much fun unpacking my books that have been away for more than a year. I MISSED them! Here is the finished product:
And for comparison, here is the "before" picture of how we had the living room set up. I'm so glad it was temporary!

Same view, different layout

AND here are some kitchen pictures

We took out the old scary microwave and installed this shiney new one. Except that it's... a little low. I can't really use the back burners, which has been okay so far as one of them is broken anyway, but we are hoping to get a new stove soon too and then we'll have to figure out what to do! We love this house, but so far our "easy" projects end up turning into something MUCH more complicated! Eventually we'll probably have to take out part of the cabinet above the microwave to move it up.
Here's hoping the next post is about a NEW BABY!!! And just as advanced warning, we are actually going to be switching blogs when this new baby arrives. I'll post a link when we know what it will be called! :)

Friends! And more Friends!

2009-05-25T16:02:00.004-04:00

We had a busy week visiting with LOTS of friends! It started off with having our playgroup over at our house to splash in the pool and eat watermelon like a proper summertime gathering. Here are Piper and Violet who each brought their watermelon over to the blanket to read together while they ate. So cute!We also got to meet up with her friend Isaac from Las Vegas for a trip to the zoo. They were SO CUTE together and held hands like this for quite a while through the monkey exhibit!And this weekend we had her friend Hannah over to play (and her awesome parents!). They both plopped themselves on the bed and read different versions of "Ariel" together. Awww!We also have a new video. I've been dying to get some of my favorite "Violet-isms" on video, she has been talking up a storm and I just LOVE how she says certain things. I got a few here!

My favorites are that she says "Uh-oh, Spagettios" as "Uh-oh, Sesh-ohs". She also USED to say ketchup really wrong, but today apparently decided to start saying it right. Darn!

This weekend we took Violet to the park by our house. She LOVES to swing! I love this picture too - as if Jon is saying "Kid flying so high on the swing you can't even see her. My work here is done."

Daddy's got some big shoes to fill! It was his shoes today, yesterday she was sliding around with two of her little plastic pans from her play kitchen on her feet.This weekend also brought a LOT of rain to Denver. It's so weird, I swear last year it only rained about 5 days all summer and NO thunderstorms. About 10 minutes before this hit I said to Jon "I miss thunderstorms!" and BOOM! Here it came! It was POURING for a very long time and very loud thunder (or as Violet says, "Flounder"). You can see how much rain was coming down our street by looking at the front tires of the Orange Truck. My car was parked in front of it and the water was up to my bumper! It has since rained every day for a few minutes. Our grass is LOVING it!
And last but not least, I wanted to show a picture of the house that Jon has been working on for the last year. It's a remodel of a 4-unit house in Boulder. They had been working on it for 5+ years before he started :) It is really cool and modern, and it looks like they could be done in the next few months.

How to Sleep in a Big Girl Bed - by Violet

2009-05-16T22:29:00.006-04:00

Last weekend we took the plunge and moved Violet out of her crib and into her big girl bed. She LOVES her bed! She has really done great with the move and doesn't seem to miss her crib at all. I think she is most impressed that she has her own covers :)

However it did take her a few days to figure out exactly how one sleeps in a regular bed. The first day we found her like this:
Yes, her little leg is CROSSED. How cute is that?

The next day her head is in the right direction, but she's kind of on the wrong end:

Ah, sweet success! She usually spends a few minutes reading to herself before falling asleep, so there are always lots and lots of books on her bed.Closeup! Yes, she has her hands and arms inside the shelves of her bed. Hang on Violet!
And now for some before/after pictures of her room.

BEFORE

AFTER

Here was what her headboard looked like before we painted it. The dresser was the same colors.
Here is Violet skateboarding with her daddy.
And playing in the front yardViolet dressed herself. Shirt - check. Hat - check. Sandals - check. No need for pants.Tonight we had watermelon after dinner. I brought this tub over to give her a few pieces and insisted on having the whole thing in front of her. Silly!
AND we finally finally have something that looks like a babies room! It makes me feel SO much better and SO much more ready (only 3 more weeks!). As you can see from the before pics, it needed a lot of work!

BEFORE

AFTER

I even made two cute little onesies for a Going Home from the Hospital outfits. Which one are we gonna use??

Mountain Trip!!

2009-05-14T00:05:00.003-04:00

Violet and I headed up to Breckenridge a few weekends ago with a few of our playgroup friends. It was so fun to get away and spend some time up in the Rockies! Here she is at the park.
And with her friends Bryce and Piper (excuse her disheveled hair - they play hard!)
In front of the huge snow piles yet to melt (which is why they call it "Mud Season" up there!)
We spent one morning in town...
Ah, our idea to teach our children how to push EACHOTHER in the stroller finally worked! Too bad it only lasted about 10 seconds!
2 swings. 3 kids. Solution? Two per swing! Here is Violet & Piper all cozy swingin' away!
Jumpin' on the couch!There is nothin' like hanging out in a nice warm hot tub when there is still snow on the ground! Violet and Piper were shivering so much but would NOT get out! It was really cute!My friend Sarah brought all the fixin's for Make-Your-Own-Sushi. Here was my first attempt at rolling it. Not too pretty, but they tasted great!
The view from the porch.Back at home, Violet has really taken to reading by herself. If she's quiet for too long and I go looking for her, she's usually plopped on the floor somewhere reading her books. A girl after my own heart!
We also took a little trip to Golden (only about 15 minutes away) to meet some new friends (hey Mindi and Rex!). We stopped by the water on the way home. So pretty!

And in "house news" the entertainment center is IN THE HOUSE!! In fact Jon is painting it even as I type. He told me tonight that he plans on having the tv installed by Saturday night. Let's hope!
My cord that connects the camera to the computer is busted so I have a TON more pictures to post... we officially moved Violet to her "big girl bed" and now *gasp* sort of have a nursery for the new baby ready. I have some pretty funny pictures of the "progession of Violet as she learns how to sleep in a regular bed" that I can't wait to post!

Little Girly in Pink

2009-04-29T22:05:00.003-04:00

We had a very quick photo session today in the back yard. Here is Violet in all her 2-year-old glory:

And looking very sweet sitting on a big stack of plastic chairs.
She also helped me make strawberry jam. First, I am ashamed to say that yes, I did buy my strawberries from a regular grocery store (we usually do jam back in Michigan ONLY with fresh-picked home-grown strawberries from the farmer's market) and no, it does not taste nearly as good. But it's still better than the kind you can buy in a jar so we make do :)

Violet has been "helping" a lot in the kitchen lately and she stirred the strawberries for me, making some strawberry soup.
The little sneak! I turned around and she was merrily eating up the jam berries! :)
We went to the zoo again (what's new) because... THERE IS ANOTHER BABY GIRAFFE!!! Did I get a picture of it? NO! But I did get a pic of Violet snuggled up next to the giant silverback gorilla "daddy" while he was eating his breakfast.
Jon's dad and uncle came to visit (I forgot to take pictures of them! Ugh!) but they did bring out a truckload of things that we had had to leave in Michigan, and some new stuff too. This was a little desk and chair that all 3 of the boys had used when they were little. Violet thinks is SUPER cool!

On the house front, Jon has been really busy building our new entertainment center. It's getting SO CLOSE and I can't wait to have it in the house and start unpacking all our fun books and decorations that we've had stowed away for a year. Jon and I had fun trying to come up with a design that fit the feel of this house AND would fit all of our stuff. I am always so impressed with how he can actually make it happen!Ask and ye shall receive, Haley! She saw a bit of this cabinet in some of our wall pictures and wanted to know what was in it. So without further ado...

Top Row (starting on the left): Tonka Truck horse trailer, pretzel tin, retro Thermos bottle with the paper wrap still on, vintage Cookie Gun (yes, it's in the box. No, I have not used it).

Second Row: Vintage toaster, glass from Oktoberfest in Munich in '05 when Jon & I were there, old coffee grinder, Tang carafe (I LOVE TANG!), very very old Dutch pitcher that my grandma gave me, and the first of the tiny little blue & white Delft Dutch houses that KLM Airlines used to use as their liquor bottles on the planes. Jon's grandpa (Opa to us) used to work for KLM and we have a bunch of them. They are SO COOL!

Third Row: Heiniken Wooden Shoe, more Delft houses, Delft flower pot, more Delft houses and another wooden shoe (this may be called the "If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much" shelf)

Last Row: Nifty old snack bowl, tin cup from Oklahoma, vintage Stawberry Shortcake mug, VW Bus mug, and a VW bus replica of the one Jon and I took on our honeymoon that I made in my ceramics class in college (yes, time very well spent!).
Yes, we really did drive around the country for 2.5 months in "Marigold" our VW bus. She even got in some wedding pics:

Hurray for Spring!

2009-04-16T09:13:00.003-04:00

We've had some great weather here and have been outside enjoying our new yard and driveway (yes, after street-parking for a year, a driveway is a wonderful, wonderful thing!). Violet got some nifty sidewalk chalk for Easter (thanks Oma!) and has really loved using them on the driveway.
Easter weekend I got Violet all bundled up (it wasn't THAT cold - in the low 40's) and we went and checked out a neat little market in downtown Denver. It had a lot of great antiques, crafts and even some food. I'm contemplating getting a booth for Hip Violet there at some point!

Violet all snuggle-deed up. Everyone commented that THEY wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket and wheeled around too. No kidding!
One of the things I picked up was this super cute chair for Violet. She LOVES it! It's the perfect height for feeding her babies.
We had a really nice Easter with Violet's aunt and uncles who are in town. It was a very rare cloudy and rainy day in Denver so we took Violet out for a walk in her rain boots.Luckily it cleared up this week and on Tuesday Violet helped me clean up the back yard. Thanks to my playgroup friends that were all over that morning, I found out that we have a TON of really great rose bushes in the yard. Unfortnately they have not been pruned in years so I have my work cut out for me (literally!). I cleared a bunch of dead branches and stalks out of the way but there is a lot left to do! Plus I think I may have to plant some Concord Grapes on our little arbor since Violet loved them so much last year!*Sneak Peek*
We had a little photo shoot this weekend - the results of which many of you will see in your mailboxes in the near future. Here is a little teaser ;)

Here Comes Violet Cottontail...

2009-04-09T00:46:00.004-04:00

Hoppin' down that bunny trail...

Tonight we carried on a favorite Easter tradition in Denver - dyeing Easter Eggs!! Here is Violet (in the baseball cap), Jon, her Aunt Heather, Uncle Trent and Uncle Mike who all joined in the festivities.
Violet was VERY excited about how the eggs looked when they came out of the dye

No really, she really was excited!

(by the way, at the end you can kind of hear the horrible sound our washing machine is making lately, it's very loud!)

Finished product:Our secret egg-dyeing tips: Buy 2-3 of the PAAS kits and double or triple up on the tabs in each cup. Save rubber bands from produce over the year and wrap them around the eggs to get cool stripes.

Violet is REALLY into her babies lately. She feeds them, takes them for walks, reads to them and puts them down for a nap. I was in the kitchen and when I went out to find Violet I found she had made a little bed on the floor (notice the babies sleep with their bowls and spoons) and laid down with them. So cute!
Later when she took her nap she INSISTED that all her babies nap with her. Here is how she slept.
I also finally caught Violet singing on camera. She doesn't sing a lot, but she did sing to her babies here. I have no idea what song she's singing but it sure does have some good hand motions!

Today we spent quite a while outside in the great sunny spring-like weather. We are LOVING our new backyard! It's all grass and fenced in so Violet has a blast running around.
Here is a video of her newest trick - she can FINALLY walk down a single stair by herself! It has taken a while for her to get the balance to do it and now she is QUITE proud of it!

And she also loves to play with Porter. Here they are hanging out together.

Happy Bunny Day!

Just a little hole in the wall

2009-04-05T10:16:00.004-04:00

Let the fun begin! Well, for me. For Jon it's more like work!

This weekend Jon and his brother Trent knocked a little "window" hole in our kitchen wall. I feel like I spend so much time in the kitchen and really wanted to be able to see/hear into the living room better. So a hole in the wall it is!

Before:
From the kitchen... Sadly this built-in phone which I'm sure was very hip in its day, met its maker this weekend. It LOOKS cool, but the one time I picked it up there appeared to be about 2" of grease on the mouthpiece. G-R-O-S-S! So I was not sad to see it go!

During:
Thank goodness fr plastic sheeting! Jon and Trent were COVERED in white dust, but the rest of the house stayed pretty dust-free!

Why does my house look like ET?
After!!

From the living room looking into the kitchen.

We LOVE it already! Jon still has to do the drywall but it's really perfect and makes things so much more open and bright.

Violet and I seem to be coming down with a cold so we spent the day quarantined in our bedroom watching movies. Here is Violet all snuggled up in bed.
Next up, the entertainment center! I can't WAIT to see what Jon comes up with for it!

Whose Blog is this, anyway?

2009-04-03T14:53:00.005-04:00

Because I have to take it over for a minute!

While I was home I had the honor of spending the day with my good friend Kara and her 9 week old twins. They are SO CUTE and it was great to see what a day-in-the-life of being a mom of a 3 year old and twins is like (yes, it's about as much work as it sounds!) :)

Here I am with Nate and Brynn. Contrary to the picture, Nate does NOT have a broken neck. He was actually quite comfy this way! They are wearing their Hip Violet shirts with owls. So cute!
In the afternoon, Nate fell asleep on my lap and Brynn snuggled up with her mom. Kara and I were able to have a great talk each snuggled up with a baby. I LOVED it!
You can see more pictures of the twins and keep up with them at their blog here.

THEN I got to see my horse!! Well, he's not technically mine anymore but luckily his new mommy doesn't mind if I come up to see him when I'm home. I MISS HIM! It is still very surreal to me, having spent the last 20+ years around horses almost every day and now I am lucky if I get horse time once a month. BUT I am forever grateful to Julie (Max's new mom) - she takes such good care of him and loves him as much as I do! For instance, if you notice he is both CLEAN and slightly FAT. Keeping any horse clean in a Michigan winter is a feat, but a white horse? Nearly impossible! And I struggled the entire time I owned him (from birth until he was 11) keeping weight on him - Julie seems to have found the magic potion to keeping him looking like he should!
Give me another smooch!!
Horse hugs are the BEST! (okay, 2nd to kid hugs, but still!)
The coolest thing was that he recognized me! I haven't seen him since last summer, and when we pulled up I rolled down the window and talked to him. His ears perked up and he started sniffling, then walked up to the fence!! It was really sweet. He did the same thing later after we came home from lunch and Julie agreed - he knew who I was! I just love that!

_____ Now Back to our Regularly Scheduled Violet Blog ______

Violet loved to help my mom in the kitchen. Here she is "helping" crunch up some walnuts for our yummy waffle breakfast.

Later on she peered over the bowl of cheesy-potato mixture. She loved being a "big kid" and sitting on the stools!
We also were able to go and watch her cousin Claire's dance class. Violet was quite mesmerized, especially since a lot of the songs they danced to were from her favorite Disney movies! Here Claire trades her tap shoes for her ballet slippers.
Aren't these kids adorable? Claire is on the far right. 1st position!
We also got to stop by and say hello to Violet's 2nd cousin Sophie. Many of our family members comment about how much Violet looks like both Sophie and Claire. There is no denying that they are related (especially with the matching hair here!).Now we're back home again - to the new house! It feels great to come home to a place all our own, I just wish the boxes would magically unpack themselves! Porter has already discovered the neighborhood cats and has taken down a few pieces of fence, so Violet got on her boots and went out with her daddy last night to fix it up.We're expecting another blizzard here this weekend (this one I get to be here for!) so wish us luck!

More Moving... then VACATION!

2009-03-25T22:15:00.008-04:00

We have, officially, moved into our new house!! Besides a few bumps in the road, it went pretty smoothly. We already love how quiet the street is compared to our old place, how quiet the floors are (no squeaks!) and how much room we have. I'm pretty far done unpacking and still have plenty of space to fill. Yay!

Here is Violet helping her dad unhitch the trailer.
Mike, our friend Scott and Jon unloading boxes and furniture. THANKS for the help guys!
Violet also put in her time. Here she is carrying a small bag of something into the house. Good girl!
Violet and Uncle Mike take a break from moving.
We all took a break from moving/packing/unpacking to go watch Uncle Mike play hockey. Here is Violet and her cousin Tobin at the game. They are SO CUTE together! They play great and Tobin knows everything about hockey (his dad is on the same team) so he sweetly described to Violet what was happening. The word "Zamboni" popped up a few times. Violet is also showing off her lizard-like tongue. She knows it's long and she now knows how to curl it up on the end. She shows this trick off often.

We also had a birthday party this weekend for one of her playgroup friends - Here she is in the midst of the bubbles from the bubble machine.THEN to top off a crazy weekend of moving, Violet and I decided to get outta Dodge and headed home to Grand Rapids!! Yep, we're totally crazy. Packing up one house. Unpacking another. Packing up to go out of town with a 2 year old. Interesting! But we made it! Here Violet helps pack. When I got back to Michigan and unpacked, I did, indeed, find a few things she tucked away when I wasn't looking. Funny!
We are so happy to spend time with my mom, sister and her kids while we're here. Today we went to the butterfly exhibit at the Frederick Meijer Gardens. Here is Violet with her lovely Aunt Leah.
Leah, Claire and Violet are butterflys and caterpillars.
My sweet little caterpillarViolet showing off her squat (is this a "hip kid" thing or do all little kids squat this much?) while looking at the butterflies. At first she was pretty freaked out by them but after a few minutes she got really excited. Luckily there were TONS of them so there were a lot to look at!
Two peas in a pod. Violet and Aunt Leah

Violet and Claire look at the tulips.We TRIED. We really did. But this is the best shot we got of the girls with Grandma. Sillies!
Later today we hunt out at Leah's house. Here is Claire taking Violet for a ride in the Barbie Jeep.
And the cousins (Anna, Claire, Violet, Ethan) all snuggled up on the couch to watch Pocahontas. So sweet! Violet thinks her cousins are immensely entertaining. I've never heard her laugh so hard when she's with them!

Movin' On Up... to the West Side...

2009-03-15T22:52:00.006-04:00

We're on the move... again! We closed on our new house on Friday and we're already pretty far in the moving process (special thanks to Jon's brothers who worked very hard all weekend helping us!)

Violet seems to like the new place. Here she was on Friday having a nice little snack under the chandelier.Jon got started right away building some storage shelves for the basement. He did great and actually got them done in one afternoon!
Saturday I had Violet pack up her backpack (aka "backrak") with some toys and books and we headed back to the new house.She got to have a picnic snack in her own room this time.
She's been taking great naps at the new house, even though she is obviously getting pretty big for her pack n' play! It's also nice to know that she's a pretty heavy sleeper - there were people bringing boxes and furniture in and out of the house, doors slamming, etc. while she slept and she never woke up!
Wait... didn't we JUST do this??
The more time we spend in our new house, the more we just LOVE it! It has so many fun features and so much ROOM! I have been busy cleaning the kitchen. It's obvious that whoever cleaned the house to put it up for sale was sure the new buyers were going to tear out the old kitchen and remodel. Not so much for us! Sooo there has been quite a bit of cleaning that I've needed to do. Which is really okay as it's given me time to figure out where I'm going to put all my stuff! Plus this house has some fun stuff like this lazy susan in the corner (there is a bigger one below, but not quite in that good of shape).
Any idea what these might be for? They are little metal hooks - maybe 4-5 per rack. AND on the potty training front - Violet is doing GREAT! She had her first 100% dry day today. We are SO proud of her! Overnights and naps are still about 50/50 but I feel like we're getting closer... and getting more used to bringing an extra set of clothes with us wherever we go instead of diapers!

I do need to stock up on different stickers for her rewards. She is (amazingly) SICK of her Disney Princess choices!! But they do work. Today she rewarded ME for being potty trained with a Barbie sticker. :)

Dogs N' Dancin'

2009-03-10T23:39:00.002-04:00

Today Violet was "cleaning" all sorts of things with a package of baby wipes she found. Porter got in the way and he got groomed too.
She currently has a love/hate relationship with Porty. She either laughs hysterically while she tries to pet him (usually on his tail), or screams "Nooooo!" at him when she is eating. She is, apparently, trying to squash the one bright moment in his life: he's clean-up crew under Violet's high chair when she eats. Not any more! He actually listens when she yells at him... he sighs and goes back to his doggie bed. Poor thing!

You know, I always swore I wouldn't be a slave to kids music. So far, so good. Here is Violet dancing away to Guns N' Roses. Unfortunately I missed getting her headbanging on video, but she does do a pretty good impression of the Axle Rose slithery dance.

And last, a quick PT update. We had kind of a rough day today when she woke up at 5:45 am totally soaked and wouldn't go back to sleep. Unfortunately she knows that she might get to watch some cartoons if she's up early so Mommy can curl up next to her and snooze a while longer. However this morning we were both way too tired and I ended up putting her back down at 9. We both slept until noon!

The great news is that we actually *gasp* LEFT THE HOUSE! We ran some errands and low and behold, she had to go while we were in the fabric store. And she WENT!! It was so great. She got a special treat for that one!

She was dry the rest of the day but did have one tiny accident tonight. I think after dinner she gets too preoccupied and forgets she has to go. This time she caught it and felt really bad :( Poor thing! She even said "I'm sorry, Mama!" while I was cleaning up the bathroom floor. Awwww! The funny thing is that she KNOWS when she has an accident as opposed to going on her own. She asks for stickers (her reward) immediately after going on her own. She doesn't even ASK for anything if she has an accident. Weird!

Anyway, I'm trying a few different things for overnight since last night obviously didn't work. We'll see how it goes!

Potty Training: Day 3

2009-03-09T22:09:00.002-04:00

Our last official day of potty training (ha! I think this will go on for a while) went really well!

She *gasp* woke up completely and totally dry this morning!! And of course she didn't want to even get NEAR the potty for a few hours after waking up which gave me another heart attack. I hate that! But apparently she can hold it!

We only had 2 accidents today - the first was totally my fault as I was feeling like a total slacker for literally doing nothing but asking Violet to tell us when she had to go potty all weekend. SO I took her upstairs and we cleaned out a storage closet to get ready for our move (we close on Friday - HURRAY!). I was asking her every 3 seconds if she had to go, and of COURSE during one of the lulls she did indeed go. Luckily she was in her excersaucer (yup, a 2 year old still fits in a baby-sized excersaucer) so we had a nice plastic catch-tray.

The second was tonight and I am trying to figure out why she did it other than Jon had just gotten home and I think she wasn't thinking about the potty at all. Of COURSE she went on the side of the couch I did NOT have the towel on. Oh well.

BUT the good news is she went #2 on the potty like such a big girl AND woke up dry from her nap. Again, she waited a good hour or so to actually go after that. Now that I know she can hold it I won't be so worried about it (hopefully).

Tomorrow we may try to venture out of the house. We usually have playgroup on Tuesdays and that would be a safe place to try an outing. And we HAVE to go to the post office (what's new there?) so we'll do that too. Wish us luck!

Overall I'm very very pleased with the 3-day-potty training method. I know a ton of people were VERY skeptical but obviously this lady's methods WORK!

Potty Training: Day 2

2009-03-08T23:22:00.002-04:00

Quick update on Day 2... Violet did GREAT!

Today's Score:
Violet - 1
Parents - 7

Yup, she only had ONE accident all day! And it was really my fault for not catching it - she had just gone TWICE in 15 minutes and I just didn't think she had anything left! :) But she ASKED to go potty a few times and even asked to go during lunch AND in the middle of Lady & The Tramp! What a girl! We are really proud of her. In fact I heard her stirring after she went to bed, so I ran up and asked if she had to go and sure enough! She did! Yay!!

Stay tuned for what the last day is like!

Tinkle, Tinkle, Vi-o-let...

2009-03-07T16:20:00.006-05:00

How I wonder where you wet...
(probably on the carpet and not the wood floor)

So here we are, on the brink of yet another childhood milestone. Potty training. Or the more politically correct potty LEARNING. A bunch of my friends had had great success with 3-Day-Potty Training so I bought the e-book a week or so ago, got Jon up to speed and planned a weekend at home. Inside. Waiting for Violet to pee.

But first things first. This morning we got up, had breakfast and then started on the course to no-diaper-land. The book talks about throwing out all your diapers with the help of your toddler. However, since we do cloth diapers we aren't throwing them away, just storing them for the next little one. Violet LOVED this part. She thought it was great fun to move the diapers from their baskets to the box for the baby.

Alllll done!
Call me crazy, but I'm going to MISS my diapers. Those of you who haven't used cloth diapers lately may not know that they aren't your momma's cloth diapers anymore :) No more pins. No more plastic pants, no more swishing in the toilet (ew!). The new cloth diapers snap or velcro on and have fun waterproof covers that are thin and leak-proof. I'll admit that I've probably spent FAR too much time in the last 2 years thinking about diapers. Which ones I needed to have. Which prints had to be in my "stash". And in the last 6 months I feel like I finally hit Cloth Diaper Stash Nirvana. I had just enough to go 2-3 days between washings. I had a great selection of fitted diapers from my favorite makers like Thirsties, Clothmopolitan, Muttaquin Baby and Spooky Kitty Collective.

So it was with a lot of mixed emotions that I put Violet's last cloth diaper on yesterday after her nap. Yes, I did spend some time beforehand thinking of which one it should be. My "oldie but goodie" SKC Day of the Dead print with hot pink velour inner (upper right)? My organic bamboo velour mint green Muttaquin Baby (this diaper is insanely soft, inside and out!) (upper left)? The Katherine's Kustom in Pink Retro Apples (bottom)? And yes, I TAKE PICTURES OF MY DIAPERS! Rest assured I'm not the only one. My CDing friends can vouch for my sanity ;)
But we ended up in a newer diaper - one that we got just a few months ago and became a quick favorite. A Brown Retro Apples Clothmo. Here are some pics of Violet in what should be her last cloth diaper.

So today went pretty much according to how the book said it might. She peed a lot. We visited the bathroom a lot. Neither one coincided with eachother the way it should. BUT she took a 2.5 hour nap in undies and was only slightly damp when she woke up, not even enough to change the sheets. YAY! However I plunked her straight on the potty after getting up - nothing. When we went downstairs I sat her on the couch (on a towel) and ran to get some pretzels for her snack. When I got back - well, let's just say good thing I thought of the towel ;)

BUT the rest of the night has been dry. She has asked about 37,938 times to go potty, and out of those THREE TIMES she actually went! Oh the party we had! The stickers she got! So I'm pretty excited to have three good successes our first day. Wish us luck tonight when we go diaper-free for the first time. Ironically this is the first night EVER that she asked for a drink of water before bed and drank an entire sippy of water. Eeks! I'm sure we'll have some wet sheets, and I will admit that getting up as soon as Violet does in the morning to plunk her on the potty does NOT sound fun (lately our late-sleeper is up at 6am)... however I really think tomorrow will be better, so wish us luck!

Seriously Cute

2009-03-04T13:01:00.003-05:00

Meet the newest member of the Denver Zoo - a baby giraffe! Holy cow, he was the CUTEST THING EVER! My friend Beth and I went to visit last week. He was only 8 days old and came right up to the fence to say hello! Beth and I had to hold tight to eachother to not leap over the fence and give his sweet little faces kisses. No matter that he's already taller than us.
At least his MOM got to give him kisses. Awwww!
Violet in front of the penguins
And checking out the gigantic daddy gorilla.
She looked so cute in her little jacket that we took some more pics when we came home. Here she is being goofy.
And seriously cute. And seriously OLD, don't you think? Ugh! I can't believe she's not a baby anymore! Good thing we're having another one to fill up her spot ;)
And a silly one from our trip to the park yesterday. It has been record-breakingly warm here all week... in the mid-70's at least. It's really great but also really weird to feel like it's spring already!
I got all dressed up the other night to go to the ballet with my friend Carolyn (it was really cool!). I decided I should take some pics of me and Violet while I was all gussied-up. This one is just silly.
Much better. It's so funny how now I can say "Okay Violet, put your head by my head and SMILE!" and she actually DOES IT!

A Very Special Visitor

2009-02-22T21:03:00.005-05:00

My Grandpa (or "Papa" to Violet) came to visit!! It was so great to see him! His brother, who lives in Colorado, got very sick so he came to visit him. Luckily his brother pulled through just great AND we got to spend a few hours with Papa! Violet just LOVES him and I think the feeling is mutual. They laughed and played for a very long time. Papa knows just what to do to make Violet laugh hysterically - it was so cute!
And as requested, here is a new "belly pic" of the new baby. This was taken today at 25 weeks (or 6 months). I can't believe I'm already that far along!
We have been having movie night every once in a while on a chilly weekend. Violet loves to get ALL snuggled up on the couch to "watch! watch! watch!" the movie. Here she is all snuggle-deed up with a very pregnant looking me!
We watched "A Bugs Life" and I forgot how scary it is. We had to calm her down a lot and she gets very emotional when she can tell that something bad is happening. It's sort of funny and cute but I had to say "It's okay! He'll be okay!" about 278,384 times during the movie. Of course today she wanted to talk ALL about the bugs. Hopefully it didn't give her any bad dreams!

Here is a cute pic from today.
And a few videos...

1) Since we didn't find out the gender of this new little person at our ultrasound, we have none-the-less been curious about what it might be. A few people have suggested that their other kids were great guessers, so we have been asking Violet. She CLEARLY has a favorite!

BUT here is the funny thing. Her word for "Boy" is very similar to how she says "Porter" (she calls him "Porty" or "Poh-ee" in Violet-speak). Boy. Pohee. We're pretty sure she thinks I have a small black puppy with a long snout in my belly. :)

2) Violet was playing this morning and talking a lot so I thought I'd post a video to show some of the words she's using lately. Yes, she has on a shirt, undies, and socks. It's toddler dress code! She's still not potty trained but getting closer and LOVES her undies! Anyway, you can hear her saying lots of things in this video. She calls bananas "menyas" and feeds that to her babies (along with a carrot) and asks the babies if they want more. Then when she's trying to get into her seat she says "hepeese" (help please). It's so fun to know what she's thinking lately and to understand better what she wants!

Another funny word-trick that she is playing lately is that her word for banana (menya) is very close to her word for peanut (meenyut). She is on a peanut kick and I never know if she wants peanuts or bananas! Who knew!

And LAST but not least, it looks like it's official - we're moving the first week of April! Both Jon and I are SO excited to have our own place again! Here are some pictures of our new brick ranch:
It was built in 1960 and has had one owner the entire time. What we like best is that he didn't touch a THING on the main floor. The house comes complete with "retro" EVERYTHING! We love the little details like the window between the dining room and living room as seen here...
And the VERY retro kitchen. When we first looked at the pictures of this house online I said "No way! The whole kitchen needs to be redone! Too much work!" but when we walked in and saw the details and the awesome gold-flecked countertop.... we were in LOOOOOVE! We're not touching a THING! And it even has a 1960 vintage Kitchen Aid dishwasher that works great. Let me tell you, after a year of hand-washing dishes in our rental, the dishwasher might be the thing we are looking forward to the most!AND a retro bathroom complete with turquoise tub and sink.
Nope, we're not remodeling a THING! :) We love it! The basement is actually not finished yet so we're planning to redo that with 2 more bedrooms (one of them being my sewing room), a full bathroom (i.e. "Guest Suite") and a huge rec room, along with a storage room for all the crap we lugged across the country :)

Upstairs it has 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. We're going to have a ton of room when the basement is finished! Plan your trips to come visit for next summer!!

Oh, and it also has a great big backyard which Violet already loves, and a cute little red barn/shed that I see becoming a playhouse in the future.

A Warm & Balmy... February?

2009-02-09T00:15:00.003-05:00

I don't want to BRAG to my dear friends and family back in Michigan (who I know had a nice warm weekend by Michigan standards), but it was 70 on Thursday here in the Sunshine State of the West (I dubbed it that myself) so we did what any normal mother/daughter team would DO on a warm February day. We went to the zoo.

All the animals seem to be enjoying the weather too and gosh darn it, we had MISSED them! I feel like we went to the zoo every few weeks this summer, but hadn't been in a few months. Here's Violet watching the hippos dozing in the sunshine:
Violet and her pals watching the birds.I also got this great video of Violet and her friends running around. She just recently got to the point where she can kinda/sorta keep up with them and it was so fun to watch. You'd never know she spent 6 months of her life in a spica cast, huh?

In other news... WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! I'll wait a bit to post more details (we still have to get through the inspection) but we're super excited to have our own place on a nice quiet street and actually unpack tons of our stuff that never found it's way out in our rental. I missed my STUFF! Of course I also know I can live without it for a year so perhaps we're due for another purge :)

Stay tuned for more details!

New Haircut & Budding Artist

2009-02-03T17:54:00.004-05:00

Violet got her hair cut! My friend Sarah cut 1-2 inches off and it looks SO CUTE! It curls right up on its own and she now actually *gasp* wears it DOWN instead of always in pigtails or braids. Hurray!
Here is a little video of her and her new haircut. She is meowing like a kitty:

She has also become quite the artist... although she prefers to draw on herself instead of paper. A budding tattoo artist, perhaps? These were supposed to be washable markers so I didn't stop her when she started the body art, but it took a good scrubbing in the sink and later in the tub to get it mostly off. We visited the Science Museum today - it was really cool! Very kid friendly and lots of room to run. Here are Violet and her pals manning (and womaning) the space shuttle.
And later, riding llamas in from of the llama exhibit.
They also have a fun kids area where Violet played in the bubbles
And tried to blow them.
Since turning two, she has decided that she can finally string 2 words together (Bye-Bye Daddy!) and has been doing that a little more which is fun. We also got her to say "Love you!" too which, of course, is the sweetest thing we've ever heard. It sounds more like "Wuv ewww" but you get the picture. One other funny thing she is doing is learning her shapes. Circle. Square. Pizza. That last one is a triangle. Of COURSE! But she makes sure to point it out wherever we are.

She has taken a break from potty training (sadly) but always wants to wear her "undies" regardless of the accidents she has in them. The Hello Kitty ones are her favorites.

We had her 2 year checkup last week and she has grown a TON! In fact they measured her twice because they couldn't believe it! She is now 34 inches tall and 25 lbs (tall & skinny). Everything else looks great and the doctor was very impressed with how well she's walking and running - no limp!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Violet!

2009-01-24T23:49:00.006-05:00

Our sweet little lady is officially TWO!

She got up this morning, had a lovely breakfast of french toast and then got to open some gifts that were sent from Michigan from her Grandma Pat and Oma Joanne.
And then... we decided to see just how many people we could fit into this lil' ole house of ours. Turns out the number is about 35 (with 11 of those being 2 and under). To say the seams were busting out... well, luckily there was lots of cupcakes to make it worth it! :)

"What? For ME? Oh I couldn't!!"
You know, I always hear people say "She's all girl!" or "He's all boy!" and I never really got that until lately. Violet is, for lack of a better term, all girl. She LOVES babies. She LOVES princesses. She LOVES all things sparkly and pink. And luckily her Aunt Heather and Uncle Trent caught wind of this girliness and got her some great dressup clothes for her birthday. She opened the box and IMMEDIATELY tried whipping off her shirt so she could wear the dress. She didn't take it off for the rest of the party!Even for her cupcake eating!

Here are actual pictures of the awesome crowd we had to celebrate with us. It just gave Jon and I such a great feeling to know that even though we've only been here a little while, we already have such great friends to come celebrate with us! Although we missed everyone back home TERRIBLY!
And dear, sweet Porter let us know his displeasure with being locked out on the back porch for the festivities that when we got home from dinner he left this little mess for us. Ah Porter. I guess we deserved it!
Special thanks to our friend Lisa for taking such great pictures during the party!

And a special "WE MISS YOU!" to Grandma, Grandpa Guy, Oma, Grandpa Rich, Leah, Joel, Ethan, Anna, Claire and the whole gang back in GR.

p.s. Check below for ANOTHER new post! I had too many pictures for one, so I split them up!

p.p.s. Special CONGRATULATIONS to my BFF Kara and Brian on the arrival of their adorable TWINS!!

Stock Show, Take 4

2009-01-24T23:01:00.006-05:00

Yeah, I admit it. I went to the Stock Show FOUR TIMES this year. I couldn't help it! And Violet? She went twice ;)

We went once just her and me and again with my sister-in-law Heather, who, despite living in Denver for many years, had never yet been to the stock show. FOR SHAME all of you Denver-ites who haven't been! Although I think this year I went enough to cover for most of you!

Here is Violet looking over the stockyards.
And the cows down below.
Sooo they had pony rides at the Stock Show. Violet and I watched the "neighs" go around earlier in the week. I asked her if she wanted to ride. She said yes. When we went again with Aunt Heather, and again we had "the talk". She still said "ride! ride!" when we watched the other kids go around and around. So we gave it a shot. She cried the entire time!Oh well. There are always the very safe rabbits in cages.And zonked out piglets in the petting area. Seriously, how cute is THAT?? Too bad they get so big so quickly. He looks like a good snuggler on the couch. At least for a few more weeks!
We also spotted this absolutely ADORABLE long-horn calf with its long-horn mommy. It even had teeny tiny long-horn nubs. Sooo sweet!
Violet and I in front of the little long-horn calf and mom.
Earlier in the week my friend Jenna and I went to the Grand Prix jumping event at the stock show. It was really fun to watch! It's a timed jumping event where they jump HUGE (5' high and up to 6' wide) jumps. Only two of the 15 riders had a clear round where they didn't refuse a jump or knock anything over. It was exciting!

Here I am in front of one of the jumps. This one is about 5' tall. I'm such a scardy-cat when it comes to jumping that I'm okay with just the bottom two rails.
AND we took the first round of Violet's two year old pictures at a park this weekend. They didn't turn out great but at least we got a few!

Silly!
Jumping on the last bit of snow!

Why do I love Denver?

2009-01-13T18:45:00.004-05:00

Because THIS was what went parading down the streets of downtown today:
Yup, to welcome in the Denver Stock Show, they shut down 17th Street downtown and herd some longhorns down the city streets. It was really quite a funny site. Here are the longhorns and cowboys with all us city folk (including a ton of people who work downtown who ran down to the street level to watch them go by) looking on. It was worth it!

We had a great view - they turned the corner right in front of us and in front of the Brown Palace (where Uncle Mike happens to work). Here they come!
The girls wait to see the "moos" and "neighs"

The crew: my friend Heidi with her little son Oliver in her sling and Aubry in the stroller, my friend Sarah with her daughter Piper on her back and Kevin. Notice that Heidi is wearing only a t-shirt. It was about 55 today, although it was a bit colder in the shade. I like how she has Aubry totally wrapped up!More parade pics!This brought on a discussion about how uncomfortable it would have been to ride across the country in a stagecoach. No shocks on those puppies! The grand marshall of the parade is standing up top in the red, white and blue shirt.Old tractor. Older farmer driving it.
Me n' Violet waiting for the parade to start.This past weekend Jon and I went with Heidi (above) and her husband Bryant to the Stock Show to see Freestyle Reining (for you non-horse people, it's horses being ridden to music - they do spins and sliding stops which is very fun to watch). We all loved walking up top over the actual stockyards to get to the Event's Center. There were SO MANY COWS!! And some of the bulls were just so huge they looked like elephants!
One of the reiners doing a sliding stop
I am going to take Violet back sometime this week - they have a ton of animals and I think she'll love it! Yay for Denver!

And a Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T21:49:00.006-05:00

Happy 2009! Let's hope it's a happy, healthy, FUN year for everyone!

Here are a bunch more pictures from our trip to Florida over Christmas. We're back home now but luckily the weather in Denver has been pretty mild (it was 60 today!) so we can't complain much!

We all went down to the beach and watched the sunset one evening. I just can't resist the great photos you can get! Here are the "girls" - Violet's cousin Claire, Violet and her cousin Anna. She LOVED playing with them all week - they are great entertainment!
From the front
30 Sandy ToesWe also spent a LOT of time in the pool. Leah and I gave our girls "dolphin rides" and got this great shot. Leah with Anna (nice goggles!) and me with Violet.
Violet also tried out Claire's swimmies - she did really good with them!
With Aunt Leah

Squatting by the pool with her VERY long hair. Plus it was so humid that it was gorgeously curly down there too. It looked great on her, Jon and I, not so much. We're glad to be back in the dryness so our hair is normal again! :)
More dolphin rides with Daddy My grandparents spend the winter down south and it was great to see them. I haven't seen them since this summer and missed them both terribly! Claire and Violet entertained them by the pool.

And last, here is a video of Jon and Violet in the ocean. Violet loved to kicke her feet in the water and get tossed in the air. So fun!

I added a new feature to our blog - in the upper right corner you can now "follow" our blog. I think it will let you know when we update the blog (which we do about every week anyway!) or just to show that you like what we're writing ;)

Merry Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T21:26:00.007-05:00

We hope you all had a super duper fun day! Violet had a blast opening up all her gifts. Here she is with her favorite - twin babies!
She also got adorabl Hello Kitty (or "Meow! Meow" in Violet-speak) slippers. Here she is sporting the new slippers and looking at her new Curious George doll.
We also took our annual Christmas Walk on the Beach.
Here's part of the crew! From l-r Brett, Jon, Leah, Joel, Me, Rudolph (I mean Anna) and Claire in the front. I'm holding an uncooperative Violet!Every Christmas we go to my grandparents club for a WONDERFUL Christmas brunch. The food is SOOO good! And luckily my stomach is finally feeling better so I was so excited to eat a ton! We all got dressed up too. Unfortunately we had to wake Violet up from her nap to go and she wasn't in the greatest mood, but here are a few pics! Violet and her daddy:
The back of her super cute dress:And the three of us. We've also been swimming a lot - Violet LOVES the water! We're going to have to figure out a way to get her in a pool more often at home. She discovered how fun it is to "dolphin ride" on our backs, and even went under a few times and didn't even cry!
Earlier this week we had kind of a chilly day down here so we all headed to the zoo. Here we are with the alligators in the background:
And with Grandma
Playing at the zoo's playground
Sitting pretty :)
Luckily it warmed back up again and we've spent almost every morning on the beach. Violet spends a lot of time playing in the sand... and EATING it! She eats HANDFULS no matter what we do to stop her. GROSS! But I guess it's nice and salty so I can see where she is going with it, but hearing her crunch-crunch-crunch is really gross. Yuck!
With her cousins Anna and Ethan by the water
Taking a dip in the ocean with her Uncle Brett
And taking a walk with me.
Looking at the "ducks"
And sweetly squatting while collecting shells.

Good News x2!

2008-12-19T11:40:00.003-05:00

1) Violet had her 6 month post-spica-cast x-ray on Wednesday morning. It came out GREAT!! Her little ball and socket are in place and starting to form pretty normally. Her socket previously was very shallow (why her hip kept dislocating) and it is starting to widen and deepen. YAY!!! We were SO happy to hear that! Now we don't have to go back for a YEAR! So apparently Christmastime will always bring an x-ray too. She'll need yearly x-rays for the next few years, if not more. Lucky us!

The best part was that she was a ROCK STAR through the whole thing! She didn't make a peep during her x-ray (she has to lay down under this huge machine with her legs at weird angles - usually lots and lots of tears) AND she's totally in love with our doctor. She wanted him to HOLD her! It was really funny.

It is crazy that she's been cast-free for 6 months. I'm so happy to have our regular old kid back. She's just now started climbing (on EVERYTHING!) and running which is so much fun to watch. You'd never know that she had hip issues now!

2) Violet is POTTY TRAINING HERSELF!!

Which is good because I have no earthy idea how to potty train a kid. She's slightly unorthadox about the whole thing (of course)... see she has this little pal from playgroup named Bryce. For some reason she has adopted that name for all things potty... to the potty itself, when she goes, etc. (sorry Lisa! I have no idea why!). So when we hear "Bryce! Bryce!" we know she has to go. In the last 3 day she has gone both #1 and #2 on the potty all by herself!!! Of course this comes with reading "Harry the Dirty Dog" about 37,482 times first, but indeed she does have to go! In fact just a second ago she ran in there, did her thing, and we were out in five minutes! She just looks like such a big KID sitting on that potty. Geesh, where does the time go?

We head to sunny Florida tomorrow and you can bet her potty chair is coming with us! Hopefully we won't hear the calls of "Bryce! Bryce!" in the middle of the plane ride. I'm not sure what we'll do!

If you found this blog searching for info on spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Hurray for Christmas!

2008-12-16T21:21:00.004-05:00

Last week we braved the crowds (okay, we were the only ones there) and got our last real tree. I'm buying a fake one when they are cheap after Christmas. I'm sad to not have another real one, but the tree-hugger in me feels a little better about it :)

Anyway, here are Jon and Violet with the tree on the roof of the Outback
Violet checks out the lights. She really REALLY wanted to eat them. I guess they do look like electric candies!
Here are the two tree decorators being very silly. I caught Violet's cold (see below) and could hardly get off the couch. Poor me!

I know I probably said this last year, but if you're looking for the Best Christmas CD Ever, click here! It's John Denver & The Muppets - A Christmas Together. Our whole family loves this - we've been listening to it since we were little and we're busy getting our kids listening to it too. LOVE IT! Plus you know the reason we moved to Denver was for John Denver, right? Right.

So Violet got pretty sick last week - it started innocently enough but soon we had red, puffy, weepy eyes as well as a super runny nose and cough. Lovely! We thought she looked pretty funny with her puffy red eyes so here you go!Unfortunately I also caught it, and in true "pregnant lady" fashion I had it twice as bad and twice as long! Luckily today I am finally feeling a bit better so hopefully I'm on the mend!

We also got a good dumping of snow this week. Violet insisted on putting on all her gear - bunny hat, jacket, big white boots, mittens... so we got ready to go, leashed up Porter for a nice walk and... she apparently wanted to go for a CAR RIDE and not a walk! It reminded me of the Christmas Story movie. We just went back inside.
Here are a couple of videos for ya... This first one is Violet attempting to say "Anna" - she was looking at my sister's Christmas card with all the kids on it. I kept telling her the names and this is what she said for Anna (this is what she usually calls Leah).

While I've been sick this week, Violet has had the run of the house. Usually I wouldn't let her do this but there wasn't much I could do to stop her and she was having SO much fun. She is picking up a LOT more words but these are still gibberish (well, I actually think she's saying "pizza" but I'll try to ignore that!). She cracks us up! Also please note the absence of all decorations and lights at her level on the chair. Many painstaking hours were spent moving them and taking them down as far as she could reach!

The Annual Christmas Photo Shoot

2008-12-08T16:08:00.005-05:00

We somehow bribed Jon's brother Trent to come out with us to take our annual Christmas Picture. Last year it was just Violet by the tree, but we thought we should take advantage of our new most beautiful surroundings and get all three (or 3.5) of us in!

Here was one that demonstrates Violet's new "Smile with your TEETH" grin. She's so silly! I just said it one day and she DID it! Too bad it's not all that natural :) This was taken halfway up Lookout Mountain near Golden looking out over the Rockies.
Some of the pictures looked like this. Actually, not really. Trent did an AWESOME job and I think just took this one 'cause it was funny. Pose! Pose! Smile! VIOLET LOOK OVER HERE!!
We took a few of us walking down the pathway with Violet. This was was pretty good...

Not quite there...
And if you can see Violet's face here she is DONE WALKING and DONE TAKING PICTURES thank-you-very-much!
BUT she still got some smooches from mom and dad.
Her and Daddy look over the mountians.
Here are a few of Violet I took at a park in Golden.

Thanks Uncle Trent (on the left) for taking such amazing photos! It was nearly impossible to narrow it down to one for our Christmas card... we had about TWENTY that were our favorites!You'll all have to wait to get our card to see what we picked. Nope, it's not on the blog! :) I like surprises, remember?

Let the Holidays Begin!

2008-12-02T13:44:00.004-05:00

I hope you all had a fabulous Turkey Day! I know I did! This was the first year I was not with my family (yup, the first one ever!) so not only was I missing them, but I also was going to attempt to roast my own birdie and have Thanksgiving at our house with Jon's family.

Here is Mr. Turkey as it went in the oven. I used this website and followed their directions - it turned out SO GOOD!!
Jon being silly and about ready to slice into our perfectly roasted turkey.
Feast!! Jon, Trent, Heather, Mike, "Oma" Joanne and the back of Violet.
Speaking of Violet, the poor thing spiked a 103 fever the afternoon before and it didn't let up until Friday. I felt so bad! She wasn't in the mood to do much of anything but she did eat a plate of mashed potatoes for her Thanksgiving dinner. We didn't convince her until the next day to try Uncle Trent's famous sweet potatoes - then she decided she loved them (we all did - there was almost a pound of brown sugar in them! YUM!)
We went out to eat a LOT which was so great! My stomach is still a little iffy so it was really nice to have someone else cook for me :) Here are Jon, Heather, Trent and Joanne out for lunch on Friday.

Violet getting some snuggles from Daddy.Then we went out for my birthday on Sunday night to my new favorite Mexican restaurant in Denver. SOO yummy!
Friday night we had Christmas with Joanne and Violet got some great stuff! Here she is modeling her Dutch Wooden Shoe slippers. She LOVES them!

She quickly figured out that these wrapped up presents had FUN STUFF in them. She went from being a nice little elf delivering the gifts to their recipient to a little elf devil who wanted to keep and open them all for herself. Ah, to be almost 2 again. Luckily most of the gifts were for her :)
She got some great building blocks from her Oma. She mostly likes to knock down whatever castle me or Jon builds for her. Look how much fun she had riding the carousel! It could be the bright lights, loud music, or the guy standing behind her who looks like a baby-napper, not her daddy!
We also went to visit Violet's 2nd cousin Tobin. He is so cute and they play so good together! Here they are sharing a bowl of blueberries.

A teeny tiny bit of news...

2008-11-25T15:47:00.004-05:00

Teeny tiny as in about 2.5" long at the moment...
Yup, Violet's going to be a BIG SISTER in June!!!

You'll all have to wait until then to find out what it's going to be... we're kickin' it old school again and waiting until then for the big surprise!

So far I've been feeling... poopy! Starting right at 6 weeks on the nose the lovely nausea (all day, thank you!) and food aversions started. Poor Jon can't make coffee or eggs anymore for breakfast. It seems to be letting up now at around 12 weeks but I was sick with Violet until closer to 14 so I'm not holding my breath. Plus I've heard from a lot of people that the higher altitude can make you feel worse and I believe them!

In other news, last week it was really really warm here (in the 80's!) so Violet got all dressed up in her cute little skirt and we took some pictures. I love her little toes!Then we went out in the backyard. Violet chose her own boots. She's very fashion forward, don't you think?We hope you all have a super fun and turkey-filled Thanksgiving!

It's a good thing there are a lot of parks around here...

2008-11-14T18:05:00.003-05:00

Because I'm finding it's an excellent way to get some of Violet's TODDLER ENERGY out! Plus I've been carting her around in the car a lot lately (we're kinda-sorta on the house hunt here in Denver so we've been doing some drive-bys) and I feel like I better reward her for nicely sitting in her carseat for a while, kicking her monkey mirror and talking jibberish while she reads "Once Upon A Potty" to herself (p.s. don't think because she reads the book, she has ANY IDEA what the moral of the story is! She is still pretty sure her potty is where you store the plastic french fries from your play kitchen.)

There is a really great toddler-sized park not far from our house that is at a school that they closed down. Sad that they closed the school, but happy that we can hang out at the park during a school day. Plus it's all fenced in so there is no fear of a Wild Toddler escaping.
Violet attempts the "Mesh Barrel of Death" to make her way to the slide. It looks like it would HURT to crawl though, but it must not. I didn't try it myself.
Dude! Look at that hair!
And some VIDEOS!! Here she is being a silly goose at the above playground. I like how "ghetto" we are - the playground equipment has graffitti on it and there are sirens in the background (flashes toddler gang sign)

Even though I like to equate living with a toddler much like living with a 25 lb wild ape (so cute, but also prone to throw food, scream and hit you in the face for no apparent reason), it's moments like these that give me warm fuzzies:

If only we could all bottle a bit of that toddler energy and giggles.

When her Aunt Leah was here to visit last week, she got her a much needed baby stroller which has QUICKLY become her most prized possession. She wheels it around the house. She wheels it around the neighborhood. Jon, me and anyone who happens to stop by (Uncle Trent & Mike have also been victims) must now spend countless hours swaddling all three of her favorite babies in the same blanket so she can carry them around for two seconds, unfurl them on the floor and come back with the blanket and 3 babies for re-packaging. It's pretty funny (for a while).
She has also picked up a LOT of words lately (finally!). She says "Babies" all the time, but this morning we were watching the neighborhood fox do his morning rounds in our backyard (so cool!) and she said "foxie". She also attempts to say "Anna" (alalala) and "Leah" (lalala) after we talk to them on the webcam. She seems to FINALLY be repeating stuff we say, which is both good and bad as we really need to start cleaning up our language around the house.... quick! :)

Well, that's about it for us this week! We had the first snow of the season this morning, which, in true Denver fashion (I've heard!) melted by the afternoon and the sun was out the rest of the day.

I also had my second craft show with my Hip Violet things. If you get a second, check out my Hip Violet blog and see how it went!

Visitors!

2008-11-09T22:16:00.006-05:00

We've been lucky enough to see both my sister and my brother over the last month - it's SO NICE to see them both (at different times!). My brother and his girlfriend Kelly came to visit on their way home from a Michigan/Wisconsin roadtrip. We took them up Lookout Mountain so they could see some mountains up close again.
Violet and I posed as Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley at the Buffalo Bill Museum.
Last weekend we took Violet to a great school with an awesome playground right down our street. She had a blast!

I can't believe this myself, but my sister was here this weekend to visit and I didn't take ONE PICTURE! I'm sooo sorry, Leah! We did have an awesome time hanging out, shopping and watching Violet and her crazy toddler antics.

The Smallest Voter

2008-11-01T19:04:00.004-04:00

We voted! Already! They do early voting here in Colorado, and we got mail-in ballots to make it even easier. This week we dropped them off in person so we could get the full effect of voting (start 'em young, I say!). We got "I voted" stickers and Violet immediately put them in the proper sticker places. On her cheeks.
And two on her shirt.
We also carved pumpkins - ahhhh, I just LOVE the smell of freshly cut pumpkin! Violet was so little last year that this year was the first time she could help. Here she tries to figure out what she's supposed to do with the spoon we gave her.
Ah-ha! Scoop out the seeds! Got it!
She kept peering over the side and either sniffing at the pumpkin or giving it a kiss. It was hard to tell which!
Yesterday we went trick or treating around our neighborhood. It was very different from our old "everyone drops off kids by the carload & you can hardly walk down the sidewalk" neighborhood. We only passed a few other trick or treaters, and walking around our block we only found 5 or 6 houses giving out candy. Which really was okay, just kind of sad. We got PLENTY of candy to last us for a while :)
We hope you all had a great Halloween!

Trick 'er Treat, Smell my Feet!

2008-10-25T22:40:00.003-04:00

Happy Early Halloween! We went Trick or Treating today down a really nifty street of shops, art galleries and restaurants near our house. Violet got all dressed up in her Purple Bug costume and off we went!

We met up with her playgroup pals. A devil, a bandit, a bug, a bunny, and a ladybug. There was also a ballerina but she was off doing some barre work.
Uh, did you know they are putting CANDY in this bag??
She got the hang of this REAL quick!Walking down the street with mom :)

Violet was testing out her first lollipop. She couldn't put it down for a family picture!
Here is the "better half" of my playgroup (or more aptly, the "more tired half"). From left to right, Sarah W., me, Megan holding her little pumpkin, and Sarah B. We let the daddies play with the kids at the park after a long day of candy gathering!

So yes, life goes on without Obi. For how frustrating he could be, we really REALLY miss him. It's strange to come into the house and only be greeted by one (quiet) dog. Violet has a little more room to run in the house, but otherwise she doesn't seem to realize he's gone. Porter is definitely more lonely, but he is getting lots of attention.

Give your doggies (or kitties, or ferrets, or ponies) some extra hug and smooch for us!

Rest in Peace, Obi

2008-10-21T15:00:00.004-04:00

Obi

July 1999 - October 21, 2008

To our A#1 Security Guard, Violet Smoocher, Toodler Food Cleaner Upper, Beer Drinker and all around best pup. We miss you already!

Obi went downhill fast these last few days. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but probably just old age. He was over 100 lbs and 10 years old, which is old for a big guy. He spent the day yesterday taking nap in the Colorado sunshine and hanging out with us on the porch watching the world go by. By the evening he wasn't able to get up by himself anymore, and it was heartbreaking to watch this normally huge, strong dog have to be carried outside and back in again. It's incredible how fast that can happen.

We took him to the vet this morning where he peacefully left this world for hopefully a much better one than we know. Here are a few pictures of him from the last few years:

He was always so gentle with Violet. She was only a few months old here. He wanted to lick her ALL THE TIME those first few months. She WAS pretty delicious!
Here he's showing his size :) Violet was about 5 months old.
Here is Violet tasting his ear.
This is the last picture we have of him from last night. Violet plopped herself down in the middle of her dogs to read a book.
And this is one of my favorite pictures of our dogs, taken in 2006 (when they were still our only "kids"!) Obi is on the left, Porter on the right.Jon and I still aren't sure we know how to do this marriage thing without Obi. We got him at the tail end of our 2.5 month honeymoon/tour around the U.S. in our old VW Bus. We found him at a shelter in Tampa, FL. He was about 10 lbs, and they thought about 3 months old. They kept saying he'd be about 50 lbs at most. We named him Oberon after the beer that Jon was missing the most - ironically he LOVED to drink beer. He had been known to knock over full beer cans with his nose and hold it with his paw to lap it all up.

I hope he's hanging out somewhere like this. We miss you!

The Great Pumpkin (Patch)

2008-10-19T21:58:00.003-04:00

This weekend we went to a pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins. It was so fun!
There were lots and lots of pumpkins to choose from...
And to walk around with Daddy :)We went with our friends Sarah and Kevin and their adorable daughter Piper (you've seen her on here before). Here are Violet and Piper checking out the very friendly cow.
It is nearly impossible to get a picture of two toddlers, both looking in your general direction, let alone both SMILING. Sillies!!Although we did get them to sit still long enough when they shared some snacks.
It's official - Violet LOVES dolls! We took a walk with one of her "babies" in her stroller.
She loved it! She kept peeking over the top to make sure her baby was still there. Tonight we took another walk and she insisted on taking a different baby with her. It's so cute to see her hug it and kiss it and talk to it. We're gonna need a bunch of doll-sized stuff for Christmas (hint hint!)

When did she get so BIG??

2008-10-12T19:08:00.002-04:00

We went to the zoo last week with our playgroup and got this cute picture with the lounging gorilla statue: From l-r Bryce, Violet, Jordyn and Piper is sitting on the gorilla's lap. Here are Jordyn, Violet and Piper running around the elephant. It looks so real! :) It's been really really great to see Violet finally be able to run around with the other kids. She can't quite keep up still, but it warms my lil' old heart to see her be able to play like a "regular kid" - finally!
She was looking so fly in her little jean jacket that we took some more pictures when we got home. Here is our "Self Portait"

Hanging out with the dogs. Obi hasn't been feeling very well lately, which you can kind of see in this picture (he's the one on the left laying down) but hopefully he's on the mend now. Both of them are so tolerant of Violet. Porter should worship her - she feeds him about 2 lbs of food per day.

It was Jon's birthday yesterday and we had a little party over here. Here is Violet eating up one of the cupcakes. YUM!

This toddler can toddle!

2008-10-06T22:59:00.003-04:00

Look at her go!!

We take at LEAST one walk around the block per day. Sometimes she likes to ride in her wagon. Sometimes she walks with me. Sometimes she pushes it. You never know what you're going to get...

She does sometimes prefer to stand...

Or perhaps to let out a little scream to let me know that she does NOT want to sit down, thank-you-very-much!But then she redeems herself by doing a perfect flower-smelling squat
I got this cute picture of our little family on the couch the other night.
Violet has been making some really funny noises lately. Here is a short video of her latest ramblings:

In other news, I had my first craft show with my Hip Violet bibs! Check out my Hip Violet blog to see how it went!

New York, New York

2008-09-30T00:08:00.004-04:00

This weekend Jon's brother Trent got married to my new sister-in-law Heather outside Syracuse, New York. The wedding was overlooking a beautiful lake and was just beautiful. Here we all all dressed up for the wedding: It was pretty windy and my hair was blowing the opposite way that it should have. Thus my hand half-way up to catch it :)

Jon was a groomsman. It was nice to see him alllll dressed up :) And Violet too. I don't tend to put her in dresses very often!
Here is the back of Violet and her new buddy Jonah, Heather's nephew. They had a great time together.
Here are all the relatives from Jon's side of the family in front of the sign for the Inn. L-R Cousin Chad, Jon, Jon's mom holding Violet, Jon's Aunt Ellie, Uncle John, Cousin Tim and Mike.After the wedding, Jon, Joanne, Mike, Violet and I all took off for a roadtrip to New Jersey (5 hours away) to visit Jon's Oma. Here are Jon and Violet at the windmill in front of the house we stayed at.
In true Oma tradition, we all played Rummy Cub at night after dinner. Even Violet got in on the fun!
L-R Jon's Uncle Ed, Me with Violet, Mike, Uncle JJ, and Oma
Mike, Joanne, Jon, Me, Violet & Oma

It was a LOT of traveling with a toddler - luckily she did pretty well on the plane and car rides, but we sure are glad to be home!

In "Hip News" Violet is officially CONTRAPTION FREE!! She was wearing her rhino cruiser brace at night and naps for the last 3 months since getting out of her cast. However she is now allowed to go brace-free! I thought I'd be so excited about that - which I am... but also rather worried. She LOVES to sleep in a position that is not that great for her hips and it's hard not to worry about it. But she can't wear a brace for the rest of her life, so now is as good of a time as any! We're pretty excited to get done with all that stuff for a while.

Busy Weekend

2008-09-23T01:19:00.003-04:00

We tried to break the record for "most events attended in one day" and I think we may have made it! :) This week Saturday was BUSY but so much fun! In the morning we drove to Boulder to check out their Farmers Market and Arts & Crafts Fair. I'm going to try to bring my bibs there sometime and we wanted to check out the competition. It was really neat!

We came back home and put Violet down for her nap, then headed over to her friend Jordyn's 2 year old birthday party. It had a fun ladybug theme and all the kids got to capture and keep LIVE ladybugs!

Violet checks out a ladybug in her ladybug keeper:Checking one out - a little too close for comfort!

Violet, Piper and Bryce. They are all in our playgroup that meets once a week. It's so fun! Hopefully Violet wasn't EATING a ladybug here... ah well, more protein, right?Jon takes Violet for a ride in the car:
After the party, we met up with Trent and Heather and rode bikes downtown to Denver's own Oktoberfest. Having been at the real thing in Munich a few years ago, Jon and I can say that it wasn't QUITE the same, but it had the major ingredients for a good time: Beer. German Food. And a band.

Uncle Trent takes Violet for a walk through the crowds:
Eating dinner in one of the big tents:
And a FUNNEL CAKE! Yum.Violet loved it too!
*Whew* It was quite a weekend! Even though it was VERY fun, I'm not sure I could take that every weekend!

Life with a toddler is never boring, is it?

No matter what I do, Violet insists on still eating her crayons. The other day she chomped on a brown one and it got all over her front teeth, making her look like she didn't HAVE front teeth anymore. My little one-and-a-half-year-old hobo:

One of Violet's favorite things has been to stand up by our big window upstairs and watch the birds and squirrels in the back yard and the planes up in the sky (which she calls "Baby" for some reason). I found a bird feeder that suctions onto the window and her and I waited and waited and waited patiently for the birds to arrive. A WEEK later (apparently our birds and squirrels are not starving in this neighborhood!) the squirrels FINALLY found the feeder and Violet has been glued to the window when they are snacking...
And last but not least, here is Violet in all her Violet glory. We were eating dinner and she got sour cream ALL over her hair. That was funny enough, but then she started dancing to the music, doing the sign for "done" (she was finished eating, apparently) and then showing off her latest eyebrow trick. All in the space of 19 seconds...

We love KITTENS!!

2008-09-17T10:16:00.003-04:00

Violet's Uncle Mike got an adorable, fuzzy, furry, sweet little kitten recently. Violet, although incredibly fond of kittens and cats in books, is quite terrified of them in real life (remember the horses at the fair? Oh yes. Same thing.) The first time we took her over to visit the kitten, she freaked out.

This time, she was much better.

And here is what Gilbert (or perhaps Gilberta?) looks like when he/she is not in danger of being smooshed by an arm-flailing, screeching, pinching, hitting toddler:
The look of terror did not leave her face for hours. :) I don't think our house has heard the words "Gentle! Gentle!" so much before in it's 100 years. She actually did okay, despite trying to toss the poor kitten off her lap the first time we tried having her hold her. By the end she was indeed being gentle. And laughing hysterically as silly Uncle Mike made the kitten dance:

We now have a swing on our back porch and Violet will (and has) swung for HOURS. She is so happy out there!
And she is becoming quite the pro at walking. She is just not starting to prefer walking to crawling, which is very funny to see. Here she is touring the downstairs:

Our Grape Eatin' Girly

2008-09-11T16:36:00.004-04:00

"Hi. My name is Violet. And I'm addicted to concord grapes."

And yep, finally when she's actually starting to TALK a little bit (we added "birdie" "baby" and "hot" within the last few days) she is also starting to sign! She does "more" for pretty much anything, and picked up "mom" and "please" this morning. Sure beats the old Toddler Grunt that I hear WAY TOO MUCH OF lately!

Here is a picture of Violet in her Rhino Cruiser Brace. She has been sleeping in this at naps and overnight since she got out of her spica cast more than 2 months ago. For the most part she doesn't mind it, in fact today when I set her down for a second before putting her to bed, she crawled over to her slide and went down, brace and all. She can also stand really good in it. It's funny because you can almost see her little brain spinning "Why does this feel so NATURAL to me, anyway?" :)
We are slowly but surely breaking her pacifier habit. It's TOUGH!! She had it a lot while she was in her cast because it made her feel better and I'd pretty much give her ANYTHING to make her feel better! But no we're trying to do just naps and at night, with the occassional car ride thrown in. Easier said than done!

Something I have learned about our neighborhood is that there are TONS and TONS of grape vines and peach trees around! I joke with Jon that I'm "going to the Farmer's Market" while I go outside or down to our landlord's house (2 doors down) to pick some fresh fruit. Our next door neighbor has the concord grape vines (the ones Violet loves so much) and there are so many that even I have been giving them away! Here is a shot of them today. Keep in mind that we've been picking them for Violet and ourselves at LEAST once a day for the past week.

Some peaches from next door and down the street:
And now that fall seems to be here, our sunflowers finally came up!
One lone zucchini. I seem to go through spells with them - either so many I don't know what to do, or just one at a time!
And no, you do not see pictures of my dear and sweet tomatoes. Why? Because I had so many, I gave them away!!! In March I will be kicking myself, but what do you DO with buckets of tomatoes? I guess I could learn how to can. Or make salsa.

p.s. if you've found this blog by searching for info on spica casts or hip dysplasia in general, please see the links on the right for a great forum and guide that can help!

Music & Mountains

2008-09-09T18:39:00.005-04:00

We had an action-packed weekend! First we hung out at our own little music festival right in our neighborhood. It was PERFECT weather (sunny but in the 70's) and it was in a park so it was great to sit in the grass and watch the bands! Violet loved it!Singin' along
She also drew with sidewalk chalk
While Daddy looked on
Saturday night we got to go to a party at the home of the builder Jon is working for. It was really cool! They have a great setup. Violet really liked their very exciting Koi fish pond. I love how she's sitting in this picture! Later we all had a tasty lobster dinner. Violet did GREAT despite being up almost 2 hours past her bedtime!
On Sunday we drove to Golden (only about 15 minutes away) and up Lookout Mountain. First I have to say this: Jon and Trent RIDE THEIR BIKES UP THIS MOUNTAIN!!! I am not sure what sort of insanity takes over people that think this is a good idea. I am still trying to figure out how I married such a person. It is miles and MILES up uphill switchbacks. Sure, it's really pretty up there, but you kinda have to keep your eyes on the WIND-Y ROAD so you don't get knocked off by passing cars! Geesh!

Here we are at the top admiring the view:
This is the view we were admiring :) I am still in SHOCK that we live so close to the mountains. I think they are just the most beautiful thing!! Still gives me goosebumps when I round a corner and there they are. I hope that doesn't go away for a while!

Downtown Denver is on the right
Other than that, Violet sure is walking everywhere! Especially in the house. Outside is still pretty scary what with the concrete and all that jazz. She is getting really good though and can even do a fancy "pivot" to get going the other way. I'll have to get more video of that soon - it's so cute and she is SO proud of herself!

She's walking, she's REALLY walking!!

2008-09-03T22:10:00.005-04:00

After a few weeks of teasing us with a step here and there, she TOOK OFF tonight!! Here is our little walking rascal:

You may notice what we use to entice her - PACIFIERS! Works like a charm!

We also got a bike seat and she has been going for some rides. Here she is getting ready to go with her shades on...

And now looking like a baby alien with her helmet. She seems to like it but we switched it from "my" bike to Jon's and now even if she is sitting straight up her head hits my back. And I've found out that they don't call this the Highlands for nothin' - there is an ever-so-slight incline coming back home that is KILLER for out-of-shape me. Especially toting 25 extra pounds.

We also went to the zoo with Violet's second cousin Tobin. They were very cute together and Tobin is such a nice kid and is great at sharing his snacks :)

And lastly, you may have noticed I've added some pictures of my bibs on the right - I hope they aren't too annoying! :) BUT I also started another blog for my Hip Violet Etsy site. The first post talks about how I got into sewing, and now I'm hoping to keep it updated with new things I've been making. SO in case you just can't get enough, you can check on www.HipViolet.Blogspot.com too!! There is also a link over to the right :)

Our DNC Experience... and some Violet too

2008-09-01T00:39:00.002-04:00

The Democratic National Convention has come and gone, but we're still talking about it over here!

We were lucky enough that my mom was able to get us into a couple of events. We literally got to "hob-nob" with some senators and lobbyists which was way too cool! Jon and I rode our bikes downtown each night and walked around downtown in the crowds (which grew considerably as the week went on!).

The first night we went to the Young Democrats party (just up my alley, huh?). It was really cool to be a part of everything! We ended up hanging out in the VIP area with my mom, Guy, and two lobbyists who have worked with my mom over the years. It was really cool to get the inside view on politics and politicians, plus what lobbyists actually DO for a living ;)

Here is a picture of the MSNBC tower that they had set up just when we walked over the bridge to downtown:
Jon and I with Union Station in the background:

The next night we met my mom and Guy downtown again. I had NO celebrity sightings myself, but they both saw their fair share of the rich and famous. Apparently Matt Lauer ate dinner right behind them. We only missed him by a few minutes! Ugh!

Anyway, night two brought us to the nifty rooftop bar at Tamayo. Here it is from the outside. Ironically Jon and I had walked down this street the night before and said how cool it would be to hang out up there!This party was sponsored by the NAR and was all about Sustainable Real Estate. It was a carbon neutral event ;)

They had a really awesome band play called Hot Tuna. Maybe you've heard of them. The two dudes on the left were the bassist and guitarist for Jefferson Airplane. The guy in the middle is in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. They played AWESOME blues/bluegrass/folk music which was right up my alley. The bar was pretty small and my mom and I were standing right up front for their first set. It was SO COOL!

We also had a birds eye view of all the goings-on as people made their way back from the convention. There were a lot of protesters out, which made for interesting people watching as they got in some pretty heated arguments with people walking by...Thursday night we watched Obama's speech at home. I had gone to Target earlier in the day and people were already walking to Invesco Field or setting up parking areas. We only live a few miles from there. As the speech ended and they started letting off fireworks, I ran outside to check and sure enough, we could see them from out on the street!! And we weren't the only ones, most of our neighborhood was out standing in the street watching it happen. It was a fitting end to an awesome week!

And in Violet news (this isn't nearly as exciting, I suppose!) but she can fit her hair in a ponytail! Isn't it about the cutest thing? I love her little curls.

I had left her Pack n' Play in the corner downstairs and she did this all by herself - she climbed up on it and sat and read her book for a while. It was so cute!
Still not a lot of progess on her walking. She did walk almost all the way across the living room today to Jon, but refused to put on a repeat performance. Silly!

She also *gasp* finally did her first sign the other night for "more" - and said "hot!" which was very cute. We're slowly but surely adding to her list of words! I was pretty proud of her for doing a sign too, I admit I haven't worked on them as much as I should!

The Democrats are coming!!

2008-08-24T18:36:00.006-04:00

Oh wait, they're HERE!! And they've brought their t-shirts with them...
It's pretty crazy! These t-shirt stands started popping up at any vacant lot last week, and downtown is officially a ZOO! Luckily we rarely go down there anyway even though it's only a few minutes away. But it's pretty nifty to watch the news shows on TV and see downtown Denver in the background.

And something every Obama supporter should have? Not a tee-shirt! Check out this make-your-own Obama, made by my new favorite shop here in town, the Fancy Tiger. Click Here!

Not only the Democrats showed up this weekend... my mom and Guy did too!! We are SO excited to have them in town for the week. My mom has lots of meetings at the DNC but we spent a great weekend with them and hopefully will be able to hang out some more the rest of this week.

We are glad to have two more people to help us "walk Violet". She is turning into quite the walker - as long as someone is holding her hand! She hasn't taken many more steps since our last post, but she LOVES to walk now. Here is Guy taking Violet for a walk after breakfast.
My mom and I went into Golden (home of the Coors brewery... yummy!) yesterday. Here is my mom and Violet in front of a cute horse sculpture. My mom was (I think) trying to get Violet to look at the camera. Instead I got this great shot. Sorry Mom, I had to post it!!
Then today we drove up to the mountains and went to Evergreen, CO. We happened to be there on the weekend of their art festival, which was also on the grounds of their historic museum. It was pretty cool! Here are some pictures from this afternoon:

Guy, Violet and Mom in front of a cowboy sculpture:
My mom, Violet and Guy outside an old woodworking/printing shop:
My mom, Jon, Violet & I
Our little family

And here is another video of Violet walking with her push-toy. She is FAST! And she can make it almost halfway around the block. But even if she is tired she does NOT want to turn around! The little stinker! We're not sure where she got that stubborn streak from... hmm...

VIOLET WALKED!!

2008-08-17T21:59:00.002-04:00

SHE DID IT!!! Violet officially took steps today. We have her on video taking a couple of steps, but just moments ago she walked to me from the coffee table which was at least 3 steps. It's AMAZING!!!

Here she is, taking a few steps with daddy:

And here she was earlier today showing off her mad skills walking one handed:

You can bet they'll be MUCH more of those soon!!

Do you speak Jinglish?

2008-08-15T16:10:00.004-04:00

Because if you do, we need your help! We've now named Violet's own little language "Jinglish" (Josten/English). She speaks it very well. We do not. Here is a little example of her language skills. She does this every day when she gets up from her nap - sits on my lap, reads a book, and jabbers in Jinglish. It's so cute and funny and she makes the BEST facial expressions. We couldn't pick just one video, so here are two. Any ideas on what she is saying? Sounds important to me!

Dear Aunt Becky: I am soooo sorry it took my lazy mom SOOO long to get pictures of me rockin' out in my AB/CD shirt. I sure do love it and wear it all the time. Here I am testing out Daddy's drums. I can play really good!
(yes, she is sitting on an overturned bucket for her "throne" - we're getting her ready for her debut on the street corner)
Ah, a girl after my own heart. Sitting on her pony, reading Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. For those animal lovers out there, it is the BEST KIDS BOOK EVER!! Violet just loves it. It's a Vredevoogd Family Favorite.
Violet and Piper swingin' on the tire swing at the park. HOLD ON Violet!
We went to the Children's Museum today - despite the fact that Violet and I have both been feeling under the weather lately. We had to get OUT of the HOUSE! :) So we braved it with our friends Bryce and Piper (and their moms, of course!). It's hard to tell, but they actually were having fun here:
They had these super-cute costumes for the kids to dress up in. Here is Violet as a dragonfly. When she gets a little older, they have a squirrels, worm, etc. that we're for SURE getting pictures of. So cute!

Pictures in the Park

2008-08-10T15:48:00.003-04:00

Violet and I went to a local park today and took another round of 18 month pictures. Here they are!

Jackpot!

2008-08-07T23:04:00.004-04:00

So last time I posted I was hoping to catch Violet doing all her Violet Tricks, such as saying "Wow wow wow" "Uh-oh" and so on and so forth. We hit the jackpot this week during lunch. She is such a goof! She has really been figuring out her facial expressions (since we're only up to about 10 words) and MAN can she give us the "Evil Eyebrows" when she wants to! So funny.

And one more for the road:

It's FAIR SEASON!!

2008-08-03T20:14:00.004-04:00

What? Did you think just because we moved across the country we were going to STOP going to county fairs? Ohhhhh no! This weekend we ventured out into the 100 degree heat and went to the Boulder County Fair. It was GREAT! I got my fill of farm animals, we sampled some homemade fair food, and stepped in a lot of crap. That's what I call a perfect morning!

Here is Violet checking out the horses. She LOVES her horse books. She was completely freaked out by them in real life. I have SO much work to do!
What else? Petting the goats. There were incredibly friendly goats at this fair that just LOVED to be pet. I was in Goat Heaven.
Even Jon got in on the action...
And some chickens.

A cute little ice cream/gelato shop opened up right down our street. We got Violet her own teeny tiny cone of Blueberry Gelato. She LOVED it!
In other news, I am happy to announce that I have started my own teeny tiny business! I started sewing bibs for Violet a while back and was having so much fun (and had SO MUCH fabric) that I decided to start my own store on Etsy selling them and some other goodies.

Check it out here:

www.HipViolet.com

Here is a sample of what I'm selling... you can click on the images to go to the listing.

For those of you not familiar with Etsy, it's a really nifty website featuring all handmade items from around the country. Anyone that is crafty can set up shop and sell whatever they make. You can find fine art, ceramics, clothing, accessories, and of course BABY STUFF. Plus I like that you buy directly from the crafter. I think you'll like it!

Anyway, keep me in mind if you ever need that perfect gift for a baby shower or just want your kid to look "hip" when you go out for dinner. I'm happy to do custom bibs for special occasions!

Fingerpaint + Peek-a-boo =

2008-07-30T15:08:00.005-04:00

This:

Yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight. I actually got most of it out with a washcloth. She still had green hair the rest of the day. Just getting ready for her rebellious high school years, I'm sure.

We also got Violet a toddler-sized play gym. She is having SO MUCH FUN on it! We put it upstairs in her playroom. Here she is testing it out.

I am also trying desperately to catch a few things on video... one is her saying "Uh-oh" which she just started saying last weekend. Then, as good kids do, she has started repeating some of the things I say that I don't even realize! For instance when she stands up by herself I always say "Whoa! Whoa! WHOA!" as heard multiple times in the above video. Now when she stand by herself I hear this little voice saying "WowWowWOW!" It is soooo cute! With how much she's been standing lately, you'd think I could catch her in the act! Oh well. I'm sure it will happen soon.

Happy Year & A Half Birthday, Violet!

2008-07-24T19:14:00.004-04:00

**Added Video at the Bottom!**

Geesh! She sure isn't a baby anymore! Today is her 18 month birthday. A whole year and a half on this ole planet of ours. It's hard for us to believe we even HAVE a kid most of the time, let alone that we've somehow kept her around for 18 months. Okay, so 6 months of that was in a body cast, but who's counting?

Here are some pictures from her 18 month photo shoot. I'm not promising it's her last one either. Now that she's all standing and sitting again, it's hard not to make every day a photo day!

We have been lucky enough to find a really awesome playgroup with lots of very nifty moms. We meet once a week and the kids all range from 15 months to 22 months. They have a BLAST! Well, most of the time. It is so funny to watch them all learn to play together!

Here is Jordyn, Violet, Piper, Grace and Bryce. Mason was probably sneaking over to eat some dirt. Ah the wonders of toddlers!
Violet and Piper
I THOUGHT Violet was over her "let's eat the crayons" stage, but low and behold, I turn my back for one minute and I get this! She had chomped up so much of it that I had to rub orange wax off her front teeth. GROSS! She looks like a sad clown :)
She had her 18 month checkup today and is still pretty tiny - she's in the 5th percentile for weight (a whopping 20.25 lbs) and the 20th for height (31 inches... which means she grew 2 inches while in her cast!). Everything else looks just great. AND while we were talking with the doctor about her walking skills, she STOOD UP from a SQUAT! With no help from me! I just about died! Plus she is really getting the hang of walking while she holds your hands. I wouldn't be surprised if she figures out how to walk by herself in the next few weeks. About TIME little lady!

Here is a video I got this morning of her standing up all on her own!

Keepin' Cool

2008-07-20T15:38:00.002-04:00

Violet had so much fun in our friends pool that we got her her own! She LOVES to play in it - she splashes and stands up and throws her toys and even puts her face in the water to try to blow bubbles! It's big enough for one of us to fit in too - and it DOES cool you down on these very hot summer days!

She is also perfecting the art of standing unassisted. We're so proud of her! She really loves to give it a try and can stand for quite a while now. Yesterday we even got her to clap while she was standing (she was showing off for her uncles, which helped!). She still doesn't have any need to take any steps, but we're getting closer!
Ah, Play-doh. She spent a looong time pulling the pieces apart. Then mashing them back together. Then pulling them apart. Hardly any went into her mouth, although as someone who LOVES the smell of Play-doh I can see why she might want to!
And a garden update! It's getting HUGE!! My zucchini plant (on the left took over most of what was growing around it and they have since been transplated. My tomatoes are HUGE (all 6 plants) and have tons and tons of little green tomatoes just ready to get ripe. I can't WAIT!

Literally, the fruit of my labors :) One big ole zucchini and a little banana pepper. I have also gotten a few very tiny green peppers but they haven't been all that great to eat. We're having the zucchini tonight!

Hangin' out in the Hot Weather

2008-07-13T01:30:00.003-04:00

Summer has definitely come to Colorado. It has been in the high 90's every day and sunny. But yes, it is a "dry heat" and I we haven't minded it much at all!

Violet and I went to the zoo again this week. It's SO FUN to have her there where she can stand up and look around a litte more. Here she is looking at our favorites, the giraffes:
Then we shared an ice cream cone while we watched the elephants:
We also took a much appreciated trip to Jenna & Laina's pool. Here are Laina and Violet checking out eachother's Sigg water bottles. Violet was kind of obsessed with Laina's pony themed bottle.
Violet LOVED the water! She hasn't been swimming since Christmas so I wasn't sure what she would think. I am going to have to see about getting her some swimming lessons - she dunked her face under the water twice and when I was holding her she wanted so badly to squiggle away. Silly!
And... we FINALLY have a dining room table and chairs!! Yes, after 2 months of eating either on the back porch or in front of the tv, we finally have a proper alternative. We found this on Craigslist - it has 6 chairs so we can actually *gasp* have people over for dinner!! I just need to recover the chairs which should be fun.
Violet celebrates sitting in her old clip-on chair again:

And we're proud to say that Violet has skipped right past learning to speak English and has mastered... something else. We're never quite sure what she's saying but she knows EXACTLY what she's talking about! It's pretty funny! She is also really loving her bath time - making up for lost time!

More vacation pics and she's OFF!

2008-07-07T22:40:00.003-04:00

Here are just a few more pictures from our trip up to the cottage...

Me and Violet at a really cool sunset. You can see the sun right over my head. It was almost foggy and the sun was very nifty!
As is tradition, Violet learned how to use the marble game at my grandparents house. This was made for my mom when she was a baby by her uncle, so lots and lots and LOTS of kids have used it since. It's still in great shape and still entertains the kids (as long as they don't try to swallow the marbles, that is).
My grandma and Violet. Violet FINALLY agreed to be held by her "GiGi" on the last day. Yay!

••• Sleeping Bear Dunes •••

Violet got her first taste of Sleeping Bear, a cottage favorite. We can see the dunes from our cottage and usually try to make a trip over to climb up and run down every time. Violet didn't mind this part:
But was NOT so thrilled about the idea of actually putting her feet in the actual sand.
My cousin Sophie, nephew Ethan, me & Violet and my niece Anna
Me, Violet and my niece Claire running/jumping down the dunes.

••• 4th of July •••

At the annual Hollyhock Lane Parade with Oma JostenAt the Cascade Parade with her Aunt Leah
Self Portrait (notice Brett standing in the background)
With my favorite 4th of July bunch: Claire, Kara, Brian and Eli VanDrieLater on that night we went over to Leah & Joel's to celebrate some more. Here Violet learns the finer points of sparkler etiquette. She tried to grab it. Uncle Brett did a good job of thwarting her.
Something looks WEIRD about this picture... oh yea, the KID should be in the pool and the DOG should be outside! Violet and Rio chillin' out.

She can crawl up steps!!

••• Back Home in Colorado •••

Now that Violet is cast-free, we can FINALLY take advantage of some of the fun things to do outside in Denver. We loaded everyone up on Sunday morning and drove to Golden to go on a little hike. The only glitch was that we forgot the BACKPACK! Luckily it isn't very long of a drive. Violet seemed to like her view!
And she's OFF and running! She can officially walk behind her little push-toy like she's been doing it forever. Here is a picture for my video-challenged blog readers (you know who you are, Sue!)And the video...

She is doing AMAZING out of her cast. She is pretty much back to her old silly self. She cruises around the furniture, gets into all sorts of things (today I found her in my room standing by my bed, eating cookies I had packed for the plane trip that I had set out. Ha!). She is getting the hang of walking when we hold onto her hands, in fact a few days ago she started grabbing my hands and WANTING to walk with me which is a huge change from being very confused about what exactly she was supposed to do with those spagetti-like legs of hers. Every day she seems to figure out something new to do with her new legs and cracks us up all the time.

Vacation by the Lake

2008-07-01T13:33:00.002-04:00

Violet is having a blast up at our family's cottage in Northern Michigan with her aunts, uncle and cousins. Last night we went for a pontoon boat ride and she thought it was so fun! She loved standing up by the side of the boat and looking over. Maybe that was the ONE nice thing about a spica cast - it had a built in handle!

My sister, brother, Violet, my niece Anna, step-sister erin and the back end of Ethan.
Grandma and VioletViolet and Claire

Paci Rescue!!! I should have known Violet would fling her pacifier into the lake. Luckily Guy deftly manuvered the pontoon around to rescue it, and Brett used his fishing skills to fish it out of the lake.
Me n' Violet
And the spectacular sunset. My mom was just commenting that she has been coming up to the lake for 60 years now, and although the world has changed a lot, the view of the sunset never has. Here are a few pictures I took of Violet at my mom's before we left

And here is Violet playing with her cousin-dog Rio. She and Rio are best pals and Rio is fantastically gentle playing with Violet.

We're baaaaack!

2008-06-27T22:38:00.001-04:00

In so many ways!

First, we traveled back to Grand Rapids on Thursday for a family reunion of sorts... almost my whole family is in town so we thought we'd join them. It is SO WONDERFUL to see everyone again - I missed them terribly!

Violet is doing GREAT! She is just a tiny bit sore, but other than that you would never know that she spent the last 3 months in a body cast. She's crawling all over (with her right leg straight still - it was the one in the long-leg cast), pulling up on anything that looks steady (and a few things that do not) and sitting up perfectly on her own. I can't tell you how great it is for her to SIT! She can play by herself so much easier and just already seems so much happier. Hurray!

AND now that I'm FINALLY able to take some regular photos of her in regular poses (no more high chair pictures, I promise!!) I took her out in the back yard at my mom's house today and took these:

AND we also had her SECOND BATH in 3 months! She loved the bubbles and getting all soaped up. She smells so yummy when she gets out! And of course I haven't gotten remotely tired of holding my squishy, snuggly kid.

Goodbye, Spica Cast!

2008-06-25T16:17:00.008-04:00

Helllooooo Squishy Kid!!!!

Violet got her cast off this morning and we are soooo soooo excited!

The whole cast-cutting went okay. She was pretty terrified of having this scary stranger coming at her with a saw (gee, I'm not sure why). Luckily our cast-cutter was very very fast and got it off with only 4 cuts and in about 3 minutes. The feeling of lifting her little body out of that cast and hugging it again was about the greatest thing ever!

She also got an x-ray (also traumatizing) and fitted for her Rhino Cruiser brace (even more trauma). Somehow she made it through everything and was a pretty happy kid by the time we got home. Oh, and we are now the proud owners of a Violet-shaped spica cast. Since it came off so good, it is now sitting on our mantle. It's a little creepy, but a good momento. I'm going to have to force myself not to burn it tonight at our "Cast-Off Party". I think I'll burn her babylegs instead :)

First, she GREW!!! I don't think you can usually tell so much when your kids grow because you see them everyday, but in the cast it's hard to tell. She is HUGE and LONG and is going to be SO TALL when she stands up straight! I can hardly get my head around that!

And she is already back to her usual self... she is sitting up okay with a pillow behind her (she can sit up on her own on her knees... it's so WEIRD to see her in that position. She hasn't been able to sit upright in three months!). And is crawling around. AND tried to stand up by the coffee table already! She actually lasted a second or two, but she's still trying it in "spica pose" which I imagine is harder without the support of a cast. We'll see how long that takes her to figure out!
It's so cool to watch her play with her toys and NOT be stuck on her tummy. And to have her sit in her carseat without the straps all funky to accomidate her. And this afternoon I'm going to *gasp* the grocery store... and NOT bring her stroller! Ah, it's the little things :)

Here is a video of her trying to sit up right after we got home.

This was literally the first time she tried to crawl. I can't believe how QUICKLY she tried everything out! I'm hoping that if she isn't sore today, that she won't be that sore tomorrow. Crazy kid!

And last but not least, she already tried out her kneeling and standing tricks without the cast. She did it!

If you found this blog searching for info spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

One last look...

2008-06-24T22:42:00.004-04:00

Here is our "cast decor". Hope you like it!

The back:
Thanks to her talented Uncle Mike for his perfect rendition of the "banquet beer" - it's all we drink here in Colorado (okay, and some water once in a while)
The front:

Finally!

2008-06-23T16:37:00.005-04:00

So after almost 2 months in this house, we have FINALLY MOVED IN!! Moved to our permanent locations, that is. This weekend Jon and I moved our bedroom downstairs, and Violet now has her OWN ROOM! Complete with a door that closes. She's pretty excited. She's in the Master Suite upstairs, and Jon says she better enjoy it now 'cause it's the biggest room she'll ever have!

She also had her very first HAIRCUT today! My friend Sarah did a little trimming so her hair is all one length and won't flip out so funky when it's down. You can't really tell, probably, but I can!

And Violet's newest Spica Cast Trick is kneeling hands-free! She has also stood up once or twice and let go. Silly! If only she knew she only had THREE MORE DAYS in the cast!

My next blog entry will be when she is CAST FREE!! I can hardly believe that we MADE IT! Hurray! I'll try to post some pictures and an update on Wednesday when she gets it off. Violet and I are also headed back to Michigan for vacation on Thursday morning... I'm going to bring my laptop with me but don't worry too much if you don't see any posts for a while!

If you found this blog searching for info spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Happy Father's Day!

2008-06-15T15:44:00.003-04:00

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there! Here are some pics of Violet and her daddy.

Rockin' the braids. They are very small but very cute.
She has gotten very good at crawling around in her cast. Here is a good video of her. Special note to her cousin Claire - I used your picture as "bait" which is why she crawled so fast!

Hope you all have a great Father's Day!

Let the countdown begin!

2008-06-09T17:07:00.004-04:00

Just 16 days until the $&@(@ spica cast is GONE FOREVER!!! Hurray!!! For some reason these last few weeks are the hardest for me. The first 10 weeks I just try to not think about it, not let it get to me, etc. However I think the last weeks it actually hits me how much we've MISSED. Not only the squishy hugs, the little rump, the shopping carts, baths... but also the regular milestones that most kids get to do. I admit I do get a little pang of jealousy every time I see a tiny little person walking along. Violet will pretty much be a little GIRL, not a baby by the time she walks. But she will! And gosh darn it, you'll all hear about it about the millisecond it happens 'cause we'll all be so excited!

Anyway, I took some more pictures of her in her cast. Here is the back of it:

She was playing in the mirror for a while and thought it was SO FUNNY that this "other baby" did all the same things she did! She also gave her lots of kisses. Sweet.This is why Jon and I sometimes refer to Violet as "Baby in a Bucket"

She just LOVES to stand up. It isn't exactly recommended in a spica cast but we couldn't stop her if we tried! It also goes to show what a instinct it is to walk - she is bound and determined to do it, with or without her hard candy shell!When she's not standing around, or crawling around, she is also dabbling in the fine art of finger paint. Luckily she seems to understand that she's not supposed to eat it. She has been making some fabulous masterpieces!
This weekend we went into the Capital Hill area of Denver to the People's Fair. We sat and watched some of the bands play.
My friend Beth and I have been meeting at Washington Park (Wash Park to the "natives"). I took these pictures of Violet at our last trip.

Now that I have a season pass to the zoo, we're taking full advantage! We had a "girls morning out" and just Violet and I went this past week. It was so fun! We watched the seal show, the elephants, and then a "wild bird" show where they fly all around. She LOVED it and yelled and screamed at all the animals. It was pretty funny. This is the only (fuzzy) picture I got. The one downside of going to the zoo alone!

In other news... I went to my first Red Rocks show!!! We saw Modest Mouse and R.E.M. last week. Here is the view from our "cheap seats"... if you get out your magnifying glass you can see downtown Denver just to the right of the center.
Date night!
Ah, good old R.E.M. Both Jon and I have been BIG fans since middle school. Right before we left Michigan I said "If R.E.M. comes through on tour, we're GOING!!!" so we did!
The crowd
Heather and I being silly. Her and I snuck down and got a lot closer to the action. It was SO FUN!!
And last but not least, this past weekend I made a garden!! I planted cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, strawberries, and lots and lots of tomatoes. My goal is to have so many great, homegrown tomatoes that by the fall I am totally sick of them and can live without any sort of tomato (including the gross, no-taste orange colored ones at the grocery store most of the year) until next summer. Ha! Good luck with that, self.

If you found this blog searching for info spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Adventures at Home

2008-06-01T23:16:00.005-04:00

We haven't done anything too exciting lately, but here are some cute pictures of Violet from around the house. I can't wait until she's out of the cast and I can get some proper pictures of her! It's hard to get cute pictures in her high chair ;)

She can ride on her little bike for a minute or two on her own. Here she is sportin' her "nubs"

She is also learning how to use a spoon and fork. In fact, she is now insisting on having a spoon or fork whenever we eat, even if whatever she is eating is not at all possible to eat with either one (crackers). Here she is testing out her spoon on some Cream of Wheat which is her FAVORITE!! She eats two packages every morning and gets M.A.D. if she runs out.

And she also tried sour cream with her quesadilla the other day. Apparently she has the Vredevoogd Sour Cream Gene because she could NOT get enough. Jon and I like to incorporate sour cream (and hot sauce) into every meal. She'll be fitting in just fine.

•••••••• And something special for my ••••••••
HORSE FRIENDS

This weekend my friend Jenna and I went to the Colorado Horse Park to watch a three-day event. It was SO COOL!! This place was pretty amazing! The 300 acre x-country course was designed by David O' Connor and was so fun to watch... because I would need a waterproof saddle pad if I ever thought of doing this - just watching it made me almost pee my pants! For those non-horsie people reading this, these crazy people go FLYING at top speed around this jumping course made up of very difficult fences up and down hills and into and through water. They are timed so they go really fast. And these fences are really crazy! For the most part the horse has never seen them before they are aimed at it. It's pretty incredible!

There are TWELVE arenas. Here are three of them. A H/J show was going on too so we got to watch that too. I've got the jumping bug!Here is the main barn. This place has 300 stalls, and at least 2 indoors that we found. The stalls are HUGE and the horses inside were just as nice :) Oh, and it's for sale. Who's making the first offer?

Goats, Sheep & Burros - Oh My!

2008-05-26T11:01:00.004-04:00

Happy Memorial Day!

This weekend we went up to Georgetown, a little town in the mountains. They were having their "Railroad & Mining Days" and I'm a sucker for festivals of all kinds! Heather & Trent went with us too. We had a good time! Here the three of us are up a pass above the town.
It's hard to tell who was more excited about the goats and sheep petting zoo... oh wait, it's definitely ME!
They also had burro rides for the kids. Next year Violet's going for the ride of her life!
Peeking over the fence at the mommy burro. She had an adorable 3 week old baby with her. Awww!
This was the view of Georgetown from up the pass.
On Friday I checked out the Denver Zoo with a few of my friends. It was SO COOL! It is a really nice place to walk around and has tons of cool animals. Here we are petting the goats. I now have a membership so if you come to visit - we're GOING!
Violet and a lounging gorilla.
Violet spends a LOT of time by her play table. The one good thing about her being in another long legged cast is that we don't have to worry TOO much about her standing up. Honestly I'm not sure if we could stop her!
And in other house news... Jon finally got the garage cleaned out, and spent the evening putting new tar down. "New" is relative since he's pretty sure the buckets of tar that were in the garage were 30-40 years old. But it rained last night and NO LEAKS so apparently it worked! Here he is tarring away as Mike looks on.

Cast Change!

2008-05-21T14:41:00.003-04:00

Violet had her 6-week cast change at the Denver Children's Hospital on Monday. It went really well!

First, we decided to decorate her cast the day before. Jon did the writing. I did the polka-dots. We're taking ideas on how to decorate her new cast before they saw it off for good!

At the hospital. She did really great waiting in the morning. Here she is playing in her metal jail (aka crib) with her Aunt Heather.
Here is the new cast! I took this the same afternoon she got it so she isn't all that thrilled with having her picture taken ;) This one is very similar to the old cast - still one leg free. This one is at a little better angle for holding her, and her leg that's fully casted seems to be more leg-shaped than before. Her diaper opening is a LOT longer and a little wider so it has taken some getting used to diapering her again!

Our new doctor was happy with how her hip looked. In between casts he moved around her hip and it stayed put so that's great. He did want to keep her in the long-leg on her "bad side" for another 5 weeks just as a precaution. Although we're a little disappointed to not have two legs out, we also want her to heal 100% so whatever we can do to speed that up, we'll do it!

We go back next week for an x-ray to make sure things are still sitting right, and then in four weeks after that (five weeks total) we're camping out at their offices early in the morning to be the first ones in to get this cast OFF FOR GOOD!!!!!

She'll be in a Rhino brace for naps and at night for a while after her cast if off, which is great with us. I'm just so excited to know that we've already made it halfway. Hopefully these next five weeks FLY by!

Here is Viole reading her book with her sunglasses on
And in other news...

I vowed that when I lived in Denver where it is nice and dry, I would try my hand at line drying our clothes. I am excited about not using up so much energy AND everything smells so yummy from being out in the sun!

Here was my first attempt:
And Jon is almost finished cleaning out the garage! What a gross, dirty job it has been. The things he found in the garage that are really weird: 4 large canvas bags of DIRT, a box of old socks, a box of neatly folded carpet padding remnants, a box of rotted out small pillows with "ER" stamped on them, and a 5 canvas bags of.. canvas bags. Go figure.

There has also been a few treasures (although very, very few). He found some old US Mail bags that are still in surprisingly good shape, and a couple of wire crates that we like. But that's about it. The rest of it was picked up by the trash collectors yesterday. We owe them something - it was not a pretty sight!

If you found this blog searching for info on spica casts,
please visit this wonderful and incredibly helpful forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/
Also, please take a look at my Spica Cast Survival Guide, which you can download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hipbaby/files/
It's the first thing on the list.
Sending lots of good hip healing vibes your way!!

Our 100th Post!!

2008-05-18T12:50:00.002-04:00

This is it! The big One-Oh-Oh! And what a post it is...

Our dear, sweet, fearless Violet had decided enough is enough - she's going to figure out how to WALK regardless of her "hard candy shell" or not! Here she is on her knees behind her little push-toy:

And THEN... we discovered that if we help her a little and hold her up, she knows EXACTLY what to do to walk!! The little dance she does at the beginning was ALL she did the first time we tried it. She was SO SO SO excited!!

Saturday we spent most of the afternoon at a BBQ that Mike put together at a local skatepark. Thanks to watching lots of skateboarding videos with Daddy, Violet had a great time watching and yelled and clapped for everyone. It was very funny! The park overlooked the mountains (okay, and a lot of industrial areas, but still!) so we had Mike take this picture:

New Friends and New Toys

2008-05-13T16:59:00.006-04:00

Dear Internet,

Thanks for the chance to make some friends in a brand spanking new city before I even move there. Who knew that using cloth diapers could lead to this??

Love, Jesi & Violet

Here is Violet and her new best buddy Laina. I met Laina's mom Jenna through a cloth-diapering bulletin board online. We found out we had FAR more than me moving to Denver in common.... Jenna also rides horses AND has a daughter so close to Violet's age! We met up at the mall today with a few other cloth-diapering moms, including Beth and her 6 week old daughter Lily, and Taryn and her two kids. The girls had so much fun! I am going to have to get my hands on one of these banana slices - they were the perfect height for Violet to pull up on!
Holding hands... (or maybe moving Laina's hand off "her" banana, but still!)

Violet and her banana
We also finally put together the deluxe Radio Flyer wagon Violet got back at Christmas. She fits in it pretty good... notice her foot is in the cup holder. I walked her around the alley in it and she only slid down once.
Silly with her sippy cup and pigtails.
The dogs are doing really well. You can see that Porter (on the right) has taken to Denver quite nicely. He LOVES the backyard! Obi is doing well too, although he does like to bark (and consequently scare the crap out of) our neighbors on a regular basis. Also please note the obscene amount of "stuff" near the back fence. This is only about 1/8 of what was in the garage. Included: 5 lawn mowers (already sold 1 on Craigslist), 2 stoves, various car parts... you get the picture. A dumpster is hopefully on its way so we can get the rest out!
This is what I like to call the "Little Shop of Horrors Weed". They are HUUUGE and take up almost half of the yard. This one is about 3' across. There are two other patches of them. They are horrible and will not be killed by a lawn mower OR by applying gallons of Round Up. They are prickly and also smell.

*** Video Time! ***

Here is a video of Violet petting Obi, and then her perfected Spica Crawl to the TV. Warning, she's TOPLESS! ;) Yesterday it was in the 70's while today we are in the 40's with SNOW! Luckily we are pretty used to this sort of weather, Michigan taught us well :)

I love how she answers my questions in this one, and crawls very funny at the end.

This video shows Violet pulling up on the coffee table in her cast. She is getting so STRONG! She still can't figure out how to get DOWN though, and I do rescue her really quickly after she starts crying. I still can't figure out if it hurts her or not because she still does it all the time!