Update en route

Loyal Readers-

Well, they packed up the truck on Thursday and after several tearful goodbyes, we headed out of White Bear Lake one last time. We said goodbye to the house, the church and the cup and cone. We are currently staying at Aunt Becky and Uncle Brandon's house in Madison. We will be staying with them until Saturday, then we are going to Indianapolis for the weekend.

Annalise ISN"T sleeping very well. Send horse tranquilizers.

The Taller Family

Going on Hiatus

Loyal Readers,

We are packing up the last of our things and getting rid of some stuff before we move to Indiana later this week. Quick, divert their attention. Maybe they won't notice the sign.
Stroller not included.
There were no takers, so we had to feed them dinner. Annalise eats with both hands.
Evie's rosy cheeks are a result of the 80 degree day we had. We even tried out the AC to see if it still worked!

This will probably be our last post for a while. We will be on the road from Thursday until next Tuesday. Our DSL is supposed to be hooked up by next Thursday (the 5th), but I can't guarantee that we will find all the correct cables and routers by then. Wish us luck and stop by our new place if you feel like unpacking a box or two.

Love

The Tallers

Just Like Hank

To: Hank

From: Annnalise

Re: you are one cool kid

In an effort to be just like you, Hank, I have started to feed myself. My mom said that you learned to feed yourself at a young age too. So add this to the list of things that make me just like you: 1. Don't like baths

2. Never poop

3. Refuse any green vegetables

4. Cry with a screaming squealing noise

5. Never allow my parents a good night sleep while we are "on the road"

6. My long stringy hair hangs in my eyes.

So here are some pictures of me feeding myself. I hope you like them. By the way, I hope that I never have as many bouts of intestinal distress as you. That's one way I want to be my own person.

Playing outside

We played outside today for a while. Close up of Evie playing
Unfortunately, this is probably as close as she will come to a beach for a year or so.
Annalise is enjoying the action.

Don't get too close!

Annalise has developed a new "skill". It's holding her mouth open all day long just in case something gets close enough to put in there. The pleasant side effect is that the drool just streams out of there and she doesn't have to bother with swallowing. Here she is getting ready to chew on some shapes from the shape sorter (her current favorite toy)
Here she is getting ready to eat a book
Here she is getting ready to eat her own feet....NO!!! You might need those feet someday when mom gets tired of carrying you around all the time!
Evie is oblivous to Annalise and just jumps off the stairs for a while.
Sometimes her open mouth turns into a smile.

Brunch with Friends

We've started the very hard process of saying goodbye to our friends here in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Today, our friends, the Grilz family, had us and the Wells family over for brunch to spend some time together before we pack it up for Indiana. Every kid you will see in this picture is sick or just getting over being sick. That spring warm up can't come fast enough for all those germs to get out of our houses. Annalise (with one of the two smiles she had all day) and Mary Kate Grilz. They were very interested in each other since this is only the second time that they have been released from strollers and allowed to sit on the floor. The tornados that are their older siblings were in the other room so they were safe from getting trampled.
Evie and Laura were playing and giving puppet shows
Ethan Grilz was taking advantage of a lazy day inside by hanging out in his Jammies at lunchtime.
Evie is looking a little worn out. She has had a cold for the last 3 days and gave it to her sister. It hasn't been fun for mom and dad.

Who's Who?

A side by side sister comparison. They are roughly the same age in this picture, give or take a few days. Here's a hint, Annalise has Grandpa Seibert's hairline while Evie takes after Grandpa Taller.

To the FlyBoat!

For those of you who are huge Wonderpets fans, this needs no explaination. For those of you who haven't got the opportunity to watch children's programming on rainy days, the Wonderpets are three classroom pets (a hamster, turtle and duckling) that "Save the day" by using teamwork to resuce baby animals that are in trouble. This is Evie's current favorite show. Today, we reconstructed the Wonderpet's mode of transportation, the Flyboat, in our very own basement.Evie's Flyboat. No room for any other Wonderpet in this flyboat.

Taking Advantage of the Awesome Spring Weather

It was a beautiful spring day here. The girls said to heck with the naps (much to mom's disappointment) and played outside all afternoon. Annalise enjoyed watching from the stroller when we went on our walk around the lake.
During our walk, Evie stopped to survey the storm drains of White Bear.
Yep, this one looks good.
Then we came home and rode a trike for a while. She really threw caution to the wind by not wearing her helmet.
Then we had to come inside and get some supper made. Evie is looking forward to St. Patrick's Day. We haven't told her about green beer yet.

Our symmetrical Children

It was that time of the year when both girls needed their well child doctor visit. The doctor pronounced them both healthy and symmetrical in terms of the percentile of their weights and heights.In the featherweight class, Weighing in at a slim 15 pounds, 8 ounces (41%) and measuring 2 feet, 2 inches (42%) is Annalise the drool bucket.
In the heavy weight class, weighing in at 33.8 pounds (77%)and measuring 3 feet, 2 1/2 inches (76%) is Evie, the marble run builder.
Why are you calling me a drool bucket?

Annalise is 6 months old

Annalise is 6 months old today. We decided to go outside to celebrate and enjoy the fresh warm spring air. Dad was working on draining the gas out of the power equipment for the move, so we went outside to watch. Annalise is all bundled up in her warm fluffy fleece. Check out that beautiful blue sky!
Mom and Annalise supervise dad.
Evie played outside 3 times today. Enough to warrant her coat, mittens and snowpants a trip to the washing machine. Why is she using an umbrella in such beautiful weather? Scroll down to see.
The snow is melting off the roof and it is great fun to walk under the drips from the roof.
Check out the sign. They just put it up on Friday. Indiana, here we come.

Annalise's first messy face pictures

Mom and Dad were walking through the grocery store today and spotted some teething biscuits for Annalise to try. Mom thought they were especially interesting because they were MAPLE flavored. Hmm...Maple, I think that it is encoded in my genes to LOVE maple.
Oh yeah, that's some good stuff
Don't worry grandmas, she didn't swallow the biscuit, it's just off to the edge. It's just finger lickin' good.
Yeah!!! I've been gnawing on this for at least 10 minutes and it still hasn't reduced in size!
What??? All this enjoyment and now I have to take a bath??? (Note, after a trip to the tub, she still smelled a little maple-y)

Saturday at home

So after our very busy week, we just spent the day hanging around home. Since we had two no nap Joneses, we didn't try to go anywhere or do anything for fear of a serious meltdown. Dad reading to the girls. Evie and Annalise managed to share for about 5 minutes. Then Annalise lost interest and started drooling over everything.

Annalise playing with her toes while they were freed from her sleeper.

Playing on the floor

Today we recovered from our big weekend by just hanging out and playing on the floor.Apparently, Evie's birthday is still continuing as she found a birthday hat in the toy box and wore it for about an hour.
Annalise has been playing really well with toys. She can even push the bus...just one step away from driving a bus. She is much happier in this picture than she was at bedtime tonight. Her parents are letting her "cry it out". Bunch of meanies.

One messed up baby

We worked so hard to get Annalise to sleep through the night and then we went to Indy and she is totally ruined again. She was up about 47 times a night and spent the last two nights at the hotel in her carseat. So, if anyone is in the market for reprogramming a baby, give us a call. We could use a good night's sleep. Mom, trying to sleep. Annalise, ready to party.

Girls on the move

This is our trip to Indy on the plane. This was Evie's first airplane ride that she could remember. Of course, she had lots of questions that started "Why....?"A perky little girl for being dragged out of bed at 5am
Annalise's first airplane ride went well. She was smiling and making friends with everyone.
The Tallers girls on the move

Our New house

Well, what did you do this weekend? We were a little busy with real estate transactions. After we got our house in White Bear Lake all fixed up and cleaned up for sale, we hopped on a plane and started the house search in Indianapolis. At the beginning, the prospects looked bleak, but after looking at 10 or 12 places, we found this one. We stopped looking, made a bid, and bought this house!It has 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2 car garage and a finished basement. That's a lot of cleaning to do. About twice the amount that we currently do.
This is the back. The snow is almost all melted there and there were signs of spring popping up in the flower beds. We counted the trees in the backyard--there are 14! That's going to be a lot of leaves to rake. Anyone who is looking for a project this summer can swing by and help us take down wallpaper or build a swingset. If you help, you can relax in our hot tub!