Evie and Annalise Taller: May 2008

The ice cream truck cometh

We had a pretty productive day today. This morning,we geared up and rode our bikes to the farmer's market. When we got home, we started cleaning out gutters. After a short nap, the girls joined us in the yard and played with the neighbor kids. Then we heard the familiar sounds of the ice cream truck going through the neighborhood. Evie and Annalise have never experienced the ice cream truck (in fact, up until this summer, we just told Evie that it was the music truck bringing music on nice days when everyone was outside.). We wer hoping to hold off on the ice cream truck experience and expense for a while, but the two older neighbor kids ran off and flagged it down. Since Jim and I were in the middle of discussing a downspout issue, we didn't immediately notice. Then the silence set in and I had to find all the kids. By then, the neighbor kids had found a couple of bucks and treated Evie and Annalise to their first high dollar ice cream bars. Evie had a bubble gum one and Annalise had the classic Strawberry Crunch.

Here's Annalise finishing up the Strawberry Crunch.

Delicous! Incidently, we decided that since their dinner was spoiled, we would go to the pool. Annalise was having a great time jumping in and getting dunked until she got a belly full of water. Then she barfed up the Strawberry Crunch in the pool. Yep, she's that kid.

I didn't take any pictures of Evie today. I will try to remedy that tomorrow. I just wanted to show our plant experiment. These are the seedlings we planted about 5 weeks ago. They are now living in flower pots on the deck. I guess you don't need a millon dollar growth chamber to successfully raise seeds.

And just for fun, the end of the Strawberry Crunch bar.

ARGG!!

We attended a friend's birthday party this evening. It was by far the best 4 year old pirate themed party we have ever been to. It may have something to do with the margaritas!!

Of course, what scores big for moms and dads aren't the same things that score big for the kiddos. There was a treasure hunt and the kids found their goodie bags. In the bags were pirate suckers. Arg.

Ahoy Captain Black Lips!

The new addition to the yard

After months and months of saving, Evie has finally saved up enough money to purchase a share in a new sand and water table. We brought it home Thursday morning and she played with it all day until she had to go to bed. It was a beautiful day to be outside and mom took advantage of the kid free time to trim all the bushes in front of the house!

Evie is showing the table to her neighbor friends, Gabby and Gracie.

In Stinks news, we have graduated to pigtails to keep her hair out of her eyes. Grandma and Grandpa Seibert call this the Boo hairstyle after the little girl in Monsters, Inc.

Annalise also helped me mix soil for the flower pots. Our seedlings are moving outside on Friday!

In other Annalise news, she has met the milestone of putting two words together. Here she is with her "Big Shovel". This morning, while Jim was in the shower, she said "Daddy shower" and "Evie potty". What a genius.

Our Trip to Cleveland

We went to Cleveland this fine holiday weekend. The weather was gorgeous and the company was outstanding. We visited Grandma and Grandpa Taller's new house, Great Grandma and Grandpa Koch, and our friends, the Maistros family. We had a great time. Sunday, we awoke early (no surprise there) and headed downtown Cleveland on the Rapid Transit Train! What a thrill for both girls. Incidently, we took a car to the train station which was located near the airport. It was a trains, planes and automoblies kind of day.

Evie, Grandma and Annalise on top of one of the war memorial statues in downtown. This one was built around 1880. Much before we were all born.

We walked down the Mall to see the Lake and take in the view. This one is for all the Browns fans out there. We decided it isn't in Cleveland's best interest to bid for the Super bowl until they can get a retractable roof. Of course, that will probably happen the same time that the Packers play under a roof. Here's a question, where would it be colder to watch a playoff game? Cleveland or Green Bay??? Of course, you would probably stay warmer in Green Bay because they heat the beer up there.

All the sight seeing wore the girls out so they took a minute to rest on the stone steps. Soft and comfy.

This is a fountain on the Mall. Pretty.

Annalise putting her face and hands on the filthy train seats. She sure looks happy about the germs she is picking up.

Dad and Stinks on the train. Notice that she is transfering the germs directly to her mouth. We all got a nice dose of hand sanitizer when we got to the car.

Grandma, Grandpa and Evie enjoy the ride back to the station. Thanks for the great weekend Grandma and Grandpa!

The Driveway Strikes Again

Stinks met her match with the driveway yesterday and the driveway won.

Here's a picture of the battle scars. She doesn't have any scrapes anywhere else on her body which leads us to believe that she fell right on her face.

As you may recall, Big Sister met a similar fate last winter.

Driveway: 2 Taller Girls: 0

Our super awesome trip to Wisconsin

We journeyed north this past weekend to the land of our kin, Wisconsin. It was a long drive, but we managed to entertain ourselves.

Evie worked on Car Bingo while driving through Chicago. Then she got engrossed in a DVD of the Electric Company. I think she watched the entire 168 minutes three times on this drive. I guess we'll be getting that one from the library again!

Annalise passed the time with a sucker. She was pretty sticky when we finally got to Madison.

When we arrived the party started. Aunt Becky decided that the Turner family would go out with a bang and she got a whole keg. In Wisconsin, this isn't very impressive because it's only a half barrel. Annalise witnessed her very first tapping this weekend. As far as I know, there was only legal consumption of the Lenie's and the children only were interested in the ice.

Morning came pretty early for us East Coast time zone people. Someone forgot to tell Annalise to sleep in so we were up at 5 am. Yay. Remind us not to go to California until she is a teenager. Anyway, we got an early start on the day. We carted everyone down to the Madison Farmer's Market. We have been to a lot of Farmer's markets and this is probably the best ever. Where else can you get your weekly supply of vegetables and a giant donut??

The sun rises over the capital building. We were there by 7:30 local time. It wasn't too crowded.

Here's the early morning crew getting a drink.

Even Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth are up and moving.

Probably the cutest tree huggers in all of the State.

On our way out of the farmer's market, Evie found a fountain and Aunt Elizabeth dared her to put her nose on it.

Annalise walks the balance beam with Uncle Kevin.

We left the farmer's market at 8:30 and then we headed to the free zoo that Henry always goes to. Unfortunately, we were too early and the zoo was closed so we passed some time at the park until it opened at 9:30

We saw lots of animals at the zoo and Annalise identified almost all of them. The kids really liked to pose in the animal cut outs. Here's the cutest little bear at the zoo.

And three wild Monkeys.

And that's when we stopped taking pictures. We headed back to the hotel for lunch (by noon local time) and then we all took naps. We went over to the Turners to drink more beer and get ready for church. God must not like when parents have a beer before church because He punished us with 2 little monsters during mass. Annalise didn't even make it into Mass (neither did mom) because she decided it would be more fun to throw an hour long tantrum instead. Post Mass, baptism was looking up. Evie proclaimed and jumped up and down when June was baptised--"She's baptised!!" What joy for the Lord. After the Baptism, there was a rainbow in the sky and Evie said it was a gift for June from the Lord. How sweet.

We headed back to Aunt Becky's for more cake and beer and then back to the hotel around 9 pm local time. We thought that the kids would be so worn out that they would sleep late. Wrong. Annalise's internal alarm clock went off at 5 am again and we were up and swimming at the pool by 6. Lucky us. After brunch at the Turners', we headed for home. They both took pretty good naps and were good in the car, but EVERYONE is going to bed early tonight.

So check Henry's blog and Natalie and Oliver's blog for more pictures.

Annalise plays Simon Says

Annalise is getting really good at following directions.

On Wisconsin!

No matter where you live or how cultured you think you are, you will never match up to the young people at the Madison Farmer's Market who were playing that rousing tune of ON WISCONSIN on their Violins. Man, if they only had accordians, we would have left a dollar.

This week

Grandma sent a pillow made with the remainder of the fabric from Evie's quilt. We stuffed it.

Here's Evie trying out the new quilt pillow.

Annalise, of course, also had to roll around on the floor on a pillow.

Then we got some stuff out for our trip. Aunt Becky, the purple Bumbo will be soon in your house, but not until Stinks sits in it one last time.

We also had to get some new clothes out of the closet for Annalise to wear now that she is growing up. She is into layering I guess. Love the shoes too. Annalise and Evie went to the Doctor for the Annual check up. Annalise weighs in at 25 pounds (50%) and 33 inches (75%).

Evie weighs in as a bag of water softner salt (40 lbs--75%) and 42 inches (95%). To celebrate our health (hey, we haven't been to the doctor in two whole months), we made pizzas for dinner. Here is Evie working on the pizzas. They were delicious!

Happy Mother's Day

What better way to start off a rainy Mother's Day than Dad packing up with the early bird (annalise) and coming home with Dunkin Donuts.

This must be Evie's surprise face. Surprised because she still got a donut despite her behavior at Mass last night. Not donut worthy at all according to Mom.

Stinks seems pretty pleased with herself and her sprinkled donut. Not too many sprinkles landed on the floor!

Annalise going in for the donut kill.

Yes, we do more than eat around here, but sometimes, that's when the camera is near by and everyone is somewhat stationary.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there especially our Moms, Grandmas, Great Grandmas, Godmothers, and Aunts! We hope you have a great day.

Corny

Today, Annalise had her first taste of sweet corn. That was all she ate all day.

Well, corn and some corn chips.

For some reason, she had to rest the corn on the table to eat it.

Evie has her 387th taste of sweet corn.

Fun Thursday

We went to the children's museum today with our friends, Fiona and Sean. The first order of business was the merry go round.

Evie and Fiona get the horses

Annalise and Sean get the giraffes. This was Annalise's first ride!

Then the girls got in the INDY spirit.

Annalise loved to play in the toddler room going up and down the slide.

Evie even found something to do in the toddler room. She colored and made texture rubbings.

Since it's been raining for a day and a half, we decided to go out and check the status of the puddles in the yard.

Here we are all geared up and ready to go.

We checked all the neighbors' driveways for good puddles and also the sideways. Much to the children's dismay, we have pretty decent drainage.

Annalise didn't really get the point of the umbrella.

Here's the puddles we found in the neighbor's driveway.

Sunday

We had a fun weekend. Grandma and Grandpa Seibert came to visit. Grandpa brought his bike tools with him to give our bikes a tune up. Since it was such a nice day, we took the girls out for a spin. Evie was behind mom and Annalise trailed dad. They both did great and we think we will be able to ride down to the farmer's market this summer with them and a cooler in the trailer.

We were being silly and wanted to see how much meat mom could pull. Before we let any kids in, I had to try it without. That's a lot of weight back there. I think if I have to do this often, the rides won't be very long and only on routes with no hills.