A proficient little stinker

The terrible two’s have struck us. In the past week, we’ve seen the following from Raleigh:

All out tantrums…on the floor flailing hands and legs all about

Complete refusal to take naps

Excessive and dangerous climbing attempts

He even managed to push a big TV down from his entertainment center in his room.

The TV incident nearly gave me a heart attack.  Raleigh was wearing red that day, and when I went into his room to investigate the noise, I saw the TV with a flash of something red under it. Raleigh was nowhere in sight and he was making no sound at all. He didn’t even say “uh-oh” when the TV fell. So, immediately, my brain imagined Raleigh under the TV crushed, knocked out, bloody. I’ve never felt so horrible in my whole life.

Raleigh, it turns out, was just as shocked as I was (hence the silence) and he was in the TV compartment of the entertainment center, in the place of the TV, which was why I didn’t see him right away.

Now, his TV has been removed. We also had to put is mattress on the floor, he started to climb on top of his toddler bed/crib rails. So, the crib is up in our room and we’re going to go Twin mattress shopping later next week when, hopefully, the flooding has subsided. Leah will get Raleigh’s crib mattress, and Raleigh will get a fabulous twin mattress on the floor until his climbing stage subsides a bit.

And we’ve been keeping our eyes on him a bit more lately.

Above: Raleigh attempting to reach for his big black train that we took away from him because he was throwing it.

Below: Raleigh attempting to reach for his awesome big crayons that stain everything and his paint. These are put high up because they need to be supervised activities. Notice Raleigh’s crib mattress on the floor. Before we did this, he was standing on the railing of his crib leaning up against the wall attempting to reach these things.

  

Above: Raleigh playing on the awesome track that I designed and put together for him. Seriously, there are endless possibilities when try to make train tracks on this train table.

Below: Leah found her thumb!

Flood update

Luckily, our house is on the higher level ground in Fargo, so we are not expected to have to evacuate, but others are.

A small portion of Fargo (near Lindenwood park) needed to evacuate at 3 am this morning.

A large portion of Moorhead has been directed to evacuate. You can go here (http://www.areavoices.com/springflood/) to read about the announcements that I’m getting via the web.

Good luck to everyone out there who is struggling with building dikes, or creating sandbags, or who have had to evacuate.

I have a few coworkers who are in risky flood zones and I am constantly thinking about them. I just want this flood to be over so that we can start to rebuild the community again.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Harry!

 

For those of you who know me personally, you may have heard me mention a very long bicycle trip that I went on when I was 16. Well, my Grandpa Harry was the reason that I was able to have such an amazing experience.  He purchased a touring bike for me, he paid for the hotel stays and the food, and it was his fabulous suggestion to take the trip in the first place.

It was close to a 1500 mile bike trip and it took us 23 cycling days to complete.

Above: Grandpa demonstrating the strong headwind that we were biking into.

Below: Grandpa on his bike with all of his panniers on.

Above: You can’t tell that it is me, but I am standing on a the bridge over the Red River in Grand Forks. This was the summer after the 1997 flood there.

Below: Not sure what Grandpa has in his hand but he sure looks excited.

Above: Grandpa posing with the bicycle that he bought me. ( I still have it and I still love it)

Thanks Grandpa for such a great experience! And Happy 80th birthday!

Cutie Patootie

More smiles all the time. I love it.

She’s also getting better at belly time.

What do YOU think?

Do you think she'll be a TomBoy?

Or a Girly Girl?


I just haven't had any indicators ;)

P.S. The bonnet in the last pic was handmade by Grandma Deb. She looks absolutely adorable in it when she smiles. I do need to learn how to tie a pretty bow though.

Are you kidding me?

Yesterday it was raining...this morning we woke up to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Now, this afternoon, about 1 foot of snow has accumulated on my deck, cars, and sidewalks. Ick.

We were supposed to be traveling to my parents today, but waking up to a travel advisory quickly squashed our hopes today. We're hoping to leave bright and early tomorrow morning now.

I took these pictures at 7 am, this morning. We have a lot more snow now.

Red River Flooding

Every spring, the Fargo/Moorhead area deals with some level of flooding. This spring is different. We're supposed to be dealing with not just "some level" of flooding but record flooding. And a few days ago, we were hit with the news that this record flooding was 2 weeks earlier than our city had predicted.

Volunteers have been showing up by the thousands to help create and distribute sandbags. It is times like this that it is fairly obvious how many great people we are surrounded with. Some businesses close up shop to recommend that employees help with the efforts, some businesses still pay employees even though they are out volunteering.

My mother even said that she knew of some people from her area (3 1/2 hours away from here) that are in the FM area to help with the sandbagging efforts.

Josh went out with his brother and two of our friends last night to sandbag and he'll be out there again tonight.

Our house may not be at risk, but there are so many others whose houses are already flooding or at a severe risk of flooding.

Please keep all of the areas that are flooding or at risk of flooding in your prayers.

For pictures of some of the flooding and the effort to reduce the flooding, please visit http://www.davearntson.com/

You can also read about this subject at www.inforum.com.

Haircut: The after picture

I'm totally happy with it. I know this isn't the best picture, but how could I ignore that cute baby head and ears in the picture. Plus, you don't want to see a higher resolution of my face, you might see that I haven't plucked my eyebrows in a while, or you might see that I'm not wearing any makeup. :) I'll try to post a picture of my hair when I wear it curly next time.

Haircut: The before picture

I'm all about change. I've never been attached to my hair and I'm always OK with getting it cut. Hey, it'll grow back anyway.

I've been growing my hair out since before I was pregnant with Leah in hopes of getting it all cut off to donate it to Locks of Love. That requires 10 inches to be cut off though. And that is what I am hoping to cut off today at my 4 O'clock hair appointment.

This is the before picture:

Not quite sure how that sneaky boy got in the pic :)

How do you make your soda pop?

So, the hubby and I are really into making things ourselves these days. We've started to make our own bread daily, and we're now attempting to make Ginger Ale and bottle it ourselves. I'll take pictures of the process another time, if this one is successful and I'll share with everyone. Until then, you'll have to be okay with more pictures of my children.


Jenna and Raleigh playing trains. In this picture, Jenna had hidden almost all of Raleigh's trains under her sweatshirt and was saying "Where are your trains? Where did they go?". And Raleigh just wanted to find Terrence the steam roller.

It's not a trip to my IL's without Grandpa Steve trying to teach Raleigh the Banjo. Raleigh wasn't wearing pants because they kept falling off of him. All of his pants fit him really well when he wears cloth diapers, but when he is in disposables, they fall right off.


A great picture of Aunt Soni with Leah.


And a great picture of Leah's Great-Grandma Sarah.

OMG! This was hilarious, and this picture just can't capture that hilarity. I should have had the video camera. My FIL was reflecting light on the wall and both Nelly and Raleigh were trying to get it. This had my FIL in histerics.

And finally, Raleigh enjoying his bouncy thingy.