Another Month Has Passed

When you are busy time flies. I often fail to recognize that some or all of these moments might pass me by, unless I take the effort to recognize them specifically or have family visit which helps remind of them.

This past weekend Grandma Cindy visited much to the happiness and desire of the girls. We all appreciated her visit, and I am thankful for these moments.

1) Danielle decided this past weekend to take major progression towards walking, taking more thana couple of steps back and forth between Grandma, Mom, and myself.

2) Little projects turn into great memories when you do them with family. Thank you to Aunt Aubrey for sending the pumpkin cat!

3) When you fall and feel blue, a kind shoulder can be great comfort.

4) You gotta share the good stuff, candy for everyone.

5) Having the cat by the tail is enlightening for all ages.

6) It's never too early to dress up in Halloween costumes, especially when Grandma is watching.

7) Having a cat by the tail is enlightening, but it is just pure joy when you have your sister by the tail.

8) Even in pretend, tickling is fun.

9) As a father of girls and husband it is completely great to see the resemblance in all of your girls.

10) After a week of decisions and a tired brain, having someone else make a decision for you is nice. Thank you to Christine and Mom for deciding that I would install a recessed medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I am happy it is done and the bit of manual carpentry work felt good.

Horses & Cider

We had a very nice Saturday, first visiting the Fall Fest in Marshfield and then driving north to Prentice visiting Cindy, Quan, and Forrest Banh. The girls seemed to enjoy the zoo more than the Fest, struggling to smile while on their requested pony rides. Perhaps they picked up on our sentiments, as Christine and myself we were more excited to see the Cackling Geese, Black duck, and Wood Ducks at the zoo pond than browse through all the art vendors.

It was awesome watching Danielle beg to and ride a horse, yet actually be worried about initially. Danielle has turned into a daredevil, climbing and riding her plastic tricycle wherever she pleases without much regard to her own safety. She likes being in control, any help from Michaela usually result in yelling.

Visiting the Banhs was an awesome get away, with the hour and half drive short in comparison to most of our trips. Their yard is full of wildflowers and a large garden with raised boxes, giving Michaela quite the maze to run through. The girls enjoyed the sandbox while most everyone else was busy with the cider press. They surprised and sent a couple of gallons home with us. While it is possible things gifts taste better, all of us love the cider. Michaela told me, “That Apple Juice is yummy!”

Warm Weather Yard Work

Great Aunt Steph and Great Grandma Gold arrives at our house in Marshfield Friday afternoon after a brief detour on Becker Road. Michaela and Danielle took most of that night warming up to them, showing off the house and sizing up the company. Danielle enjoyed the ripe raspberries, sent my Grandma Gold! In anticipation of their arrival I finally got the grill put together on Thursday night, now just to put it to use.

Saturday morning Christine and I went for a bike ride to a garage sale, only to forget and return tardy for the dirt delivery. Moving two yards of topsoil and yard work began shortly after breakfast. Dietsche's trailer, wheelbarrow, and shovel helped us level off low spots in the yard, plant two apple trees, and dig a flower garden at the southeast corner of the house. One apple tree had two apples, so each girl grabbed one and chomped in, sharing a bite with everyone. Christine and I were very thankful for the company, as they watched and played with Michaela and Danielle allowing us our best attempt at physical labor. We completed much of the work Saturday before lunch and after supper, leaving the middle of the day for naps! Danielle even helped out with the apple trees while Michaela was still sleeping! Hot dogs and cheeseburgers on the grill tasted good, even though we had the grill a bit too hot initially.

I leveled off the remaining dirt Sunday morning and Michaela helped seed it. Hopefully the yard will look better in three weeks. The clay soil is almost prohibitive for flowers, hopefully the flower garden and apple trees will drain well enough. Sunday night we did the entire meal on the grill; corn, potatoes & onion, and chicken!

Family and Friends

The holiday weekend brought good times spent with family and new friends. Saturday we went to Paul and Janeen's home south of town and the girls enjoyed playing with the girls and Aunt Diane. Though Michaela had a 'near' run-in with the dog and proceeded to have a melt-down, from what I heard the dog hadn't even touched her, but just came towards her quickly and she couldn't get away fast enough and fell causing her to be frightened of the dogs all night.

Danielle is now loving corn on the cob and proceeded to carry her half corn cob around all night and did the same tonight when we visited one of Malcolm's co-workers home for a BBQ with a group from the college and their families. Michaela and Danielle met a bunch of new friends as most everyone had little girls that were close to Michaela's age and of course there were lots of new toys to play with as well. Michaela said that we needed to go back and play some more another time...I guess she liked it :)

Tonight on the way home from the BBQ we were driving right at sunset and so we stopped to take the above picture. Ahhh, the beauty of Wisconsin. Well, back to the grind of things, classes start again tomorrow for Malcolm and I am in the process of trying to patch and re-texturize the bathroom so that I can hopefully paint tomorrow or the next day. It is most definately a learning experience for me as I have never painted by myself...Michaela's room in Madison was the first time I remember even helping to paint (though I did do the stenciling and it made me appreciate it enough that I may never do it again!)

Hoping everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and we now can look forward to the beauty of fall...there are quite a few changing maples already!

Silly Times!

Somedays are so interesting. Today was one of those days. The girls and I went on one of our almost daily bike rides to the park and all three of of had a blast, I even played like a little kid too. Then we came home only for me to get a little exhausted from Michaela constantly trying to run out of my sight...it is hard on my nerves! To feeling rejuvenated after Malcolm took the girls for 45 minutes while I actually cooked a decent meal...yeah! To then beginning the bedtime routine of baths and storytime. Storytime ended up being playtime and the girls were crawling all over us, laughing, kissing (this is Danielle's favorite), and it was great...I can't remember the last time all of us laughed so hard. I told Malcolm that this was just a sneak peek into the near future when the girls will play better together and get eachother wound up. Usually Danielle just cries/screams when the two of them roughhouse, but tonight they laughed and giggled :) What a blessing in disguise.

Also, I wanted to post two pics from the last two days. First is today when the two girls were playing well again and Michaela was taking Danielle for a walk with the monkey backpack/leash. They went around and around the kitchen/living room and I just had to snap a picture! The second pic is my new deal and I had to brag as Michaela LOVES it :) I went to the second-hand store in Marshfield and found this desk and chairs for the girls. Only $6 for everything. Michaela loves drawing on it and also there is a little light that she can turn on and off which of course she thinks is so cool.

Sorry for the rambling and disorganized post, but alas, that is how my thoughts are running tonight.

First weekend in Marshfield by ourselves

Two weeks after moving and of course we are not settled in yet. Christine has done a wonderful job unpacking, but we have to much stuff to be completely unpacked.

I finally finished the deck yesterday, after way too many trips to Menards to get a drill bit extension. (It is surprising how many of the extensions are actually bigger than the 3/8" diameter whole I was drilling.) We tried out a church that happened to be in the middle of ministry week, no sermon at all...hmmm...we will have to go back again to get a sense of what a service is like in general. We also found a place to walk and bird, the McMillan Marsh Wildlife Refuge is just north of town. Not much for birds this time of year, but it was nice to get out for a couple hour walk and pick a handful of blackberries.

The girls were fairly well behaved but we have a few issues to address with Michaela. When we are outside she likes to go around the garage; which entails entering the back garage door, running through the garage and around the outside back to the deck. For the time being it is too scary letting her out of our sight while she is running, the road is very close.

Michaela does not mind time-outs anymore, so we have moved to the draconian measure of losing a bedtime story when she misbehaves. Two days and only one story so far, which is not good considering she starts with two a day. I think she has missed the idea of gaining extra books by being good.

The girls are still enjoying their play room, finding toys and other entertaining items (mostly bathroom stuff) spread out in the room.

Settling In

I just felt like writing a quick post to let you know that we are back from a quick trip to Minnesota last weekend for my parents 40th Anniversary...congratulations mom and dad! And though we were hoping to see a new baby too, Dan & Renee's little girl decided to wait a couple of days after we left, but CONGRATULATIONS Dan & Renee on having a healthy, beautiful girl, we can't wait to meet her!

After a still long, but much shorter trip home, we are back and getting into the swing of things here in Marshfield. I have slowed down on unpacking, though we have gotten the majority of stuff unpacked we still have things that need to be organized...too small of clothes, books, movies and bathroom stuff. For whatever reason I can't get my head wrapped around how to organize our bathrooms, with no medicine cabinet in either bathroom and only a narrow, deep closet upstairs (no storage downstairs, where all our rooms are)how do I fit everything in where it is still usable. Oh, the hardships of new home ownership...I know you are all laughing and rolling your eyes, Malcolm included :)

Lastly, I have become spoiled, I am already missing having family here. Anyone want to come for a quick weekend?? Aubrey, how about you, you still have a couple of weeks, right? Just kidding! Anyways, missing everyone and hope you all have wonderful weekends.

-Christine