a little furry around the torso

we're headed up to appleton tomorrow after lunch, so don't expect any new posts till wednesday or so. monday is my godmother's memorial service, the reason we're going up in the first place. we're coming back mid-afternoon on tuesday. it'll probably be a real downer of a trip, but i'm hoping that all goes well anyway.

so, today's been lots of packing and bathing children, cutting fingernails and trimming bangs. lots of fun, believe me.

i'm a kid!

i'm in absolute heaven right now...abby's been playing with her new little people airport for almost 2 hours now. ian's been sleeping the same amount of time.




ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

mr. monk takes his medicine

good news! we got the call yesterday from the preschool ... abby got a spot! so, she's officially (well, basically) enrolled in preschool, and we couldn't be more excited. this comes at a time when i've been pretty frustrated with her, and i know that preschool will help her with the issues that she has with certain things. so, yay for preschool!

as you can see from the picture above, today we went to bratfest. it was great to be able to go on the first day, before it gets too crazy on the weekend. brian never had fridays off before, so we weren't able to do it. they're really emphasizing the "fest" part of things, rather than the "brat." tables were only set up in front of the 2 music stages, so we had to sit there and have our hearing assaulted by an adam pascal wannabe the whole time we were eating. we felt, too, that we had to rush out of there to prevent early hearing loss in abby and ian. it was pretty frustrating, and i think that i may actually complain about it to the organizers, and maybe write to the isthmus as well. i just think it's ridiculous. abby and i got to ride the little golf cart shuttle thing, which she thought was pretty cool, and we debated doing the ferris wheel, but a little basic math showed that we'd spend as much to ride the ferris wheel as we did on all of our food. so, no ferris wheel. brian had 2 brats, one with the official world record mustard, and one with dusseldorf. i also had 2 brats, one with the official world record mustard, kraut, and onions, and one with garlic horseradish mustard and the kraut and onions. pretty good stuff. we're hoping to go back on sunday, but the weather's not looking too happy. i guess we'll see.

ok, time to work on this preschool paperwork a bit.

drive-thru chicken

not sure why i picked that as the subject line. maybe i want kfc or something...

anyway, ian's 6-month checkup was this morning and it went very well. he weighs 17 pounds 10 ounces (55th percentile), is 26.25 inches long (50th percentile), and is in the 75th percentile for his head circumference. so, he's dropped down in the percentiles pretty significantly, but i think it's just because he's become so much more active in the last couple of months. that at least explains the weight drop. but, as i recall, abby's height percentile dropped around this time too, so there's that.

check out the big man sitting!

long longity long long long

hi! i'm 30 now! notice me being excessively perky about it! better soon, i hope!

anywho, i had a super birthday. the morning involved lots o' driving around and exchanging various large playthings with people buying or selling such playthings. then the afternoon involved garage sale-ing and finding some good deals on abby's version of crack, little people. then after the kiddos went to bed, the babysitter came, and brian and i left for our date! we were early, but they seated us anyway despite being very busy. we got a nice booth, and a somewhat odd waiter. also, brian wants me to blog about how i accidentally bought a bottle of san pellegrino. they apparently have some sort of water sommelier there, but she was a water sommelier who was impossible to understand. she had a bottle of pellegrino, and a bottle of acqua panna, and said some stuff. i went into deer-in-the-headlights mode and gestured toward the pellegrino, because i like sparkly water. well, she came back with an entire bottle. end result was $4.95. sigh. it was stupid, but i was determined not to let it bug me. so, we got our wine (2006 rosemount estates shiraz...read about it here very soon), and split a caesar salad. then there was a significant lull in the dining experience, where the waiter AND the sous-chef came to apologize to us about the wait, saying they were "really backed up." maybe we should have complained and gotten free stuff, but honestly? we were just so happy to be there, and having already had some wine, we were pretty content. so, we eventually got our petite filets and our potatoes au gratin to share. can i just say, these steaks? awesomeness on a 500-degree plate. now that there's one here, we need to be extra-careful to not indulge too often...we don't want this to lose its special-ness. then, because i was the birthday girl, i got a free dessert. i chose the "chocolate sin cake", which was a flourless chocolate/espresso cake with a raspberry sauce underneath. good stuff. so, needless to say, we are disappointed that our ruth's chris experience is done for another year or so, but it was absolutely wonderful.

also on friday, ian turned 6 months old! hard to believe we're halfway through his first year.

current skills: sitting up alone for more extended periods of time (will still tip over and bonk the noggin, but doesn't seem to mind), rolling and army-crawling his way around the living room and eating the occasional magazine that he comes across (man, we are not ready for him to be mobile), and (da da-DAH!) finally eating cereal! mixed with baby food, but still! woohoo!

current likes: enya, being held, baby oatmeal with banana, big sister, trying to eat people's glasses, pulling hair, "exploring himself" (ahem) during diaper changes, abby's little people giraffe, baths, spitting, doing raspberries, and putting anything and everything into his mouth.

current dislikes: getting dressed and undressed, teething, and sleeping through the night. that's it.

he's at an incredible age right now, and he's hilarious every day. his laugh kills me. 6-month checkup tomorrow morning, i'll post stats and pictures afterwards.

whoo! that was LONG! mein fingers are tired now.

everybody dance now

it's been a reasonably eventful past few days. friday and saturday we were up in appleton for mein birthday celebration. it was kitchen-gadget-birthday for me this year: a new george foreman grill, a blender that hopefully will not smell like burned rubber when you use it, and the tiniest cutest coffeemaker ever. :) plus a target gift card. woo! the trip was okay...ian slept about average, so it wasn't horrible. brian and i slept in the living room and ian stayed in our room.

we've put a moratorium on the cereal until ian's checkup next monday. since on saturday he cried when he just saw me making the cereal, i figure he needs a break. plus, i'd like to get some ideas from the doctor about what the heck is going on with this child.

other than that, not too much going on here. abby and i made pumpkin bread and pumpkin mini-muffins yesterday. exciting, i know. :)

book of days

so, the cereal adventures continue. night 3 was not as good as night 2, but not as bad as night 1. i don't know what the deal is with it, and i wonder whether i should just be skipping straight to the baby food, and maybe mixing it with the cereal. i need to give him at least a week on the cereal before moving on, just to make sure there are no allergies, but maybe after the week is up we'll call it good and go on to the good stuff. made so far: sweet potatoes, peas, and carrots. plus i have the stuff to do peaches, pears, and bananas. those are easy, though, much more so than the veggies. so, we've got a pretty good stash going.

tomorrow promises to be a busy day. i need to get all of our stuff packed for the night up in appleton, we need to get to the library, both kids need baths at night, but i have choir to get to. so, we'll see what actually gets done.

yay, brian's on his way home! and none too soon. :)

gerber baby

well, ian started rice cereal last night. what do you think? did he like it? :) he ingested maybe 2 bites and that was it. the rest drooled out onto his bib. overall, not an auspicious start, but we will persevere!

grandma and grandpa rogers came yesterday to take us to the semi-annual foresters brunch in sun prairie. everything was pretty yummy, although seating was pretty crowded. then after they left, brian took the kids on a walk, and i went out back and dug up two-thirds of the garden. i'm ready to plant now!

low-key week this week...only thing going on is friday we leave for appleton after abby's class.

...and how!

so, you'll notice that i've added a twitter gadget to the sidebar over there. twitter's the new big thing in the blogging world, and i have to admit, i wasn't sure about it at first, but i'm kind of digging it now. of course, those of you who use your feed reader to check here won't be able to see the twitters, so you'll want to either "follow" me (which i believe involves signing up for your own twitter account) or just check the actual blog every now and then. i like the idea of twitter because i often don't have the motivation or time to do a full blog entry and i might just have a little something to say. thus, twitter. i do feel somewhat like a bandwagon-jumper, but if it works and i like it, i have no problem with the bandwagon.

today abby started her exercise class at the y. it didn't get off to such a hot start, as we showed up at 10:30 as i had written down, but the class had actually started at 10. way to go, mommy. but, she did pretty well. seemed to be pretty intimidated at first, but got into it more toward the end. i think it'll be a positive experience for her. and she learned about hockey! hope we don't have to move to canada now. after her class, we had lunch over at auntie bunna's house and played for a bit there before heading home. after rest time, abby and brian went to the library and ian played in the pack-n-play in the garage while i cleaned out the car. ah, the car. that thing was a pit. but, it is significantly better now, although it does need to be vacuumed out and febrezed a bit. tomorrow morning, we'll head to 1 or 2 garage sales, and then on sunday, we have the semi-annual foresters brunch at herreman's with grandma and grandpa rogers. much food will be consumed.

old macdonald had a (excuse me) farm

well, everyone is healthy once again. brian managed to escape the majority of my stomach virus and was just a bit weak for a couple of days. i've been watching the kids like a hawk to see if they'll come down with it, but nothing so far. i think we're in the clear. of course, now that i've said that, they'll both start spewing from both ends. :)

so, in 15 days, i will turn 30! i've decided that i've been dreading it so much, and that it's silly. so, i will enjoy my birthday, and not be depressed about the whole actually-turning-30 thing. it's just that 30 seems so grownup. i'm not ready to be a grownup, despite being married and having 2 kids! :) so, woo birthday!

not much else going on here lately. ian's sleep is still bad, abby's still mostly off the lactose and doing okay. she'll have some cheese every other day or so, but i do think that's about the limit she can take. luckily, she's liking the soy milk.

ok, this is boring.