Happy Fathers Day, Daddy!

Happy Fathers Day to an excellent daddy! Thanks for all you do!

Looking back...

Really Rolling

Well, the day has come. It's time to put away everything that's not safe for baby. Alex has discovered that rolling means MOBILITY, and he likes it!

Last week Friday, Keith put Alex on the floor under his play gym while we were packing for the trip to the Dells. I walked in the room, found Alex under his jumperoo, and wondered why Keith had set the baby in such a strange place.

Yesterday, I set Alex on the floor under his play gym while switching some laundry to the dryer, walked into the living room, and found him smooshed against the wall.

Today, I set him in the middle of the living room floor & watched him roll all the way to his toys in less than 2 minutes.

My boy is getting big! He's sitting up in a wobbly sort of way. He's starting to use consonants in his talk (ma ma ma, ba ba ba) although he's still mostly interested in practicing his vowels (eeeeee, eeeeeee, aaaaayyy, aaaaaayyy). Now he's travelling across rooms in no time at all. Somebody slow down this process, please! Before I know it, he's going to be a grown up!

Here are a few more recent Alex activities:

Sitting up on his bear chair

Alex likes sweet potatoes! Just this week, I switched to giving him solid foods twice a day.

Oh, and HE wants to hold the spoon.

He's had: apples, bananas, sweet potatoes & peas. Next come pears and carrots.

Remember when he'd look at the mirror when I set him on the bathroom counter?
Now he wants to play with the faucet.

There's a FISH swimming in my DRIVEWAY!

Well, today has been an adventure. Storms came through last night. We were without power (and sump pump) for 6 hours during the night. The lightning was like a constant strobe light, keeping us awake until after 1 AM.


Amazingly, Alex slept through all of the lightning, thunder, and rain. When it finally quieted down & we were able to fall asleep, Alex decided (at 2 AM) that it would be a good time for a midnight snack. He was up again at 4:30, and the power came on while I was up with him. I heard the sump pump kick in, but thought nothing of it since we'd had storms.


Keith got up for work at 6 AM, but quickly came back to the bedroom where I was still dozing. He woke me to give me the good news & bad news. The good news? The backyard, which normally floods in storms, was dry. The bad news? The view from the front window was not as pleasant.


Keith stayed home from work, knowing that his little car wouldn't get very far in this water. A few neighbors tried. The ones with SUVs and trucks were more successful. One neighbor with a small car had water coming in through the bottom of the doors, and his feet were getting wet. He did make it, but I just can't imagine it being very good for the car!





I guess there are many flooded roads in the area, but we've been told that our subdivision is among the worst. A nearby farmer has a gate (illegal!) across the ditch to control the water that gets to his fields. He had the gate closed, which caused the water to flood in our neighborhood. We, along with most of our neighbors, have been calling the county...but the county claims that it's not their job to keep the farmer from gating a public ditch.

It's slowly receding...I'm marking the driveway every hour or two...but I doubt we're driving anywhere today. Anyway, here are some pictures of our mess/adventure in Lake Brookwood (formerly known as Brookwood Drive)

Our house, probably around 8 AM

Keith's footprints cleaned the neighbor's driveway.

(I wore shoes...ya never know what you'll find under the water!)

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail...

They never mentioned floods ;)

I've been marking the driveway throughout the day to show the receding water.

As I marked it at 11, a FISH swam past my feet!

He was green and about 5 inches long.

Nothing like a little water to get the neighbors out! ;)
Hunter, Donovan, and Prada the Puppy

Preston was SOAKED from head to toe!

Ellie made a boat. It actually floated down the road.

Road? Did I say road?

We're worried about what would happen if more rain comes soon.
We're wondering if we built in the wrong place.
We have absolutely no desire to move.
We're not panicking or over-reacting, but realizing this could prevent us from selling.
And we're also having fun enjoying our wet, wet world.

We went on a DATE!

This is slightly old news, but Keith & I finally got to go on a date over Memorial Day weekend. It was a last-minute decision, and it worked out great. My sister Deb lives about 10 minutes from a movie theater, and she was willing to babysit on short notice.


Keith & I drove to Schererville with Alex, had dinner (free birthday burger for Keith at Red Robin), then went to Deb's house to feed Alex. After the baby had a full belly, we headed to the theater and saw Prince Caspian.



Honestly, I never once worried about Alex. Wow! I did think about him halfway through the movie, and I knew I'd be glad to have him back in my arms. Aunt Deb was a GREAT babysitter...and Alex was a well-behaved boy, she says. :)



It sure was nice to do something with just Keith & me. It's been a while!


No pics from our date or from the babysitting, but here are some recent random photos:



This is where Alex "rides" when I do laundry. He's usually all smiles for this little ride to the bedroom.
Way up high in Grandpa's arms
Derek held Alex for the first time. He was nervous, but he did just fine! :)
Kyle & Alex at Danny and Ali's wedding (the first wedding/reception for Alex)
Grandma & Alex at Danny and Ali's wedding

Jessica looks so pretty. Or should I say...Jessica Annette Is Purdy ;)

Below, Danny & Ali and the Duncan family

Even the bestest of babies can't always be happy, right? Just a random "I'm crying" picture taken at home on a boring day ;)

Alex's First Trip

Where do I begin? Keith had meetings in St. Louis on Wednesday and Thursday, so he worked from home on Tuesday morning, and then we headed out in the afternoon. Why not take advantage of travelling when it's paid for by US Steel? Gas & mileage, Keith's food, and two nights of hotel were free to us. We had to pay for my food, parking in St. Louis, and the other two nights of hotel stay. Not bad for a 5 day vacation.

Alex's first long car ride went all right. Not great, but good enough. He slept for 2 hours, we took a break to feed him and randomly wandered a Walmart to give him some "awake time", he cried for about 45 minutes when we got back in the car, and then slept the rest of the way.

He did GREAT sleeping in the hotel at night. Yay! I was so worried he'd wake our hotel neighbors, but he was an excellent sleeper!


Alex & I hung out at the hotel while Keith was at work, then we randomly explored St. Louis with a little help from the GPS, visited a cloth diaper store to check out some diapers in person rather than online, and found a Christian bookstore to buy Keith a birthday present. GPS is accurate, but sometimes scary...it doesn't know good neighborhoods/bad neighborhoods. Yikes! Oh well - all's well that ends well!

After Keith finished work on Thursday, we went to St. Louis, walked in the park, visited the Western Expansion museum under the Arch, and had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Alex got sleepy at the Spaghetti Factory, but he didn't want to sleep with so much activity around him...so he screamed. As soon as we left the restaurant, he fell asleep on Daddy's shoulder. Most of the city trip was fun; we could have lived without the screaming, but that's life with a baby, right? :)




Daddy's not strangling him, I promise! But this was Alex's less-than-cheerful face in Spaghetti Factory. Here he is after we left:

On Friday, we spent the day at St. Louis Zoo. GREAT day! The animals were fun, the baby was excellent, and the weather was perfect! We couldn't have had a nicer day! :) Alex was fascinated by the animals, and he took short naps in his stroller when he got sleepy.


Daddy took this cool butterfly picture! I love it! (By the way, thanks to Mama, the Butterfly Garden now has one less butterfly...I checked our clothes on the way out, but one little stowaway snuck out in the stroller. Oops!)



These penguins were soooo cool! Penguins are always fun, but these guys were putting on quite the show! They were speed-swimming through the water, then jumping out of the water right in front of us and splashing us. Alex was giggling whenever he got splashed with water.
No need for a zoom lens - this bird landed right in front of us!
After leaving the zoo, we stopped at Mommy's favorite on vacation: SONIC!!!!! Half price slushies during "Happy Hour"...yum! We soooo need a Sonic in NW Indiana!




Can you guess what color Keith's slushy was? LOL! (oops, the picture is a little dark)



Friday was also Keith's birthday...Happy 35th, Keith! Keith made me promise not to get him any gift other than the GPS, so Alex bought Daddy a new CD at Family Bookstore! I narrowed it to two CDs, and Alex picked which one we bought! ;)


We enjoyed the hotel pool on Thursday & Friday night. Alex loved the water. He just kicked back and relaxed in his floaty or in our arms.

Saturday morning was spent at the St. Louis Science Center. That's a pretty cool place...and it's FREE! (So is the zoo, by the way...St. Louis has lots of free stuff to do!) We left at lunchtime, but I think we could have easily spent the whole day there.


You can stand on a bridge over the expressway & use radar to check the speeds of the cars! How cool is that?! I'm cutting the details short so we don't bore everyone, but this was a great first trip with Alex. The next trip is comin' up soon... my niece Danielle's high school graduation party is next weekend in Baraboo, WI. The whole family is staying in a waterpark resort in the Dells for 2 nights. I'm looking forward to it, especially since I know Alex can handle the travel and enjoys the water *Ü*

By the way, Jen Schaap...do you recall this hairdryer? It's at the Holiday Inn in Collinsville, IL. We once used it to reheat pizza on a crazy weekend road trip! Remember that? LOL! What memories! That was 10 years ago...man, times flies! I don't think they've changed anything at that hotel since we were last there! ;)