Busy bees

We have been busy little bees in the kitchen here in Buffalo.

Yesterday Matt went on a little cooking spree and made homemade yogurt that he learned about from our friend Luke, beef jerky for his upcoming boundary waters trip, and homemade granola (also learned from Luke, from a terrific Mennonite cookbook called "More with Less"). Kristi made some yummy guacamole (she also made dinner, but that is not so exciting). Then today she made dhal, which is an indian lentil-like stew. It is delicious! Today Matt is drying apples and bananas in our dehydrator for his trip. We are not usually so crafty in the kitchen, but we do like to cook when we have the time! Recently we have been on a slippery slope of making things from scratch--hence the yogurt. Matt has always said he would never stoop that low to make his own yogurt because it's just incubating bacteria in milk, and that is gross. But when Luke told him about it, he just couldn't resist, and now we have a very wonderful dish of homemade yogurt in our fridge. If you want the recipe for breeding your own little family of lactobacillus acidophilus in your kitchen, let us know!

We recently signed up for something called "Freecycle." It is like an online classified service (sort of like Craigslist, for those of you who are familiar with that), but everything is totally FREE! Once you join the Freecycle group online in your area (either your city or county), then you can browse all the offers of free stuff people don't want or you can post wanted ads for things you want (though you are supposed to not go crazy with this--they say it is not a wish list). The stuff ranges from broken appliances (maybe someone wants a working part out of it?) to strawberry plants to baby stuff to anything and everything! We placed a "wanted" ad for a breadmaker because ours is on its last legs. And this morning we picked up our very own, only used one time, FREE breadmaker! What a great idea someone had. How many people (including yourselves!) do you think have perfectly good stuff lying around that they don't know what to do with? Somebody else wants it! Check out your very own area Freecycle group at http://www.freecycle.org/ and see what you can get rid of or find!

I suppose you are all looking for a picture or an update on Charlotte. I thought I would sneak in a little bit about the rest of our family and force you to read it before you got to the part you really wanted to read. :)

Charlotte is still our little toothless wonder. 10 and a half months old and still no teeth. Hopefully she gets some before middle school. Although I suppose it will save us money if we don't have to get her braces. She seems to do just fine eating whatever she wants without teeth. However, she does love toothbrushes, so we got her one last week. She is always intrigued with what we're doing when we brush, and she'll open her mouth if we pretend to brush her "teeth." Maybe she won't end up thinking brushing her teeth is torture when she's a toddler??? See below for a picture of her with her beloved gum brush (as daddy calls it).




Recently she rediscovered her bouncy seat. Remember that little jungle-themed chair she used to sit in as a tiny baby? Well now she likes to stand next to it and shake it vigorously to make it light up and play music. It's a fun game. No pictures of that today, sorry.

She's making lots and lots of noise these days. When she figures out how to say words she will probably never stop talking. She does a lot of making funny noises by sticking her tongue in and out while she is babbling. Often she will sit on the floor with a book and talk to herself--she looks like she is reading out loud (in some strange babbly tribal language we can't understand). Check out the video. The best part is right at the beginning.

Charlotte painted pictures for her grandmas for Mother's Day. Here is the artist at work.

Charlotte and her mama on Mother's Day

little miss sunshine

Charlotte discovers the tupperware cupboard

Practicing walking

After a bath

She's a very talented xylephonist

She's sucking on a little plastic turtle that she likes to carry around with its head in her mouth

Charlotte continues to improve her walking skills. She doesn't fall down nearly as much as she used to, and she has learned how to gracefully land on her very padded cloth-diapered butt. She gets really excited when she walks. She loves to flap her arms and gasp in delight as she is walking toward something.

Her newest thing is playing peek-a-boo. She has started hiding behind things and then popping out and laughing hysterically. She will hide behind a diaper (clean, of course), a book, her mama, the laundry basket, or anything else she can find. She'll even put her hands over her eyes and then pull them down to peek out! She thinks she is so funny.

For a while now she has been learning the art of mimicry. She has learned how to shake her head, pant like a puppy, stick out her tongue, and clap. She has also learned a little shaky dance that she will do when she is in a good mood.

What does a puppy say?

Guess Who's Walking!?

Bahama Mama (and Papa and Baby and Extended Family)

We weren't able to talk about it before we left because it was a surprise, but we recently returned from a vacation to the sunny Caribbean! Charlotte had many "firsts" on this trip: first time on an airplane and a boat, first time outside the U.S., first time in the ocean... Charlotte's great grandfather (Kristi's grandpa) John recently turned 80 and for his birthday his brother Andy threw him a surprise party. But not just your average cake and presents party, he organized the entire extended family (over 40 people) to go on a cruise from Fort Lauderdale to the Florida Keys and the Bahamas! Shortly after all boarding the cruise ship we threw grandpa John a surprise party I'm sure he will not soon forget.


Charlotte checking out the view from the plane.

The big surprise! All 37 of us waited in this room for my grandpa to be led (unknowingly) to his big birthday party on the top deck of the cruise ship!

What they call the "Muster drill." It's where everyone puts on their life jackets and lines up pretending the ship is sinking and there aren't enough lifeboats. Just kidding. There are enough boats, though we were suspicious...those boats look awfully small.

The top pool deck at night. This is a sea turtle we saw from the ship when we were anchored out in the Bahamas!
Our little family on the privately-owned (by Royal Caribbean) island of Coco Cay.
Charlotte didn't like the ocean very well but she did love feeling the sand in between her fingers!
Matt and Char on the beach at Coco Cay.
Funny to think how it is snowing in late April in Minnesota, isn't it?
This is a sting ray we saw on Coco Cay (we saw lots of them throughout our trip). Matt was really really close to this one!
The cruise ship is too big to dock at the island, so we had to take little boats called tenders from the cruise ship (in the background) to Coco Cay.
This is from formal night in the dining room on the ship. The food on the ship was absolutely amazing!!!
From left to right, Travis and Lisa, Kate, Laura, and Kristi, Charlotte, and Matt. Kristi's sisters + husbands (and baby).
A jelly fish! We saw tons of these everywhere.
Matt on the rock climbing wall on the very back of the ship.
Matt on the bungee trampoline on the very front of the ship.
Matt and Charlotte at sunset.
Fruit animals! We watched one of the chefs carve a bunch of these. Aren't they great?!
We played a lot of shuffleboard on the ship at night. Here Travis is showing off his skills.
The bright blue/green thing in the middle right of this picture is a mahi mahi (a type of fish). The blue water really is this color in real life!
Charlotte is not so sure about the water at first. But she got used to it and ended up loving it!
Laughing girl (on her flower towel from great-aunt Sharon)
Every night in the dining room the very attentive waiters would ask what Charlotte wanted to eat. They would get us anything! We told them one night she really liked avocado, so every night from then on we had a giant bowl of avocado waiting on our table when we got there! She also had lots of pasta, vegetables, cottage cheese, bread, fish, and curry. She would eat anything!
Family photo.
My sisters and I pretending to be Tyranosaurus Rexes. You know, they have really short arms close to their body.
Matt and Travis being T-Rexes.Kristi's family. Dad Mark, Laura, Mom Cindy, Kate, Charlotte, Kristi, Matt, Lisa, and Travis.
Looking down the central area of the ship.

Happy Easter!

It's been a while since we wrote much on the blog. Charlotte is growing up so much every day, so there is lots to say! Several weeks ago we made the big step moving Charlotte into her own room. Everyone is liking the new arrangement, especially because we are sleeping better now that we don't hear her making little noises in her sleep at 4:30am!

Charlotte is getting better at moving--she is sometimes crawling on her hands and knees, but usually she scoots/army crawls everywhere. She is getting fast! We have started working on the word "no." She likes to scoot towards the collection of computer and speaker cords or towards daddy's important papers. It seems that her favorite things to play with are the things she can't have! I suppose that the easier solution would be to put those things where she can't reach them!

She has really perfected the skill of standing while holding on to the furniture. She loves to stand! We can also get her to balance on her own without support for a few seconds, but she will inevitably fall (we haven't dropped her yet!). A couple of times she has been able to pull herself up from sitting to standing. I'm sure it won't be long before she is doing it consistently. We had to move her from the top bassinett part of her pack & play to the bottom because she is so much more mobile now. She still sleeps swaddled (really really tightly!), but she sometimes works her arms out of it and then can move around. She seems to like being swaddled; it's one of her cues that it is time to sleep. We aren't sure how long we'll keep swaddling her...hopefully she grows out of it before middle school!

A few weeks ago (almost a month!) we were in Duluth for four days. We had a retreat for school with workshops and lectures at the residency program that we want to go to in a couple of years. For two evenings we had the "business" part of our retreat, and then the rest of the time we spent visiting with friends. It was so great to see everyone!!! Below is a picture of a group of our friends from that visit.


For Easter we drove down to Roland, Iowa to visit Kristi's sister and brother-in-law Lisa and Travis. It was so fun to see them and to spend some good quality time with them. Charlotte absolutely loved it--she was glad to see her aunt and uncle, but she also adored all of their animals. Lisa and Travis have 3 "big" pet birds (a cockatiel, a conure, and a parakeet), 3 "little" birds (finches), a rabbit, a gecko, and several fish. Charlotte was enthralled with all of the animals. Unfortunately she mostly wanted to poke them in the eyes or grab their feathers, so she mostly just looked at them! Here is our little bunny on Easter.

Here she is hoping to poke Thumper in the eye or nose. We had to bribe him to sit there by putting some oatmeal on the couch!

Aunt Lisa and Charlotte.

Isn't she sweet?!

Yesterday we went out for Birthday dinner at Applebees with Matt's parents. It is Matt's birthday tomorrow (26 on the 26th, his golden birthday!!!), and it is Kristi's birthday on April 2nd. Charlotte enjoyed people watching, licking a french fry, drinking water from a straw, and eating Cheerios.

Charlottte with Grandma Carol Ann.

Charlotte got a little messy as she ate lunch today. Those are prunes smeared all over her face!


Thanks for checking in with us! We hope these pictures of our cute baby brighten your day!

She's all grown up!

Charlotte learned an essential life skill today that she couldn't do yesterday. She picked up Cheerios and put them in her mouth!

Anyone who thinks we're crazy for broadcasting this information, you should know that this is a very intricate skill that requires a lot of brain power, hand eye coordination, and fine motor movement to pick up those tiny little o's. She's pretty much a genius in the making.