Happy Birthday to Me

Hello Everyone!

It was my birthday today, and I'm two years old. My friends Ella, Zachary, Nathaniel and Naomi came over to the house. It's so cool the neighborhood has lots of kids, cause nobody outside of the neighborhood could have made it in. There is SO much snow that nobody's going anywhere. Except all the sleds are going down our hill. My dog BooBoo waits 'til the sleds tip over and then swoops in to kick the sledders before they can get up. She's funny. This evening my friends Joseph and Melia (and Dada) took me sledding down the hill. That's fun. "Ian....MORE"

Busy Year

Wow, so much has happened since March, it's hard to know where to start. First of all, in May Mom and Dad got married. It's a pretty big deal, I guess, but they're still Momma and Da...DA to me. The house was painted and the skies cleared for one of the few times before June. The wedding was in the living room. Momma looked beautiful! People were crammed into the living room. I fell asleep in Gigi's lap for the boring parts.

Then we (Momma, DaDA and I) went to Hawaii for something called a honeymoon. I guess I'm pretty lucky 'cause not every kid gets to go on one. We rented a little house away from all the tourist spots, but there was 17 mile long beach 2 blocks away. I loved the outdoor shower. Check out the pix! (use the link at the right).

Then DaDA turned around and went right back to Hawaii so he could help sail my friend PJ's boat Capaz from Hawaii to Seattle. He was gone 17 days total. I can't believe he didn't take me with him. I would have had a great time.

THEN in July we went on a camping trip up near Mount Baker with all my friends in the PEPS group. We hiked up past the snowline and crossed a couple really hard streams.

But this Fall has been the absolute best. I'm going to school! Well, pre-school anyway. And the coolest thing is that either Momma or DaDA come with me. It's only 2 hours a week but it's lots of fun.

I am so lucky with nannies. Lindsey was getting too busy with her "real work" (what, I'm not enough work for her????). Now I have two nannies, Rebeca and Anna. I share Rebecca with my new friend Hans, who's a lot (one year) older than me. We're together every weekday except for when I'm at school. Anna's in school and helps out sometimes. I love them all!

In October Momma, DaDA and I went on a big European trip. (yep, go see the photos). First we went to England where we rented a narrowboat, and spent 4 days on a canal. Then we went to Germany so I could meet my half uncle Bernd and Katrin, and my cousin Felix. We played a lot. Then we all went to Amsterdam and rented bikes for a ride around the city. I fell asleep in the child seat, but I guess that's what nearly always happens.

That was a lot of excitement for one year, and the year's not over!

Fake Out!

If you read my last post, you figured I'd be without one of my front teeth for a few years. HA, not even close. Turns out the tooth was just pushed back into where it came from. No wonder nobody could find it on the ground. If we're lucky, it'll appear again in a few months.

Sure did have Mom and Dad freaked out, though.

Six months?!

I can't believe it's been six months since I've blogged. I've pooped close to a thousand times since then! But I've done other stuff too.

So, let's see what's all been happening since that vacation last September. I've been growing. I'm now somewhere around 27 pounds. I've been walking and running like crazy. I've been terrorizing the dogs, and just in the last week or so I've learned how to throw a ball (sort of) to Chula, who gives it back (sort of, with Mom or Dad's encouragement) I've been growing teeth. More on that later. I went for my first swim in a swimming pool. It was OK.

What's up with winter?? I like being outside and nobody seems to want to take me there as much as I like to go. Daddy takes me running around Green Lake pretty often. Sometimes I make him stop so I can get out and run around, but most of the time I just catch up on sleep.

Speaking of sleep, I now sleep around 9 hours straight every night, starting around 8 or 9. The first time I did it Mommy and fell on the floor weeping, hugging each other and thanking the heavens.

I had a nanny named Gloria, who was really nice. Now I have Lindsey who comes two days a week for part of the day, and I love her. Mommy and Daddy think she's great too. We all stand at the window and cry when she leaves for the day. Mommy's working a lot more now.

We had a pretty good Christmas. We stuck around Seattle and went to see Cami and Kiley on Christmas morning, then went to Victoria a couple days later to visit Grandma, Aunt Emily and Uncle Patrick.

Last month we went to Nick and Jennie's cabin again, and this time there was a lot of white stuff. Nick took me for a hike on his back, which was totally cool. And Cami and I chased each other around the cabin a lot. She's funny.

Anyway, back to the tooth. I fell and knocked out one of my big front ones yesterday. Nobody told me they were removable. So it looks like I'm going to look a little funny for a few years until my adult teeth fill in. Hey, you should see what the rock looks like. In a way it's fitting, there's a lot of Canadian blood in me and you can't very well become a hockey player with all your teeth.

The biggest news of all is that I finally talked Mom and Dad into getting married. Gee, that took a long time. I finally told them that if they don't get married I was going to knock out their teeth. They knew I would, too.

Click on the link to the photos. A bunch of new ones are up!

Our Vacation

Hello all,

I just took mom and dad for a vacation at Aunt Jenny's and Uncle Nick's cabin near Mount Rainier. It was fun, but there were some things I just don't understand. Why did Ali Booboo rile up those yellow and black flying things. And why did we run away when they started coming at us. And WHAT were those words dad used as he slapped his legs.

Also, why didn't dad and mom realize I needed 22, not just 11, layers of warm clothes. What, do they they think I'm a whale with layers of blubber to keep me warm. (Hey, that's BABY FAT, smart guy, not blubber).

Why didn't dad obey my commands more promptly while I was riding in the backpack. I mean, I gave explicit directions by pulling his hair hard in exactly the direction I wanted to go.

And what was Mt. St. Helens smoking? I thought cigarettes were at the very least frowned upon in a National Monument, and I'm pretty sure everything else is illegal.

Aunt Jenny and Uncle Nick were so nice to let us use the place. It will go down in history as the place I learned to go up stairs. Dad kept crawling behind me and catching me. He didn't have to but he thought he did.

There are some pretty cool pix on the photo album, go see for yourselves.

I've spent almost exactly as much time outside mom as inside her now, and I think that's a pretty big milestone.

Hiking

Mom and dad and Mary took me hiking for the first time yesterday. I was in this great chair on daddy's back and could see everything. I could see the dogs race up and down the path ahead of us. Ali (BooBoo), Alita (Bonita) and Chula (Bula) had a great time.

On the way back down I was pretty tired from the hike up, so I fell asleep. My head bonked against part of the backpack and I've got an owie there now. Oh well, I'll just have my people exchange it.

Oh yeah, and on Sunday we went sailing with Abi and Ross on a Cal 34. That was fun, too, but it was really tiring.

There's a picture of us hiking on the photo site.

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. By the way, is anybody out there? I keep checking for comments and there are none.

So much has happened that it's going to take a while to describe. First and foremost, as of the last couple of days, I'm officially a crawler. That slight shift you felt the day before yesterday was the earth settling in to its new state. Now, I can go virtually anywhere in the world, though it might take a while. I still tend to wobble a little, and occasionally do a side-plant. Dad laughs. He's mean.

Along with crawling, I've learned hoisting. Hoisting myself up alongside furniture, that is. It won't be long before I'm "cruising," that is using the furniture as support while I walk around.

Hoisting and cruising are also both sailing terms, which is a nice segue into my first sailing experience. It was aboard the Santa Cruz 52 Voodoo Child in the Elliott Bay Downtown Series. I tried to trim the genny on a tack, but dad ripped the sheet right out of my hands. Again with the laughing. I sailed twice, of course both times we won (though we had to cheat a little the first time, though in the Elliott Bay series, running an engine isn't considered cheating so we didn't cheat after all) I liked the sailing thing OK, but it got a little windy and I went down below.

Lots of other things have been happening as well. My grandpa came to visit! How cool was that? The doctor checked me out and said that I was in the 90th percentile in height, and 50th in weight. And it's true, I'm taller than almost anybody my age. And now that I'm a little older and more mature, I tend to make it clearer what I want and when I want it.

I took my first airplane ride and saw my first farm. We went to a Sauder family wedding in Lloydminster, Alberta, and visited Uncle Dave and Uncle Glenn's farms. It was great fun. Mom wants to be a farmer. The plane ride was great. For some reason everybody on the plane groaned when they saw me get onboard but thought I was pretty cool at the end.

I'm eating solid food. Well, not quite solid, but it's not milk. I'm not particularly fond of mixed vegetable stuff, but I really like winter squash, chicken, turkey and peas. Anything with chunks isn't very appealing at this point.

I'm not quite sure what's going on with my sisters Ali and Chula. Chula never stuck around and let me pull her hair, but Ali used to. Now as I get a little stronger, every time I pull Ali's hair she leaves (and usually I still have a fistful of hair). But what's really strange is the gift giving thing. Both of them leave their toys around, and sometimes Ali purposely gives hers to me. That's cool, but as soon as I almost sink my gums into it, mom or dad take it away. Sometimes Ali Boo will even give it and then take it away. And now, when I see Ali or Chula with a toy and start to crawl toward them, they usually take their toy and run away. I don't get it.

So, that's it for now. Take a look at my photo album, there are lots of new pictures. Let me know if you're reading this!