china, here she comes!

when we moved into our house 2 yrs ago, we met the majority of our neighbors in our culdesac, and found them all to be very sweet. the set of neighbors across the street from us had one child; a 13-yr-old girl who was the sweetest and most polite thing. she seemed very mature for her age, and extremely humble. we came to know that she is a gymnist, and a talented one. the more we heard about her, the more we realized she was a rising star. we saw her on local t.v. several times and said to ourselves, "hey, she's really good!" we kept thinking, "wouldn't it be awesome if shawn went to the olympics someday?" well, that dream is now a reality, as shawn johnson just won (WON) the world championships in germany this past week. she is literally #1 in the world for gymnastics, and there's no longer any question that she'll be on her way to china next year at the ripe age of 16. go shawn! our neighborhood made her a welcome-home sign, so i thought i'd take a pic (through our window, so not a great one, but still).

if you haven't heard of her on the sports segments, check her out (http://www.shawnjohnson.net/index2.html ,http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2007-08-20-gymnastics-johnson_N.htm . and definitely tune into the olympics next summer and help us cheer her on! she's really a sweet, incredible girl.

gala

this past friday, mike and i went OUT (as in, to a place with adults, eating and drinking adult foods and beverages, while corresponding with other adults doing the very same thing). we attended the ADA gala, dressed up and all. it was a nice evening, with 2 hrs. of open bar, a very nice meal, and some great entertainment. tom arnold hosted the action and was, well, entertaining most of the night. jack actually went to sleep early-ish, and with little trouble for my mother-in-law. that 6 hrs. was the longest stint of time i've been away from my nursing boy, and he seemed to have no problem with it. he's growing up! here's a few pics of us dressed up for the "ball," and at the grand piano bistro after the gala:

long weekend

our old drake friend, swarup, came to visit us from chicago this weekend. it was the first time he had ever met jack, and we had a good time catching up. mike and doops checked out a lot of new bars that have popped up in des moines in the past few years that we haven't been to (what? a bar? what's that?) while i stayed home with jack. not quite the same type of visit like we used to have, but such is the life with kids. unfortunately we didn't pull out the camera much while doopey was here, but we did capture a few shots of jack after going out to a local restaurant. the waitress was in love with this mohawk, and brought out her personal styling gel to vamp it up. it was very punk rocker.





it was a nice weekend of drinking wine on the patio and listening to npr, and eating out meal after meal after meal. doops, we love you but we could never keep up with your lifestyle on a regular basis. thanks for your gaydar assistance, though--you were a great help at outing some of our suspicions.

after doops left, we had a couple hours for jack to nap before heading off to the birthday party of his little friend, symone. symone was born 6 days after jack, and was 6 weeks premature. so she was his neighbor in the NICU. her parents, sandy and john, are friends of ours from drake and sandy was our realtor. here they are enjoying the party, and "playing" together (well, playing simultaneously):



we are looking forward to one more day off tomorrow, as a chance to relax a bit from our weekend of partying and to get some things done around here. i need to sort through jack's clothes and dig out all the 12 month outfits in order to see where we stand for 18-month clothing. i have a feeling we have come to the end of the gift horse in terms of baby clothing, and may actually (gasp) have to buy him some things as ne moves into the bigger size.

in crabby news, mike has decided to change his work schedule and begin working nights (1-9pm) so that i can have a consistent work schedule for my dissertation, 8-noon every morning. i knew the time would finally come when we'd have to make it work and i'd have to commit to it, but i'm still dragging my feet. this will be a guilt like no other though, with him working a shift he hates and with us never having dinner together just so i can get it done. that's motivation if nothing else. my funding just started, so the clock is really ticking. time to finish this damn thing!

in happy news, mike has FINALLY purchased his plasma screen t.v.. he's been coveting a flat screen for years, but it never made sense to spend the money. he finally hit the right Moment, and bought one (well, it's in the mail). this, of course, is never as easy as bringing it home and plugging it in, but rather requires a near doubling of the price to get it all set up: hiring an electrician to install an outlet on the wall above the fire place, having dish network come out and switch around our cables so we can wire the new t.v. to the new location, getting a bundle of HD cords to make it all work, buying mounting hardware for wall installation, and hiring an installation crew to hang this 99lb thing on the wall. sigh. i'll be happy when it's over. it will be nice, though, to get rid of our bulky entertainment stand upon which the old 27-inch sits, which is currently sitting in the middle of the room, in front of the fireplace. not convenient. we also took this opportunity to buy a new couch (with recliners on both ends), and are getting a couple rolling cube ottomans (with tops that can turn over and make end tables--wheee!) so the room will be coming together soon. the new t.v. is 50inches. i don't know what to do with that. really, people, last comic standing looks just fine to me on our 27inch sony triniton, but i guess i'm not a gadget person. and i don't REALLY need to feel like the hawkeyes are literally passing the ball in our living room during a game. but that's just me. he's giddy, so it's nice.

if we have any money left at all, i'm in need of a little black dress for a function we are going to next saturday. the American Diabetes Association, in conjunction with Camp Hertko Hollow (diabetes camp for kids), on both of which Mike is a board member, are holding a gala for fundraising purposes and it's a black tie event. all the local philanthropists will be there, as well as (gag me) tom arnold and some other "from iowa" celebs. tickets are $200 a piece, but hy-vee bought a table and then gave the tickets to mike to use. so we are going with his coworkers, but alas, i have nothing to wear. my first trip to the mall came up with dresses in one of 2 categories: 1) hideously ugly and utterly expensive, or 2) hideously expensive yet drab and boring. neither category was one i was willing to invest in. i was completely turned off by the store "white house, black market" that the largest size i found in most dresses on the rack was 6. grr. so hopefully i find something to wear, and figure out how to do my hair, and wear makeup again, but this next weekend. i'll take any tips you all are willing to give.

two peas in a pod

jack has a new little friend down the street who was born just 8 days after he was, and whose name, incidentally, is jackson. last year during many trips back and forth to the hospital, we noticed an "it's a boy" sign in the front yard of a house down the block from us. so we knew these people had a son the same age as jack. we also knew from their hawkeye flag soaring outside that we had things in common ;) but as things go, it's not always easy to meet people even when you think you should and we went an entire year without ever seeing these neighbors. we finally ran into them a couple weeks ago while out on a walk, and set up a dinner date for the boys to play. it was a lot of fun, and so nice to know we have people (our own age) with children (jack's age) in the neighborhood (with whom we have things in common). here are a couple photos of the two 1-yr-old jacks:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Fashion Edition)

Jack received some fun tee-shirts for his birthday, so we thought we'd post some photos here. There are those we love, those we question, and those we...deal with.



We love the mom shirt; thanks Boldischar family! Unfortunately we washed and dried it before he wore it, and it shrunk enough that he probably won't wear it for long :( He's moving out of 12-month clothes now and into the 18-month stuff.



We also love the "I am this many" shirt; thanks Johnstone family! It's comfy and cute. Of course, the first time he wore it he spit up broccoli all over it and left minor green tinged stains, but you can't see it too much.



You can't really read the shirt in this photo (which has already been posted once), but it says: "My good calf is still in the barn." Huh? Thanks Toneys, our Oklahoma farming friends, but what does this mean? He wore it to the State Fair in hopes someone there would be able to explain it, but no luck. Anybody?

And then there's the one we deal with, compliments of grandma Suzi and grandpa John:



Hummph, Nascar. I guess grandparents get away with things because they buy lots of crap for their grandkids. It is a comfy onesie, so we'll let it stay. We told them he would NOT be wearing a Mitt Romney onesie, however.

He also got a cute and soft soccer warm-up outfit from Uncle Adam that was too hot to model as of yet, as well as an adorable outfit from Betty with an orange polo and turtle-embroidered overalls that is in the running for his 1-yr-photos. Thanks for the clothes, friends and family!

the iowa state fair.

oh, the iowa state fair. what a place. people come from far and wide to actually VACATION here at the fair. crazies. growing up in iowa, i have always felt that you see it once, and you can go a good 5 yrs without needing to see it again. it never changes--everything is in the same place as it was when i was 5. i guess there's a certain nostalgic feeling about that, though. we took jack today and it was a beautiful day; not the normal grueling heat i associate with the fair. he fit right in since he, too, only has 6 teeth. no, no, just kidding. we had agreed to do a mullet tally at the end of the day, but surprisingly didn't see quite as many mulleted, toothless, 400lb iowans as we usually do. i'm awful, yes? (sidenote, here: my brother tells me that in the med school/hospital they refer to "iowa units" when giving the weight of overweight patients. i believe an iowa unit is 250 or 300 lbs. adam, if you read this, can you clear that up?)

so anyway, first you need to see the butter:


yep, that's harry potter.


and the famous butter cow.

nothing like characters carved in butter to start the day off right. we then moved onto the cultural buiding, where we saw fantastic art and photography, and a huge sand castle that we can only understand to be dwarfs playing the pipe organ. (?!) we walked through the horticulture/agriculture building so jack could stare at the flowers, and through the gardens outside. he found this misting fountain and loved it:


Pure bliss.

then we walked through the cattle barn and covered the stroller tires with manure. yeah! fair! we saw the biggest bull: this thing weighs a ton and a half! the photo does not do him justice, but here's a shot:


onto the swine barn (biggest boar, named "Big Red" and runner up, "Corn Dog.") and then the horse barns (aww, the only animals at the fair not destined for hamburger, bacon, or a life of breeding). we skipped the sheep and chickens. mike had had enough of showing cattle in his youth so we skipped the shows, too. in the varied industries building we saw herky! yeah herky!


we also got to see a 10-yr-old twirl batons to some sort of rock/hula music (hawaiian roller coaster--what?), and a 5-yr-old play beethoven on the piano. it would've been nice to see more of the talent shows (and maybe a tractor pull or something), but alas, we have 1) a baby needing a nap, and 2) a dog who we try not to leave in his kennel during the day for more than 5 hrs. but of course you are all thinking, "who cares what you SAW, we want to know what you ATE." i won't disappoint! we did partake in our fair (ha, FAIR) share of fried food and food on a stick. we started the day out right with a beautiful homemade carmel-pecan sticky roll ($4) and coffee (25cents) made by the madison county covered bridges team. that was a find--homemade and yummy and not fried? wow. i was next up on the food binge and tried a $5 plate of fried veggies--cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, & zucchini. quite good. later, when it was officially lunch time, mike got a $5 1/2 lb breaded tenderloin on the fluffiest bun i've ever seen, while i had a nice little plate of potato skins (sour cream, bacon bits, cheese, chives, jalepenos...yikes, and yep, you guessed it--$5). as we were leaving, we didn't forget dessert. mike was determined to try a cheesecake on a stick. it was pretty yummy, actually--just a plain piece of cheesecake, dipped in melted chocolate, put on a stick, and frozen. $3.50, but worth it for the frozen yumminess that was actually not fried. we passed up the traditional corn dogs and funnel cakes, as well as the M E A T--turkey legs and pork-chops-on-a-stick, and did not make our annual visit to the cattlemen's tent (besides, i promised a heifer in the cattle barn that i would not eat beef today).

all in all, it was a worthy 5 hr visit. usually i'm dead sick of the fair by the time we go, which i imagine is because my parents used to drag me through the 4-H hall and make me look at everything. and there was the time i got stuck on the Ye Old Mill ride in a dark tunnel as a kid--all the boats piled up in front of us and behind us, but we couldn't see each other. i'm yelling help through the tunnel, freaking the other kids out, and my mom finally has to crawl from boat to boat to get toward the front and yell at the workers to come help us. it was mad. since then, i've not been a frequent visitor to the midway rides. yet my fair memories this year will be happy, as will jack's.

jack isn't into teething devices. anything that is made for a baby to teethe on, is not his style. no water-filled colorful rings, no plastic toys with bumps and textures, nada. what he does like is super heavy duty fleece winter blankets to chew on, and rubber items, and foam. he has taken to the foam door stoppers i've purchased to stick on drawers and such so he can't jam his fingers in them. he takes them off and chews them. rubber, apparently, also offers that nice squishy feel on the gums. he received a pair of rubber toddler spoons for his birthday, and we tried them out the other day. as it turns out, it's nearly impossible to feed him with these as he takes each spoonful as an opportunity to chew the spoon. priceless photo opp., though.

parties and gardens

well, he did it. jack turned one. i'm still in a bit of shock that we are no longer the ones with the tiny baby anymore, but with the 22lb toddler. he had a great party yesterday, attended by around 30 family members and friends. it was a HOT, 95 degree day, but we still made it happen at the park down the street. i went a few hours early to decorate the shelter up with streamers, balloons, tablecloths, and birthday banners. it was a cute space, and perfect for the size of our shindig. jack seemed to be confused a lot of the time, with all the commotion and people and heat. but he enjoyed the cake and the gift opening, with which he was aided by the other young kids at the party. we got most of these important events on our video camera (about the 4th time we've used it since we bought it back in april), but our camera was acting up and we only got a few shots of the cake. i'm hoping to nab photos from friends and family who were shooting them right and left, and if i get some good ones, i'll post an update. until then, here's what we've got:

I made Jack his own #1 cake, but the adults got to enjoy a Cosco, chocolate mousse filled sheet cake


I made Jack a crown, but he wasn't a fan...






He made us very aware that getting cleaned up is a drag.


all in all, it was a fantastic first birthday, with great food and great company. thanks to all who came and celebrated with us! (and jon, if our scanner wasn't broken, i would TOTALLY be showing everyone your homemade card, which was by far the best he received ;)

today we tried to recover from overeating and partying too long in the heat yesterday. our 1 year and 1-day-old baby had fun playing with his new toys. we decided to take a little family trip up to ames to eat at hickory park and visit the ISU-reiman flower and butterfly gardens. my family always went up to hickory park to celebrate family birthdays. this place is a legend in ames for having great and affordable food, and it usually packed with several hundred people. there were probably 75-100 waiting when we arrived, but our wait time for a table was only 8 minutes. they have a huge sundae menu, and come to sing and offer a free sundae to birthday patrons. so jack got initiated:





After our seriously filling lunch, we headed out to Reiman Gardens next to ISU's football stadium, and went in to see their buttefly garden and the train exhibit at the children's garden. Jack knows the word flower now, and likes to wave at them when he identifies them. We thought that throwing in a few butteflies would make it that much sweeter!

Of course, one landed on his head soon after this photo, but I was not quick enough with the camera to catch it. Drat!











as you can see, good times were had by all. i'm thinking i've posted MORE than enough photos, so even if i get better ones from the party, i'll save you from having to see more :) it was a fast, exhausting, sweaty, exhilarating weekend, and i can hardly believe it's over.

nilo! nilo! nilo!

my brilliant son is currently sitting against the wall, watching for my reaction as he repeatedly bangs his head back against the wall. apparently he thinks this is funny. a real knee-slapper (no really, he's slapping both knees and laughing).

anyway, we are having a FABULOUS day of less teething-induced fussiness, and more playing with early birthday gifts! mike put the nilo chairs and table together this morning before heading off for work. here is jack getting to know his new furniture:
figuring out the block chairs
"ooh, the blocks are IN this thing..."
enjoying the new set!

hey, corn!

ooh, ooh, look what i picked today!

i didn't think it was possible. the banana peppers are doing well, too. so is the basil. the roma tomatoes *look* good, but don't taste quite right. a bit woody. the kale is still small but jack is eating it in his morning cereal. onions, eck. tiny. jalepenos and red bells are still to come. eggplant, tiny too. ah well, better luck next year, i guess.

yesterday jack got ALL of my well-coveted gifts for his birthday. putting them together has been half the battle, but here he is enjoying the mio trike:



i've rationalized letting him play with his gifts before his birthday because 1) he'll be 1 and won't know the difference, and 2) i'm just too dang excited. besides, he'll get plenty of other gifts from grandparents on his actual birthday. no need to overstimulate the kids with all the toys at once, right?! which reminds me, to amend my earlier blog-vite to all of you for jack's party next saturday, for those of you who are planning on coming, of course NO gifts are expected. again, he's 1. he has no idea what gifts are. it's more for us, than him, at this point. we just want to have a fun little BBQ with friends and family to mark this milestone of exiting the early baby years and entering the "big boy" years (duh duh dum). by the way, we'll have locally-raised Niman Ranch brats and chorizo, and beef burgers from Mike's parents' farm. eco-conscious meat for all! chips, salads, birthday cake, etc. as well. hope to see some of you there! and as a reminder, if it's too dang hot, we'll move the party to our house down the street into the air conditioning. so if you show up at the shelter house and see no one, come on to our house to find the party (and food).

the nilo table and chairs are still waiting to be put together, spread out in our now-vacant living room. we moved the loveseat out to go to my niece-in-law, or to freecycle. it's only 2 yrs old, but the cats destroyed it. i refuse to declaw them but i also wimp out on disciplining them with the water gun to stay off. so we lost the furniture to them. the couch is soon to follow, as is the coffee table and end table that the puppies finished off. now our "sitting room" is mostly a play room for jack, where his activity table will sit, and his toy chest now resides. there are still two chairs for adult sitting, though :)

we are having a very tough week as jack is apparently teething again. i thought we'd have after his 6th tooth broke a couple weeks ago, but not so lucky us. he's cranky and is not sleeping well. oh boy! but he's doing well considering how uncomfortable he seems to be.