Madison's Class Blog

Madison sort of inspired me to start working on this blog again, as she came home the other day saying: "at school we made a blog!" 

Check it out here! Madison's class blog

You have to then enter code: gdekj72

It's a little sparse but right now they have Halloween poems they have written so check it out to get you in a spooky mood! :)

And in the meantime, here's a little Halloween preview!

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Hello, World!

Todd & I recently discovered that this blog still exists! And amazingly, the links still work! We had a lot of fun going back and looking through it. It's like a little time capsule of our lives, of Madison, of my mom, of the move.... Wow - a lot has happened and it's hard to even sum up in words. Considering Todd and I will be the only ones ever reading this, I don't think I need to fill in a lot of details. Maybe I'll post first and see who responds..
Anyway I eventually dropped the blog. It's hard to write about hard times. It's hard to be without my mom. I think about her every day, all the time.

As we were reading the old posts, we tried to compare what Madison was doing with what Connor is doing now... Yes, we now have a new little person around, named Connor! We surprised all our friends and family (and us!) by having another baby. We had hoped for another and you just never know... So we feel extra blessed! And I have to say more power to the people who have a toddler followed by a newborn... Because even with a big kid and a newborn, it's still hard! I guess that's going to be the focus of this blog and I think he will be lots of fun to write about. Now that I'm not on social media I have to have somewhere to brag, right?? I'm going to start with his 4 month stats since I have a "Four month stats" post for Madison (Four Month Stats)

Connor! 4 months stats
Height: 25 3/4" (47th %)
Weight: 16 lbs 6 oz (50th %)
Head: 17 1/2" (95th %)

Connor 4 mos!

Being typical 2nd time around parents I guess, we are not as good about keeping track of everything... I love reading that 4 month stats post about Madison and seeing that I wrote in her baby book *the day she rolled over* and thought I was bad writing about it 2 weeks later! Hahahaha. We are not exactly sure when Connor first rolled over, or when he started doing it regularly, but he sure as heck is doing it now! It's hard to get a diaper on this kid sometimes, he's like a roly poly all over the place. Although I do have to say, in reading Madison's blog, she was definitely doing things earlier than he is (shh! don't tell her that)! Chalk it up to being a girl, I guess, the experts are right, I think they develop earlier! Connor is doing great though, and I think part of it is that he's a little chunker, so he's happy just sort of hanging out. He's in no great hurry to move around or try to crawl yet. He's content to just observe the world around him and laugh a whole lot at his big sister. We *love* seeing him light up and laugh the minute he sees her. He seriously worships this girl and I think she knows it and also knows she has the ability to crush his soul. Sigh. Here is a vid from a couple months ago where he's just cracking up. :)

And I have to post this other video of the first time he was "talking," at about 3 months. Just too darn cute! See, I have all this catching up to do since I haven't had any outlet for all this stuff, other than my dad who doesn't understand it!

Connor is now 6 months old but I don't have his stats yet because he hasn't yet had his checkup. But he is doing lots of big kid things... Sitting up, grabbing, eating! So stay tuned!

This video seemed fitting!

One day old

4 months old

~Buds~

Back in Blog-action, Kfunk.

Nature Part 2

I guess it's been several months since I've blogged on here.. but I am continuing with the nature theme I ended with back in um, August... :) Between then and now, we've managed to get hit with oh, an earthquake, hurricanes, tropical storms, and flooding, not necessarily in that order. The earthquake was a surprise and the hurricanes were not unexpected, but it was the tropical storms and rain that finally did us in in the end. It pourrrred for approximately 7 days straight without ceasing, day and night. I have honestly in all my life never experienced anything like it. It was hard to drive anywhere, do anything, be outside at all. And at some point, the ground had had too much I guess, and the water began to pour in through our basement. Everything we had moved out here from Colorado but had yet to unpack was stored in the crawlspace of our basement. In cardboard boxes. And as you can imagine, it All. Got. Wet. Sooo, skip to a month later and we finally had sorted through everything and thrown out the bad, re-stored the good, and gotten new carpet downstairs and up. Life got back to normal eventually, but that was a rough lesson in the power of nature. Since then we've kept a close eye on the back drain and been more aware of weather in general! It's just such a difference from Colorado... I was telling our neighbors, we could leave our bikes outside year-round out there and then one day bring them in and they'd pretty much look about the same. When we first moved here, I left our bikes outside for a couple of months. When I went to bring them in, they were covered in cobwebs, leaves, nests of sorts, gunk in general, had started to rust, and the seats were peeling.. they honestly looked as if they'd been sitting out there for years. I am not kidding! My dad has always complained about this kind of stuff but I always sort of thought he was kidding! Seriously?! So this is the kind of thing we are adjusting to.

And then, one day after all the weather madness, I walked out into the backyard to find this little guy:

And so - life goes on......

~ Our house in the fall ~

Tadpole update - exciting!

Had to post on the excitement happening in our tadpole pond!

I am pretty sure these are tree frogs, based on the other frogs we've seen around the yard, but I am not totally sure. They have the spots and coloring of frogs now. and even seem to respond to my voice! They've kind of become pets, but I guess we're going to let them go in a stream near here.

Nature in our yard

"Tubby" the turtle
Our resident deer

The tadpole pond

Think they'll notice me ?

Summertime Update

It's been awhile since I've rapped at ya (prob only Todd will get that joke) :) but I thought I'd try to catch up on here a bit. I never know who still reads the blog (or remembers it from the "kfunk.org" days), but it is fun to write on here nonetheless!

We've gotten settled into our new house, settled into a groove, and been enjoying the summer. We have already managed to make 3 big trips to the beach, which have been awesome. One was to Pawley's Island, SC (near Myrtle Beach), and the other two were to Cape Charles, VA (Chesapeake Bay). The Pawley's Island trip was to visit my BFF Meredith and her parents, hubby, and kids, and to celebrate her son Anderson's 5th birthday at the beach. Her parents did an "Under the Sea" birthday theme for him and all the kids had a blast. My mom & dad came for the week too, which was nice to hang out with them outside of Nova, and to see them be able to enjoy themselves at the beach and relax. Actually, my dad doesn't even really like the beach (I know-- I ask myself if I am truly related to this guy), but he liked being on vacation and seeing my mom have fun. Also, I think we were all glad to get away from everything that reminds us of the cancer, doctors' visits, hospitals, etc. It was nice to be away from all that and have something else to focus on. My mom has had quite a bit of "time off" this summer from actual chemo or radiation, but the doctors' visits are relentless. There is always some test to undergo or results to review. For someone who hates hospitals and has never even been sick, it has not been fun. But she is doing what she has to do and putting up with it all. So anyway, it's been so great to see her at the beach just hanging out and relaxing.

Our other beach vacations in Cape Charles were to join my brother Brian and his family (along with my mom & dad). They rented a house down there and we ended up driving down there two consecutive weekends! The drive can vary anywhere from 3-9 hours (ha - not kidding) so on average it took us about 4 1/2 each way. Somehow it took my brother 9 hours to drive there from McLean, but you also have to factor in that they have 4 kids. Glad I wasn't in that car- ! Cape Charles is in VA and is really on Chesapeake Bay (not the ocean), but it is a pretty mellow scene and the water is calm and shallow, so in a way it is a parents' dream. I could actually hang out on the beach and read magazines while the kids had a ball. Although even on the "real" beach (SC), the kids mainly just dug a giant hole and played in that the whole time. ha. Hours of entertainment!


In the rest of our Nova existence, Todd is still liking his job doing climate science and has been very busy working on a report most of the summer about climate change and health impact. They presented it to various Congress people on Capital Hill and he's been mingling with the politically aware, of which I am not. He has been enjoying doing the political thing and working for a good cause. When we moved, I also went back to work as a contractor for my old company in Boulder, and work from home in Springfield. It really isn't much different than it was working in Boulder, although I do miss going into the office and seeing all my friends at work. That was always something to look forward to about working. Madison is doing great and going to preschool "camp" a couple days a week. They call it camp because I guess they just mostly hold hands and sing songs, rather than learning their ABCs or things they would normally do during the school year. I get the impression it's more "fun" than regular preschool and they also go to the pool once a week (!) and ride on a van and everything. Madison loves it. Although in the fall she'll go back to her old preschool again. It's in a church and has smaller classes (10-ish), which I like. Right now there are about 20 kids in her class and it's a little OOC. I just feel like the teachers know her better at the other school. And it's a little more real learning, altho it's hard to compare to "camp."

One other thing that's been keeping us afloat during all these big changes in our lives, is the support of all our family and friends during this. I've stayed in touch with all my buds out in Colorado, and reconnected with old friends from HS and college here in Nova. It's made for an easier transition to this whole thing, and I cherish my friends and family to no end. We've had quite a few visitors already -- thanks Heather & Dave for coming, thanks Jen Chen for meeting up (twice!), and thanks Nana & Pawpaw for visiting too -- we love you guys and am happy we've been able to see you. It is nice that DC is a little more central than Colorado for that reason! And to anyone else who might want to visit or will be in the area - please look us up! We love visitors! I promise we are getting a couch or a futon soon, and you won't have to sleep on the floor like Heather & Dave did! ;) Enjoy the summer and feel free to leave a comment if you read this~~!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there! This Mother's Day was an exciting one for me. I feel like we had a weekend-long of festivities. On Friday, Madison's preschool had a Mother's Day "program" and my mom came too! The little preschoolers sang in the church auditorium, then had a little party afterwards in the classroom when they gave us gifts they had made for us. Madison's was a painted picture frame she made with buttons glued on & a picture of her in it. She was so excited to be in on the surprise, it was great! Here is a picture her teacher took of her giving me my gift:

And here is a short video I took on my mom's camera!






It was great that my mom was included -- 3 generations. It was very special to me this year for a lot of reasons -- everything that's been going on with my mom's health mainly, but also that Madison seemed to "get it" and know it was a special day just for honoring the moms.

We went to church this morning and they had carnations for all the moms, plus a little breakfast afterwards w/ donuts! Anytime there are donuts involved I get excited. :)


Then we spent today over at my brother Brian's having a cookout and watching the kids play in the yard.


Oh yeah and we also spent the weekend ***moving*** into our new house! Yes, we finally found a place and moved our stuff out of storage & into the house! Now the fun part.. unpacking... We have to deal with that next. So at the moment we are still staying at my parents. But hopefully this week we'll get to the point where we can sleep there! I think my parents are ready to have their house back! The cats have made themselves right at home tho and my parents have really gotten used to them, so that will be one of the hardest adjustments for any of us, I think! We told my mom we were going to leave Madison & the cats with them, and we'll just live in our new house circa 2004-style. She wasn't buying it.