Happy Hump Day...

If you don't "work" from home on Wednesdays, go to the farmers market, and hang out with Alex all day... you need to reassess...

Alexandra- the gardener

Ha! Alex loves the out of doors. She is now able to say outside and says it within five minutes of coming in from outside. This weekend we had a chance to do some yard work. Wes and I were shovelling rocks, weeding and digging ditches. Good times. Well during all this, Alex was running around the yard- following Wes with the wheel barrel, climbing on benches and picking up small rocks. She loves rocks and unless you catch her, she will keep them clasped in her hands all day. The picture shows the cute hat that my mother found for her in A2. She amazingly keeps it on her head- I think it is because she equates hats to being outside because of her winter hat. So hopefully we are raising a little gardener- like her mom- like my mom.


My mother's day weekend was quite nice- very busy though. It was lots of time spent with our family. I was happy to see Alex behave so well with everyone. She loved playing with her cousins in Adrian on Sunday morning. In the evening we had my mom and my sister's godmother over for dinner. She was a joy- interactive, inquisitive, smiling and all around pretty happy. I know that no child will come out of childhood unscathed but I just see the joy that Alex has and it is contagious. Hope that she doesn't loose that!!

Daddy Haiku...

Second Mother's Day

even through all this,

the pee, the poo, the screams,

gorgeous strong mommy

New toy...

We got a new toy this week... a Flip Ultra HD digital video camera. We love our funny little videos of Alex so much, and felt the she would be even cuter in high definition. Alex, of course, just wanted the box...

Fresh, local fun...

Today was the first Wednesday farmers market of the season here in Ann Arbor. Alex and I plan to head down there most Wednesday mornings this summer to look around and replenish our coffers with fresh, local goodies.

There wasn't a ton of variety to choose from because it is still pretty early in the season. But we did manage to bring home asparagus, onions, spinach, a cinnamon roll (that didn't make it all the way home), and fresh locally produced goat cheese and mozzarella. We were going to buy some flowers, but decided to wait until Saturday's market so Michele can help pick them out.

Every time we left a stall, whether we conversed with its inhabitants or not, Alex waved and said "Ba-bye"... I think she enjoyed herself.

Bloggin' ain't easy...

We started this blog to keep people informed while we were hiding under the blankets for a few months. It wasn't even our idea... Robin came up with it and even set it up. But it took off and became a joy, a relief, and therapeutic to write things here. Now we realize that it is as much about documenting our lives for ourselves as anything... but hopefully still mildly entertaining, a distraction for our friends and families. While the number of posts that we write per month has stayed pretty consistent (until last months pitiful showing), it seems harder and harder to find things to write, and the time to write them...

Some of this difficulty is due to the slow normalization of our lives. Cancer is gone. Alex is a person. Things feel settled again. It's hard to sit down every day and say, "XYZ is what happened today." XYZ happens everyday for the most part. I worry that I bore the people reading this... assuming there are any left. It feels like things are slowing down.

The other part is that Alex is not slowing down. Alex lives life at a full sprint. She's a hoot, she's fun, she keeps us running and laughing until bed time and then we crash. We used to have a good coincise story every day. We used to have several good, sharable pictures every day... not we have this:



Hundreds of pictures of super cute moments that we almost caught. Tons of stories that we were going to post but never found the time. Moments and trips and giggles that we won't remember some day.

So I am going to recommit to the blog. I will try to update more often. I will try to get the "1 year plus" photo album up. I will try to better document the best days of my life with the best girls in the world.

So if you see us in the real world, outside of this little box, and something cool/cute/"damn I should remember this" happens... tell me to write it down and find some time to share it.

DIFinY...

I am not handy. That's not to say that I'm not competent, eventually... but I'm just not good with my hands or home projects. Luckily I'm also quite impatient and short tempered, especially while attempting said domestic labor. But I digress...

When we first bought our house six years ago there was a long list of improvements we would soon make. When recently talking to our neighbors about what they had to do to get their house ready for sale we realized we have accomplished few things from our list. Number one, at least on Michele's list, was the vanity in the upstairs bathroom... and so she decided it was time.


Our bathroom is weird. Teal tile, pink tub, and very little room for the door to open/close. The custom sink and vanity (stock from 1954!) worked spatially if not aesthetically. Demolition is my strong suit, and so it began.


Simple project... it took us all damn day. Between Alex, Michele, and I we made seven separate trips to the hardware store. I yelled, I cursed, I sweat. Alex found it all to be hilarious. But it's done... what do you think?