welcome to spiceland.

Time for another update. Heidi is officially walking! She started about 2 weeks ago, and now she can take 20-30 steps by herself. She can say lots of words, too, even if few of them are discernible to people outside our family. People outside our family would be able to understand night-night, bye-bye, cheese, baba (bottle), Dada, and Mama. We can also understand more, Tru, dog, bird, Cheerios, car, down, up, and diaper. However, mostly when she says these words, she’s repeating after us.

I have had irritational (industrial or environmental) bronchitis since July 4th — that’s 10 days now! We shot off fireworks of our own after the city-sponsored fireworks, and the smoke got to me. I’ve had a sore throat and have been coughing and hacking. I bought a bottle of chloraseptic spray about 4 days ago, and half the bottle is gone already. I can’t wait until my throat heals. Fireworks are SO not worth this. Next year, I’m staying inside or wearing a face mask.

Tru starts Pre-K/K4 in 27 days! She has a bookbag and a lunchbox with matching thermos, and she is so excited. Her teacher is young and excited about teaching, and we already know that one boy in her class is the son of the 3rd grade teacher at the Christian private school she’s going to. I can’t wait, either!

We are in the process of performing some much-needed home repairs and upgrades. I began tiling both bathrooms today and hope to be finished within the next 4-6 days. After that, we’ll be getting new countertops, getting a new backsplash, and repairing the deck that I almost burned down last year.

Happy birthday to my twin sisters Allison (Ally) and Kerri! 26 — WOW! Happy birthday to my stepmom, Melissa!

We haven’t done a real update in a while, so I thought I’d just post a few things. Firstly, Heidi took her first steps yesterday! She was in the church nursery, and Mike was there with her. She’s taken a few more since then, 1-2 steps at a time. She’s getting huge! She’s over 23 pounds. She’s in the 90th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. She’s wearing 18 months clothes already, which is perfect. Tru was 18 months old during the summer, so all the clothes are the correct season.

Tru is going to VBS at our church this week. She’s too young still to go by herself (church policy), so I’m volunteering in the nursery and Heidi comes with me. Saturday is the open house at Tru’s new school, so we’ll register her then. I can’t believe she’ll be in Pre-K in the fall!

Robotic Baseball

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T-ball? Sports? Why learn to play when you can build a robot to play with your daughter? (just a joke of course)

This picture of Tru was taken at dinner tonight. Look how old she looks. I can’t believe she’s growing up so fast!

Tru, 4.5 years old.

We went to Atlanta to Ally’s house, and Kerri, Melissa, and Daddy met us there. Here are the pictures from our visit.

Heidi and Tru “swam” for the first time today. I bought a blow-up swimming pool at Target, but I didn’t realize how small it was! We may have been better off swimming in a flower pot! I let the water warm up in the sun, and then they had fun in it. Tru did a wonderful job of helping Heidi in and out of the pool. There are pictures available on page 2 and page 3.

There is also video of the birthday party and the swimming that Mike will put online as soon as enough people bug him about it!

Today is Heidi’s birthday! She is one year old. I can’t believe it’s been a year since she was born. She’s 23 pounds now. She’s standing. She can say “Mama,” “Daddy,” “baba” (bottle), “chee” (Cheerios), and “bye-bye.” She can sign “more” and “up.” We’re working on “drink,” “down,” “good,” and “food.” She loves to shake her head at us when we say “No!”

We had Heidi’s birthday “party” on Saturday. Mallory, Ryan, Mark, Georgia Elizabeth, and Anna came over, and we had lots of fun and cupcakes! Heidi enjoyed her cake, after I resorted to feeding her with a spoon! She did not like being dirty. Pictures are available here.

Here’s the video!

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Mom and Dad said that as soon as I was able to ride my tricycle well enough I’d get a big girl bike. See, they got this tricycle when I was 2 years old and couldn’t reach the pedals. My tricycle may have been pretty and red, but it was hard to ride. Even after I figured it out, it wasn’t very fast.

Tru on her new big girl bike

My tricycle days are over! I’m cruising in style now on my pink princess big girl bike. It was just different enough to pedaling the tricycle that it took me a little while to figure it out, but after a day and a half, I’ve mastered it. My dad tied his remote controlled car to the front of it to help me go up hills. I don’t even need that anymore!

What’s next? I still need to figure out how to stop. I hear that if I pedal backwards it will put on the brakes and stop, but hey, one thing at a time. For now, I just turn off the sidewalk into the grass, and that does the job. Also, Dad has just been running after me (sometimes with Heidi in a stroller). Pretty soon, we can all go on a bike ride together!

Here is a video I found while cleaning off my desktop which I do not believe we have posted yet. This is me clownishly trying to get Heidi to say “dada” around age 8 months.

I’ll also update concerning the last post about Heidi signing. After that one incident, she seemed to have forgotten how to sign for a couple of days. My urging did not provoke her to sign again until tonight. Mike made oatmeal cookies tonight, though. She was sitting in my lap while I was eating one, and she started clapping out of the blue. I clapped along for a moment before I realized she was actually saying “more,” not clapping. I fed her bits of cookie and made her say “more” for each additional bite. She probably signed “more” about 8 times tonight.

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