Zee Great Ar-teest!

Alexander has always loved art (to make art, that is... not to don a turtleneck and walk around a museum). He's had a creative breakthrough. Up until recently, we only knew what he was drawing because he would tell us. A yellow school bus? Maaaaybeee.... if you squint. And disregard all previous knowledge of school buses.

Now, though, he has drawn things that are almost recognizable. Check out this rainbow he drew for Grandma:



He drew it, told me it was a rainbow, and by crayola it's a reasonable suggestion of a rainbow! Then he signed it with a big "A".

Rainbows have become his specialty. In a close second are "happy faces". His passion for drawing happy faces came in handy for decorating a pumpkin for Halloween:



Magnifique!

And what great artist doesn't have a muse? Here's Bubby being enthralled with his little gal pal:





Rainbows and happy faces.

For reals.

Yar(n) Hat

Grandma has some mad yarn manipulatin' skilz. Check out this adorable hat she made for Ava.






OK... this is getting redundant, isn't it? I have a ridiculous number of similar pictures in my camera right now. This illustrates one of the basic laws of yardynamics: cute hat + cute baby -> excessive photography. That's just yar physics 101.


Thank you, grandma! You really know your cute-enhancement headgear!

Stairway to Muffin

Is Tim holding two guitars super close together?





or


Is he holding…


ONE TOTALLY AWESOME GUITAR with TWO (count them, TWO) NECKS!?1?!






Happy Anniversary, Muffin. We have two rockin’ children, so it seemed appropriate to get you a two-necked guitar.

Of course, I don’t have a job or any money, so… well, this is awkward... Is it less romantic if you get a bill for your own anniversary gift?

I hope not.

ACKWARD!

Bub Knows How To Be a Good Big Brother

Watching Bub and Ava interact is just an endless source of yar. Alexander digs baby toys out of his toy box, and presents them to her. He gives her cheerios – a sacrifice of tremendous love for a two-year-old. Yesterday he had two spontaneous acts of big-brotherlyness that almost made me explode from the insane level of cute.

One was when we were sitting on the couch. I was holding Ava and Alexander was snuggled on my side. He reached over and held her hand. YAR!!!!



Enhance.



OK, that isn’t an enhancement of that previous shot. I just like to say “enhance” like they do in the movies. It’s actually a different shot, with a vaseline-coated soap opera lens. This shot shows better hand-holding technique, which just increases the yar.


Later he gave her an unsolicited big hug!! This was followed by several solicited hugs after I ran and got my camera.

“Hi!”

Ava said her first word: hi! A baby’s first word is always a little debatable…

Does she know what she is saying? Not likely.

Does that matter? Only if you are made of STONE. Seriously. It’s so cute. It’s almost more of a “ha” then a “hi”… Close enough.

When she is in the right mood, she repeats “hi” back to us… and she has now said it to the cats a couple of times. The kitties were impressed, but yet unresponsive.

So…we are calling it official. Ava says “hi”.

Laughing Ava - Jurrasic Style

Laughing baby videos never get old, right? I mean, laughing baby videos always win on America's Funniest Home Videos... unless they are up against some guy getting hit in the crotch in some clearly-not-staged manner. (Which seems to happen with suspicious frequency to people that send videos in to this show.* If someone tells you they are making a video for AFHV, wear a cup.) So, no crotches were harmed in this video... but there is an adorable laughing baby.

You can hear Ava 'going Jurassic' here - which is when she starts screeching. Crank it up and enjoy. (Although, our canine blog readers may want to skip this one.)




As a sidenote: I'm sure this video really destroys the illusions you all had of us as very tidy people. (And by "you all", I mean those of you who have never met us or looked at this blog before.) So can we just pretend like our kitchen table isn't stacked high with bills, graham crackers, sippy cups, oily rags, and matches? Thanks.



*I should note that I haven't actually seen a full episode of America's Funniest Home Videos. It should be called America's Crotch Hateningest Home Videos. The laugh tracks don't help... they just make me very very sad for crotches.

Seriously?

Being a Farmer is Awesome Fun

A week (er…two??) ago we went to a local farm. You know, to get the children in touch with their Iowa roots. This farm was awesome!!! It had a slide, and pony rides, and everything! Here we just thought we’d be showing the boy some corn fields and maybe a high density feed lot. But, wow, farming has really changed.


They had a real nice crop of plywood photo-ops this year:



I’m not sure what they use this fancy piece of farm machinery for. It looks like it came from Tim Burton's farm, though. (It's weird, whimsical, and slightly rickety.)



Of course, every farm has a slide.



The best part was the livestock. Gigantic cattle? Smelly hogs? No. How about ADORABLE PONIES!!!


And animals that are bred to actually smile for the camera:



The farmers must have used a shrink-ray on this one. That's how you get small goats, right? A John Deere Shrink-ray?:



After being around all those animals, it’s good to clean up with a nice corn-based bath.


Modern farming is so awesome.

Girl Data is In....

Ava had her 6-month appointment. Diagnosis: YAR! (She really yarred out the doctor by smiling and squealing at her.) Her growth data looks great. She weighs 14 lbs 14 oz, is 50th percentile for weight and head circumference and 97th percentile for height.

That's some fine growing there, honey.