Bunny for a day - mid Nov 2007

Just a cute picture...reminds me why I had a baby....so I could dress her up like animals!!

Black Friday 2007

My Mom and I went shopping (4am to 4pm!!) on Black Friday. We had a blast, spent too much money and FILLED up the SUV!

First Thanksgiving and First Taste of Meat!

Sienna had meat for the first time (wild turkey) on Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd. These pictures show her first Thanksigiving table - and a couple of reaction shots. Grandma Jeanne also came down (Grandpa Mike had to work Friday) to help celebrate (and shop).

Grandpa Caveney comes to visit - Nov 21-25

Grandpa Caveney came to visit for Thanksgiving and brought Sienna this vest and pair of shoes from Kyrgystan.

After the Lion's game - Nov 18th

Our friend, Mark Walz, called us and invited us to go to the Lion's game (club seating...will be tough to go back to regular seats!!). I immediately said we could go...then realized that "we have a baby!!" - so can't just do that! It was quite the "ah ha" moment!!

The Lion's lost, of course, but we still had a blast. These pictures are from after the game.

Had a good weekend - except for sports-wise. Went to visit Brandi and Scott Girardot and their new baby, Charles Scott, on Saturday evening. He's adorable and soooo tiny. Only 6.5 pounds now. 11 days old. On Sunday we went to the Lions' game (Lost 16 to 10 to the New York Giants). We sat in club seating thanks to Fabiano Brothers - through Mark Walz. I don't think I'll ever want to sit in "the cheap seats" again! The crowd "up there" was much more my speed. Having fun, but not too obnoxious! Actually...I think WE were the "riff raff" up there!

Sienna stayed at home with Jenn Pope, one of her favorite babysitters. She is getting faster at crusing along furniture (can go both directions now, so not as much like a typewriter!). She even stood up on her own (accidentally - when she pushes off furniture) a couple of times for a few seconds.

We are all looking forward to the short week and LONG holiday weekend!

The first letter Sienna has written - to Nathan Hummel

November 13, 2007

Hi Nater!

I asked my Mom to type this up for me because my handwriting is not as good as yours is!

I am 9 months old today!! Where does the time go? My Grandpa Freymuth will be 53 on Sunday. I figured out that he is 71 times as old as me!! …..now that is ancient!

Thanks very much for sending the formula and the cereal and the outfit (I wore it to daycare yesterday) and the coupons. The enclosed check is to pay for the formula with a couple of extra dollars for the other stuff.

Your letter was really funny! I put it in my memory box because it is the first letter I have ever gotten from a friend! You write amazingly well…especially since you wrote that letter back when you were only 8 months old!! I especially like the part about your Mom having the boobs. I gave up boobs a long time ago - it just took too long to get what I wanted out of them and I got frustrated!

It sounds like you eat everything under the sun! My Mom is really mean (this is what I get for being a first child!) and she won’t give me any of that stuff. I did lick of a lollipop at Halloween, but I just scrunched up my face and pretended I didn’t like it so that my parents wouldn’t feel so bad about following “the rules”! J I pretty much still only get to eat mushy stuff. I haven’t really gotten the knack of chewing yet. I only have my front 4 teeth. I’m a vegetarian so far. My Mommy says that I might get my first taste of meat on Thanksgiving day! Grandpa Caveney is coming to visit with a WILD turkey! YUM…pureed wild turkey!

I have been practicing with my sippy cup a lot lately. About a week ago all I could do is to sit there, hang my head and suck air out of it - but a couple of days ago I figured out that if I tilt it up a little bit that that works a lot better! Since then I have been mastering this fine art. I can even do it one handed now while my Mom carries me down the stairs!!

Speaking of stairs…I LOVE stairs! If the baby gates are not up – look out! My Mommy thought she’d be lazy this weekend and put a large basket in front of the stairs instead of the baby gate –but I was TOO smart for her – I just wedged myself in between and up I went!

I also love my cats. They don’t like me much yet – but I am working on it. My Mom and Dad like to trap the cats in a room with me and watch me chase them around! Great fun! Once in a great while Gizmo will let me pet him and I reward him by laughing loud and grabbing his skin really hard and then try to stand up on him. For some reason, he usually leaves the room after I do this and it is a while before he lets me near him again!

Oh – big news!! I surprised my parents on Friday by walking along the couch! I was holding on, of course – but they didn’t know I had been secretly practicing and the first time I did it, I just cruised along the whole length of the couch in about 5 seconds! They both just sat there in disbelief and then ran to get the video camera! Of course, whenever they get the cameras out I just sit and stare blankly at them….it’s part of the fun!

Anyway – my Mommy says that she has to get back to work now. Please write me again when you have some time in between your busy schedule of eating, sleeping and crawling!

I’m glad that you are my friend,

Sienna

Halloween

Sienna was a Tiger at Daycare (seen below with Dad) and a Lion for "the main event". We went over to our friends, Scott and Jackie (and Maya and Chloe) Langenecker's neighborhood for Trick or Treating. It was a lot of fun. Sienna was in the happiest mood I think I have ever seen her in! Nothing bothered her - even diaper changing and getting dressed up - and she stayed awake and happy until 9pm (7 is her normal bed time right now)! We are still eating all her candy.

I now know why they call it "taking candy from a baby"!!!!!

Catching up a little

The attached picture is from a week before Halloween.

This weekend we are headed to my Grandma's house in Lansing. We are celebrating Thanksgiving early this year because several people are unable to make it on Tgiving weekend. Should be fun - we'll do the usual...stuff ourselves and then play cards.

From a letter recently written to Forest's sister, Heather:

Things are going pretty good for us here. Busy as always…… Forest’s classes are really difficult this semester - by far the hardest semester he has ever had. He literally comes home from class at about 11pm and then stays us reading and studying until like 1 or 2am almost every night! I don’t know how he is surviving on so little sleep! I certainly couldn’t keep this schedule up for very long! He did have a break for almost 2 weeks recently – so that really helped a lot. He got caught up on some sleep and we got caught up on things around the house that were being neglected.

Nothing new to say about my work, really. It has been pretty status quo. I recently went to Germany for CogState – the Aussie company I consult to. I was only gone for a total of 45 hours – and only in Germany for 21 hours total. I did do a bus tour of the city though -so got to see quite a bit of Berlin – more than I expected given that I only had a total of 3 hours off work while I was in Germany!

Not too much new with Sienna these days. She is getting better at standing herself up more carefully (without bonking her head on things as much) – as well as sitting herself back down without just kind of falling down. She now says Buh and Da and Ga. She just started saying Muh about 10 days ago or so. Last Sunday, at my sister Cheryl's house, she looked right at me and said “ma ma” for the first time. I know that she has no idea what she was saying – but it still was really sweet to hear her say it! I called my Aunt, Mary and Cousin, Kelsea (who were watching Sienna for us) while we were away in Baltimore for Chris Orth's wedding and she said that Sienna has been running around saying “ma ma” to everyone!

Sienna has had a cold the last couple of weeks. We had her 9 month doctor appointment this week (can you believe it has been almost 9 months already?) . She got her 2nd Hep-B and her flu shot. I was a little worried about the fact that she has had a cold for so long, but the Dr. says that's just how it goes with daycare. I sure hope that all this immune system boostin pays off!

Anyway – she doesn’t seem too bothered by the cold this time. She doesn’t complain – just keeps going! The worst of it (other than her nose is getting a little bit raw) is that she coughs a little bit at night so she has been waking herself up some nights – and we don’t feel comfortable with just letting her cry herself back to sleep because she is sick – and when she cries she coughs harder etc…. I now see why they say that kids’ schedules get “off” when they are sick!

Anyway – before this cold, she had a low grade fever for a week (so we are actually going on 3 weeks straight now with some kind of illness. About 4 days into the fever, she woke up with little red spots all over the side of her face. The next day, the spots had spread to the other side of her face, the next day they were all over her body – and…after listening to the news and getting totally freaked out about the MRSA staff infection that is killing kids, we took her in to the doctor. The first person we saw was a nurse practitioner who didn’t know what to make of the rash – so she went to get a doctor. They were gone a long time so I decided to go get some water. When I walked out of the room, I found the NP and the doctor standing outside the door whispering. When they saw me, the looked up and said “we’ll be right there” – sort of like they were startled and didn’t want me hearing what they were talking about. So…of course this freaked me out. A few minutes later, the np and the doctor came in and examined her again. They then left without saying anything to us and later came in with another doctor. By now I was getting pretty mad by the secrecy and lack of information about what they were so obviously freaked out about…. Anyway – so another doctor comes in and looks her over and says, “no, that’s not measles” – so that’s what they were worried about!! MEASLES!!! We actually had an outbreak of measles in Ann Arbor (Darn hippies who won’t vaccinate their kids and then spread it to those of us whose kids are too young to vaccinate for measles – you get that shot at 1 year) – so hence, the concern. The reason for all the whispering and so many doctors was that almost no one in the office had ever actually SEEN measles before! So anyway – it seems like it was just some rashy virus – and nothing else. Her fever finally broke the next day and she had like 1 good day before the cold really took hold!

I suppose that's enough for now - more than enough probably! ...more later.

Cutest picture ever taken!

I am trying to figure out how to attach pictures to this blog - have a good one to practice on!

Just starting to blog

I've finally broken down and decided to start a blog because I have been spending too much time updating all our friends and family individually! ....more later!