Otto Laughing

It never gets old for me...

Whispering Beard Music Festival

We went to the Whispering Beard Music Festival the last two days. It was a great time. The venue is awesome and it has about 10 times the capacity as what attended, so they'll have plenty of room to grow, and I hope it does.

It was a great set of mostly regional bluegrass artists... Jake Speed, Comet Bluegrass All-Stars, The Hiders, etc, etc... all the usuals.

Here's a video of Mama, Greta and Otto dancing to one of our favorites... Jake Speed.

And sometimes no matter how good the music is, you have to take a break from dancing, and well..... put rocks in your shoes and dump them out... right?

Big Hugs

old home movies

i was looking back through the blog today to figure out when greta moved from her infant car seat to the convertible seat. greta joined me, as she likes to watch videos of herself and her other friends from their blogs. i found out that greta moved to her "big girl seat" in may, when she was 7 months old. but i also found this and this. greta was literally cracking up at the movies of herself as a baby, and i was laughing and crying at the same time. where did this pudgy, dark haired baby go? i am so thankful that we have these movies, and this blog to look back on.

tummy time

otto is a belly kind of guy. he likes to sleep on his belly, and he doesn't mind tummy time one bit. here he is showing off how he can lift his head and chest off the floor. what a big boy!

like my hat?

this girl loves books

what makes greta smile this much? books. books. and more books. she's a bookworm, what can we say??!!

swiffering in fancy shoes

swim hat

otto didn't get to wear his swim hat on the beach, since he mostly slept in his tent the whole time. i thought we'd try it on him when we got home.

south haven

we had the best time on our vacation to south haven, michigan. our family and the nawroths headed to the beach for a long, relaxing weekend. the car trip went surprisingly well....our boy otto cooperated by sleeping and only needing to stop to eat once! greta did awesome too....she basically read books, napped, and sang songs and talked the whole way. and she was coming off of being sick!
south haven was so fun. we spent time hanging out at the beach house, playing on the playground, and building sand castles on the beach. what a fun trip!

building sand castles is hard work

our trip to south haven, michigan was so much fun that we're EXHAUSTED! more pictures from the trip to come....

friends

greta set otto up for this photo op. on this day she felt comfortable sharing her baby dolls with him. and then about 48 hours after this picture was taken, her favorite word became "mine!" things change so fast.....

and why is otto the only one in the picture not smiling? maybe it's because he's wearing a thanksgiving bib in august. but when you spit up and drool as much as he does, you run out of seasonally appropriate bibs pretty quickly.

to our 22 month old bookworm

i will blame the tardiness of this post on your sickness last week, which had us all down for the count for a few days. it was no fun without our happy girl, and i am so glad you started feeling better just before our trip to michigan.
i could write about all the toys you play with, but lately you seem to want to look at books. books, books, and more books. you read the books in otto's room, you go up to your room by yourself and pull practically every book off the shelf. you like to look at the "mail", which is any paper that might be laying around. you point at letters you recognize, and we are noticing that you are memorizing books after only reading them a few times. to hear you read, "a fresh green leaf from a new tree" in your noah's ark book just gets me every time. you've also started to trace the words as we read, and today you said to yourself "those are the words that mama reads" while you traced them. as your mama it is amazing, and as an educator it is even more amazing to see you doing all these early literacy behaviors. like how you spot letters anywhere...like when you noticed that the beams for the swings look like a upside down U.
your favorite books lately include "happy", much to your papa's chagrin, as well as "this is my hair" which you have memorized, and "mary had a little lamb".
you can recognize the numbers 1-5, which i just realized but your papa says you've known them for a quite a while.
your favorite word all of the sudden is "mine". you will tell us it's "mine shoes" or "my ball" even there isn't anyone around threatening to take it from you. just letting everyone know which things are yours. you also will say "greta do it" and have taken a real interest doing things on your own. you are suddenly fascinated with buckles, and play for hours with your travel seat, buckling one leg into the seat over and over.
you have really started repeating things that mama and papa say....like when mama shouted "oh my God" in the car and you said it (in the same tone) about 15 times in a row. and you have started saying "excuse me" when you pass gas and i heard you say "sorry george" the other day when you bumped into curious george as you walked by him. how polite you are!
you are so sweet with otto...you will show him toys (which means shaking anything resembling a toy, often extremely close to his face) and talk to him. and you laugh when he laughs. if mama gets otto to laugh, you will come running to see him and laugh with him. you like to say, "otto spit up AGAIN" and "no crying in the car otto".
you are still a swimming machine, and you love love LOVE to wear your crocs shoes that you got from ellie.
i can't believe in 2 short months you will be 2 years old. some days i literally just stop and stare at you because i can't believe this person with opinions and jokes and stories to tell is our tiny little greta....

tv

and apparently in our house, being sick means you get to watch tv. and when i say 'you', i mean everyone.

sorry for the lack of posts....

....but someone's been under the weather.

Like My Headband?

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Great Day For A Walk

This summer has been amazing with most days temps only frying to mid 70s. We've been giving the Bob Double stroller a work out. Soon we will lose the car seat and put Otto in facing front. I'm sure he'll be gla to not have to stare at us for the whole walk.

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Allergy Free

Greta web to the doctor for her egg "food challenge". She passed with flying colors and so we are now officially allergy free. Pretty exciting news as we will no longer have to worry what hidden ingredients are in foods. And she can have cake and ice cream for her bday, which of course was what we were mist worried about.

 We had to sit in the doctor office for 2 hours, so we had plenty of books to read!

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to otto, our 3 month old busy body

you fell asleep sucking your thumb today....just more proof that you are your mother's son. (that plus the fact that i saw them pull you out of my belly with my own eyes. but i digress). you love to suck on your thumb, fingers, one hand, both hands...whatever you can get in your mouth. it would be great if you could use this as a calming mechanism for car rides, which you seem to HATE. and when i say hate, i mean it. sometimes the ride goes smoothly, but most often you are screaming and crying, and by the time we reach our destination you (and mama) are both hot and sweaty and just a plain mess. if you do manage to fall asleep in the car (not likely), you awake as soon as the speedometer goes below 45 mph or so.
other than your car woes, you continue to be one easygoing little dude. you were the hit of grandma katie's birthday party, amusing everyone with your goofy little smile and how well you hold your head up and look around. you smile so easily, and now you are laughing like crazy as well as squealing. you will smile and goo and coo at pretty much anyone....you are really pretty social. you still love to watch your sister, and you get so excited when she actually pays attention to you that you look like you are going to jump out of your skin with admiration.
you have rolled from your tummy to your back 6 times, and have started to roll onto your side when you are on your back. you love to move....your legs are always going and you often manage to sort of push yourself around.
you love your bath and have started really kicking in the bath too, which splashes water up the back of your neck, which startles you. you have taken an interest in your hands and your feet and like to watch them. but mostly you like to watch other people, which means you aren't as content as you once were to lay on your own. you want to be in the middle of all the action....basically if you can see greta you are content.
you continue to do a good job at nursing....and you also continue to do a good job of spitting up everywhere! i never knew one baby could go through so many bibs, burp cloths, and clothes in a single day. dr. bird calls you a "happy spitter", and he couldn't be more right!
now if we could just get you to sleep a little longer.....

pizza in the park

had the best time at the park on saturday afternoon with the nawroths (janet, brent, and ella) and meg and addie. what made it such a fun time? maybe the fact that brent played with the girls so the mommies and babies got to just hang out on the blanket. maybe it was the fantastic weather...or the birthday cake janet brought for me....or quite possibly it was that we got to eat pizza. which makes greta the happiest girl on the playground.

scooter ride