Christmas Adventure

I think that every parent would say that Christmas is an adventure, but this year seemed to be more so. Both girls enjoyed the LEGO Advent Calendar as well as turning on the Christmas tree lights before Christmas as well as visiting the State Museum (and riding a train), the Lights at the Zoo, and the Children’s Museum.




The girls received many wonderful toys and books and are enjoying all of them. AJT04 is proving to have a very steady hand with an Air Juggler set and Jenga game; unfortunately, AJT07 is not that steady yet. However, AJT07 proved that she has not forgotten any of the animal sounds, particularly the monkey sound with a Tumblin’ Monkeys game. The girls are doing their best Bob the Builder imitations by building with the many different LEGO sets they received. Needless to say, they had a wonderful Christmas with family, food, and lots and lots of fun. (Now if only Santa could bring Mommy extra storage for all of the toys…)

5 Years – How Time Flies

Well, AJT04 is now officially five years old and proud of it! Mommy and Daddy (as well as others) are still having a hard time believing that five years have passed, but every minute has been an adventure and would not be traded.

AJT04 is reading and reading some more and is starting to think like an engineer – just the other day she asked why the bridge in “Bob the Builder Built to be Wild” was not made of steel so that it would not fall down. She is also sounding more like a paleontologist reciting different dinosaur names and explaining their respective characteristics. Right now, she is displaying an interest in so many different areas from language to math to science to dancing to history that sometimes we have a hard time keeping up. However, we are enjoying every minute and are looking forward to the next surprise with her.

November 2009

Well the month of November has flown by; thankfully, the Christmas shopping is done, so I do not need to fight the ever-increasing crowds. We had a whirlwind Thanksgiving with Thanksgiving Day spent at Daddy’s parents and then the weekend after Thanksgiving at Mommy’s parents (again AJT07 became involved in very competitive games of Connect 4).

Prior to that, we did go to the Indiana State Museum, where we saw some Native American performances and found all 92 county symbols/art pieces. The girls loved hunting for the art pieces since it was almost like a gigantic seek and find as some symbols were on the building, in the sidewalk, under a bridge, or in a garden.



Even though we celebrated a little early, AJT04 celebrated her 5th Birthday with Mommy’s family over the Thanksgiving week-end. Needless to say, she was thrilled with her cake, which she helped decorate and the doughnuts, which she helped her Grandma make.



While we were staying at Mommy’s parents, we visited some extended family in Woodsfield, Ohio. Probably the biggest thrill for AJT07 (besides seeing many family members and playing with the younger set) was seeing the animals – particularly the pigs and piglets. Upon seeing the piglets, AJT07 promptly started saying “Hi Piggies” to the piglets; needless to say she was enthralled with the piglets and had to return to see them again and again. She also said “hi” to the boar, the donkey, several cattle, and the horses. AJT04 was a bit more reserved; she likes animals to a certain extent but not quite as much as AJT07. Fortunately, AJT07 did not make it into the pen with the piglets, but if we allowed her to climb up in the pen, I’m sure she would have done so.





Once again, time is flying by and the girls are growing up before our very eyes….it is going quickly but we are enjoying it.

October 2009

October flew by quickly again this year – it must be due to having two girls who are keeping us very busy…

Anyway, we started October with a trip to the local orchard to pick apples, and lots of them at that. Both girls decided that they needed to help pull the wagon with the apples (and occasionally a sister) in it.



We also made a trip over to my parents, during the Fairfield County Fair, so we needed the heavier weight jackets, per usual. The girls had a great time playing with some of Mommy’s old toys and visiting relatives (or in the case of AJT07, playing highly competitive games of Connect Four).


The last two Saturdays of October were busy with trick or treating. We first went to the Indianapolis Zoo for Zoo Boo, although the main reason for going was the treats in the Plains area, the girls still enjoyed seeing the animals again. Unlike some other towns, Indianapolis had Trick or Treat night on the October 31st. However prior to the actual Trick or Treating, there was the annual Neighborhood Halloween Parade and Costume Contest. AJT04 did not win anything this year, but AJT07 did – Most Creative in the 0-2 year old category.

AJT04 was a Vaudeville Actress this year – unfortunately, the hat did not stay on all of the time, but she still received treats just the same.
AJT07 was the ever-popular Ohio State cheerleader even though Daddy’s father is a Purdue fan (maybe AJT07 should have been wearing the outfit the weekend of the OSU-Purdue game). I guess that her outfit was more than a little influenced by Mommy.


Since the Halloween events, the biggest challenge has been keeping AJT07 from eating all of her treats. Unfortunately, she has figured out how to open Ziploc bags and how to unwrap candy. Needless to say, her stockpile is now smaller than her sister’s. Oh well, I hope that you had a wonderful Halloween and received many more treats than tricks.

Yooperland

First of all, please forgive me for this post being a bit long – I have to cover a lot of territory here; or I should say that we covered a lot of territory on our trip to Yooperland, a.k.a., the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in mid-September.

We had a great time and had probably the best weather that the Upper Peninsula has seen this year. We had a chance to see Daddy’s aunt and see the farm where Daddy’s father grew up as well as drive around some of the other areas that Daddy was familiar with from his childhood visits. We were surprised to see Daddy’s brother in Houghton as well – it turns out that he decided to see some of the relatives up north and surprise the girls, too. We did luck out with the weather since the temperatures were in the 60’s and 70’s and sunny for the most part.




If you have never been to the UP, it is worth the trip, especially if you like rocks, forests, and water. The girls had a great time seeing the lakes and the rocks, even at Lake of the Clouds, one of the more scenic areas in the Porcupine Mountains, the girls were more fascinated by the rocks we stood on than the view.

Considering that three Great Lakes surround the Upper Peninsula, we saw more than a few lighthouses there and on our way up.



The girls loved seeing the different lighthouses, AJT04 was allowed to climb to the top of two (Seul Choix and Point Iroquois)


while AJT07 started pointing at lighthouses and saying “light houf” (and just pointing at letters in general).



We also stopped at Lego Discovery Center in Chicago and a Jelly Belly facility in Wisconsin on our way up; needless to say both of those places were hits with the girls.


In total, we spent about half the trip in the Keweenaw Peninsula (a.k.a. Copper Country) where we visited various copper towns, like Calumet, and toured the Porcupine Mountains region


and the other half in the Mackinac Straits area -- we stayed in St. Ignace but visited Colonial Michilimackinac State Park (with fort and lighthouse), Whitefish Point Light Station, Tahquamenon Falls, and the Soo Locks (where we saw three different freighters lock through).


The last night in St. Ignace was the big semi-truck parade across the Mackinac Bridge so we saw the big rigs all lit up as they traveled through St. Ignace. The previous day, about 800 tractors had crossed the bridge and then were on display at the local casino, so we stopped to take some pictures of those as well (it was mainly a green gathering, but I did see some AC’s).


During the course of the trip, AJT07 decided that she wanted to say more compound words, so besides lighthouse, she added “water fa” (waterfall – the Upper Peninsula has many), “pay gound” (playground), “water towter” (water tower), “sea gool” (sea gull) to her vocabulary, which still seems to be expanding exponentially. Prior to the trip, AJT04 had asked me to create some fill-in-the-blank questions for her, so she decided to complete those and read (and read some more) during the trip. Fortunately, neither girl was bored, even in the hotel rooms as they would explore the rooms and look forward to seeing what was for breakfast the next morning.

That was our really big trip for this year, we covered many miles, but both girls were troopers and AJT04 has asked us when we will be visiting the U.P. again.

Well, since other people I know have started blogging, I thought that I might try it as well. Besides, trying to keep up two separate web sites can be a bit trying at times.

Anyway, to start, you are probably wondering about the title -- I am the mother to three girls, all of whom have AJT as their initials. AJT03 is our angel baby, having been born at 23 weeks, 3 days gestation; AJT04 is our 4 year old daughter who keeps reminding us that she will soon be 5; and AJT07 is our very active 2 year old daughter. Since Mommy (me) and Daddy are both engineers (although I went on to become a lawyer), I decided to nickname the girls like Microsoft names various versions of Windows. We'll see how this goes.....I hope to be able to update this on a more regular basis, but right now is Trick or Treat time so I had better go for now.