Happy Birthday to Uncle Charlie!

From Hannah:



From Miles:

Fun Stuff

We've been having lots of fun lately by doing things such as painting -

wearing pony tails ("lots of ponies please, mama" is a common phrase around our house) -

studying up on toads and other such critters -

relaxing (LOTS of relaxing please, Miles) -

and baking! Today we made heart-shaped sugar cookies and then (of course) ate them. You can see that Miles has chocolate chips on his...it's just not a cookie without chocolate chips! Lots of chocolate chips, mama.

We're all healthy. We're all happy. Life is good!

In the Woods

The tropical winter weather continues in MN. It was 24 degrees when we woke up this morning! We decided to take advantage of it and headed to River Bend Nature Center for a trek through the woods. Although the Owatonna park system is awesome, it is nice to have the nature center nearby for when we need a stronger dose of...well...nature.

We spent quite a bit of time looking for animal tracks in the snow. It was obvious to us that lots of bunnies and deer live in the woods, and even a moose - Miles found moose tracks right away. And not just any old moose tracks. BIG moose tracks. He yelled to the moose on several occasions, but unfortunately the moose didn't hear him. We decided Mr. Moose must not have been wearing his good listening ears today.

We "hiked" for about 45 minutes, and Miles walked every step of the way. Tanner and I were quite impressed with the boy (especially because he was trodding around in poorly insulated sneakers, as I forgot his boots at daycare. Bad mama.).

Here Miles and Tanner look for chickadees. A chickadee's song sounds like "chick-a-dee-dee-dee", making the little birdies super easy to recognize (I learned this from the great Jim Gilbert during J-term exactly 7 years ago).

Needless to say, Miles has been singing "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" quite a bit today.

We enjoyed our adventures in the woods this morning. The fog has since burned off, the sun is shining, and I see melting snow dripping from the roof...we'd better get back outside!

Hey Lund family!

Can we come over to play?!

Owie

There's a lot of Christmas blogging to do here, but I'm a bit preoccupied. Miles was diagnosed with pink eye and his very first ear infection on December 23rd. He took amoxicillin like a champ for 9 days (that gross pink stuff continues to be pure deliciousness for kids), and on the 10th day (yesterday) he woke up with a rash from head to toe. It was even worse today...

...so we brought him to the doctor to find out of there was something we could do to scare the rash away. He's already turning a corner after just one dose of some new (and grossly delicious) memmy. Wooo hooooo!

On the bright side, he was extra snuggly today.