Month: January 2008

We had a wonderful trip to Florida with Grandma, Auntie Beth and Uncle Matt for a very special occasion last weekend… we got to share in the celebration of Jerry and Ruth Schumm’s 90th birthdays! The Schumm family hosted a fabulous surprise party for the honorees and we also got to enjoy a break from the frigid cold midwest winter. Maeve enjoyed being back in the Atlantic Ocean and spending time with family and friends. New pictures are available in the photo gallery…

Zlatka is home sick this week, so we are hoping she feels better soon and enjoying some extra time with Maeve. We went to music class with Miss Julie this morning and had lunch at our friends’ Sarah and Olivia’s house. We will be home this weekend hosting friends and watching the Super Bowl! Happy Groundhog Day…

We had such a fun weekend with our friends at the Dells! It was a perfect age to start taking the girls and they had a great time together in the water and on land. The land part was filled with balls – much to Maeve’s delight! – it also had a treehouse slide that the girls raced up and down, and tunnels that Sierra mastered quickly. The toddler areas of the water park were a good size for our little explorers and they could even go down a few little slides by themselves. There are others for them to grow into, but they got to go on one big one in our laps on an innertube. The pictures of that adventure don’t do it justice! Hopefully Mike got some better ones. In fact we don’t have more pictures of the fun because we didn’t want to ruin our new camera in the water (ask Nanna about that sometime – hee hee!) Sierra and Maeve were so brave and good sports about the whole weekend. We can’t wait to go back! Hope everyone stayed warm this weekend. We’ll try to bring back some sunshine from Florida…

Among Maeve’s other new accomplishments this weekend – saying “no,” stacking blocks, and turning 16 months old!

We would like to wish Grandad a very happy birthday today! We hope that he enjoys his special day and all of the new perks it brings. Maeve is still working on saying “Grandad” but she is communicating very effectively through pointing and signs… She combined “more” and “apple” this weekend – now the next step will be to add “please!” Of course every time we sign please she thinks it’s her favorite time of day – bath time. We can’t wait until this water baby sees the waterpark this weekend! It should be lots of fun and we’ll have many pictures to share…

Mommy and Daddy are going out on the town tonight to celebrate Aunt Katie’s birthday which was yesterday and Zlatka will babysit Maeve! Maeve has had a busy week with her music class with Ms. Julie starting back up for the next session and big adventures today to playgroup and visiting Mommy and Daddy’s offices downtown. This week we also were focusing on learning the sounds that animals make and identifying more parts of our body. Maeve is currently fascinated with eyes and ears!

We are excited about our upcoming trips – a waterpark next weekend to see our friends Karen, Mike and Sierra, and Florida at the end of the month!

We hope that 2008 has lots of fun adventures in store for everyone and we hope to see you often in our travels this year. 2007 was by far the most wonderful year of our lives and we know that the coming year will offer us many more opportunities to smile with Maeve. She has much to learn and do, and we look forward to continuing to share her accomplishments with you! She is really enjoying all of her new gifts, including books, musical instruments, learning activities with ABCs and shapes, and push toys that keep her on the move. Maeve also is perfecting her communication skills through signing (“more” is the current favorite – especially when there are crackers or chocolate involved!) and she now brings toys to ask us to open them or turn them on. She is a busy girl!