Travels in Cognition

No pictures taken in November. None! I'm not sure that has happened in years. Oh well. To round out and round up my recap of the year, here's a little picture story. My creativity got thrown out the window recently so I forgot how the story was going to go. Anyone want to make up words to the story? If you come up with something really funny I'll send you something.








Happy New Year's Eve, Merry Blue Moon, Good Riddance 2009, and Welcome 2010!

Building a leaf fort in the back yard. I'm sensing a 2009 "fort" theme... We even have had multiple forts inside the house this year.






Hannah singing in the church choir.

On Emme's birthday we hung out in LaCrosse, WI, for really no reason other than there's a Chuck E Cheese. On the way home we stopped at the Shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. It's just beautiful up there, but we arrived 15 minutes before it closed and it was pouring rain :-( Every time we go there, something messes up and we can't ever see the whole thing.





I had never seen this statue of Mary with lost unborn children, though, and through the rain it was quite poignant.

My nephew on the slip 'n slide. Doesn't this just scream summer? August was a beautiful month! Of course I was sick for most of it and it passed in a blur (pregnant again, you know), but the weather was nice anyway.






This is Max in the tub, which is where I scooped him up and landed him after I found him behind a chair eating marshmallow cream out of the jar with his fists. I really don't even know why I had marshmallow cream in the house, since that's more of a Christmasy-baking-type purchase around here. I'm also going to maintain that I have no idea how an open jar of marshmallow cream could have landed right next to my favorite chair in the living room when I just happened to have gotten up for a minute to "use the facilities". I think I'll blame this on the kids as long as I live...

Our group got together in July to watch the town festival parade at one of the member's houses. This is Killer. She does have a real name. It's an old lady name and I know what it is even though nobody is supposed to. She prefers to be referred to as Killer.






This is Father John from our CL group. He is from Sudan and has an interesting yet heartbreaking story of his past.






Emme and her BFF waiting anxiously for the parade to begin.

All three kids worked diligently on a massive card for their dad's birthday. It was made on the back of a Hy-Vee paper bag just for him. Notice the sprawl of art supplies on the school room floor; when they get into a project they really get into a project.





This fort was made entirely of leftover metal tomato stakes, an ugly sheet, and duct tape and lasted pretty much the whole rest of the summer. I will say one thing about these kids, I do admire their creativity and ingenuity! I'm also thinking that on this 10-degree wind chill day in December, I am coveting the very green-ness of our yard...






Speaking of creativity and inginuity...ahem...Max thought he'd turn sand into food. Yummy.

In May we traveled to the west side of the state for my aunt and uncle's 40th anniversary celebration. However, we spent a good deal of the day taking all the kids to the park to get them out of the adults' hair. I was mostly entertained by my husband and my brother making fools of themselves on all the playground equipment.




This picture looks more scandalous than the real situation, which was Max made a new friend named Anika when our good college friends came to visit, and they gave each other a quick kiss. Next time, though, I'll need to specify on the cheek. :-)

We actually had a pretty warm April up here, and the fun was all about getting outside. I swear, I think we went to one zoo or another about every week at first. These first two pictures are both taken at separate zoo trips.





This monstrosity is Conrad's first attempt at a cold frame for the garden plants. It actually works quite well and is made from scrap wood and an old crank window. Our kids and neighbor kids nearly killed the contraption a few times over the summer, but it still lives and is ready to be used again in a few short months. Hopefully short months, anyway.





We have a large marshy wasteland-type area behind our house, and since when we moved in to our house in October 2008 it was nearly winter, the girls couldn't wait to get out and explore it this spring.

Flowers from a dear friend after my D&C. Aaaand, that's about it for March. Photos from April more than made up for the lack of ones in March.

This past February started out with me being pregnant. Max was very excited to wear this shirt, although he wasn't entirely sure what all the fuss was about. This one is a little bit hard to look back on, knowing now what the outcome was going to be. The one thing that makes me smile about it, though, is that the shirt still slightly fits him nearly a year later.





Cousins are always fun!





We went to South Dakota for a quick weekend and my mother-in-law had a birthday supper for her and I. Notice Max chowing on the ice cream cake.