Birthday Party

We celebrated Anya's 2nd birthday on Saturday at The Little Gym. It was a fairly small affair and the kids had the run of the place. Lots of fun was had by all, especially the (almost) birthday girl. As a bonus, my dad and stepmom, Angie, came to town, along with Bob & Amy. All to celebrate with Anya. Lucky her! (and lucky us!)

testing out the equipment before everyone else arrived

basket hang!

Grangie, Grandma Lodwig, and Great-Grandma Scheuer

Noah and Alexa pause for a picture

Flynn rockin' the uneven bars

Max on the balance beam

please do not photograph the princess. She is not amused.

Riley and Kalea

Dad, Bob, Amy (and Dave & Alexa in the back) hanging out and watching the kids run amok on the big, unflatable bouncing mat thing

blowing out her birthday candle

the kids down their cupcakes while Anya savors her pure, straight-from-a-box and not watered down juice (probably what she considers the highlight of the party)

Baby Ramoma, fresh from the oven (with dad, HP).

Juice has been consumed. Now on to the cupcake.

opening her loot at home

Anya attempts to wear some of her new clothes at once

Sidewalks of New York

My dad and stepmom ("Don-don and Grangie") are in town visiting. Chris's parents ("grandma and grandpa") joined us for dinner. For an after dinner treat, Anya serenaded us all with her rendition of the 1890's classic song, "Sidewalks of New York". I was too lazy to move out of my chair while filming, so you all get a back-of-the-head view of the grand performace.

Mom and Bruce visit

My mom (otherwise known as "Grandma B" or "Grandma Ellen") and step-father Bruce ("Grandpa B" "Grandpa Bruce" or "Grandpa Goo") came for a nice visit and just went back to North Carolina a few days ago. It was a mellow visit, and there was much in the way of bonding with the kidlet for them (and uninterrupted showers and errand-running for me, woohoo!!). It was great seeing them both and we all miss them already. Once a year is just darn infrequent. :-( Love you, mom!

early morning reading with Grandma Ellen

Grandpa Bruce and Anya in the rowboat at the zoo

"driving" a tractor

checking out the bunny rabbits

Portland

We headed down to Portland for a slightly extended weekend to visit family and friends. The visiting part was great. We stayed with Bob & Amy (Anya's aunt and uncle), and met up with friend Carlie, and Marc & Shannon, as well as cousins David & Heather and their new son, Jackson. Trips seeing people you like are always too short, and this one was no exception. We reminded ourselves that we need to visit those folks more often. A good time.

The drive back, however, wasn't so much fun. We hit heavy traffic around Chehalis through Federal Way and it added an extra hour and a half to the drive. Anya made sure to let us know she wasn't happy about it....over and over....and over. But we sang lots of songs ("Old Macdonald" with Anya choosing the animals was a hit), played some simple I Spy, fed her lots of peas, and all eventually made it home in one piece.

Anya, Uncle Bob, and Aunt Amy

gratuitous photo of Laika.

Uncle Bob demonstrates his Cesar Milan moves. Anya is appropriately calm-submissive.

Chris tosses Anya off the top of the stairs. Good catch, Uncle Bob!

cousin David and new cousin, Jackson. Is he cute or what?

Jackson meets Laika

Anya kicking back in her chauffeured car on the way home

Seabrook

We got back earlier today from a slightly extended weekend at Seabrook in Pacific Beach. My dad and Angie flew in, and they, along with Bobby and Amy, and Grandpa and Grandma Lodwig met up with us there. We had a good time, and, as always, the visit was way too short.

Anya enjoyed playing on the beach. Mainly because she was free to wander and explore to her heart's content. Out of anyone, though, the dogs had the best time by far, running to the point of exhaustion. I'm kind of bummed to be back home already. I hope we go there another time for a few days longer, do a little hiking and go on other excursions. Next year, right guys?

Don-don, Uncle Bob and Anya having a beer break behind the cottage.

Don-don showing Anya different types of shells

playing in the dune grass

bubbles!

Aunt Amy showing Anya how to make good footprints in the sand

worn out and taking a rest on Grandma Lodwig's shoulder

Don-don

Just a quick little post while princess Anya is asleep and Chris & my dad made a run to the hardware store for some insulation. Dad (known to Anya as "Don-don") and Chris have been working nonstop on the basement since Wednesday. They moved a support pillar, added to and redid much of the electrical for the house, installed a new door between the garage and den, wired for cable and surround sound, and are now going to put in some lights, insulate, and start putting up drywall. For some reason, Chris keeps mislabeling the den/toy repository as "Man's world", but one of these days he'll get his vocabulary right. It just takes a little practice.

Anyway, here is a picture from a rare moment we let dad out of the basement:



It's nice having my dad around.

Matt Matty Matthypoo

Anya's uncle Matt is in town this week visiting from Charlotte. Baby and uncle are quite fond of each other. Dog and uncle are also getting along splendidly.

It seems the Lodwig house has become a place people seek out when they want to relax and sleep, which seems crazy to me since we have a loud baby, but it does make it easy on us entertaining-wise. I think this means Chris and I are officially boring. We were, of course, boring before, but now it's a bold and underlined boring.

It is good to see my brother, though and it's doubly good I'll get to see him again (along with the rest of my family) when we go to the east coast in November.

Portland

We piled the dog, baby, tons of gear, and ourselves into the car Saturday morning and headed to Portland for the weekend. Normally this would be a pleasant, zero-planning little trip. However, with a baby who hates to be in the car seat and certainly has no qualms about letting us know her feelings on the matter, we've been dreading the actual drive for weeks. I've had images in my head of the terror that was the drive to/from Olympia last month and wasn't sure my fragile mental state could take it again.

I am happy to say Anya did pretty well (for her) on the drives. She slept 2/3 the way there and merely whined the rest of the way. On the way home, she slept about half the trip and alternated between screaming, babbling, and complaining. This was manageable.

The actual visiting was nice. First, we hit Vancouver to see Chris's cousin David and wife Heather. They are expecting a little boy in December, so we got to offload lots of baby gear. We visited at the house for awhile and went out to lunch. I have to say, lately, I hate taking Anya out to restaurants. She is so. loud. She doesn't cry (thank God!), but happily yells....and yells...and tests the limits of her volume some more. I haven't found a way of quieting her yet. I did catch a few "can't you control your baby??!" looks of annoyance (from obvious non-parents) as we left the restaurant. Oh well. I'm starting to get used to them.

David, Anya, and Heather. Anya kept refusing to look at the camera.

Then we headed over to Portland/Beaverton to hang with my step-brother Bobby and Amy the rest of the weekend. It was a low-key visit, since everything had to work around Anya's naps. We didn't leave the house much, but it was relaxing and they are fantastic hosts (thanks for having us!). We mostly sat around and played Rock Band because we are dorks and watched Anya being cute...and taking her first steps, woohoo! Anya adored Bobby and Amy (and learned to say Bob's name) and I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual. I'd appreciate it if they hurried up and made a cousin for Anya to play with, though. It's pretty selfish of them that they haven't done so yet. You hear that, Bobby & Amy? Selfish!

Bobby teaches Anya the ways of Rock Band

She's starting to get the hang of it

Anya reaches expert level in the drums and wows the audience

Amy and Anya enjoying the weather

Bobby and Chris playing Rock Band. I joined in shortly after.

Grangie and Granddon visit

My dad & stepmom, also known as Grangie and Granddon, came for a visit from North Carolina. We had reserved a cabin in Leavenworth with Grandma & Grandpa Lodwig and planned for a weekend of snowshoeing, gushing over Anya, and lots of wine drinking. Unfortunately, there was so much snow in the mountains that all of the passes were closed. There was no way for us to get to the cabin, which was really disappointing. Instead, Chris, Anya, and I drove to Portland and stayed with Bobby & Amy (my step-brother & sister-in-law) and met up with Grangie and Grandon there for a night.It was Anya's first time out of the Seattle area and a nice visit.

She was her usual charming self and we're hoping that convinced them to start making cousins for Anya to play with :-) We played lots of Guitar Hero. Bobby kicked everyone's butts, but my dad rocked out pretty good too. Thanks again, Bobby & Amy, for hosting us! The rest of the visit was spent back in Seattle, with lots of visiting time between Grangie/Grandon and Grandma/Grandpa Lodwig and lots of wine drinking and gushing over Anya of course. Anya ate up all the attention and was quite talkative. Actually, since last weekend, Anya has continually gotten more talkative, especially in the evenings. She's talkative to the point where I consider her a bit of a chatterbox (like father, like daughter!). And if you try to talk over her, she just gets louder. It's pretty cute. It seems like she's somewhat picking up how conversations work - one person talks and another responds. Chris has been having fun with fake conversations with Anya. He'll ask questions and she answers. Of course, she's occasionally rude and interrupts Chris, but zapping her with the cattle prod usually nips that in the bud.

We were sad to see Grangie and Granddon leave on Tuesday. But we will hopefully see them in June when Chris, Anya, and I take a trip to Ohio for my cousin Christyn's wedding.

 cutest dog in the world 

 cutest baby in the world

 guitar hero!

Anya and Trixie get to know each other