Christmas Mustache.....

Kirke has very fond memories of his father's very bushy mustache. Unfortunately, his prior attempts to grow one of his own have required some photoshopping. This year, I am happy to report that his mustache, while not entirely bushy, was visible to the naked eye. Happily, Mo-vember passed and the experiment finished.

Marching

Alice LOVES the University of Wisconsin Marching Band. They practice outside near the hospital, so on warm days, we'll go down and watch them rehearse for a while. Then on football Saturdays, we go down to the stadium and do some tailgating and pre-gaming with friends while the band performs by the student union, before all marching up to the field together. Now that it's getting colder outside, we don't see the band in person as much any more. Luckily, we managed to find a decent YouTube video of the band performing, and so now we just march around inside the house. Who says television-watching leads to inactive kids?

Tumbler

Alice had a full-scale, head-over-heels, multiple summersault tumble down all the stairs today that would have been really funny if it wasn't kind of scary. We knew Alice was ok when she decided to start placing an icepack on her baby Dolly's head to make it feel better. Here Alice shows Daddy where it hurts right after her accident, and then later decides that she's had enough cuddling, and can handle the ice-to-forehead duties for the rest of the night.

Corn-TASTIC! trip to Grandma's

We recently had a corn-MAZING trip to Grandma Sandy's house, which included a corn-fusing maze, a corn-box AND a corn-TASTIC pig race!!!

not all work.....

In case you were beginning to wonder if it was all work and no play in our house, may I submit......

Cooking and feeding...

In addition to cooking, Alice also enjoys feeding goats during a recent visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house!

Fall is coming....

Things have a been a little hectic around our home this fall. However, we find ourselves very lucky to have such a good helper to assist with the end of summer tasks.

Bounce House

We borrowed an inflatable bounce house from our in-laws while Kirke was on summer vacation. Alice loves to run around in there, but she especially likes riding on Kirke's back to do a flying leap into the bounce house. The cutest part is that she's recently decided that she wants to give her own baby Cabbage Patch doll "incoming" piggyback rides as well!

Cowboys & Aliens

As I'm sure everyone is aware, this weekend marked the opening of the epically-named and phenomenally-bad movie "Cowboys & Aliens," so of course Alice insisted that we get a group together to celebrate prior to going to see the movie. Aunt Ginny & her boyfriend Frank rode into town for a meal of octopus & pasta, green Alien Spawn Empanadas, and franks & beans.

While Alice greatly enjoyed the dinner and getting to dress up as cute little Alien spawn, she was bitterly disappointed to find out that she then had to stay home and wouldn't get to come see the movie, as it started well after her bedtime.

The Future of Anesthesiology

Kirke is giving the Grand Rounds lecture at his department conference this week. The title of his talk is, "The Future of Anesthesiology," so of course he recruited Alice to pose for some photos to use as visual aids.

Her intubating technique could use some work -- and you should always wear gloves when coming in patient contact -- but she sure does look cute in those Wisconsin scrubs!

Car seat

Alice has developed a renewed interest in babies & taking care of babies since the birth of her friend Emma and, more recently, her cousin Alma. She still loves to wrap up her dolls in swaddling blankets, feed her dolls, and push her dolls on the baby swingset, but now she has also started to put her dolls in any unclaimed carseat or bassinet she might find, and then try to carry her dolls around just like the way big people carry their babies.

Putting the chickens to roost

Alice has progressed from barely noticing the chickens a few months ago to now constantly wanting to help take an active role in caring for them. The chickens somewhat tolerate her, in turn, and occasionally leave an egg for her to find. This video is very long...

Nice Job Painting, whoo!

Alice carefully mixes blue, red, and green paints together to make just the right shade of brown to spread all over her face and smock. She needs lots of positive reinforcement from Daddy to keep the brush mostly on the canvas.

Tricycle

Alice's legs still aren't quite long enough to reach the pedals on her tricycle, but that's ok for now because she much prefers pushing her Dolly around, anyway.

Independence Day

We spent 4th of July weekend at Grandma & Grandpa's; most of the time was spent relaxing along the lakefront at our good family friends' house. Alice had so much fun playing in the water, bouncing on inner tubes, reading bad pulp fiction, and helping spread sunscreen all over everyone, that she skipped her usual afternoon nap and then ended up sleeping right through the fireworks! We were actually really disappointed, because we'd bought special earmuffs for her, just like Drew Brees got for his kid for the SuperBowl. Alice does seem to enjoy wearing her earmuffs around the house, though! Maybe it's because then she can pretend that she doesn't hear Daddy say, "No!" when she grabs the tv remote.

Personal Cherry Picker

Having already nearly trained Alice to fetch him a beer from the garage at dinner, Daddy is now working on getting Alice to be his own personal cherry picker, taster, and feeder.

Lunch with the Ladies

Over our MN vacation, Alice got to spend some quality time with an avid blog reader and frequent blog commenter, Sarah's Aunt Rhonda. Rhonda taught Alice some advance posey patrolling skills, shared many treasures and introduced her to the Ladies' Lunch from Lloyd!

Happy Father's Day to Kirke

Kirke is post-call, in Chicago on Father's Day. By way of an early celebration, Alice finally came to appreciate the humble popsicle. 2 even. Grandma Sandy thought Kirke would appreciate Father's Day better knowing that this mess happened at her house, not his.........

Babies

Alice has become mildly obsessed with taking care of her babies over the last two weeks. We think it stems from a recent meeting between Alice and our new friend baby Emma ~6 weeks. I find it particularly funny that Alice does not seem to be modeling mom and dad-level care---1 baby, 1 bottle, 1 time. Rather she seems to be modeling daycare baby care.....she must have two babies, 2 bottles at all times!! babies have even preempted crackers during swinging.

On an unrelated note, notice the advance swing peek-a-boo with Grandma!

swimming with grandma

Even though this week was much chillier than last week, it did not deter Alice from swimming!

new friend

This week, Alice and I went on vacation to Winona! Here is Alice meeting a new friend with Grandpa T. Fortunately, it didn't follow her all the way home!

Chicago: U of C Reunion

We had the good fortune of hanging out with several long-time friends over the weekend. We met up with Sara, my former roommate and frequent blog reader, to see her new southside home in progress and to tour the U of C. It was really fun to take Alice to the places where I spent so much time and to have her see Sara again. Here are some pictures.......of particular note, I got to very briefly reprise my role as Robie House tour guide! Notice the unusual bricks! the horizontal lines! the newly restored courtyard wall! the hidden door! can you believe this Frank Lloyd Wright treasure was a dorm for years!!!!