Bike Riding!

Alice is getting tall enough that her feet reach the pedals of her bike, and she's actually getting pretty good now! Maybe next year Daddy will no longer have to pull her everywhere in the Chariot...

Bounce House place

There's a gymnastics center near us that has lots of trampolines and an indoor jungle-gym, etc. This has become a favorite place to go when it's too cold to play outside. Alice is getting good at swinging on the rings, and she loves to go through the gigantic bounce house. It is all even better when a Grandpa leads the way!

birthday fun!

January, February and March are rich times for birthdays in the family. While Alice hasn't been able to help blow out candles for all the birthdays, she has taken the opportunity to help with several. She has even started singing "happy birthday" at frequent intervals! Here are some belated birthday cake highlights....

"Bucky happy, Alice sad"

At the last hockey game, we got a chance to go down and meet Bucky Badger! Alice was very excited about this at first, and wanted to give him a hug, she said. But when we actually got up close, she burst into tears. Bucky, like most of the big dogs in our neighborhood, is apparently most appreciated from a distance!

Hockey!

Alice LOVES going to Wisconsin Badger hockey games. She likes the ritual of getting macaroni-and-cheese pizza beforehand, showing her ticket to the security guard as we find our seats, watching cartoons on the JumboTron, and jumping on the Bounce House they have at the arena between periods. But as she tells us over and over again, her favorite parts are definitely "Bucky Badger, the band, and ouchies!"

'Ouchies' are what she calls it whenever a hockey player gets checked into the boards or a fight breaks out. Daddy also enjoys all the 'ouchies.' Mommy, however, doesn't think that cheering for 'ouchies' is a good thing, and has to explain to Alice that it's not very nice to crash into someone else, and that we should ask to make sure the hockey players are ok.

Izzy takes Alice for a walk

We're not sure who was in charge here, or who had their tongue out farther!

Shoveling

Despite a couple days of 60degree weather, we recently had a pretty good snowstorm. Although her heart is in the right place -- and it's fun to have her try to help out -- Alice spent all of her time shoveling snow back ONTO the sidewalk, making more work for Daddy!

Grocery shopping

We thought we'd kind of retired the blog, but we've had a lot of requests for 2yo pictures and stuff, so we'll try to get some pictures up over the next few days. Here's a very long video of Alice grocery shopping with Daddy. This is pretty much how all shopping trips with Kirke go - Alice does all the work, and occasionally gets distracted by helium balloons.

Christmas Chocolate

There has been much to be joyous about this Christmas season-- Grandma Sandy is getting healthier, Kirke and Sarah have had lots of vacation days, and Alice discovered chocolate. We have had the distinct pleasure of seeing lots of family so far, and we look forward to seeing more this week!

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.