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Merry Christmas 2011 and Happy New Year 2012. We’re just now, on December 26, starting to snail-mail Christmas cards, so if you are on our list, you may not receive it for a few days, or a few weeks, or maybe just in time for Christmas 2012! As usual, the card is a photo collage of some of the events in our family in 2011. You can view the complete card as a PDF document by clicking here.
Baby Elle is now 10 months old and has learned a number of new tricks – crawling (one way) all the way up the stairs to the second floor (video below), crawling on all fours rather than doing the power scoot (arms only), and starting to eat table food such as green beans, pears and apples. Still has learned the fundamental trick desired by all parents – sleeping through the night.
Halloween came and went in Seattle, and we celebrated in the usual fashion – finding orange ground gourds (pumpkins), disembowling them and carving them, followed by dressing up in odd costumes and hitting the neighbors up for candy. Alex is now a little over five years old and Elle is 10 months old. Alex was a witch and Elle a frog. Better views of the photos and more photos on our Picasa site here.
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| Alex and Elle | Our Jack O Lanterns |
Granddaughter Elizabeth Ann (Elle) is now 9 months old. She rolls all around the floors, sits up, goes after the cat, and has started scooting (almost crawling) over the floors. She also is really able to move rapidly across the house in her walker (video of that is here). We’ve been actively baby-proofing the house for the fourth time in 32 years, locking down the electrical outlets and installing baby gates on the stairs. Elle has just started to get upper front teeth and has a pretty complete row of teeth on the bottom. She’s eating solid foods and loves sweet potatoes especially. She’s still not sleeping through the night, but is a pretty happy kid in general. Her sister Alex can really make her laugh. The video below shows her scooting across the floor to get a toy car, which she promptly sends driving across the room. More videos are on our YouTube channel here, and photos are on our Picasa site here.
Bill and five-and-one-quarter year old Alex (that’s the way she describes her age) helped open S. Lake Union Park in Seattle today, Saturday, September 25th. We drove down to the neighborhood, then took the South Lake Union Streetcar to the Park. This was Alex’s first ride on the streetcar (she loves trains and Thomas the Train). At the Park we kayaked for the first on S. Lake Union, Alex got her face painted and potted a red current bush plant which be brought home to be added to the craziness of plantings on our little lot. We got ice cream cones and the beautiful new park, then took the streetcar back to our car and came home. One photo of us kayaking is below but more photos are on our Picasa photo site here.
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| Bill and Alex kayaking on S. Lake Union, helping to open the new park there. From September-2010 Events |
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| Iowa-July-2010 Photo Album (Click to see more) |
Barb Schrier Besch and husband Ron Besch held a family celebration in Bellevue Iowa on July 4th. They were celebrating their 60th Birthdays this year, plus a 39th Anniversary. Family attended from all around, as well as a number of friends from Bellevue and Dubuque Iowa. Earlier that day in Bellevue was the town’s annual Fourth of July parade, marred this year as a pair of horses ran wild with 24 injuries and one death. National headline news including this article in the New York Times. Nevertheless we had a great family celebration. Photos are here and there are videos on our Schrier family YouTube site too.
Later in the week Jane and Steve Kock moved into their new home in Glidden Iowa, a few miles from the former home in Carroll.
Bill, Wayne, Alexandria (age five) and Elle (age 6 months) drove out from Seattle to Iowa. We called the trip “two men, a child and a baby”. The kiddos did surprisingly well on the 1800 mile journey along I-90. Kathy, Bill and Elle (age 6-1/2 months) drove back from Iowa to Seattle along I-80. We visited the Glenn Viehmeyer (Kathy’s Uncle) Aboretum near North Platte, Nebraska. Photos of the journey are here also.
One video of the Besch Bash is below.
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| Elizabeth Visits Seattle |
Elizabeth Anne had her fifth month birthday on June 7, 2010. We celebrated by rocking her to sleep and getting up in the middle of the night to feed her six ounces of formula.
But she’s been making a lot of progress. Today, June 10th, she had her first rice cereal mixed with formula. We figured it was about time to feed her solid foods because she would just suck down a 6 or 8 ounce bottle and still be hungry.
In the last couple weeks she’s also started to roll over (front to back), her hair has gotten long enough to have a “punk rock” effect, and she’s become very verbal – cooing and talking whenever she gets the chance. Teething has started, and she’s become a regular drool monster.
Elle sleeping in her Playpen.
She’s become very good at grabbing objects and (of course) sticking them in her mouth. Some of her favorite objects are a cloth flower, a cloth butterfly, and a set of beads. Gee, almost anything is fair game if it helps here solving the teeth – hurting problem!
But generally she is a very agreeable kid. Still wakes up about 3AM or 4AM, but now that we are feeding solid foods, she might sleep longer. Hope springs eternal with Grandma and Grandpa!
Jessi Knowles, daughter of Mary Jean Rottinghaus Knowles and Doug Knowles, was married to Justin Cox at McMenamin’s in Troutdale, just east of Portland, Oregon, on May 29, 2010. They had a great outdoor ceremony in the wet lawn wit a bit of mud, followed by dinner and dancing. Marie, Rottinghaus, Jessi’s grandmother, attended from Iowa, along with all six of Jessi’s aunts (Mary Jean’s sisters). Jessi is in her final year of medical school at Oregon Health and Science University and is graduating with her MD on June 1st. A few photos are in our Picasa album with a link here or from the photo below, and there are several video of the dancing on YouTube which is linked here or from the video below.
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| Knowles-Cox Wedding Picasa Album |
Granddaughter Alexandria graduated from Headstart on May 27th. She was in the Wolf Class at Daybreak Star Center which is in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, on the grounds of an old Army post, Fort Lawton, which overlooks Puget Sound. The graduation was wonderfully noise and chaotic, included a dinner of wild salmon and rice, and was complete with red gowns and mortarboards. We went out for ice cream, afterward. Photos are on our Picasa site linked here or by clicking on the photo below, and video are on our YouTube site or click the video below. Click the links below to see both.
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| Alexandria Graduation from Headstart Picasa Album |
Graduation, Kids
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Alex, Headstart
We celebrated Mothers’ Day at home with daughter, sons-in-law and granddaughters, including chocolate crepes for breakfast! View the album of photos on Picasa by clicking the photo below.
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| Mothers’ Day 2010 |
Panorama theme by Themocracy
