Happy Birthday, Nari!

Nari, here is your very special Aunt Kim produced feature movie of you.

Hope you enjoy!!

Fever Time

It's that time of the year now...summer fever! Helen has been suffering with a 102-104 fever for the past 2 days now. Poor sweetums! She doesn't feel good at all. You can see from past posts that when Helen would get sick it would tear me and Alan up. We couldn't sleep and worried about her constantly. Now that we have been through it a few times, it is actually a nice break for Helen to get sick. She takes super long naps, watches a lot of tv, and doesn't have quite as much urge to mess up everything in her site.

For this time of sickness, Alan has cut down a our poor dead "Charlie Brown" pine tree (with the help of our wonderful neighbor), fixed his lawn mower, and cleaned and organized the garage. I have used the quiet time to tackle Alan's 4.5 ft tall tower of Lego boxes, do the laundry, and blog. Sadly, her high fever kept our good friends, the Taylors, from coming to see us. Didn't want little Evan to pick up the gunk.

Here's how Helen has been spending her sicky time...


Her babies, her blanket, and Elmo on tv.

The Cat Has Got Her Tongue

You must be wondering why we haven't been reporting on the many words that Helen has been saying. Well, it's because she hasn't been saying any. I've read in a Parents magazine that you either walk early or talk early. Helen did the first one; therefore, words have been hard to come by.

If I was a pushover for a mother, I could let her claim status for saying many words. However, I am not. I'm waiting for a word that is crisp, clear, and unmistakable. She has just this week finally started saying "uh oh." However, you can hear from the video below that it needs much improvement.

Now, family members have been very generous in letting her lay claim to words. My brother, Joel, gave her credit for airplane (pronouced "berplane"). My mother has somehow heard "Grandmama" many times, and Alan's Grandmother was amazed when Helen said "Baby Jesus." (Actually, I was present for that one, and she did say something that uncannily sounded like Baby Jesus.) But, nothing has hit my ears that classifies as a first word.

Here are some of the sounds she is currently working on:

Dog-"da"--also used for Daddy
Duck-"duk"
Bird-"brr"
Eyes-"iiii"
Fish-"ish"
Hot-"ot"

Sadly, I think that her success in sign language has given her no motivation to talk. One flip of her tiny hands, and Alan and I are up and responding with her every desire...is it juice, milk, eat, please, more, sleep, baby?? The other day I caught Alan teaching her the sign language for blanket...enough is enough!! Words, please, Helen and soon. Mommy is getting impatient :)

Editor's note: Helen has been saying variations of Mama and Da-da for months now. However, it is not always in the context of the actual person supposedly being referred to.

Where in the world are Kim and Alan?

We've been doing some traveling again, but are back safe and sound. I was away on business, this time very far away. Where was I? I'll give you some hints:

1) It was winter, but only as cool as 55-75'F
2) I was 2 hours west of the 3rd largest metropolis in the world
3) The plane flight from Houston or Newark, NJ is just under 10 hours


Any ideas? How about Brazil! Sao Paulo is the city I was referring to, which is just an amazingly large city of 20+ million. I was working in Sorocaba, which is a smaller suburban city. It was a nice place to visit, and when I wasn't working long hours in the wind blade factory, I was able to go out and enjoy a little bit of Brazilian culture. I practiced my sparse handful of conversational phrases and words in Portuguese that I was able to pickup from a language CD. The food was amazing... especially if you like beef. I visited several churascaria's, which is like their BBQ, where they continuously bring around large cuts of roasted rotisserie meat. I ate everything except the chicken hearts (thankfully my co-worker told me to look out for that one-- otherwise I wouldn't have known since I never really understood the waiter's descriptions). The picture above is my view from the hotel of the mall next door (complete with American movies, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut). I think I was most shocked when we drove past a Wal-Mart. Seriously, a Wal-Mart. But overall, everything felt a little more European than I expected. I especially enjoyed the cafe zinho (espresso) after the meal. I was also thankful that I grew up driving a manual transmission car... it's pretty hard to get an automatic anywhere around there.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, Kim decided not to go solo while I was away, and she and Helen took another trip with the grandparents to Panama City, FL. I took the digital camera, so we'll have to wait for the film developing to see how the beach pictures turn out. But all reports are that Helen had an amazing time playing at the pool and loved going to the beach. But because of the hurricane that blew past, the resulting double red flags kept most everyone out of the water.

Helen enjoyed the baby doll I brought back for her. She immediately decided to wrap it up in a blanket.

I also brought her this pretty dress. I had quite a time trying to communicate what I was looking for... despite the fact that I've never even bought a dress before!