18 month check-up

Hannah had her 18 month check up this afternoon. Not sure where my mind was, but I thought her 3:00 appointment was a 3:30 appointment. Thankfully, they got us in right away when we arrived. Hannah's doing great! She's now 21 lbs. 13 oz. (10%) and 30 3/4" tall (25%). She's right on track with her speech and walking skills. Everything was great until it was time to get shots. Since we delayed her 15 month shots, she ended up getting 4 of them today. She held it together until they poked her in her second leg. Poor thing. At least we're done with them for awhile. Our next visit won't be until she's 2. Where does the time go???

ColorFall at the Gardens

We enjoyed this lovely fall weather today after church at Frederik Meijer Gardens. I've been so excited to get over there to check out all of the beautiful mums and giant pumpkins, and I was not disappointed.


The trick to getting Hannah to sit for a picture is to find something her size to sit on. These days, she loves to be a big girl and sit all on her own.


Sitting again, this time taking a mili-second rest in the treehouse.


I thought Hannah might be afraid of the scarecrows, but she sat right up next to him and gave him a wave.


A big highlight of the day - playing among the giant pumpkins.


Hannah is one friendly girl these days, waving to everybody and anybody she sees. She waved to the people riding by on the tram. She waved to all of the sculptures, and here she is waving to the big horse.


Trying to sit on the bench, but it was just too tall. She had to do this to every bench that we came across, which made for a very long walk.


Hannah's new favorite activity at FMG is going back and forth through the small gate leading into the children's garden. She's really started getting into opening and closing doors at home, so this was righ up her alley. She must have walked back and forth, opening and closing the gate each time, about 50 times.


Daddy taught Hannah to play the xylophone.


We had to check out the beautiful mums before we left. We had to remind Hannah to look and not touch after she tried "fluffing" the flowers.


With such beautiful weather, an ice cream stop was in order. Hannah and I shared a chocolate monster waffle cone. Quite appropriate, I'd say.

ArtPrize

This year, Grand Rapids is hosting a brand new art competition open to anybody from any state or nation called ArtPrize, running now through Oct. 10. The art takes many forms, inside and outside numerous venues around downtown. The fun thing about it is that anybody can vote for their favorite entry. The entry with the most votes will get a top prize of $250,000, the largest of its kind in the world! This was the first weekend of the competition, and downtown was packed with curious spectators, including us. It really was fun to be a part of the action and take in just some of the over 1200 entries.


My personal favorite was the shrubbery family at the BOB. I'm posing with Dad, but they had a whole circle of shrub people. Very fun!


This guy was dressed up as some sort of tree, walking around on stilts with his entry number, trying to score votes.



Of course, Jason's favorite was this car sculpture.



I don't know if Hannah was more intrigued by the art or the diverse cross-section of people walking all around us.


Another one of our favorites was the giant table and chairs perched atop the pedestrian bridge.


Nessie in the river.


I think this display called "Airing Dirty Laundry" was secretly one of Jason's favorites, located on GVSU's campus.

We barely even noticed this entry in the river until we looked a little closer. Definitely some very creative, insightful ideas.

Riding the rails

Jason has always talked about riding the train that runs between Coopersville and Marne. It's a restored, vintage train that they run on short trips for special seasons throughout the year. In the fall, they run the Pumpkin Train. Since we didn't have any other plans for today, we headed to Coopersville to catch the 11:00 train.


Getting ready to board the train


The conductor, in authentic garb, gave us some history on the train. The cars are even vintage, dating back to 1919. Everything is mostly original. They had it all decorated for fall.



Shortly after leaving the station, a few entertainers joined all of us on board to sing songs, tell jokes, and otherwise entertain the kids. Hannah was totally captivated by them. Thank goodness they performed for most of the trip b/c Hannah got quite antsy when they took a break.


After deboarding, Hannah got to select her very own pumpkin. Needless to say, Daddy had to offer some assistance carrying it to the car.

After all of that excitement, we headed across town to grab some lunch (which also allowed Hannah to get in a quick nap!), and then we made stop at Robinettes, one of our favorite apple orchards. Normally, this place is crazy busy on weekends, with lines out the doors. I don't know if it was b/c of the weather, the economy, or being early in the season, but it was the slowest we've ever seen it on a weekend. We walked right up to buy donuts, cider, and apples, and there were no waits to go on the hayrides. Sort of strange, but very nice.


Hannah was not too sure about petting the horses. She played it safe by waving to them instead.

Hannah and the Giant Pumpkin!

Zoo trip

All week long, I'd been hearing that Friday's weather was supposed to be rainy and cool, so when the clouds broke up and sun broke through yesterday afternoon, Hannah and I took advantage of the beautiful day and headed to the zoo. Now that kids are back to school, we practically had the place to ourselves. That being the case, I opted to leave the stroller in the car and let Hannah run get up and close and personal with the exhibits herself.


Watching the fish swim.


The hairy pig-like, warthog-like animals (can't remember their name) really caught Hannah's attention. Not sure why, as they weren't really doing anything, but apparently something about them caught her eye.


Trying to catch a monkey for herself.


Of course, Hannah's absolute favorite animals were the ducks. Go figure, the only animals that we can see for free in our own backyard!

Big Helper

Hannah was my big helper this morning as I made chocolate chip cookies. I put her up on the counter, and she did a great job of helping me pour the ingredient and stir them in the bowl. She takes after Daddy, though, as she couldn't keep her fingers out of the dough! I gave her a big treat and let her eat the dough off of the beater, just like my mom always used to do. She licked it nearly clean!

Sunday breakfast

One of our favorite nearly weekly rituals is going out to breakfast after church on Sunday mornings. This migrates to lunch during the summer months, when church doesn't start until 9:30, but now we're back to our fall 8:30 schedule, and we're loving it. Last Sunday was the first chance that we've had to get back into our routine, so we decided to head to one of our absolute favorite restaurants Cheri Inn. To make it even more fun, our friends Eric, Jill, and their little girl Claire joined us. This is one of the more popular breakfast spots around town, so when we arrived there was quite a line. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and waited outside, much to the delight of the girls. They found the perfect sized step and made themselves comfy.


Hannah checking things out


Claire "fell down" (slowly rolling off the step). Thankfully, she was ok :-)

Unfortunately, there was quite a wait not only to get a table but for our food as well. The girls did all right, but we were all getting crabby by the time the food finally arrived. Thankfully, the banana bread pancakes saved the day and all was well!

18 Months Old

It seems like Hannah has really grown up in the last month. She's definitely much more of a toddler and less and less baby. Here's what she's been up to:

*She pretty much fits perfectly into 12 month sized clothes, so we're stocking up on 18 and 24 months for the winter. Her feet seem to be growing like crazy. She's well into size 5's!

*She's pretty much transitioned down to just one 2-hour afternoon nap.

*She is obsessed with shoes and purses. She loves to try on our shoes and try to walk in them. She also regularly carries a "purse" over her arm with her wherever she goes. Granted, usually it's a pail, but I've recently given her an old purse to tote around. She's such a girl.

*She loves the phone! This is actually turning into somewhat of a problem b/c whenever I talk on my phone, she cries to talk on it as well. The problem is that she then pushes all of the buttons and then closes the phone, hanging up on whoever I was talking with (usually Grandma). Somehow she manages to bring up the internet when clicking the buttons as well. I don't even know how to do that! I'm not looking forward to our next bill :-)

*Whenever we tell her "good job", she drops everything and claps her hands.

*She has 2 molars that have broken through on the top and looks like more are not far behind. She's been a real champ, though. I hardly even notice she's teething with the exception that she's constantly wanting to chew on cold washcloths.

*She's becoming very independent. She helps get her diapers out for changes now. She fights me when I lay her down to change her but will do it willingly when I sit her on the table and ask her to lay down herself.

*She has finally connected waving with goodbye. Now, she waves and says her version of bye bye whenever someone leaves or she's going to bed for the night.

*She's starting to push her limits, bringing us into the new world of discipline. She's gotten her first timeout at our babysitter's house for hitting :-( I'm afraid we all have a whole lot to learn.

*She's recently learned some crazy dance moves. She kicks out on hip, raising her shoulder, and tips her head and does this back and forth. It's hilarious! Hopefully I can catch it on video someday.

I could never have imagined how much fun it would be to have her in our lives. She does something to make us laugh everyday. She truly is our joy, and we are totally blessed!

My Best Friend's Wedding

How is it possible that a whole week has already gone by since my last post??? Knowing that the week ahead was going to be busy, my parents took Hannah home with them after Labor Day weekend. Amidst our busyness, Jason and I did manage to sneak in a date night on Tuesday. The real activity started on Thursday. Jason had class on Thursday night, and I headed down to Coldwater to celebrate the wedding weekend of one of my best friends, Jaime.

Shortly after arriving in Coldwater, 9 of us boarded a party shuttle to head to Kalamazoo for the bachelorette party that Jaime's sister Caite and I had planned - dinner at Olde Peninsula Brewpub and drinks, singing, and dancing at a dueling piano bar. Fun was had by all!



As with any good bachelorette party, we stayed out until the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, rehearsal was at 9:00 the next morning, which meant only 4 hours of sleep for us ladies. I haven't gone on so few hours of sleep since Hannah was a baby :-) Thankfully, everything went off without a hitch and we made it through the entire day on Friday without even pausing for a power nap. During the afternoon, Jaime's grandparents let the whole wedding party take over their house on the lake for some time of relaxation before rehearsal dinner. Jaime's dad even took us for a spin around the lake (after Jaime's fiance's brother caught the boat that had drifted off the hoist unnoticed!).



It was an absolutely gorgeous day. It finally felt like summer! However, as we cruised around, we were reminded that fall is just around the corner by the changing leaves.



Jaime and Nick's wedding was at an amazing site called Southern Exposure, full of beautiful gardens and uniquely restored barns and buildings. The weather was perfect, Jaime looked stunning, and no one got stung by the bees that were buzzing around all of the beautiful flowers.

During the ceremony, there were even white birds flying directly overhead as if giving their blessing to the happy couple. The whole ceremony and setting was breathtaking.

My parents were kind enough to drive over to our house to pick Jason up to ride with them so that he and I could ride home together. After being gone for a couple of days, I was so happy to finally see him again!

The reception was held on the patio of one of the barns and under a big tent. Of course, as with everything else at Southern Exposure, the setting was absolutely perfect.

The head table

Guest seating, surrounded by the gardens.

Unfortunately, with all of my wedding party attendant duties, I didn't get much of a chance to take a picture of the bride and groom together. They are such a great match. You can see it in their eyes how much they love each other. Here they are, cutting their amazing cake.

Jaime had a groom's cake made up to look like a rock with rock climbers, one of their favorite hobbies.

Since my parents and brother and sister-in-law were also invited to the wedding, we took advantage of the opportunity to get a family picture of the Cramers.

I have to say that this was one of the nicest weddings that I've been to. Jaime and Nick, thank you for including us in this special day. We wish you many years of love and happiness!

End of Summer

Summer traditions - baseball games, fireworks on fourth of July, and up north on Labor Day weekend. We unofficially ended summer this weekend, as we have many years before, at my parents' cottage at Higgins Lake. I grew up on this lake, spending summer after summer swimming, boating, and skiing there. I never knew there were any other lakes in Michigan to visit (well, I knew, but really??). It's absolutely gorgeous. Now that Jason has his boat, we've visited several other nice lakes in the state, but none have been as clear as this:

You can literally see the bottom over 20 feet down. Yes, it may be on the chilly side, but seeing my feet is worth it to me! I'm so glad that Hannah has the chance to grow up on this lake as well.

With the summer we've been having, we weren't expecting much for the weather, but we were blessed with a fabulous weather weekend, and we took full advantage of it. Jason and I went for a boat ride around the north end of the lake on Friday afternoon, knowing that with the gorgeous weather, the place would be a zoo before we knew it. While we were out in the boat, Hannah stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Cramer at the cottage.

Grandpa and his girls

My parents brought our niece Kara up with them, since my brother and sister-in-law were leaving right after work. Each time Hannah has been with Kara, she's gotten a little more interested in her. This time, she was totally infatuated. I don't know where she learned it, but she gave cousin Kara plenty of "hugs" and "kisses", basically putting either her cheek or her mouth up against Kara's cheek, too cute!!

If anybody was feeding Kara, Hannah wanted to be a part of it as well.

Daddy attempting to feed Kara with Hannah's "help."

Hannah also was insistent on patting Kara on the head. Love taps? Perhaps, until they turned a little harder, when we would have to remind her to be gentle.

Twins? Not exactly but definitely adorable!

Hannah is on the constant move these days, so it was a nice break when she discovered Kara's bouncy seat.

Hannah recliner, complete with built-in entertainment system.

Hannah also discovered that it sounds really neat when you put a bucket over your head and talk into it. Unfortuantely, it doesn't make for the best walking.

Walking by faith

Saturday afternoon was full of food. In the early afternoon, the association held their annual picnic. We packed up the two beach beauties and headed down for some lunch.

Ready for the water

The guys had pulled the pontoon out of the water in the morning, so later in the day, Hannah got on board to do a full winter inspection.

My Aunt Lynn (my mom's sister) also has a cottage in the same association as my parents. All of the planets must have aligned b/c our whole of the family, including my brother and his wife, and my 3 cousins + 1 wife, made it up north for the weekend. Since this rarely happens anymore, my grandparents made the trip from Frankenmuth to join us for the day. My aunt had all of us over for a picnic at their house on Saturday evening to celebrate my cousin Matt's birthday (which actually happens to be Dec. 28, but always gets celebrated in the summer).

Whenever all of us are together, we always attempt to get family pictures. Each year, between adding more family members to the shot and advancing technology with not so advanced photographers, the pictures become more and more of a challenge. This year was no different. I only got a couple with my camera (unfortunately, not the big one with the WHOLE family), which I think all things considered, turned out fairly well.

All of the grandchildren, spouses, and great-grandchildren

Since we were up for a long weekend, we decided to take a little break from the action and head even further north on Sunday to visit the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. Jason and I have driven past the scenic drive the last couple of years during the off-season when it's been closed, so we took advantage of the perfect day and finally did the drive. We debated on taking Hannah with us, since we were going to be in the car for so long, but in the end we were glad that we brought her along. She'll never remember any of it, but at least we've got the pictures to prove that we were all there as a family :-)

Honestly, the only reason I really wanted to do the drive was the same reason that every other tourist wants to do the drive - the Lake Michigan overlook. This is the stop on the drive where you can view Lake Michigan from an observation deck at the top of the dune, looking nearly straight down to Lake Michigan, 450 feet below.

Note, I said VIEW. There are signs and literature everywhere warning you NOT to attempt to hike (or rather slide) to the bottom of the dune, for many reasons, mostly b/c it's like climbing a 450 foot wall to get back to the top! Jason and I heeded the advice of others who have ignored the warnings and wish they hadn't, and we stayed at the top. However, we had plenty of opportunities to take pictures of those not-so-smart ones at the bottom, attempting to make their way back.

Yes, those dots are people at the bottom of the dune!

We stayed safely on the observation deck and even got a nice family picture together.

The dunes really are breathtaking.

We worked up an appetite watching all of those people climb back up the dune, so after cruising through the rest of the scenic route, we headed up the shore to the cute town of Leland, where we had lunch in their Fishtown district.

The Cove was right up Jason's alley, full of wooden boat paraphanalia!

On the way home, Jason spotted a Century Resorter for sale in Traverse City. He just couldn't resist stopping to get the story on it. Thankfully, we didn't go home with a new old boat!

A beautiful boat. Even more beautiful in someone else's driveway!

Overall, we had a wonderful weekend. It's sad to see summer go, but as we saw some of the leaves already starting to turn colors up north, I'm really looking forward to fall.