Standing with help from...

a chair,

her bookshelf,

a container,

her carseat,

stairs,

the TV stand,

her crib rails,

and nothing!

Kayla, you're getting so big!

Happy Birthday!

A birthday poem:

Cake, ice cream, and gifts.

Twenty-seven bright candles.

I love you, Braden!

We hope you had an excellent birthday yesterday and

we are excited to celebrate many more birthdays together in the future.

We love you and appreciate all you do for us!

Love from Tiffany and Kayla

Snow Day!

We had some snow in Peoria last night and today (and more scheduled to come). So Kayla and I bundled up and "played" in the snow - for about 3 minutes.

We enjoyed watching the Cat skid-steer plowing the snow in our parking lot.

Kayla is all ready to play outside!

"What's the big deal about snow?"

Enjoying making a snow-angel...

After all that fun, it's time for a nap!

Kayla is (over) 6 months!

This is really, really late, but here are her 6-month stats:

Weight: 14 lbs. 11 oz.

Length: 25 3/4 in.

At the time of her appointment, which was two days before she turned six months old (and the day before we headed to California for Thanksgiving), she was "in the 24th percentile on just about everything" according to the doctor. Yes, she's still little. But with all the food she is eating, she's getting bigger every day!

We love you, Kayla!

On a side note, this is a picture my mom sent me a while back of me when I was a baby. Although I don't think I was six months old yet in this one, I think there may be a slight resemblance...

Return of the mold...

On January 6, 2009 Braden took a picture of the mold on the wall of the spare room:

On December 1, 2009 he took the following picture:

We had been assured that the "little" problem had been fixed. Obviously that was false.

Thus began an emergency move to a new apartment.

Here's a few shots of the move:

Apt. 3108 was a mess because all of the stuff in the baby/spare/computer room had to be moved to the front room. Kayla was a BIG help.

The guys are doing a great job moving the desk into the loft of Apt. 1303!

So now we have the opportunity to reorganize our things. The new place is bigger and (hopefully) mold-free!

Cooking Adventures

Since it is very cold here in Peoria, yesterday I decided to make some delicious chili that would warm Braden and I up. I put all the ingredients in the crock-pot with one little substitution and let it cook the required 4-6 hours. Braden came home and exclaimed how delicious dinner was smelling and wondered when it would be done. I had to finish up making the french bread (or attempting to make french bread) and then we sat down to eat.

Looks yummy, huh?

(I didn't think so, but Braden said it looks delicious, which is what really matters.)

Unfortunately this "Simple Chili" as the recipe book titles it doesn't taste as "simple" as the name implies. It actually TASTES LIKE BURNING!!!

Turns out ground red pepper is NOT a substitution for chili powder. Oops. Braden's new title for this recipe is "Texas Barbed Wire Chili". He's a good sport and ate his whole bowl. He said, "Once you get past the burning, it has really good flavor." Thanks Babe!

I, however, was less certain.

Also, although the french bread had good flavor, it didn't rise very well because our kitchen was too cold. I tried to make it again today and it turned out the same. Darn. Luckily my hubby puts up with my kitchen experiments and we can laugh about it together!

Starved Rock State Park: The 7th Wonder of Illinois!

Yesterday Tiff thought to herself, "Self, what would be a good thing to do on this fall day, I know! Let's drive an hour and a half up to Starved Rock State Park!" It's the only place in a loooooong ways that you can pseudo-hike, so we loaded up the truck and headed north, with aspirations of a peaceful walk in the woods. We arrived, followed the signs to the "hiking trails" and this is what we found:

Looks like we've had some rain! No this is not a boat ramp, and yes those are trash cans out in the water. It kind of reminded me of our trip to the swamp in South Carolina-without the gators. Luckily, we found another trailhead, and all was not for naught! We hit the trail, put our Chariot through it's paces (it worked great, by the way), and had a good time taking in the Autumn scenery.

Hiking was different, it was mostly on boardwalks and there were a LOT of stairs. They have a pretty bad erosion problem with all of the rain, so they try to keep you off the ground and on the trail.

My beautiful wife next to the Illinois River.

And one sad little bear.

I bet we can make it to the falls...