Ben in London

Just so everyone knows, Ben is not in London. His email was infiltrated! Send money to us if you want, though.

Chicago

This weekend Alena got to spend the night with Grandma Dee and Grandpa Ed. It was her first night away from me and it seems like she took it well. Why was she there? Ben and I were in Chicago for a little vacation. Highlights of our trip: exploring Millennium Park, visiting the Art Institute, going to the musical Billy Elliot at the Oriental Theatre, and going to the Garfield Park Conservatory with Kristina and Max. The gps led us to where we wanted to go (and got mad at us when we chose our own route. She is very bossy.) The biggest hiccup of our trip was Saturday night after the musical. Our hotel rooms were arranged so our headboard was across the wall from our neighbor's headboard. And he was snoring so loudly that Ben couldn't sleep. So we ended up changing rooms at 11:30 that night. And we slept like babies.

Cloudgate

Us and the skyline

We both agreed that this Van Gogh was one of the neatest paintings we had never seen before. It was much cooler in person.

Taking shelter under a giant palm at the Conservatory

This picture is for Alena's enjoyment: Daddy planting flowers

Max had his eyes closed in every picture I had of him. But isn't it a cute picture of Kristina?

Spring is sprung

It has finally been warm enough to play outside. Alena has helped in the garden plenty already. She has watered plants, picked flowers, picked rocks out of the lawn, and tasted dirt (repeatedly). Ben has been helpful as well and fixed the garden fence and mowed the lawn.

Water the peas

Spinach and peas are up

Picking hyacinth. She would destroy flowers all day if you let her.

Happy Easter!

Alena loved meeting the Easter Bunny...

Easter egg hunt

We all went over to Gpa and Gma Jensen's house for dinner and an egg hunt. Gpa and Gma Ossman made it out as well, as did cousins Emily and Tillie! There was a big egg hunt with 69 eggs. It was a mad dash. The neighbors even came out to watch the excitement! Alena's favorite thing from the easter bunny was a cool new flower balloon (though she received an assortment of other things.) She had such a fun day that she didn't want to take a nap. She finally fell asleep while Daddy was holding her. Sleeping babies are such cute babies!

Scouting for more eggs with Grandma Diane

Grandpa Ed explaining proper egg hunting technique. He has finally taught her to say "Pa" fairly consistently. Didn't he say if her first word was pa that she would get big money for her college fund? I think I remember that conversation.

Baby-cessories

Alena likes to fully accessorize her outfits. On Wednesday, Aunt Melissa took her and Tillie to the St. Patrick's Day parade where they scored some cool bead necklaces. Throw in the jelly bracelets from Dad and the purse from Grandma Diane and you have a complete ensemble!

Grandma Dee will be happy to know that Alena is tucked away in her crib and had fallen asleep within a couple of minutes of getting in the car. It was a busy weekend for the little girl and she needs her beauty sleep.

Cat-cessory--I have no doubts that Jones will be wearing complete outfits before long.

Slack rope walking

I already forget why we thought it would be fun to try slack rope walking. We have seen people doing this in a park in Minneapolis, so Ben decided to google it and see what came up. We ended up taking a flat nylon rope and stretching it between the pickup and the tractor. Balancing is harder than it looks. I was finally able to walk the length without falling maybe 1 out of 10 tries. Our next attempt will be stretching the rope across the pond or riding the unicycle across it. Or maybe I will juggle while walking across. I haven't decided yet. Thanks, Dad, for the technical support.

Bracelets

Daddy bought Alena some cool new jelly bracelets.

Alena takes bracelets very seriously.

Stand up and walk

Alena has gotten pretty good at walking. She walks mostly on her tiptoes which is a fun way to do it. If she reverts back to her knee walking, if you tell her to stand up and walk like a big girl she usually will do it. Here is the way she usually stands up. I think it is how the T-2000 did it when he was a baby.

Mirror

I didn't want the first picture on Alena's blog to be her grumpy face. So here is one of her admiring herself in the mirror.

Happy birthday Daddy!

Sunday was Ben's birthday. Alena wasn't making any noise in her crib but I figured at 9 o'clock she would be ready to get up so I opened her door. Big mistake. Alena usually likes some quiet time in the morning to reflect on what she is going to do that day and I interrupted that. We had to deal with a grumpy baby all morning. Not even going down the slides at the park would cheer her. Fortunately she was in a better mood that afternoon.

As a birthday treat Ben and I went skiing in Dubuque on Monday. It was a lot of fun! The last time we had gone was in Aspen 9 years ago, so we thought we did pretty well. There was a slalom course with a timer set up in one section so we did time trials. That was my favorite part of the trip. Ben enjoyed going fast down the "mountain." We are currently a little Olympic crazy in our house and Ben thought that watching all of that tv helped him improve his skills. So the household results in the slalom: Melissa 23.54 sec, Ben 24.98 sec. Ben definitely won the downhill portion even though we don't have an official time. And I won the tie-breaker of most wipe-outs.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the crib

But not too angry to open presents.

Sliding

Alena really likes going down slides. Unfortunately, the weather has been so cold and windy we don't get out as much as we would like. Saturday it warmed up to 25 degrees so we headed to the park. Alena will enjoy the playground much more when she doesn't have to wear a big snowsuit!

Monday was daddy daughter day. Alena and Dad went to the mall so they could play on the indoor playground. It is all about being healthy, so there is an apple chair, a toothbrush, a lizard in a shoe (we don't understand that one), and a broccoli slide. Alena liked the toothbrush when she was little, but now that she is big the broccoli slide is her favorite.

Valentine's day treat

We made the heart-shaped frozen yogurt treats from Angela's blog. Alena would shiver at every bite, but she refused to put it down.

Snow day!

The forecast was bad and all of the schools were closed today, so I decided to stay home. The weather ended up not being so bad, but we stayed inside all day anyhow. It was a day of fun playing with the kitties and relaxing in a comfy jogging suit. While she took a nap, I made pumpkin cookies for an afternoon snack!

Alena watching the neighbor snow blowing the driveway. This is as close as Ruby cares to get.

Jones will get much closer. He likes to sit and watch the bird feeder and Alena likes to sit next to him. When she gets too clingy he moves to the other window--unfortunately for him, he is usually followed.

Thirsty kitty

Ben's Mount Mercy art show

For those of you who weren't able to see it, Alena was gracious enough to get some pictures with Dad's art at his show reception at Mt Mercy. Alena loved feeling all of the textures of the clay and had fun walking between podiums. She was the baby of honor because she inspired Dad on the idea of the show. Good job, Dad! It looked great!

Alena liked standing against the wall and staring up at these platters. This gives you an idea of how big they really are.

Alena liked this exhibit the best. Is it because they look like baby bottles (they are supposed to resemble them.) She kept walking back to them and patting them. Dad's show was also a good opportunity to show off her skinny jeans and shiny shoes! Her shoes were a big hit with the art professors.

Celebrity cat

Jones is a star! We always knew he would be famous someday--we just didn't know it would be so soon. He is thinking of picking up some work on the side as a cat food model. Check out his picture with Aunt Kristina on her new job's website.

Gerber baby

We were told when Alena was younger that she looked like the Gerber baby. Well, apparently Alena agrees. Last night she was playing in just a diaper. I had her pajamas next to me on the couch. They are Gerber brand so there is a little picture of the baby on the inside. Alena crawled over to them and pointed to the baby and then herself. I asked her, "Where's Alena?" and she again pointed to the Gerber baby. So she either really thinks that is a picture of her, was pointing to them merely because they are her pajamas, or was joking around with me.

It was a fun weekend. We got to go to Pizza Hut with Grandma Dee, Grandpa Ed, and Aunt Kristina on Saturday night. Sunday we visited Mimi and then saw Alan, Sarah, and Emily's new house before eating at the Stone City General Store. And Monday we went ice skating at Bever park (Alena rode around in her sled and had fun because she could go really fast.) After skating, Alena went down the slide (repeatedly) at the park in her little red snowsuit.

More cooking

I wasn't joking about Alena's love for helping in the kitchen. We made banana bread yesterday. Alena was in charge of mashing the bananas with a fork and whisking the dry ingredients together. She did a good job with both of her tasks. After her nap, she ate some bread as a snack. Very tasty.

Dad helps with banana mashing technique

Official taste tester

Guns are not toys?

One of Alena's favorite toys is Dad's Nerf gun. She will go over to the cabinet where it is kept, get onto her tiptoes to grab it, bring it over to Dad (or me if he isn't around), and say "dat." Which of course means, shoot this gun at the tv. After all six bullets are unloaded, she goes over, pulls them off of the tv, and reloads. This particular night she thought it would be more fun if Dad pushed her around in a box while she played with the gun.

Reloading

Drive over there so we can get those darts

Bang, bang!

Alena finally gets out of the box so she can collect darts the traditional way. The game soon ended with Alena chewing the end off of a dart.