Dinosaur!

One of Linden's favorite games these days is Dinosaur. It can start up at any time. She'll suddenly snap to attention and say "Dinosaur?!" and look at either me or Laine and ask, "Are you a dinosaur?" If she's looking at me, I'll ask if I am and she'll affirm that indeed I am a dinosaur and jump to Laine pleading with her to go hide from me.

As you'll see from these videos though, she also plays the game when it's just one of us at home. At the end of the first she hears the dinosaur. Then, in the second, she explains how the dinosaur is going to try to get her toes.

I can't explain why she decided she had to wear sunglasses.

New Railing

Two of our neighbors own McGraw's Ornamental Iron Works and install iron fencing, railings, etc. all around the Bloomington-Normal area. One issue we've had with our new home is that the entrance does not have any railings despite having some significant front steps. 

So it was exciting to work with our neighbors, Jeff and Scott McGraw, to install a new front entry railing on our new home. We wanted it to fit with the neighborhood and are excited with the result. So is Linden. Of course, she immediately found a unique route when using it. :-) 

First official activity class: gymnastics

Focus.

From the time she was very little, Linden seemed to be attracted to gymnastics (see photo). Odd, since neither her mother or I have ever successfully completed a cartwheel. It's entirely possible that she won't either, but she's now on her way to developing the kind of coordination that she didn't inherit.

So Linden began taking a gymnastics class last week with other kids her age. She was asked to do seemingly impossible tasks such as sit on a balance beam directly in front of a trampoline without sprinting onto it.

But she really seemed to enjoy it. Here's a video of one of her first springboard jumps.

Girl's got talent. :-)

Just a typical day of play (11-7-15)

Linden is getting Elmo ready for a run, just like we do with her. He's got a nook, snack, and she's working on making him cozy with a blanket in his jogging stroller.

First Fall Photo Shoot

Linden's first fall photo shoot came about without any planning. We were playing outside and I began raking the leaves, so of course Linden wanted to help. Then she wanted to play. Here are a few shots and a quick video.

Looking Back

I store all of my photos using Google Photos and it has this neat little trick where it reminds me of what photos we took on this same day in previous years. It's a fun thing to look back on from time to time, especially around Linden's birthday and this time of year when we first brought her home.

The first cluster is from the day that we first brought Linden home from the Peoria Children's Hospital (October 22, 2013).

We thought it would be a few more days until she came home, so we're both shocked, nervous and excited in these pictures when we're about to leave the sterile confines of Leaf 324 and load our sweet little miss and (and her monitor) into our car and drive 40 miles home to become full-time parents. You can read more about that day and how it all went down here.

The second photo collage was from a visit to the Twanows one year ago. She had her first play date and was getting used to walking.

The third photo collage was also from a year ago when she was a flower girl at our friend's wedding. It was a gorgeous autumn weekend and Linden was a champ.

Since the storytelling aspect of my blogging hasn't been as strong as in the past, I at least want to provide some photos of our family. That's what really keeps you coming back anyway, right? Enjoy!

Cousin Lydia Roxanne

We were excited to find the time this weekend to pay our first visit to Linden's newest cousin, Lydia Roxanne Heath.

The family lives in a north suburb of Columbus, Ohio -- about a 5-6 hour drive east of Bloomington, IL. We decided to break the drive up by heading halfway to Indianapolis on Friday, then spending the day in Columbus on Saturday and the evening back in Indy at our hotel before driving the rest of the way home on Sunday.

While there, we got to catch a win by Chapin's soccer team and Linden had a great time playing and dancing with her cousins. We're already looking forward to our next visit.