A POST FROM GAVIN

I was born in late November when it was just getting cold outside. It had snowed a few times, but there wasn't any snow on the ground when I was born. My momma and daddy bundled me up all nice and warm when we left the hospital since I was so used to being warm and comfy in momma's belly. All winter we stayed inside, waiting for the weather to be warm enough to take me out. Even when Momma and Daddy took me places in my carseat, they covered me up when we were outside so that I didn't get too cold. I heard that there wasn't too much to see outside in the winter and that everything was covered in snow. I wondered what trees would look like and what birds would sound like. Momma told me how much fun we would have when spring came and we could be outside. She said she was really looking forward to showing me the flowers and the trees. She knew I would love to listen to the beautiful songs of the birds and the crickets. As soon as it's a little bit warmer, I am going to get to sit in the grass! I will feel the grass with my hands. I wonder if it will be soft or sharp, cool or warm, wet or dry... About a month ago, the weather got warmer on a couple of days and I got to go for a walk in the stroller with the other daycare kids. I couldn't see very much because I sit in the back of the stroller behind one of my friends, but I sure liked the feeling of the fresh air and I quickly fell asleep.


Since then, we have had even more nice days and Momma and Daddy love to take me outside. Sometimes I sit in the stroller and watch Momma work in her gardens or help Daddy clean up the yard, but my favorite thing to do is go for a walk with my dog Drake. We like to walk up the road to where my Grandma and Grandpa Jennings live. There isn't a lot to see along the road, but I watch Drake run around and when we get to Grandma and Grandpa's farm, there are lots of flowers and huge trees to look at. There are cats that play in the yard and there are even baby chicks in the barn. My Grandma spends a lot of time doing yardwork and my Grandpa spends a lot of time working on his engines and other projects out in his machine shed. I like to visit him out there and see what he's working on.

Sometimes I fall asleep before we get there, but usually the wind keeps me awake. I don't like the wind blowing in my face, so sometimes they cover me up so I'm more comfortable. The fresh air still feels good, even when I'm all covered up, and it makes me drowsy.

I love to be outside. Sometimes there is just so much to see and listen to, it makes me tired just taking it all in. Last weekend I took a little nap in my stroller while my Mom planted trees and my dad chipped up branches with the woodchipper to make mulch. The sun was really bright, so Mom put a sunshade over me. Then I was really warm and comfortable and the sound of the wood chipper and the wind blowing just put me right to sleep.


I can't wait until it's warm enough for me to go out with out being all bundled up! For now, I have to wear my hat and mittens and cover up with my soft, snuggly BundleMe. Momma and Daddy can't wait for that either. They both love to be outside. Soon, my mom said the hummingbirds will come back and she told me how pretty they are. I am looking forward to seeing them and to smelling all of the flowers that will bloom later this summer. There is so much to see and do and learn!
Written by: Gavin

Springtime

I'm not positive, but I think that winter actually lasts the same amount of time no matter where you are in the United States. Winter is from December 21st through March 19th - only about three months. So, why does it seem like winter lasts 5 months or longer here in Wisconsin? Ask anyone from the upper midwest and they'll tell you that Spring and Fall are, by far, the best times of the year, and yet they seem to be the absolute shortest seasons! Technically the seasons are all about the same length, but anyone can tell you that winter is the longest, followed closely by summer, then spring and finally fall. By the end of summer, I am already dreaming of a white Christmas. I love Fall and can almost smell the crisp fall air and the musty aroma of fallen leaves... the unmistakable delight of dinner cooked over the bonfire, marshmallows roasted to perfection... those nights when you need a warm jacket and a hat to sit around the fire, but sweat in a t-shirt during the day. If you're a student or a teacher enjoying a relaxing summer vacation, then summer flies by all too quickly and you need to be back in class again before you know it. If you don't have air conditioning or have a job that requires you to work outside a lot, then summer may be longer than you're comfortable with. But, I would guess that the general upper midwest population agrees that winter is just plain too long!

Budding leaves on the maple tree - a sure sign of spring.

In early October, the leaves on the trees turn brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow before falling from the trees. The grass and plants turn brown and wilt. The wind gets colder, the night comes earlier, and soon the snow begins to fly. Sometimes it snows as early as September, and some years we still don't have snow at Christmas time, but eventually we have snow. We get really excited for that snow... for about a month. Then, we're all ready for spring. The pure white snow turns gray and dirty, the roads get icy and the sun doesn't even seem to be warm enough to melt the snow and ice off the rooftops some days. We close our eyes and remember when the grass was green. We remember when you could open the kitchen windows and dance to the sweet music of the summer songbirds. We inhale and imagine the fragrance of lilac and plum blossoms that fills the air each spring. We wait and wait and wait for spring and summer. Spring has a limited number of perfect days. Days when you go outside in your hat and gloves to clean out the flower beds on a Saturday morning and are down to a t-shirt and sandals by noon. Days when the sun is so warm, it melts the snow and sends tiny little rivers rushing down the edge of the street, washing away the salt and grime, cleaning our world. The tiny woodland flowers - trillium, hepatica, dogtooth violet, spring beauty, wood anemone, and siberian squill - poke their fragile little heads through the crisp brown leaves to reach for the sun. The rooftops drip as the snow and ice melt off, forming little pools for the returning birds to drink and bathe. Those perfect spring days are few. The other 85 percent of spring days are rainy, cloudy, and cool. We refuse to break out the winter jackets again and have already tucked them away at the back of the closet. We will wear short sleeves no matter how cold we might feel. We can't wait for summer. We can't wait to drive with the windows down, to wear flip-flops and shorts.

In the springtime, I go walking through our yard at least three times a week in desperate search of anything resembling life. I take a microscopic eye to the ends of the tree branches, searching for evidence of an emerging bud. I gently lift the layer of leaves that has protected the most tender flower bulbs and roots, looking for the white flesh of new shoots. I pick up the curled little woolly bears, relocating them again to someplace safe and warm. I watch out the window in anticipation of the first summer bird sightings. The first robins, scouring the yard for worms and bugs emerging from their slumber. The horned larks nesting out in the ploughed fields.

Hepatica - one of the first little flowers to bloom in spring, when everything else is still dormant.

Little by little, the yard is coming to life. The birds are mostly back, the hepatica are quietly displaying their delicate lavender blooms atop furry little stems, the trillium buds are pointing to the sky atop their three spotted little leaves... and we're finally getting outside to enjoy the weather!

Drake is enjoying the sunny spring days as much as we are! Look at the "stick" he fetched!

Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

Okay, so it should be Lions & Foxes & Bears, Oh my! Disclaimer - there are no tigers in this story... unless you consider the big bad mean old tomcats tigers... Never mind.

We live in western Wisconsin, right along the Minnesota Border. I spent my first 25 years in Minnesota and moved to Wisconsin about 8 years ago. Oh wait, did I just reveal my age? Not really, because if you add the two numbers above, you actually DON'T get my correct age! Go figure!

The area where we live is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. My town is about 7 miles east of the St. Croix River and our house is 5 miles west of town, so we're very close to the river. The St. Croix River Valley is breathtaking, bordered by limestone bluffs covered in towering pine trees and maple trees that range in color in the fall from a yellow as bright as the golden sun to a deep rich red reminiscent of smouldering embers. West of the river is the twin cities metro area of Minnesota. The landscape gradually changes over a course of about 25 miles from river bluffs to farm land, to suburban neighborhoods and shopping centers to inner city neighborhoods before landing in downtown St. Paul.

Even though our house is surrounded by farm fields flanked by tree covered limestone bluffs, we are just a short drive from a hustling bustling metropolitan area. We make this drive to work every day. Along with the domestic cattle, horses, and sheep at the farms along the road, we also see many wild animals, including whitetail deer, the occasional coyote, lots and lots of turkeys, possums, racoons, skunks, and a managerie of birds.

Up north, which is what we Wisconsinites and Minnesotans consider anything north of Highway 8, there are also black bears and moose, but we sure don't see those down here near the metro area.

So, imagine our surprise when last Monday's traffic on the major interstate highway that we take to work each day was delayed by a dead bear on the road. Yup, a big old black bear right there on the highway. This was on I-94 at County Road 21, just about 10 miles from the heart of downtown St. Paul. Traffic halted while crews removed the bear from the road. This got me thinking about the wildlife in the area. It turns out there have been several black bears roaming the metro area recently! Aside from a bit of a nuisance - making a mess of garbage cans and a bit of wear and tear on some trees - they're relatively harmless. Yet, they seem so much more... wild... than our other wildlife here. Apparently there are also cougars living in Wisconsin again. One was just sited in someone's back yard near Madison, Wisconsin at the end of March http://wcco.com/pets/sightings.photo.give.2.990306.html

And, on a more-cute, less-scary note... we again have a family of fox living under the grainary just up the road this spring (by the way, fox and foxes are both correct plural forms of the word fox). Last year the momma fox had three pups under the granary and we enjoyed watching them play on the grass on sunny days and seeing them grow. She's back again this spring and apparently has pups again, although I haven't seen them yet. This year, I'm going to try to get some better pictures of them than I did last year. Although even with the poor photos I took of them last year, they were simply adorable! I love seeing the fox (or foxes) and am happy to have them help out with the pesky little rabbit problem that occasionally interferes with the success of my gardens. I'm a little concerned for the welfare of our barn cats, particularly since we spotted the momma fox stalking one of the cats alongside the road the other night. Thankfully, we saw this from the car and scared her off with our headlights, but I can't say those small cats have much of a chance with a momma on the hunt to feed her little foxles. (From now on I'm going to call baby fox foxlets - it sounds cuter). I'm hopeful that the momma fox will get the big bad mean old tom cats instead of the sweet little momma cats. Big bad mean old tom cats feed more little foxlets than a sweet little momma cat would anyway! Unfortunately, momma fox isn't much bigger than big, bad... you know who... and probably wouldn't hunt them anyway. Rabbits though... yup. Momma fox can take care of those rascally rabbits! Glad I don't have my pet chickens yet, or I'd have to worry about them too! Maybe next year I'll have chickens! Then that pretty momma fox will need to have her pups someplace else!

Camera Woes

I realize this post isn't technically about our family, but I don't have a fancy shmancy website where I can have different pages for different topics, so I guess you get it all in one mish-mashy blog. So... for those of you with any interest in or knowledge of cameras or photography... help! For those of you with no interest in photography, check back later for a new post related to my sweet life in Wisconsin!

I have a relatively nice camera. Relative to my digital point and shoot (Canon Powershot SD1000 ELPH) which was roughly $250 new, it's a nice camera. It's a Nikon D100 and was around $1,200 new. I bought it used, so I didn't pay that much for it. I have heard from many people that it's a really nice camera. I've also joined a couple of D100 Usergroups online and the photographers who use the D100 love it. So, what's my problem?

Here is my problem. Unless the sun is bright and the sky is blue and I'm outside in the best sunlight possible, my pictures just plain stink. They all look as though they were taken through a gray filter... as if it were a dark and cloudy gloomy day. When I take photos inside with the camera, the camera doesn't seem to be capturing enough light. The shutter speed is too slow to capture a clear shot if I adjust it, then the picture is too dark. What I end up with (inside) is blurry, yellow photos. What I end up with outside is cloudy, bluish gray photos. Please see my examples below and note that these photos were all taken outside, with natural light. I've included SOOC (straight out of camera) examples and Post Edit examples where I have used Microsoft Office Picture Manager to brighten the photo, adjust the contrast, and increase the color saturation. I don't have PhotoShop. : ( (You can also see these on my Flickr photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29572942@N04/


What I've tried...
I have tried adjusting the white balance with some success, but not a lot. It definitely makes a difference, however, the white balance setting I almost always end up using is "shade" and then I STILL have to edit the photo once I have it on the computer.

Here is a sampling of the same photo in the same light with different light balance settings. Often the one that looks the best also looks overexposed. Ugh. I did get some suggestions from fellow D100 users and I'm going to try those out and see if they help! In the meantime, any suggestions are appreciated!


A test of white balance...


I see that the text below the photos is impossible to read, so here is what this one says:

I believe I started by using the “fluorescent light” white balance setting in photo #1, because technically, the light in Gavin’s room is a fluorescent bulb. When that didn’t work, I chose “incandescent light” for #2. Then I think I tried “cloudy” and finally settled on “shade” for the fourth photo here. It was the best I could get. (I may be a little off on the order here, but I know that #4 was shade and that was the one that looked the best) I could have possibly tweaked it a bit more by adjusting the white balance up or down from there, but I had a moving subject who was getting a little weary of having the camera in his face.

P.S. Since I wrote this post, I THINK I have figured it out, thanks to the friendly folks on the Flickr D100 Users Group! I have a bit more testing to do to be sure, but my fellow D100 Users suggested some settings to adjust and by golly, I think we may have got it!!

Flawless

Is there anything more perfect, more innocent, more flawless than a child?

(Steph, these were taken while you were holding him on Saturday, out in the back yard! Nice job!)

Five Month Photos

It feels like I JUST posted Gavin's 4 month pictures and now he is already 5 months old. I need to first apologize for the quality of these photos. I'm having some trouble with lighting/coloring on one of my cameras and I'm trying to overcome it by using the camera more and hopefully figuring out a fix. So far, I'm not having much luck! I did edit the photos slightly, but they're still not great. The subject, however, is a handsome little guy and can make any picture look good! I promise a month-by-month comparison later this week!

Learning, Eating, and Making Faces

It truly is incredible how much a child grows in a matter of just a few months - how their little brains develop and you can actually see them learning.

Gavin seems to have just recently realized that he is in control of his mouth. He has been making sounds for months now, but he now occasionally imitates you when you do something. He blows bubbles with his mouth and is most entertaining when he's laying on his changing table. If he does it and you respond with smiling, laughing, or mocking what he's doing, he will do it some more. He also mock-chomps with his whole mouth and it's pretty funny to watch! You can see it in the video below!

Just yesterday I caught Gavin twice studying his hand as he slowly moved it back and forth in a parade-wave fashion. He was laying on his back on the bed with his right hand raised up in front of his face, slowly turning his hand and his wrist and just watching it. Then he opened his fingers and closed them and opened them and closed them, all while studying exactly what was happening. I didn't want to interrupt this amazing learning moment, but we had places to go. I actually had to pick him up in order to disrupt his concentration. Talking to him and getting up close to him wasn't distracting him at all! It was pretty neat and I wish I had video taped it.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about Gavin starting to eat baby cereal. It's going fabulously! He eats about a third of a cup of cereal each night now along with a bit of baby food. He had plain rice cereal for one week. Then, we started introducing applesauce with just about a half teaspoon the first night, then a teaspoon the next night, and after a week, he was eating about two tablespoons of applesauce with his cereal. Some of it we mixed in with the cereal and we gave him some spoonsful of it without the cereal. Those definitely made him make a face, but he did like it. He quickly learned to open his mouth when the spoon comes and is getting much better about not accidentally spitting the food all over. For a few days there, he was closing his mouth and blowing at the same time and both Cliff and I were ending up spackled with cereal! Now that we know the applesauce went over well, we're moving on to another food... this week is bananas! I do have to say that the babyfood bananas smell and taste nothing like real bananas, although the jar says bananas and water for the ingredients! It smells and tastes like banana flavoring or like dehydrated bananas - that overly sweet banana flavor. It makes me think of banana cream pie! I'll have to be sure Cliff doesn't try it - he loves banana cream pie! Next thing I know, he'll be eating Gavin's baby food! We're trying one new food per week, which helps us ensure he doesn't have any allergies or other effects from the new foods. This way if he reacts to something, we know what it is, rather than trying to think of all of the new foods he is eating, we just have one new food each week. Next week, its sweet potatoes! Yum, yum, yum. What a wonderful and powerful food. Cliff and I have been having sweet potatoes lately and I just love, love, love them. They contain a ridiculous amount of Vitamin A and much of our daily recommended intake of Vitamin C. What's best about sweet potatoes? They are naturally delicious, requiring no seasoning or preparation. For a quick side dish with dinner, I just give them a quick scrub (skins on), poke them with a fork, and plop them on a paper towel in the microwave for about 8 minutes. Then I cut it in half, scoop out the warm, sweet, fleshy inside, and voila! Cliff and I each have a nutritious and delicious side dish for the perfectly grilled steak or burger or a fresh summer salad! Yummo! Did you know that the sweet potato is ranked #1 in nutrition of all vegetables? It's true, see more information here http://www.foodreference.com/html/sweet-pot-nutrition.html and here http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=64.
Okay, okay, now I've gotten off track! Watch this video of Gavin eating his cereal and applesauce and making his chomping face! I apologize now for the quality of the video - I haven't figured out if there is a way to rotate it so that you don't have to crane your neck to watch it and I think we need to use the tripod! When cliff laughs, the camera does too!

Click to view video. (It has sound)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME1BLYCJVOk

Now, wasn't that funny?

Oops! Slipped.

This is a little story to entertain you, to get you laughing, to give you an excuse to chuckle at my expense.

I will start by asking you... who ever invented the slip? You know, the silky slippery skirt like thing that we ladies are supposed to wear under our dresses and skirts? I get it, I really do. The idea is that it blocks the light from showing through your skirt and revealing the riske shape of your legs under your skirt. But, hello, this is 2009. I thought I'd be a lady today and wear a slip under my skirt - mainly because my skirt is a casual summery floral piece and is indeed a bit see-through when the sun shines just right. Not that the sun shines inside my building, so I'm not sure why I was worried about it. Heck, I wear a 2-piece bathing suit to weed my garden, why would I be concerned about anyone seeing the general shape of my legs through the fabric of my skirt. We did away with girdles, why do we still have slips? (Although I do admit to owning a few spanx, which may as well be called girdles).

None-the-less, I wore a slip today AND I wore nylons. The older generation might be better acquainted with the term "pantyhose" or "hose" for short. Although don't ask a teenager if they're wearing hose - they most certainly won't know what you're talking about and may wonder how exactly you go about wearing a ho. I only have one white half-slip and this was it. It is mostly white, but has a big orange rust-stain from an unfortunate laundry incident with some tools that Cliff had left in his pants pocket.

I wore my slip over my hose and under my skirt. The waistband falling perfectly on the slippery nylon of my hose. Of course I couldn't feel the waistband, because my hose were sucking in my belly so tight that I could barely feel my legs at all.

Whenever I do wear a slip, I have this fear of my skirt scooting down and me not noticing because all of the waistbands get very confusing and I can never tell if what I can feel on my waist is the top of my hose, the top of my slip, or the top of my skirt. You know where this is going, right?

So, I'm heading into a meeting this afternoon and I feel something touch the back of my calf. My skirt is a knee length skirt, mind you. So, I reach down frantically feeling for what has "slipped", looking down over my notebook and computer in hand, and see that my slip, has... you guessed it, slipped! The waistband of my slip is at my calves and I am in the middle of a major walkway, about to walk into a meeting. A coworker walks by and says something to me totally unrelated to my slip being around my ankles and I grab my slip and hike it (and my skirt bottom) up to mid-thigh as I rush for the ladies room. I get in there and try sorting the whole thing out because now my slip is all bunched up under my skirt, the bottom of it wrapped around the waistband and I'm now late for my meeting. I get it all unwound and it slips right off again. I pull it back up and look to see what it's caught up on so I can fix it and get to my meeting and... it's not caught. It has absolutely NO elastic whatsoever. Where the elastic went, I have no idea. I probably left it in another meeting. So, I stepped out of the slip and tossed the rust-stained, elastic-less slip into the little tin wall-mounted garbage bin in the restroom stall and I went on with my day, slipless... and proud of it. So, if you see the faint outline of my legs through my skirt in the sunlight, just be glad you're not seeing my slip around my ankles instead!

Hope you got a good giggle out of my misfortune. The nylons are hitting the garbage can next!

Easter Picture

Cousins

Gavin and his cousins on Easter! Aren't they a lovely bunch of... coconuts?

Happy Easter

Warm and Fed, but Still Waking Up

Gavin has already changed so much in the short 4 months he's been around. Just a few months ago he was a floppy little critter who barely opened his eyes. Now he's an alert, "talkative", scooting and rolling little person! It seems that there are still fairly major milestones each week - rolling over, tolerating longer and longer periods of tummy time, laughing, and now this week... he is eating cereal! We picked up some organic brown rice cereal to try since we thought he might be ready to try "solid food".

He had consistently been sleeping through the night (8-9 hours) for about 2 months, beginning in January. Then, about two to three weeks ago, he started waking up during the night. He had a couple of colds, so we thought maybe those were the reason he was waking. After his 4 month well baby visit with Rita, we decided he was ready (or perhaps we were ready for him) to try cereal. We thought he might just be waking up because he is hungry. Now that he has grown so much and is so active, the milk he drinks before bed just might not be quite enough to get him through the night. So, we tried a bit of the cereal on Monday night before bed. Gavin didn't hate it. He also didn't exactly know what to do with it. Much of it just came right back out of his mouth and ended up on his bib, and some of it did make him gag a little, but some of it did actually get swallowed. He probably actually swallowed a total of about a tablespoon and a half of good old rice cereal made with fresh, warm, momma's milk. What better treat for a little guy?? It went okay. He didn't love it. We didn't push it. After trying the cereal, he had some milk and went to bed.

The next night, we tried again. Huge success! We ended up with more cereal on the bib, but he also ate more cereal than on Monday and seemed to like it. He sort of opened his mouth when the spoon got close and he actually seemed to be learning what to do with it once it was in his mouth. He happily ate somewhere between 2 and 3 tablespoons of cereal. He had also just nursed about an hour earlier and nursed again after the cereal. He still woke up during the night. The cereal though, went really well. We sort of have a system now. Daddy holds Gavin while Momma feeds him. We'll see how tonight goes.

We were on a mission last night to try everything to get Gavin to sleep through the night again. He was very well fed, his diaper was clean, and he was dressed warm. Each night when he wakes up, I notice that his hands feel like little ice cubes, so I thought maybe he was waking up because he was cold. Our room isn't cold at all, but I figure we're sleeping under a sheet, a down comforter, and a bedspread and we have eachother to keep us warm. Gavin doesn't sleep with covers and he sleeps all by himself, so I was sure that if we just dressed him warmer, he'd sleep through the night. No dice. We had him in a soft, short sleeved onesie, a lighter-weight fuzzy sleeper, AND then in a thick, warm, sleep sack. After all that eating, I laid him in his bed and he soothed himself to sleep. He was completely content in there, talking to himself and sucking on his sleeves. He was out like a lamb by 9:30... and then up at 12:30am like the morning sun! That was actually perfect timing, because after feeding him it was the perfect time to call and check to be sure my sister made it home safely from our house in the snow. She had just pulled in her driveway when I called! Thankfully she made it home without falling asleep while driving or sliding into a ditch on the slippery roads. She did have a good amount of snow at home though and didn't make it all the way up her driveway. After checking in with her and getting back to bed, Gavin was up again at 5:00am. So much for the idea that he just wasn't warm enough! Even after all he ate before bed, he still acted like a baby bird when he woke up. You would have thought he hadn't eaten in days, although, I wonder if some of that isn't actual hunger, but rather the expectation that I'm going to feed him since that's what I do when he wakes up during the night. So, if he's eating a good amount before bed, he's burping, his diaper isn't too wet, and he's warm enough, what's waking him up and keeping him from go back to sleep again until I feed him? Any other ideas?