August, Part IX
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VIDEO BREAK! – This one is great… August 23rd, Ian quietly assembled two larger pickles, a button-sized pickle and a pickle he had bit into and surprised me with the final results. Click here to see the video.
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Also August 23rd, Daddy entertains Nina with some light reading. See this image larger.
Also August 24th, my beautiful family cuddles for a great pic! See this image larger.
Ian’s smile in this one is great… See this image larger.
August 25th, a nice bath for two, possibly three depending on the splash factor. See this image larger.
On August 28th Melissa took Ian to the Rockford Tomato festival. See this image larger.
Considering how much we all love tomatoes (we don’t) Ian had a great time. Here he is showing off his decorated tomato. See this image larger.
Ian added this small green puffball to the back of the tomato proclaiming it the tomato’s bum. See this image larger.
Nice job, kiddo! See this image larger.
Still August 22nd, must have been a great day for pictures! And Nina shines for the camera! 
Ian and Nina do a dry run for their synchronized swimming routine… lookout 2024 Olympics! 
If there’s one person who can crack Nina up, it is Ian. She gets such a kick out of him! 
Have you met our awesome, beautiful children? 
She keeps gnawing that zooey between her back gums, but we had yet to feel anything resembling teeth. (However we did see a “wittew toofy” shortly after this was written.) 
Peekaboo! 
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August 17th, on our front porch, Ian was just sitting in his rocker with a muscle shirt on and I thought he looked cute enough to take a picture. 
Or two. 
I’ve lost count. 
August 19th, Nina had a great day in physical therapy for her neck… Melissa was so happy… then we went to the Ear/Nose/Throat doctor for what we thought was (“only”) going to be the full reveal on her Choanal Atresia. And while yes, that was evident in the CT scan (as seen in this picture) it quickly became the least of our worries. A scout scan (not pictured) showed something the radiologist noted might be a lytic lesion. We were terrified, and wouldn’t find out more about it for weeks! (Don’t let this scare you if this sounds like new information… it turned out we had nothing to worry about!) 
Hi little cutie! 
More from this photoshoot in a couple entries… she’s so happy! 
Sittin’ on a frog. 
Maximum velocity slide goooooooo! 
The inevitable “I am currently unhappy with you because we have to go home” segment of the park trip. 
Nina’s ready to go! 
Another shot of the front of our house. This one makes our shutters look less green. I like it! 
That other side of the front. 
Fire pit! 
August 15th… *Hi Grandma!* 
The playroom, but Ian sorta looks like he’s out of play… 
*This way to your room, Gramma!* 
The sunroom, clean-ish! 
Nina continues to impress with her fine motor skills. 🙂 
Dining room. 
Living room and Ian’s bunny. 
August 13th, our Princess at the park! 
Ian skillfully digging at the same park. 
Woohoo! 
This is where Grandma Barb crossed the line and let Nina go down the sli– I’m totally kidding. She just set her on there and took a pic! 🙂 
August 14th, Melissa took Barb and the kids to a function wherein they needed kids paintings… no problem! 
Lured by the scent of a dirty diaper, potential babysitters swarmed. (I’m kidding, they said she was cute!) 
*I’m painting with this?!?* 
August 5th, I took this one of Ian in the sunroom, quietly (well, sometimes quietly) making up adventures. 
August 6th, I believe this was the day Grandma Sue went home, but not without sharing a tender moment with her grandkids! 
August 8th, our first day alone in our new house… this was when I really started to wonder about the move, I think. I missed the old place a bit. 
Our little ones acclimated very quickly, it seemed. This little angel here likes the sunroom. 
The other angel loves the playroom. 
Hopefully there’s no extra significance here, might have been her first time in the high chair at the new house. 
August 9th, while her gross motor skills were lagging, Nina’s fine motor skills were doing great. I’m not sure which of those interacting with this box of wipes falls into, but if you could have seen how she hefted this thing up onto her belly and flipped it around, you’d have been impressed. 
August 11th, just the view out the back of the office, through the screen. By now I’ve begun to get a little more comfortable, but it would take the changing of a few things before I’d really learn to relax at the new house. Keep in mind I work from home. Being uneasy is really not good. 
August 1st, I can’t remember (at this moment) precisely when 224 Arbor started to feel like home. It still doesn’t completely feel that way, it is a feeling that has to grow on you. At this point I was worried we had made the wrong decision… but it was interesting to see us all making use of the sunroom. 
August 2nd, Ian hangs out on the porch with Greg and Mommy and I… Greg came over from Owosso to help unload those 8 Pods… a couple days later they were emptied at last. Was very happy to get them out of the driveway. 
August 3rd, all too soon the sunroom became the playroom — we got it back under control eventually… well… I guess. At least half of it turned into a play-pen, but man did we ratchet down Ian’s toy use. I mean he’s maybe down to half of the 50% that’s left. 
Camera flash surprise Nina! 
I don’t really have time to photoshop the stuff in her nose out of there, but let’s pretend I left it there to remind us that at this point Melissa and I were thinking heavily about a surgical procedure on the horizon. 
My little sweet pea! 
August 4th, Ian and I driving around… those are “safety belts” and a “steering wheel.” 
Grandma Sue stayed awhile after the move and took some shots of the new house. This is the front, obviously. 
The back. 
My office. 
July 29th, and it was almost time to leave 139 Highlander. Grandma Sue, Grandma Marcia and Grampa Dave worked together to help us make a truly impossible move possible. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart. A move can be a very stressful time, and Melissa and I were still reeling from the Cystic Fibrosis scare and the Choanal Atresia news… hopefully we didn’t freak out too bad. Pictured here you can see we still had a long, long way to go. 
This is the 2nd set of Pods, we ended up with 8 total — and it would turn out we wouldn’t see those at the new house until that Monday, a few days later than we had hoped. 
Mommy packing kitchen stuff. Somewhere off camera the cat has been taken for an overnight stay at a vet clinic. 
July 30th, and this is the day we moved out of 139 Highlander Drive. Grandma Marcia gets cat hair off of curtains here. He has a talent for spreading his message. I’m proud of my family for taking the time to really clean the house for the new people. I would think everybody would want to move into a completely clean house. 
Grandma Sue cutting the rug… again, this is for the new people, a touch we didn’t have to do, but did. (Grampa Dave, I don’t think we got a picture of you helping, because you and I were out so much in the truck and whatnot those days… and more importantly, the camera was already packed! Sorry!) Suffice to say, I can’t thank you all enough. Thank you. 🙂 
Grandma Sue took some pictures while we were on our way out… Ian here looks sad, and I really think he was… however keep in mind it did not last much longer than the pictures you see here. Thank you Grandma Marcia for the balloon, it helped Ian through this. 
“My closet is empty!” 
“See?!” 
And there goes the stuff! This guy was great other than the time he speared one of the pods with his forklift… turns out it didn’t hurt anything, miraculously. 
July 31st, everybody but me spent the night at a hotel because the carpets were drying. I stayed mostly because the plan said to do so. I wrote the plan. Truth is it turned out I didn’t need to, but it was an interesting experience anyway. While I was there, Nina enjoyed hotel goodness as pictured here. 
Family bonding! 
And then at the new house, enjoying the swingset! 
If you can’t tell, it was around this time that Ian’s sadness went away, replaced with pure happy. 
And how could it not? The new house has playground equipment! And a tree that’s more than 3″ in diameter! 