avablog

I was emptying some compost this morning when Leah came out on the back porch with Emmett. She spotted a cicada clinging to the wall near the stairs and alerted ECP to its presence. It was at that point I asked Leah to grab the video camera….

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with Gramary. Photos by Gramary.

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I don’t have nearly enough pics of the kids together. I’m doing what I can to resolve that situation, and here’s proof: They’re so cute together. This morning, before we left for work, Ava and Emmett played together on the front walk. Ava did chalk drawings of excavators (for him) and puppies (for her), and [...]

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It was a nice weekend to sit by the wading pool and blowing bubbles. Here’s a shot of Ava, doing both.

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We’ve been getting only the spent remnants of the storms that pounded Missouri and Kansas, but we did get a short burst of hail the other day. Ava and Emmett ran around the neighborhood, picking stones out of the grass wherever they could find them. Some of the pieces were pretty big!

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Our friend Liz organized a nice brunch around an Easter egg hunt being thrown by the city of West Branch over the weekend. It was a great time. You may be surprised to learn I had my camera along, which came in handy when AGP, Hilda, and Thisbe got crazy with their baskets before the [...]

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What better way to celebrate the coming of spring than to visit a farm full of baby animals? Gramary took Ava and her pal Mac to Pavelka’s Point Farm yesterday to see some lambs and the piglets that had been born just that morning. The kids got to sit on a tractor and bottle feed [...]

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Ava came inside from a chilly day yesterday with cheeks that so closely matched her pink sweater that I couldn’t help but grab my camera. Luckily, she was in the mood to sit for a photo, at least for a couple seconds….

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Went out to Wilson’s Orchard on the weekend to see what we could see. Saw lots of apple trees and not so many apples (we weren’t picking anyway). Had lunch and ran into some friends. Got some pictures (no, seriously!). Overall, a nice time.

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After this:

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G.G. is in town this week to spend some time with Ava, who has a week off camp. Yesterday, the two of them put together a nice picnic lunch and met L and me in the park next to our office, where we dined on sandwiches, chips and fruit under a cloudy sky. It was [...]

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I want you to know, Dearest Boy, that I feel frustrated today by the knowledge that we have all been here in this world for so long now that every word I want to use to tell you how inspiring you are has been used thousands and thousands of times in every way to profess [...]

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Emmett is a big fan of dogs. It’s interesting to watch him approach them when they happen by, and to watch how he instinctively reaches out to pet them on the back. If the pooch happens to lie down, Emmett takes that as his cue to plop down on top of the dog for a [...]

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“They grow up so darn fast.” It’s going to be fun to someday look back on Ava’s “horse period.”

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Dear Emmett: I can’t believe that a year ago at this time, you were head down and bottom up in my belly–kicking and kicking and ready to go! Now, all these months later, you’re still ready go, everywhere you can! You started walking for real last Thursday, just a few weeks before your first birthday, [...]

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I was putting in a new flower bed in the front yard yesterday and so had gardening implements all over the place. Emmett, who went from 0-60 in about 5 seconds last week in the walking dept., made a bee line right for my spade. Once there, he propped himself up on it and surveyed [...]

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I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. In Memoriam A. H. H. by Alfred Tennyson

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For your consideration. Ava at her dance class dress rehearsal on Monday: And ECP giving me a smile on a walk we took yesterday while I was home with him: Crazy kids….

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