warm storm.

 We have been having some blizzards this week.  Today's blizzard is brought to you by winds of 50+ miles per hour and an air temperature of 37.  It is gusty, melty, and miserable. 

seven months

a busy collage for a busy baby

Whew! Gotta type this fast, because we're busy today.  And by "we" I mean Sadie.  Sadie is moving out of human grub stage and transforming into a MMU (mobile, mess-making unit). 

This month Sadie grew her two top teeth, which brings us up to 4 teeth total. She is doing really well on solids.  She hardly ever complains about what's for dinner, unless you count smearing your food over the table/chair/self/dogs as complaining.  We don't.

Gone are the days of staying put.  Sadie has learned to crawl.  Not just talking about army crawl, we're talking about "turn your back for a second and Sadie is in the dog bed with Cash chewing on the rawhide crawl."  She is getting quick. Along those same lines she is climbing up EVERYTHING to practice standing.  She even goes for moving targets, like mom and dads legs in the kitchen while we're trying to cook dinner, or Cash.  This month she has also learned to high five, and in the last few days she has started clapping.  So cute.

This kiddo is also babbling up a storm.  She says "mama, baba, mmmmmm, da, and bear" The latter seems to be a catch all for anything furry, which includes her teddy, Cash, Toby, and also the very-bearded Loren. She is extra chatty in the morning when she first wakes up.  This morning I was trying to get her to say "Cash" and when I said it she started looking all around off the bed for him.  It was sweet, and confirms that she is associating words with their corresponding objects, which is pretty cool. It also means that mom and dad are going to have to watch what we say now.  

In spite of the new-found chaos of having a mobile baby, we just couldn't be happier with this little Sadie bug.  She fills our home with so much joy and sweetness.  There is just nothing better than the happy laughter and toothy grins of a seven-month old.

The 365 days of shorts.

   My first year of teaching in Nome, I noticed a strange phenomenon.  Every morning when the bus pulled up to school a large portion of the kids would disembark wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and basketball shorts.  Well, I thought to myself, it is September, and although there was frost on the ground this morning, and the temperature is below freezing, it will warm up to at least the 40's by the end of the school day.  No need for a jacket yet, right?

happy St. Valentines

thirty below

Well, we knew the relatively warm winter weather wouldn't last forever.  On Wednesday, the thermometer began to dip down, down, down. Now it is for-real cold.  Thirty below not counting wind chill.  What have we been up to?  We have been inside staying warm and busy.

happy birthday mom, love the worst.

A certain baby, who wishes to remain anonymous in this story, was trying to remind me on Sunday that it was your birthday.   She looked at me square in the eye, puffed up her little cheeks, curled in her lips and said, "mama mama mama."  I squealed with delight, thinking she was talking about me.  She said it several more times with a very serious look.  I guess what she was really trying to say was, "call your mama mama mama!" Gosh, new mothers can sure be dense. At least you know that Sadie said anonymous baby didn't forget your birthday. 

blogAlaska: Nome--First Impressions.

     Nome is a place that is full of contrasts and contradictions.  When we decided to move here and  I came up from Southeast Alaska for a visit it was the middle of December.  It was cold, dark and ugly--a winter wasteland.  I won't lie, I cried about it. For me, the town of Nome itself holds few of the picturesque charms of the southeast.  No turn-of-the-century houses painted bright and cheerful, no boardwalks and twisty stairways clinging tenaciously to steep rock faces. No dense, mysterious stands of cedars shrouded in thick green moss, so quiet you can hear the sound of each raindrop falling on the thick umbrellas of Devil's Club. 
     Nome has its own historical relics and quirks, but the buildings are made to be functional, practical.  Many of the residential areas are HUD homes, which give a nod to the tract housing of suburbia, except in lieu of lush green lawns and manicured yards there are patches of mud with mangy dogs chained to weathered boxes. Rusting carcases of cars or snowmachines litter driveways and yards. Here and there you see the evidence of children at play: a balding doll half submerged in a puddle, a cheaply made plastic three wheeler missing a wheel and a handlebar, mittens, hats and other odd articles of clothing forgotten and pancaked the muddy streets. There is always garbage blowing in the ever-present wind--either tossed on the ground or pulled out of dumpsters by the mischeivous ravens.