A Day at the Park

Linden joined Logan (and his parents Jess and Chris of course...) at the park on Saturday. And she got to ride in his brand new Radio Flyer wagon to boot!!!

Credit to Jess and Chris again for their mad photographic skills.

Linden and Logan set for their voyage to the park.


Chris navigating the urban jungle with kids in tow...


Linden clearly getting a kick out of the slide (keep an eye on sneak attack coming from behind)


Linden has no idea what's about to hit to her...


Look out below!! (boys will be boys!)


Scoping out other activities


The swing is always a crowd pleaser...


OTHER UPDATE: Linden is officially a "walker" now... and she LOVES it. We took her with us to a couple of department stores on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon and she was thrilled that we let her walk around. She pointed at objects in the distance and yelled, "OOOOO!" while walking toward whatever it was. She also enjoyed waving at EVERYBODY and giving each of them an emphatic, "HIIII!".

When not pointing and waving... she made several attempts to exit the store. Why is the desire to escape such an innate response to freedom???

Caught on Film!

Although not as rare as a Sasquatch sighting... Linden has still preferred the "hands and knees" approach to transportation... so catching her in the act of walking has not been easy.

Until Friday...

In moments of inspiration she has inexplicably gotten up and decided to get to "point B" via foot. Even though crawling is still the primary and most efficient mode of transportation, she occasionally stands up to join her fellow bipeds...

Here is one of those moments from this morning.

Guess who's walkin?

Well, walking may be a bit of an exaggeration... but Linden took her first steps today.

So for posterity's sake, I'm making a posting:

After returning home from church this morning, we set her down on her bedroom floor. She stood right up and took a couple of steps and sat down... sensing her mom and dad's excitement, she got right back up and walked 5-6 steps right into Daddy's arms!!

Great moment.

Although we didn't get it on video, I'm posting this clip from last weekend. For a few weeks now, Linden has been enjoying walking around w/ her toy walker... and last Saturday Kacy followed her around with the camera.

BOREDOM ALERT: The video is quite long (2 1/2 minutes), but if you do choose to watch until the end, you will see the story come to a riveting conclusion...

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Mastering the English Language... (not really)

Linden’s vocabulary has been expanding as of late.

Admittedly, much of what comes out of her mouth is nonsense, but she’s quickly starting to put words together in a communicative way.

Here’s a sampling of her vocabulary (with rough pronunciations in parenthesis):

Doggy – (doggy, goggy)
Woof – (woof)
Hi – (hi, hiiiiiiiiiiiii)
Ball – (gaw, gawk)
Baby – (baby)
Bye – (buh bye, bye)
Bird – (boody)
What’s that? – (wussah)
Who’s that? – (hoosah)
Mom – (mama, mommy)
Dad – (dada, daddy)
Let’s go – (sookoh)
Food – (num-nah, num num num)
More – (moh)
Hat – (haaaa)
Banana – (nana)
Cookie – (oookie)

Door – (doh)

Rosie, our friend's dog – (whoasie)
No – (no, nah, nah nah -- while violently waving her arms out in front of her)

Sometimes she likes to show off by stringing together as many words as she can think of in one sentence. A sort of showcasing of talent…

Much to the delight of her parents.

Swingin' giggles...

Something we've learned is that Linden LOVES to be startled... it's strange, but we have fun with it!

Here she is on the swing enjoying dad spook her into some good belly laughs!

An unthorough Christmas recap...

Although this was technically Linden's 2nd Christmas, this was the first in which she could really "participate" and enjoy some of the festivities. All of which was really fun for of us.

3 years ago we decided, as a family, to cut back on material gifts for one another. Instead, each of us is supposed to come up with creative "gifts" to do as a family (i.e. activities, art projects, songs, etc.) BUT, the major caveat was that when the grandchild arrived, the grandparents were allowed to spoil him/her.

Well, the grandchild is here. Let the spoiling commence.

Linden really enjoyed the bow on her head... Here she is taking calls from adoring fans.


She understood the tearing into presents...


But also wanted to crush them...


Grandpa went out and got a huge cardboard box to build her a playhouse.


It turned out to be her favorite gift! Peek-a-boo!


Later in the week, Kacy caught her in her playhouse pretending to talk on the phone with "Daddy". She even took the time to give the phone a few hugs...

Waiting for Nana...

If you listen closely, you can hear Linden say, "Nana".