In which I milk a cow and get violated by a llama

Today I took Jane to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving point for the first time.  It was really, really windy, but Jane didn't seem to mind it too much.  I bought a little handful of feed and when the goats ate it out of my hand Jane GIGGLED and giggled as though it was the funniest thing in the world.

They also had a little pony ride, and I put Jane on a little Shetland, and at first she clung to me but then when it started to move Jane looked around like, "Heeeeeyyy!  I got this!"  And then she just held on to my one finger as we went around.  The guy running the pony ride was nice enough to take a picture, and nice enough to not care that Jane had turned her head all the way around to look behind us, and just handed me back the camera because he was DONE.  It was magical.

After that I took a few kernels of feed over to the llama pen, and an obliging lama came over and ate out of my hand while Jane giggled away.  When it had eaten everything, the lama suddenly looked me straight in the face, and slowly started moving forward, slowly, slowly, coming close and closer to my face, and somewhere in my head I'm wondering if I should back up, but the main part of my brain is thinking, "What on earth is it doing?" and it's mesmerized me, I'm just watching it come closer and closer, and then suddenly there was this monstrous PHHHH!!  It blew a blast of air right in my face that was so forceful that it actually forced my lips open and its nasty lama breath went into my mouth!  BAHH!  And I laughed like some idiot and then this wave of hideous embarrassed mortification hits me and I start to look around to see who's nearby, but then I stop because I don't really even want to know if anyone saw it, and Jane's just eyeing the llama like, "The hell did you do to my mom?"  Aaaand that was when we went back inside and I washed my hands and then I scrubbed my face and my mouth out.

Then I noticed the cow that all the little kids were crowded around, taking turns milking it.  Jane and I watched them milk the cow and we stood up by the its head and every time the cow lifted its head, munching and munching with its tongue coming out, Jane would LAUGH and laugh.  After awhile the kids left and then some of the timid adults started coming forward to take a turn milking the cow, including ME.

If you look closely in this picture you can see that I am TOTALLY missing the bucket and the milk is just squirting out onto the floor.  I guess I was too distracted by the warm squeeeeeeshiness.  I hope I just grossed you out.

Here's some more pictures for the road:

Jane's First Birthday!

Today Jane is one year old!  It's hard to believe but it's true.

This is her a year ago on the day she was born:

And here she is today!

Jane had a great day. She had a small party this afternoon with just Mom and Dad and her two Grandmas.

Jane had opened a couple of gifts in the morning, two books from her mom and dad.  Grandma Bobbi brought her more balls for her ball pit, and as soon as she saw the bag she knew exactly what they were and got really excited!

I think she seriously has more fun in the ball pit now that it has more balls!  So we know now that:

More ball pit balls = More fun!

She got a third, special birthday book from her mom and dad, and an Elmo doll that came just yesterday. When I opened up the box she gasped when she saw his red fur, it was so cute!  She thought he was pretty cool, but then she was ready for more!

She really loved this little dog/backpack/leash that my mom got for her, she CLUNG to it and wouldn't let it go.  Grandma Bobbi also got her a cute warm fuzzy outfit with hearts and a bunny.

Grandma Carrie got Jane a cute tote bag with socks, a bug puppet with lots of legs (Jane LOVES puppets), an awesome book with flaps and tabs and all sorts of animals, and a warm fuzzy jammie.

Pretty good for her first birthday!
So it was a simple party - grandmas, gifts, cupcake.  I had really been looking forward to giving Jane a cupcake because she hasn't really had sugar yet, and I thought it would be a special first birthday treat and that we could maybe take some pictures of her covered in frosting.

Unfortunately, life has a way of not always being what we expected.  After Jane opened her presents she started getting pretty fussy and holding onto her right ear.  We realized that she had an ear infection, and how sad that it got bad right in the middle of her birthday party!  Poor girl!  We put her in her highchair and sang her happy birthday and set the cupcake in front of her.  She had a tiny taste of frosting and she liked it but then I saw her flinch and I think her ear was just hurting too bad.

After that we did a video call with Michael's brother Rodger in Texas.  (Jane liked seeing herself on the computer screen).

After awhile I noticed that Jane had calmed down quite a bit, so I took her into the kitchen to see if she wanted to give the cupcake a second try.  I sat at the table with her and I took a small bite of the cupcake.  Yummm.  Jane watched me with fascination.  So I picked up a piece and she opened her mouth and I popped it in and Yummmm.  She closed her eyes, she enjoyed it so much!  We ate that whole cupcake together right there, alone in the kitchen.  No one was there to take a picture and she didn't really get frosting all over, but she did enjoy it and I was able to give her the one treat that I had wanted to.  I took a picture of the aftermath:

Aside from her poor ear hurting, I think she had a pretty good day!

Jane,
Happy Birthday, we love you so much!
- Mom and Dad

Alice S. Olson playing the piano

On Christmas Eve my mother tried to play us a recording of her grandmother, Alice S. Olson, playing the piano in 1977 at 91 years old. She couldn't get it to work that day, so I've been working with it and now I'm able to put the recording here on my blog for my family members to listen to. The easiest way to do this was to make it into a video, and so I just put up a photo of piano keys there as a place holder image while the music plays.

So this is my great-grandmother playing two hymns in 1977.  She was a very talented piano player and used to improvise the accompaniment to silent movies.  At the beginning you can hear Florence, Mom's cousin, introducing Alice.  Florence has told us that there was no piano music in front of Alice while she played, so this is all from memory, and pretty amazing at 91 years old.

I will also put up a recording a little later of her voice, but for now it's just her playing the piano.

Mayhem

We got Jane *a few* things for Christmas.  But there's only one thing that Michael really, really wanted to give Jane.

And that was hundreds of tiny plastic balls.  Yes, Michael wanted to give Jane a little ball pit for Christmas.  So we ordered the plastic balls online.

"But where will we put the balls?" Michael asked me.

"Oh, in the porta crib or something," I said.

But on Christmas when we took the balls out of the box, I realized that she was going to go down for a nap in the porta crib pretty soon and I didn't want to have to dig out hundreds of balls from it.  So I suggested, "Maybe in the cardboard box?"

So we did it, and we put Jane in there, but we soon learned that it wasn't a good idea, as you can see in this video:

Nooo structural support.  Hmmm.  What to do, what to do?

And that's when I remembered that friends had once (6 years ago) given us an inflatable kiddie pool as a kind of joke.  Hah!  So we blew it up and put the balls in there and presto:

Instant ball pit!  And there were added bonuses to this ball pit.  The sides are so low that Jane can actually crawl in and out, which Michael told me but I didn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes!

The next night I was sitting working on something and suddenly I realized Jane was playing in the ball pit behind me.  I had to get a video!  The video below is about 4:30 long because it's so darn cute.  You could skip to about 2:45 to get the idea if you like.  The last minute you can see her going in and out of the pool a few times.  Crazy girl!

Christmas Day

Santa came to our house!

The stockings just gave up and laid
right down on the floor.

This has been pretty much the best Christmas I've had in years.  Not that the past Christmases have been bad, but there was a whole new joy in watching my daughter open her first gifts and see her smile shyly at the toys as if to say, "Is this for me?" and start playing with them.  I'm sorry that the next few pictures all look like the same thing, but I had to include them because you can see Jane sort of figure out how to open up the paper.  (Also, the scarf around my neck was a gift from Michael.  Isn't it pretty?)

I was surprised that Jane could actually handle opening everything we had for her, we just went very slowly.  We let her figure out how to pull off the paper (and kept her from putting it in her mouth).  Then she'd play with the toy for awhile and when she got a little bored we just brought out a new gift.   We were actually done opening everything in about a half hour.

This is the only toy that didn't work out.
It scares Jane to death.
We'll try it again in a few months.

Michael even got some fun things, too!

When Jane was done opening everything, she just laid back against me on the couch and started playing quietly with her toys.  Moments like this make me almost giddy, like when she's watching a show and lays her head against me, or other times when she takes my hand in hers and I think, "My baby is holding my hand."  I get a thrill like a teenage girl having her hand held by a cute boy that she likes.  Except it's my daughter and it blows me away that I've created something that is now holding my hand and smiling at me.  It was extra special to have a moment like that on Christmas morning.

This book was Jane's gift from Santa!  She loves it.

Christmas morning was just our small family, but later in the day we had Michael's Mom and Dad over for Christmas: Part Deux!

Jane got this pretty red dress from Grandma, who bought
it before she was even born!  That's thinking ahead!

We opened a few more gifts and then we had a dinner that I made, Norman Rockwell style.  Okay, it's not a turkey, but if you look closely you can see that chicken is stuffed with a juicy orange and surrounded by a rendition of my Dad's famous dressing.  Yum!  We also had a cranberry salad (red and green is the way to go on Christmas), a yummy corn dish from Michael's Mom, sweet potatoes, and an apple pie that I didn't get a picture of.

After dinner Jane played with toys some more and then Grandma helped me give her a bath and put her to bed.  I think Jane had a very merry Christmas, and we did, too!

Christmas Eve

Every year on Christmas Eve my family gets together at my Mom's house to open their gifts from grandma and uncle Adam, and also my siblings and I exchange simple family gifts. This year there were about 24 people there, I think.

That's a lot of people!

Here are just 16 people - looks crowded, doesn't it?

Well, 16 people and one dog.

Uncle Doug didn't even have to pay
Ella to give him hugs this year!

Uncle Adam had his hands full with Alex.

Literally.

Nikki got caught showing Jane some looove.

Jane liked to play with the paper!  After the first hour or so of
shyness, just threw herself right into the chaos with her cousins.

Both Jane and I got some pretty things to wear from Grandma.

Jane also got one very LARGE package from Grandma.
What is it?
(Watch your head, Michael!)

The tension mounts.

Oooh a fun scooter thingy!
Thanks to Daddy for spending what felt like an hour putting it together!

My sister pointed out on her blog how grateful we were to have uncle Doug and my Mom with us this  Christmas.  Doug has struggled with cancer for years and underwent major surgery this year, and in October my mom suffered a serious stroke.  They are both doing very well now, but it just made this season a little more meaningful.

In light of my mom's stroke, we put together a special calendar for her, decorated with photos of her children as children, and her grandchildren, and added a few memories from each of us.  I felt like it was important to take a chance while still have her here to express appreciation for a few of the things she's done for us and remember good things that she's brought to our lives.

Merry Christmas!