Not much new here in the 'ville. Last weekend Mara had board review from 9-5 on Saturday & Sunday so the Rho-man and I got some cleaning and packing done. When I was cleaning out the kitchen cupboards I found 2 large boxes of corn starch, and what do we do with corn starch? Make OOBLECK! FYI, 2 boxes is enough to make a very large amount of Oobleck. Oobleck is pretty much the most fun substance on Earth (Happy Fun Ball rules the universe though). Anyway, Oobleck is just H2O and corn starch, mixed to the right texture and has the coolest properties. Who knew Non-Newtonian fluids could be this much fun? Another FYI, Non-Newtonian fluids have properties that change depending on the stress applied. Try it yourself and see what you think. Jackson was a big fan I remember. I stole this video from Shell's Blog:
I contemplated whether or not to post this next video, because the ridicule I'll face will be enormous, but Oobleck is SO FUN! I just had to see what on Oobleck shower felt like. Plus setting that solid parenting example for Rohan...:) Contrary to speculation...I am wearing my shower shorts in the video...
Rohan has been enjoying his saucer and high chair a little more. We also found he's quite a narcissist and LOVES watching himself in the mirror. If you want you can watch the video below, but it is about 2 min long.
Other than that, just biding time until we head to AZ! 22 more days according to our countdown!
Last weekend we met up at Tim & Allison's in Des Moines so we could visit with them, but also see Steph who was back from Colorado to visit family. Rohan also got to see Unkie Nate and everyone got to see Rohan and Cameron. They were such cards the whole time. Every time Cameron looks at me, with those huge eyes and blank stare, I laugh. He's studying everything he sees so much he forgets to add expression to his face...it's hilarious! Once he's done checking you out he has this awesome smile. It was another whirlwind trip on Friday. We had another friend (Kyle) and his family of 3 boys over for dinner as well! It was kid-central at the Peet's. The neighbors had several families over as well and even those kids were over. Talk about birth control...:) We had an awesome lasagna from Allison (the food is always good), then the guys retired to the "Man Cave" and watched MMA, K1, and UFC highlights for about 3 hours. The girls chatted away upstairs, oblivious to us downstairs...:) We had a really great visit with Steph, and even made a trip over to see Nate's new bachelor pad. Single guy, first home, I'm expecting something that's missing an exterior wall or something. Turns out Nate bought an AWESOME place with a huge kitchen, garage, 3 bathrooms and an unfinished basement that I'm sure Nate will turn into something sweet. Our Nate is all growsed up...:) We, as always, hit Babies R' Us to get things that Wal-Mart of Kirksville can't provide, like outfits for upcoming weddings. Nate bailed on the BRU trip, but we hooked back up and went for a walk around the Lakeside Fitness trail Mara had visited a few weeks ago. The dogs were really glad to be out and so were we! Rohan was bad and even ended up in the kennel...:) We ended the day with some awesome Thai food and then Mara and I headed back to MO. We got back around 1am because we wanted to be home on Sunday so we could go to church. OK, that's not true, I just wanted to make sure you were reading this. :P We had some studying and writing to do, and we enjoy lazy days at home as well (Lazy Sundays). We also both found time to work out. It was really windy so Mara worked out inside, but I was stubborn enough to take Rohan for a run outside. I was a little slower than normal, but when I had the wind at my back I was running a 7.5 min mile, but into the wind it was more like 10.5 min mile. Rohan's jogging stroller acts more like a parachute than anything else. But it felt great, and Rohan was awake the whole time, just cheesing to himself. Speaking of Rohan, he is feeling a lot better. His cough is subsiding a little and he's in a much better mood overall. He has been so full of new things lately as well. Yesterday I went for a run and ran by his daycare, so I stopped in to see him. He was really geeked up when I was talking to him and when I left they said he watched me leave, then his bottom lip came out, started to quiver, and then he cried. He's definitely never done that before! He's also smiling at the dogs and sticking his tongue out more when he smiles as well. We definitely think he's feeling better! We have some fun video of him flirting with a girl at daycare. He's such a charmer! We also had some video today of Linus treeing a cat. Lucy would be so proud...at least until the cat jumped out of the tree...watch the video... Enjoy the plethora of A/V material below:
We seem to be getting pretty regular with the weekly blog post. We wish we had more time to update, but it's crazy how fast the week goes by! There really isn't much to report from Mara and I. We're just plugging along, just trying to forget we move in 6 weeks! If we focused on that we'd be too excited to focus on the final sprint to the end of the quarter. I guess I do have one thing. With Mara (and Shell) keeping track of their running with their iPods and Nike+, I decided it would be a good motivator to get one myself. I found an AWESOME deal for an iPod on eBay and just got it on Friday. Like Mara and Michelle I also added a little avatar on the left side of our blog that posts my workouts. It's been a lot of fun so far and I can't wait to play "catch-up" with Mara and Michelle. They are much better built for running, but it will be fun to get in better shape! Rohan got some great gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Bacon, Chris & Michelle, and Greg & Nicole! It must have been for his 3rd month birthday...:) The Bacon's got him a nice pair of sunglasses that he can wear when he's in AZ. We got some great video and pictures of Rohan modeling them. Greg & Nico got him some cool outfits & swimwear and sunglasses that fit him great now! Chris & Shell found some AWESOME Brewers outfits just in time for Opening Day at Miller Park. If we were in Milwaukee Rohan would have worn them to the game. Instead we watch the game at home on MLB.TV. It's what I get from Mara as a birthday present every year. It's cheaper than cable and we can watch ANY game, that is outside of Missouri and not televised on ESPN, in HD! Since we hooked the PC up to our new TV the games look like thier are broadcast quality! Anyway...the Brewers ended up coming from behind and beating the Cubbies (sorry Grandma) in the bottom of the 9th. It was really exciting, and I'm sure it made Rohan a fan for life...:) On Friday we tried out my new iPod, and also got a chance to lift before we picked up Rohan from daycare. Saturday was nice, but a little wet from overnight rain. We took the dogs and Rohan to the park and got everyone some fresh air before retiring to study. I did find some time to watch the 3rd round of The Masters before I started back on my thesis. Sunday was a nice day. It started out pretty lazy, but then we went for a nice 3 mile jog with Rohan. We fought the wind pretty good, but it felt awesome. We caught the final round of The Masters before hitting the dining room (A.K.A. the study hall) for the rest of the night. We hope everyone had a great weekend! Enjoy the pics & vid!
Today is the official opening day for Major League Baseball! Although the Brewers don't play today (just the Phillies & Braves), it's still exciting to have a break from NBA & NHL, which we could care less about...:) At least March Madness is on and Tiger is back playing golf, so those have been a good bridge between NFL & MLB. From the pictures you can see that Rohan was particularly excite about baseball starting. He even wore his ALL-STAR outfit, his choice of course...:) Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Mara also had video of Rohan just chillin' out, eating his fingers. When we looked up and saw she was there, he just started to cheese. I thought this was pretty cute:
We also may have found a name for the puppy. We're thinking Schroeder, which does actually continue our Peanuts character theme. He was the piano prodigy that played Beethoven and was the object of affection for the Lucy character...kind of fitting, but given that he replaced Lucy in our house...kind of the opposite too. We employed Chris & Shell to help us pick. We had a list of 12 or so names and couldn't decide on which one we liked better. We liked all of them, but just couldn't pull the trigger on one for sure. Thanks for your help Stokes'! A while back I also thought of Schrödinger as a similar name. He was a quantum mechanics physicist that had a really cool thought experiment called "Schrödinger's Cat". It places a cat in a box (theoretically) with a bottle of poison under a hammer, a Geiger counter , and a radioactive substance. If the Geiger counter detects a decayed particle from the radioactive substance, it releases the hammer, exposing the cat to the poison. Basically the problem states that the cat exists in both live & dead states based on the probability of the Geiger counter detecting the radiation. The problem was a case he and Einstein discussed because the cat cannot exist in 2 states, it's either dead or alive. Kind of fun to think about...:) Anyway, we are still taking suggestions for the name in case we like another one better, but it looks like we'll be sticking with Schröeder for now...:)
We HAD to get out and enjoy the nice 65 °F, and we had to get Rohan & the new puppy out for a walk too. What better way than to head out to Thousand Hills and take a 4 mile hike!!! We had to check and see if the new puppy (yet to be named) liked the water, outdoors, etc. So we grabbed some picnic food and headed out. It was a little breezy, and by that I mean 40 MPH gusts, but among the trees it didn't bother us too much. Rohan was "pass-out bear" for the whole trip while he rode in the front pack with Mara. He's been so much fun with all his smiling and interaction lately. He's been helping Mara at night too by sleeping for 4-5 hours at a stretch so she's been really liking the extra sleep! The new puppy had a blast outside. He grew up outside at a farm before we got him, and Linus always likes a good hike. Turns out the puppy liked the water as well, and didn't seem to mind getting dirty as well! In the following clip you can see the lack of fear for running on a log in the water. There was a nice water landing followed by a quick water rescue. Contrary to what I said...apparently I will "Fish his @$$ out of the water"...:) Sorry for the wind noise, it gusted right when I started the video.
I should say we were experimenting with names and we were calling him "Geo" for a while to see if we liked it. We didn't...
Here are some pictures from our hike:
Rohan tonight has been such a card. We put some toys in his hands and he hung onto them for 20 minutes, then started to chew on them. He seemed to really like the toys and always likes interaction! Not sure if he even knows he's holding them, but because he's the Smartest Baby Ever, we're pretty sure he knows what he's doing...:) Here are a couple of videos of him with the toys.
His smile has been getting brighter and brighter all the time, so we included a video of that as well. Mara sang him some Itsy Bitsy Spider and he seemed to love that too! :) Enjoy the videos!
Lucy is fine. In fact, I'm sure she is loving every minute living on the farm with my parents. We are very sad to say that Miss Lucy and Rohan are not best friends and likely never will be. Lucy wasn't ever really a fan of kids and we had hoped that was just "a phase" or that she would get used to one if they were around all the time, but it turns out that she just got more nervous (and we in turn got more nervous). We decided that it was in her best interest to remove her from the situation that was making her SO uncomfortable and my parents graciously agreed to take her (THANK YOU Mom & Dad, you have no idea how relieved we are to have her with you!). We met my parents in Cedar Rapids, IA yesterday to hand over Lucy. We had lunch, they got to spend a couple of hours loving on Rohan and then we headed to a park to let the dogs run and give Lucy some love. We will definitely miss Lucy but we know that she is in a terrific home and that she will absolutely love it there! The following are a bunch of pictures of Lucy over the years...we miss you already Belle!
Linus never was very good about being an only dog, so we knew that we would be getting another puppy. What we didn't know was when...well, we heard about some free puppies on Wednesday night and we've had a chocolate lab/German short hair/? (English Springer Spaniel?) mix ever since:) He is a very gentle, calm puppy. We were really excited that at 10 weeks he had already been exposed to kids and did quite well with them. So far he has been very interested in Rohan and very gentle, he will walk up and kiss Ro, then lay down next to him during tummy time. We are getting used to a new puppy in the house, how quickly you forget about the messes, sharp teeth, etc that a puppy brings:) As of right now, the puppy is still nameless. All suggestions are welcome! Here are a few pictures of the puppies first days with us and a few from our fist with my parents when we met up to drop Lucy off. We took all the dogs with so my parents could meet the new grandpuppy and took them all for a walk at a park in Cedar Rapids. Mom was excited that she could do some Rohan/frontpack time, something she did a ton of with us kids, we're pretty sure Rohan enjoyed it too!
Taylor Nicole -- February 5th, 1997 Kaylee Christine -- June 4th, 2001 Jackson Edward -- May 5th, 2007 Samuel Reuben -- July 5th, 2007 Thomas Costa -- December 28th, 2007 Rohan Alexander -- January 4th, 2009 Ryan James-- October 29th, 2009
