Changing the Blog Address

We've decided to change the way we host our family blog. Right now, if you visit the old site it will redirect you here, but in the next few weeks the old address won't work anymore.

From now on, you'll need to go to:

http://akvanduyne.blogspot.com/

Update your bookmarks.

Minus 1/2 A Tree

We had quite the storm this morning. We lost half of our huge oak tree. Luckily the house is fine.

Offically a Toddler

Kristin's Texas grandparents, parents, and sister visited us last weekend so we've been busy. Everyone had a great time, especially Abby who loves all the attention. We have lots of pictures we'll probably put up at some point, but for now I thought I would share the news that Abby is offically a toddler now.

And, she's getting pretty good at saying her own name.

A Good Weekend for Dad

(Not-So-Good for Lucy.)

We finished the garden fence this week. It was a long project but it was interupted by several weekends. We can already see a few vegtables coming up, so I guess soon enough we'll find out if the fence can keep rabits out. Personally, I think it would take a band of rabit commandos to get in, I'm not so sure about the squirels though.

In other news, after making her belly bleed from too much biting, Lucy is now the proud owner of a dog cone. Go ahead and laugh, it's pretty funny. She's never been good at judging distances, so now she runs into things constantly. To be fair I warned her it was coming many times.

Memorial Weekend 2009

Abby's had a lot of grandparent time these past few weekends. We headed north for Memorial Day to visit my parents. They had a lot of fun playing with her and watching her get ready to walk - crawling on her hands and toes and walking when someone holds her hands. Adam and I had fun going out on Saturday evening. Mom and Dad stayed home with Abby and gave us their tickets to The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. We didn't know much about the show or what to expect, but it was hilarious! We had a great time. Monday one of their neighbors had a Memorial Day cookout (which ended up being a cook-in thanks to the rain) so Mom had fun showing off Abby to all the neighbors who don't have grandchildren yet. Lucy also greatly enjoyed the trip, since she gets two walks a day whenever we're visiting.

This weekend Adam's parents and brother came up for a visit. Abby learned a new game while we were out at the movies - we have a video of that. She's kind of a Boom! monster now. As soon as she gets into the living room she starts pulling pillows to the floor and saying "Boom!" to let me know that she wants to play. Lucy also got quite a few walks from Alex, so she had a great weekend too. I was excited because Adam had his dad and brother help him with the gate for the garden fence, so I didn't have to be buff for that. We're almost finished with the fence now - just a few more pickets to hang! Like so many projects, it ended up being bigger and taking more time than we had anticipated. But it's a great fence, and I'm really excited for it. It's going up just in time, too. We have carrots and lettuce and cucumbers sprouting, and we planted some tomatoes and peppers this weekend too. Keep those bunnies out!

The exciting news on the Abby front is that she's just starting to walk. So far she hasn't taken more than just one or two steps at a time, but it's becoming more frequent. We've been trying to get a video of it to share, but haven't had any luck so far. Mostly she walks when her hands are full so she can't crawl, so we're hoping that we can use that to convince her to walk more. We keep trying to tell her that if she walks her hands will be free to carry her toys around with her, so maybe that's sinking in.