ledger's artwork

ledger loves to play with his toys, just like any other kid, but there's one thing that he does a little bit differently.  he really loves to try and make things balance on top of each other.  why?  i have no idea, but he takes such joy in it!  he will take one of his little toy figures and set it on top of something and walk around it to get a good look at it from all perspectives, and then he will call one one of us over to check it out.  he is so proud of himself when he gets them to balance on the strangest things!  to the left you will notice one of his most impressive feats of balance, the sheep on the baby gate.  what a masterpiece!  its almost as if, to him, they are some sort of art installation that is a form of his expression.  please, check out some more of his 'balance gallery' here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

self made halloween costume

so, we've got a holloween party coming up for ledger and we are trying to find a good costume for him.  a month or two ago diana found a really great lion costume for him, but every time we try to get him in it he screams bloody murder and throws a fit for a half hour!  perhaps sensing our frustration, ledger decided to find a costume for himself!  so, apparently our son is going dressed as a paper sack for halloween...
when diana and i saw him walking around with this on, i'm pretty sure we were howling with laughter for the next three hours!  i still cant look at this picture without giggling!

silly hair

it was ledger's most favorite time: bath time!  he loves getting in that water and playing around.  we try to let him stay in there until he gets bored, but the problem is that he never does!  one time, i think, we were in there for over a half hour- baby prune hands are probably the cutest thing ever!  whenever i get to give him a bath, i always like to mess around with his hair when he's done.  well, this time i made sure to get some great pictures of the wild styles we came up with!
check them out here.

farm counting

ledger has been learning so much so quickly lately!  he's able to say and understand so many words now that every day when i come home he's got a new one or three to tell me.  i always like to go through his flashcards with him or his books and ask him what different stuff on the page is.  he's got just about all the animals figured out- both their names and their noises!  i thought i would put him to the test though, and see if he has learned how to count.  i lined up a bunch of his farm animal toys and counted them out for him, 'one, two, three...' and then asked him to do the same.  much to my delight, he pointed out each one and counted out a number: 'two, three, two, three, two, three...'  i was duly impressed!  granted, its not quite right, but he certainly understands the whole counting concept!  before we know it, he's going to be talking in complete sentences and holding conversations with us- oh, i cant wait!

all smiles

ledger and i were just hanging out in the living room the other day.  i realized that i didnt have many pictures of him on my phone, which is really strange, because i usually take so many pictures! admittedly i had a bunch of pictures, but i didnt have any that were good shots of what ledger looks like right now.  most of them were him being active, running around or just taken from farther away.  so, we had ourselves a little impromptu photo shoot!
here are the adorable results!

meal and a movie

the other day james and barbara stopped by for the evening.  the came with a bunch of groceries and we made dinner together!  ledger was up for a few hours with us, getting the chance to spend some time with his auntie and james.  as always, he was a blast!  he really seemed to hit it off with james, playing with him and talking his ear off.  after dinner ledger went to bed and the four of us got a chance to hang out, watch a scary movie, and just have a great time.  i'm pretty sure diana's favorite part was the ample desserts that barbara brought as well!

by the book

one of the changes around the house that we have made was moving out the love seat and armchairs from the dinning room corner.  it worked perfectly, david took the love seat in to his office at work, and we were able to bring our love seat in to the house as well as a couple of book shelves.  we were a little worried about how ledger would act with the shelves of books, but we made sure to leave him the bottom shelf so he could keep all his books there.  its been going really well, he doesnt even seem to notice the adult books and leaves them completely alone, choosing instead to play with and pull out all of his books!  that should keep him busy for a while!

life is a zoo

diana and barbara planned a wonderful day for ledger: a visit to the south bend zoo!  they invited james, barbara's friend, and his neices to join them, and mom went along too.  diana said that ledger has so much fun seeing the different animals.  he loves animals so much that i'm sure he absolutely loved the chance to see them in real life!  his favorite toys are the animals in his farm set, always carrying them around with him making their noises- 'moo!'  'neh!'  'baa!', and any time there are animals on tv he always stops whatever he's doing to watch them!  diana said that he was loving every minute of their trip, and for some reason he thought everything was a turtle.  strange...
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brinkend weekend 2

after the boat ride we started getting dinner ready.  mom put the beans and stuff on the stove while papa, tim, jackson, and i gathered around the grill to prepare the brats and dogs for our feast.  when all was ready, we all piled in to the dinning room and dug in.  it was so wonderful to have my family with us at our place, getting a chance to see where we are and get to enjoy the house and lake.  i think we are going to need to do this again real soon!

brink boat

soon after they settled in, the kids wanted to go out on the boat!  they got in their bathing suits and we headed out.  as soon as the boat pulled out, a muskrat jumped out from behind the boat, freaking out all the girls!  well, there's no way jaidey is going in the water now...  we went around the lake, checking out the sites, and when we were in the middle of the lake papa asked if the kids were going to get in.  after the muskrat incident it took a little bribery to make that happen- he offered the kids a dollar if they hopped in.  almost before the words came out of his mouth, aves was mid-air making the plunge!  she quickly scurried back on the boat- the water was freezing!  jackson was willing to overlook that issue and he jumped in too.  aves took one last dive before they called it quits, making sure that papa was actually going to pay out!  when we got back to the dock the kids ran up to the deck and hopped in the hot tub to warm back up.
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brinkend weekend

my family hasnt had a chance yet to visit us since the change, so we made plans to fix that!  diana and i have been making a lot of changes around the house, moving out some furniture, bringing some of our stuff in and getting the place looking its best.  with all the changes going on, we wanted to show if off a bit to my family.  we found a weekend that worked for everyone to visit: mema, papa, tim, jill, and the kids!  diana and i were, of course, busy all morning getting the place ready to show off.  they arrived in the afternoon and we had a great time showing off the place, giving them the grand tour of our place, letting papa see first hand all the work i had done over the summer on the deck and everything.  they were duly impressed and pleased that we were so happy where we are.
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making mema a card

its mema's birthday soon, so we had better make her something special!  in preparation of my mom's birthday, i sat down at the dinning room table with ledger, a couple pieces of paper, and a bunch of crayons!  he has been really loving coloring lately, so i just let him loose!  i wrote a little birthday greeting at the top and then let ledger do his thing on the rest of the paper.  he did, of course, create a masterpiece!  after he gave it his final seal of approval, we sent it on its way.  since we werent going to be able to see mema on her birthday, at least she would have ledger's special artwork to put on her fridge.  i called her on her birthday and she was very pleased with her amazing ledger brink original!

hot tub bubble machine

with lissa's visit coming to an end, miranda and levi wanted to stop by and make the most of it!  the bother though, is that it ends up getting pretty late when they visit- they stopped by after levi got out of work, which is at 10pm!  they came ready though, the brought their swimsuits so that we could hop in the hot tub and hang out.  its always so much fun when friends come over.  i think i've been a little deprived of that experience living in griffith: i don't really have many friends there, so being constantly surrounded by them here has been an awesome change- i love it!  we wandered out to the hot tub by the end of the night and levi did his best to annoy the girls with his constantly fiddling with the controls- more bubbles!  less bubbles!  it was especially funny to watch miranda because when those bubbles are full blast she couldn't help but get blown away by them!  she's a little too short to fight against them as they take here away with the force of their current!  late into the night we finally came to our senses and realized that we actually have things to do tomorrow, so we should probably get some sleep...

south haven afternoon

lissa was in town for a visit and joined us for a meet-up with my parents up in south haven.  we drove up and met them for lunch.  we didnt have any sort of game plan for the day, other than it being a chance to spend some time with mema and papa!  we wondered around for a while downtown, looking for a great place to eat.  we settled on a pizza place a little off the beaten path.  it was a good choice because the food was fantastic.  ledger once again got the chance to show off the new new things he's been learning, impressing his mema and papa!  although the visit was too short, as always, it was wonderful to spend the afternoon with them!
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pumpkin repaint

with all the moving about, it was finally time to get the duplex ready to rent.  we did a bunch of cleaning and packing.  looking around the place, we figured a lot of the walls looked great as is.  diana had done a great job of picking some beautiful colors for each room.  the only exception was the living room- it had still been the dark pumpkin color i had painted eight or nine years ago.  the color wasn't bad, but now that the walls were bare, it was obvious that with all the scrapes and bumps on the wall, it was not looking its best.  so, i stopped at the store and picked up a few cans of white paint to cover it over, start fresh in the living room.  i was able to get it done in a couple coats, touching up some of the detail work elsewhere in the house, stuff like door frames and doors.  by the time i was done, which happened to be about one in the morning, the place was looking pretty good!  yikes, tomorrow at work is going to be rough...

mom's birthweek

it was diana's moms birthday, and we made a big deal out of it!  david insists that no one should celebrate a birthday- they should celebrate a birth week!  so all week long we had special treats like ice cream and pie, the two of them went out a time or two for special date nights, and we also gathered together, the whole family, for a special birthday dinner!  we went to the texas steakhouse with the whole gang: mom, david, alanna, scott, tavish, barbara, diana, ledger, and i.  as always, its hilarious to see ledger and tavish together.  the two of them loved the chance to laugh and play, doing their best to make as big of a mess as possible! after dinner we all headed back to the house and had a chance to play together in the backyard.  a wonderful end to a banner birth week!
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stopping by

diana had a few errands to run, so ledger and i had a couple hours to kill.  what better way to spend a sunny afternoon than with a visit to grandpa!  ledge and i loaded up and drove over to diana's dad's house to see how he was doing and to let ledger play on the slide that grandpa had gotten him over the summer.  he offered us a bit to eat, we got the chance to talk for a bit and play in the living room, then out we went to play on that amazing slide!  it was really great to just spend some time with dad; a chance for ledger to show off all the new things he's learned.  and, of course, to see that stinky little dog as well!
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pioneer times

usually if we got hang out with friends its people diana knows.  i always have a great time too, but it was nice the other day to have a friend of my own to hang out with!  jon was in town and we got the chance to meet up and hang!  he grew up in the area and was visiting his dad for for the weekend and we had the opportunity to get together and spend the day hanging out.  we met up for dinner at one of my new favorite places: salsa!  we caught up and had a blast just chatting it up.  after dinner we wandered around mishawaka randomly for a couple hours, making stops at the used movie store, meijer's, and eventually we ended the night at bdubbs to cap off our night with some chicken wings.  it was so refreshing to be able to unwind with an old friend, talking about life, wives, friends, and coming up with a bunch of hilarious new ideas and jokes!  man, i hope he comes to visit his dad more often...

skeeter!

we've had this strange water craft ever since diana's mom and david moved in to their lake house.  its some sort of hybrid water vehicle: its a bike mounted on two pontoons.  they retrofitted the bike pedals to power the paddles in the back, with a rudder connected to the handle bars of the bike.  weird, huh?  well, the previous owners must not have wanted it because they left in behind.  this summer we put it in the water and for the first time diana gave it a try!  barbara has taken it out a time or two, but diana finally decided it was her time.  turns out, she loved it!  she took a quick loop by the dock and laughed the whole time.  i guess its about time for me to try it too...

everyone's invited

one of diana's oldest and dearest friends is sarah, she grew up just down the street from diana and barbara so they spent a lot of time together growing up. now they live in michigan city so they dont get to connect as often as they used to.  recently we found a weekend where sarah, her husband vince, and their two kids could come over and spend the afternoon together.  it was a great time, we had a grill out with the whole gang, miranda and levi were able to spend the day as well!  sarah and vince have a son, sean, who is only a year older than ledger, so the two of them had a blast playing together!  as sean gets older, sarah passes down his old clothes to us, which is fantastic because they keep that kid well dressed!  which means we now keep our kid well dressed- score!  we had a great day of yummy food, a trip out on the lake and a bit of swimming.  it was so much fun- its really nice to be in an place where we can actually host friends and have a party together!
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