Niles's Birthday

Niles saw the sun for the first time one year ago today and he saw the sun for the first time this week today. Of course we just had to spend most of the day outside.

After waking up to an overwhelming family gathering in his room, Niles ate breakfast while jumping up and down in his exersaucer.

Next he and Jonas looked for bunnies out the front windows and warned them against going into the yard with the hounds. We headed for Lucia Crest Park to spend some time playing. Jonas focused on dandelion removal and Niles focused on breaststroking through the pea gravel. After a delicious al fresco lunch and a refreshing nap, Niles played in the sandbox with Jonas, Cory and Ben.

Finally we went to Ella's Deli with Grandma Sue for dinner under the mechanical marionettes and a spin on the carousel. Niles continued his bottomless pit eating shenanigans by eating five of the six "bear french toasts" he was served, a serving aimed at the "under 10" set. Yowza.

To cap off his night, Niles was serenaded in the bath tub by his brother and mother with the "Happy Birthday" song. He then relived his day in his crib, telling his "woobie" about all his adventures for thirty minutes before finally passing out cold.

Niles is One

One year can go by with so much happening that you can't believe it all happened in the same year.....this was one of the years. You can see by the picture he has already passed up his 3 year old brother in height. Here are a few highlights of the one-year old growing up.

At the museum spring break wi in the snow

Its snowing outside in the middle of april.  All of the kids of madison decided to meet at the museum.

Never go against the family

Imagine "The Godfather" was made by my children. Perhaps this is what it may have turned out like.

February and March updates

Okay, okay. It's probably easy to tell that Travis is working lots of hours and I'm home with the kids since the blog posts have, ah, sort of gone by the wayside this year. Some days two kids feels like five, but most of the time that's just fine. It just doesn't leave a lot of time for blog posting, which is not my forte anyhow. We are excited for the first signs of spring: robins on the grass, migrating cranes, and daffodils poking through the mud. Jonas has been busy taking an art class, learning first hand about state government and the voice of democracy, and being an all around goof. He has a knack for remembering a lot of what he hears (even though he says, "What did you say?" about thirty times per hour.) He's been singing songs he hears on the radio while we drive in the car and I've heard him chanting some of the protest chants he heard while up at the Capitol.

Niles is growing up so fast and it's hard to believe he'll be one in about a month! He is eating pretty much anything that he can grab, his favorite being buttered toast. He is crawling super fast and loves being chased, caught, and "gobbled up". Niles loves to dance on his butt, bounce up and down while holding on for support, and cruise around hanging on to just about anything he can get his hands on, including my hair. Ouch! He recently has been very vocal as well and says "ni-ni" (night-night), "naaa" (nap), mama, dada, "daa" (dog), "baaaaa!" (sheep), "aaa-du" (all done), and has a bunch of hand gestures/sign language he uses as well. I think he's also started to say Jonas, but he's only done it a few times so I can't be sure. When I am sure, I'll try to get it on video and post it.
We have a bunch of video on the tangensprouts youtube channel. You can click the link on the header of this page to see all of that mess.
Enjoy the slideshow!

Things

While we have taken a mid-season break from blogging a bit has occurred. Celebrated a wonderful holiday season with family. Niles is communicating pretty well. Niles started walrusing. Niles started crawling. Niles got a bunch more teeth. Jonas has been exhibiting classic 3 year old behaviors. Both kids are currently very sick. Niles has the worst of it an Jonas has fought through more quickly. Many chases have occurred: some can be seen in the above video on one particular Green Bay packers Sunday. (Hence the green and gold gear, hats, zubazzs, etc.) The boys play together very well almost all the time.... We have had the usual ridiculous snowstorms which has made for good sledding. Jonas has really been into riding his big wheel in the snow. We have modified a sled to attach the big wheel to it, but I don't have any pictures. This has increased the speed at which the big wheel can transit the snow.

Many visits to the usual indoor events: train shows, children's museum, indoor gymnasiums, art classes, library, Olbrich gardens, grandma's house, and other little people's houses. Many visitors from near and far which has been great for the kids to see all of their relatives. Your travels are much appreciated, the boys love visitors. Super Bowl tomorrow. Go Pack Go.

Niles communicates & Fireman Santa

While Niles has been communicating with the tones of his grunts and cries since April 29th he has moved to the next level. He has been waving, giving verbal cues to his desires, and use some simple sign language. We have been working on milk, done, more, etc and he has these in his lexicon right now. There is a short cut of Jonas and a marathon song that lasted for about 15 minutes on the way to see Santa #1. When we arrived at Santa #1 the boys got out of the van just in time to see the fire-engines zoom away on a call. Jonas and Niles saw their neighbor fireman Jay zoom off in the #4. Santa was wonderful and Jonas got to ring his bells, but the initial pictures didn't go so well for the kids. See the picture below for the details. There is a great article about the Santa, check it out. I know that Santa is a public employee and in this day and age in our state is vilified by our soon to be new Governor for being so "affluent" and actually having a retirement program. I'm sure Gov Walker will be sure to take away a lot of the desire for good people to do public sector work. (By the way the top 1% of income earners grab more than 23% of the total income and also pay a tax-rate that is equal to those in poverty. The highest one percent used to be taxed at 70-94% after WWI until the 1970s, but now they average around 18%....so they can have more money I guess like our new Senator Johnson with his 9.5 million dollars in earnings but lucky for him didn't pay any income taxes (that's zero income taxes) for those 11 years, he probably would not have been able to feed his family if he had to pay taxes like everyone else that is not a millionaire. Bottom line, we better continue to reduce the wages and compensation of the middle class so that the millionaires don't have to pay any taxes and can hire more workers like Johnson did by hiring prisoners from a WI prison because they were inexpensive workers...ahh greed in the name of capitalism and politics) I digress.....happy holidays everyone.

First Snowfall

From beards to Thanksgiving, to Niles first face plant in the snow to no-napping Jonas pass-outs, to first x-mas tree and beyond this slideshow has it all. Enjoy the holiday season.