3 Years: Birthday!

Today August officially turns three! Here are some photos from an early celebration we had on Monday morning (and afternoon) back at Grandma and Grandpa's.

It all starts with an amazing, themed cake. Kudos to Grandma!


August was overjoyed with it!


Wait, is that real lava in there?


Open some presents in the afternoon:


Balloon joy:


Bonus photo from the day before: hiking in the snow with Grandpa and Uncle Doug. What's Uncle Doug doing standing on August's head?!

8 Months | 2.9 Years: Xmas Photos

It was a pretty gaudy display awaiting the kids on Christmas morning. Santa had come, and he had snacked on the milk & cookies we left for him.

During the mahem:


Kazoo makes a good stocking stuffer... also a good baby waker during nap time:


Lela with Grandpa

8 Months | 2.5 Years: Hiking

Snow is almost melted here in Idaho, August and Daddy were privileged to have a walk in the wilderness this afternoon with Grandpa and Uncle Doug.







OK, so for some of us it was equal part hiking and riding, but it still qualifies as a hike.

8 Months | 2.5 Years: Pre-XMas Footage

Before we left for our annual Christmas-time trip to Idaho, August's class had a PJ party on the last day of school. Thank goodness for Aunt Deeda's birthday gift, opened somewhat before August's actual birthday, because if not for her we wouldn't have had any actual, official PJs, much less these cute dinosaur ones. Since August refuses to use a blanket, he sleeps in a lot of extra-warm clothes, so it's been a while since we had any PJs... much less the cutest PJs in the entire class! Thanks Aunt Deeda:




And then, some footage from our trip to Idaho.

Lela in Denver, waiting:




At Grandma & Grandpa's: "Lela Boots"


August has his very own snow shovel at Grandma & Grandpa's, where shoveling snow can be a near-daily exercise. Here's our guy shoveling snow with Grandpa, a video and some photos:

8 Months | 2.5 Years: XMas Shopping

A couple of photos from our outing yesterday.

Here's Lela, who can now clap when we suggest she does so (how very advanced!).


And August, relaxed.

7 Months | 2.5 Years: My Charts

Latest genealogical pie charts, for me, based on new-ish information:


[click to enlarge]


[click to enlarge]

Note that not all of the labels in the legend are represented in this particular pie (the chart has to work for me, Mary, the kids, and any other individual in the tree, and I can't figure out how to make Excel ignore zero-value fields). The eastern European segment in this case is Hungary. I've actually combined Germany/Prussia in this chart, so it's all reported under Germany. The Scandinavian portion is entirely Norway, in my charts.

Another interesting (to me!) point: a healthy chunk of the "Scottish" pie slice is currently somewhat in doubt.

The way I do this is to track back as far as I can in a family tree until I get either into the 1500s/1600s OR to the Old Country, somewhere. Then I apply the appropriate mathematical weight for that generation to the country where the person is from (12.5% for a great grandparent, 3.125% for a 3rd-great grandparent, etc.). Obviously, since some of my branches are fuzzier than others, I've had to make some assumptions.

One of my fuzziest branches traces along my maternal line to a 2nd-great grandmother who's name was Kerr and who married a man whose heritage had been well shuffled already through several generations in the States. Rather than assign her as "Unknown" I have her down as Scottish, and 6.25% of the pie chart above is assigned Scottish on the strength of this.

The problem is that my maternal Halplogroup, which I inherited from this individual and which was discovered via DNA testing, indicates heritage from Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, or even the Middle East / Persia. This could either indicate that our Kerr's mother was, say, 100% Armenian, or it could just mean that her mother's mother's m's m's m etc. came from the Caucuses (or wherever) to Scotland (or wherever) 500 years ago, and this more-exotic heritage has been completely watered down except for a tiny fraction.

The fact is that about half of the Scottish portion of the chart above should probably be assigned Unknown until we're able to dig deeper on Ruth Kerr's heritage (if we ever can). It might be (virtually) correct as is. It might be only partially correct. It might be completely wrong.

Who are you, Ruth Kerr?

2.5 Years: More Typing

August won't be three for another month, so we think this is pretty impressive! Just for the record, typing is a part of the pre-bedtime routine that he thought up and he actively requests. This is not us pushing him.... not that we haven't taken advantage of his interest, though!

It's more than 4 minutes, so you don't have to sit through the whole thing to get the idea.



Mary points out that we really don't know if this is unusual. All I know is that I remember being excited on the first day of first grade because we were finally going to learn this mystery of reading and writing. I thought it was about time! August is less than half that age right now. What were people thinking back then!?