Thanks, Colin, for point this out.

1998: Kari Leikam, Michelle Buecker, Amanda Carroll, Rebecca Reynolds

2008:  Karianne Kurth (holding Jonah Kurth), Michelle McGuire, Rebecca Tome (holding Kylee Tome), Amanda Leger

A couple of weeks ago, three of my closest friends from high school and I decided that just because our high school (for whatever lame reason) was not having a 10-year reunion, that doesn’t mean we can’t.  So we all got together for the first time in way too long.  Ten years, four marriages, and five kids later, here we are.  We had a blast, and so did our kids.  Kaeta and Xander had great fun watering the pigs, swinging, playing in the dirt, and mostly wrestling.  Apparently Xander is quite the experienced wrestler, although you might start to wonder with all the times he got pinned.  By a girl, no less.  (just kidding, Amanda 😉  We plan to get together again soon!

For her birthday, I took Kaeta to Maker Faire, an annual fair for do-it-yourself projects, technology, crafts, robots, and controlled mayhem.  I’d never been before, and we had a GREAT time.

I posted a photo gallery here: Maker Faire Gallery

Anyway, I had a wonderful experience there that I want to try to share, so here goes:

While I was standing in line to buy my $25 ticket, a guy walked up to me and held out a ticket.  He said, “Hi, I have an extra ticket.”

I took it, dumbfounded, but my mind raced to figure out how he might be conning me.  I guessed I would buy the ticket from him, then when I tried to use it I’d find out it was fake, something like that.  But he said, “You can have it,” and started to walk away.  I think I said “thanks,” but I’m not even sure.

Looking around, I wondered, “Did that just happen?”  Slowly, we moved out of the ticket purchase line and were admited to the fair.

Time passes.  About 20 minutes later, Kaeta and I were wandering through some booths, just looking around and having fun.  Suddenly, a little boy, maybe 7 or 8 years old, walked up to me and said, “Do you, um, need some help?”

Oh, great, I thought.  Some huckster has trained this little boy to lure people into his booth so he can sell them his crap.

“No thanks,” I said to the boy.

The boy didn’t seem to understand that.  “You, um, you just come over here and make a peep out of these clothespins, and then you can play with it in our Midieval Village.”

Again, I thought, Great, he’s learned not to take ‘no’ for an answer.  But then I realized that this was a booth where Kaeta could make something (a “peep”) and play with it, and nothing was even for sale.  With a little help, Kaeta made this clothespin person, and she had a blast playing with it:

(As a side note: There was an adult at that booth, but the only people we talked to were 10 or younger, and they were all very helpful.  I was impressed!)

So I had the sensation, twice in a row, of turning from cynicism to excitement.  When did I become such a cynic?  The atmosphere at Maker Faire was definitely one of people doing and sharing things they loved, with little regard for commercial value, and it was truly refreshing.

One Last Thing:  We had a major breakthrough at the fair.  Previously, Kaeta had been very afraid of robots for some reason.  I’m not even talking about big, scary, Terminator robots… I’m talking about the 2-inch-tall wind-up variety.

However, she seemed pretty interested in the robots at the fair, although she did keep her distance.  We watched the robot battles, and since the crowd (and her daddy) were really getting into it, hooting, clapping, etc., she really enjoyed it!  (With the exception of some of her cousins’ soccer and football games, this was her first spectator sport — that’s a point of pride for me.)

We saw robots like this one flip, mame, and set fire to each other — it was awesome.  I didn’t take that photo, it’s from the Maker Faire website, but we did see that robot (from about 50 yards away).

When Kaeta and I were getting in the car to go home later, I asked her what her favorite part had been.  She thought for a second, then exclaimed, “The ROBOTS!”  Woo hoo!

Kaeta’s been 3 years old for a week now, but here are some pictures from her big day.  We got out the special red plate (it says “You are special today”):

Kaeta wanted a strawberry birthday cake.  She helped ice it and pour on the sprinkles.

THREE!

While she ate cake, we looked at pictures from the day she was born.

It’s hard to tell, but in the picture on screen, I was kissing her on the head when she was just a baby.

I’m so proud of you, Kaeta!

Jonah turned 11 months old last week on the day we left Grand Rapids, so we didn’t get to do the usual photo shoot, but here are a few pictures from that day.  Jonah was really happy to see Brinnly, his future bride, although we could tell he was trying to be cool about it.  She really stole his heart when she started playing with a football-shaped basket, which you can just barely see her carrying in the picture below.  That was actually a special day for both of them, since it was Brinnly’s baptismal birthday too.

Jonah has become even more playful this month.  He does a few animal sounds now.  He does a pretty good gorilla, complete with chest-beating and very manly grunts.  He’s working on the kangaroo, who makes no noise officially but can’t help but laugh as he bounces.  And his favorite animal noise is the coyote — he puckers his lips and howls at the moon.  He really likes to do this one in the high chair.  It is just about the most adorable thing we’ve ever seen.  He’s kind of doing it a little bit here:

Jonah is crawling on his hands and knees now; he very rarely does the army crawl anymore.  He likes to pull himself up on anything and everything, and he cruises along the furniture very well.  He’s getting better and faster at getting around and getting into everything, in typical Jonah fashion.

 

 

We had an awesome time with the Wards in Grand Rapids! It’s been a couple of weeks since we got back, and I’ve finally gotten our photo album up, so you can see pictures of our trip by clicking here.

For a while we were posting a few items every Wednesday, but that has fallen woefully by the wayside.  Seriously, woefully.  I literally feel woe over this.

This week we are going on a vacation to visit our friends the Wards in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I’d really like to come home to a nice, tidy blog that merely awaits pictures and tales of our vacationary adventures.  (Note: I briefly got excited that the WordPress spellchecker didn’t balk at the word “vacationary,” but then I remembered that I don’t have a spellchecker turned on.)

Wow, this is a long intro.  The point is, um, here’s some stuff:

1. Going to the Circus with Grandmother and Grandad!

Grandmother and Grandad took us to the circus back on August 21.  It was REALLY fun, especially exposing Kaeta to cotton candy (the addiction was instantaneous). There are photos in a new gallery here.

2. Kaeta is silly.

Not that that’s news. Here she is contemplating a career as a contortionist:

Showing off her hat:

Making coffee:

3. Our kids are cute.

Jonah loves this play table:

And Kaeta loves to play in this dollhouse, which Karianne’s dad made for Karianne when she was little:

4. The Bishops Came to Visit.

Here are some pics from when the Bishops stayed with us a few weekends ago:

Our families are getting big!

5. Marty is still around here somewhere:

6. I have nothing to add to this.

7. And finally, here’s a glimpse into how Kaeta sleeps at night

Jonah turned 10 months about two weeks ago.  I took these pictures then but we’re only just now getting to post them (the reason is very complicated and high-tech and I wouldn’t be able to explain it to you.  Ask Derek if you really want to know).  Jonah wouldn’t even sit still for this photo shoot.  He was too interested in the camera.  He is still getting into everything and he’s only getting faster.  He is crawling on his hands and knees more but he still does the army-man crawl for long distances because it gets him there faster.  He’s very efficient.

Jonah loves to play games.  He loves giving high-fives, clapping his hands, doing “So Big!”, blowing in your face, and playing his beloved blinking game.  He’s already getting good at rolling and throwing balls.  He can even catch a ball that is rolled to him.  He pulls up on anything he can.  He loves to stand up.  He really likes the learning table toy for that reason.

And I know you’re all dying to hear the football update…. Well, Jonah was pretty bummed out that he did not make varsity this year.  Coach says that he really needs to at least be able to walk to be on varsity.  He says maybe next year.  In the meantime, he offered him a spot on JV, but Jonah turned it down.  He’s going to take this year off and work on walking and running and studying the playbook.  We assured him that we are still proud of him, and we took him out for ice cream.  He says he is also taking this time to focus on his music career, which so far involves “dancing” (sitting on his knees and bopping), playing the morraccas (ie, egg shakers), and the occaisional shriek as Kaeta runs around naked singing VeggieTales songs at the top of her lungs.