Sweet Yet Sour

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of my updates – I think it’s about time to get one done.

Anna’s Update:

Anna turned 10 months old last week – I have no idea where the time went!  She’s crawling like a pro, crawling up stairs, is cruising our furniture and is just generally active and happy.  She’s saying “mama” and “dada”, but not necessarily towards the right person and has learned recently to point at things she wants and say “dat” or “dis” (roughly translated to “that” and “this”).

Yesterday I went to the card store for Valentine’s cards and had to listen to her say “dat” repeatedly and point at the stuffed animals behind me.  I really was hoping that the “I want that” stage was a long way off!

She recently discovered the cupboard where we keep her plastic bowls and other Tupperware and spends lots of time exploring the detritus.

Sometimes after going through the cupboard she’ll just stay there for snack time…

She also eats anything that is on the floor, so I’m having to keep it pretty clean or accept that she will just eat whatever she finds.

We go to the park and swing when we can, which she seems to enjoy:

This past weekend we had playgroup with two other sets of parents from our childbirth class.  Anna is the oldest of the three kids by a few weeks and although the boys have at least 5 lbs on her she is at least just as tall as them:

I take a lot of pictures of her and sometimes she gets a little Britney Spears on me:

Don’t worry – I’ll keep taking pictures of her – it’s not like she can get a restraining order that would stick…

Mike’s Update:

Thank you to all of you with your well wishes upon the death of Mike’s mom – Norma Munhall.  Norma died suddenly following heart surgery, which she had hoped to keep secret from her family, on January 17th.  Norma was a talented quilter, tatter (lace-maker), accomplished violinist and ice-skater, loving mom to Mike and adoring grandmother to Anna.

Following Norma’s death Mike rushed off to Dallas to help his dad sort things out and was there for 5 days.  The lesson that we should all take away from Norma’s death is not only to appreciate your loved ones, but also to save your loved ones a lot of headaches by getting life insurance, writing a will and designating beneficiaries on all your accounts.  Norma failed to do these things and Mike and his dad are having to deal with a lot of mess, expense and an attorney to get things properly sorted.

Having worked for years for attorneys I know that in most states if you die without a will all of your property either goes to the state for them to pay off your debts and allocate, or through probate court to then get distributed to your heirs. Mike and I are considering having a party where we all get together, write wills, make sure we have the whole life insurance thing sorted and then maybe play a round or two of Life…

Next week we will be traveling to Dallas for four days.  There will be a service for Norma (she was cremated) and a mass will be held in her honor.  Norma’s sisters Becky, Barbara, Evelyn and her brother Tom and his wife Pat will be in Dallas, as well as Mike Munhall Sr.’s sister Mary Lou.  They are all quite excited to meet Anna so I’m sure that will be a cheery spot in an otherwise somber occasion.

On the bright side, Mike is enjoying his new hobby that I blame Nate for – home brewing beer.  Our guest bathroom is now home to an “Ale Pail”  of a black ale Mike is brewing and a recently bottled pale ale.  This was all supposed to live in the basement, but it turns out our basement is too cold to maintain the proper beer fermenting temperature.  Superbowl Sunday at our house smelled like the Coors brewery (the only brewery I’ve toured) while Mike cooked up the black ale.  He’s reading up on the subject on the web and by book and seems to be thouroughly enjoying himself.

Mike recently completed a large project at work in a new language he taught himself – Perl.  It was a hefty project and Mike is quite pleased to have it be done and into QA.  I’m proud of him for not only teaching himself a new language, but also putting it to use immediately.  Mike is always a quick and adept learner.

Mike is still playing hockey on Tuesday nights, but I generally don’t hear much about how the games go since he never gets home before 11 p.m. and I’m long gone to bed by then…

Dorrie’s Update:

There’s not much from my end really.  Mostly I’m just Anna’s mom and that’s okay by me – she keeps me pretty busy.

I am doing a little work for Mike’s office testing a new and rather large project completed by some guy, what’s his name? Oh yeah, Mike!  Mike’s boss thought it would be good for me to test Mike’s project since “he’s readily available to you”.  Nice!  It’s a large project and it’s divided between the regular QA person and myself. Every once in a while I send Mike an email about a defect that I’ve found or with a question and have to delete “I love you” at the end of it – it’s habit!

It is lovely to have something other than laundry or cleaning to do during Anna’s naps.  I generally put my headphones on, keep an eye on the lights on the baby monitor and test quite happily for an hour or two a day.  The house is a mess, but I’m making a little extra money and that’s not shabby!