Ugh...

You might be wondering about the lack of activity on the Storm Tracker blog these days. That is because our household has been overrun by germs. :(

The saga started last week when I suddenly came down with fever and general malaise. I was diagnosed with mastitis on Monday (I will spare you the details but, believe me, it is miserable!!). Lucy also had a cold early last week and decided to share with us! Daniel and I both came down with the worst colds ever by midweek. We are single handedly supporting the Kleenex industry around here. On Thursday I made an appearance at work when one of my co-workers commented on my eyes. They were red and full of eye boogers. It turns out that I also had bacterial conjunctivitis in both eyes. It seems like my immune system just gave up!!

We are hopefully on the mend around here, feeling much better after lots of rest this weekend!
Hope everyone else is staying healthy and well.

Taking the dogs for a walk

One great thing about living in Madison is that it is such a wonderful city for walking! We love walking Chief and Scout around our neighborhood and on the bike trails near our house. Last Saturday I packed our camera so that we could document a typical walk around our neighborhood on the the blog.

Here is a picture of Daniel and the baby getting pumped for their walk. :) Dan is getting to be a pro with the baby carrier - we'll need this skill when we go to Europe in a few weeks.

 

And we set off down the street...

Our first stop is just down the block at our community garden site on St. Paul street. We haven't started growing anything at our plot yet. We need to rent a tiller and dig things up first. Dan and Lucy are surveying the area.

We walked by Starkweather Creek and cut through the greenspace.

 

 

 

One of the bizzare things that we always encounter on our walks is this random bridge to no where. It is a bridge that crosses the creek by the railroad tracks and it connects absolutely nothing. Weird!

On this particular walk we stopped at a playgound and put little Lucy in the baby swing. She loved it! So cute! Here is our big girl in the kiddie swing. :)

The dogs waited patiently during our swing break.

After the playground we walked by the community center and started hiking down the bike trail.

Here are some scenes from the bike trail:

 

 

We took a break by the public art. :)

 

Finally we walked down to Lake Monona & the Yahara! It was a beautiful walk! We love spending time outside with Lucy and the pups!

Lucy is 5 months old

Hard to believe it but our Lucy Goose turned 5 months old on Easter Sunday! She is a growing girl - she already weighs over 15 pounds, she is starting to eat solid foods, and she is becoming more curious every day. She recently started noticing and wanting to "pet" our dogs - she will grab a big clump their fur in her little hand and pull. She is super interested but not very gentle. :) Good thing that our dogs are such good sports - especially our sweet girl Scout.

Here is Lucy's 5 month picture:

Lucy is such a happy little girl! She is always talking, cooing, and telling us stories. Her favorite things these days are to grab her feet, eat from a spoon, tear paper, feel different textures - she is fascinated by touching her dad's facial stubble!, and bounce in her exersaucer - she loves that thing!

At 5 months, Lucy still has no hair. A special thanks to Laura for sending Lucy this awesome handmade headpiece for Easter. So cute! We need a way to indicate to people that our little peanut is a girl! :) We went out to eat last Friday at our favorite Thai restaraunt and the waitress asked us if we shaved Lucy's head!! :) She said that in her country, parents purposefully shave their baby's heads. Lucy would fit right in. :)

Lucy's First Food on video!

So I tried to upload the video of Lucy trying her first bites of rice cereal but our file was too big for the blog!! Check out Lucy Bear on YouTube!

Here is the link:
http://youtu.be/hRBWiw_bf7w

Easter Weekend

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday!! We had a fantastic long weekend in Fargo celebrating with the Storm family.

What a year it has been! Just last Easter Daniel and I announced that we were expecting a baby. Here were are in April 2011 @ 13 weeks pregnant...



And here is the amazing end result!! :)


And now to the details of Easter 2012! We arrived at Ken and Nola's house very early on Friday morning. We spent the day catching up with friends - thanks for stopping by Jen & Natalie!! It was so great to see you two. I can't believe that little Natalie will be 7 next month! Wow. It seems like just yesterday Jen and I were 7 years old and bff's! :)



We hung out with Grandpa Ken and helped him celebrate his 60th birthday! Happy Birthday Ken! We are looking forward to spending time with you and Nola in Germany next month!



We did some classic Easter activites such as coloring eggs:


And carving ham...



We spent time with family and went to church.


A special shout out of congratulations to Brad on the purchase of his new house in Fargo!! We did a creepy drive by of the property after church on Sunday morning and it looked awesome! We can't wait to see the inside next time we visit. :)

We also played with the pups - I tried to get all of the dogs in one shot but wow - that was like herding cats!! Here was the best I could do (got 4 of the 5 doggies - not sure what happened to Roy!)


Chief and Scout love hanging out with their cousins Hayley, Roy, and Z! It was so good to see Chief back at full energy at Ken and Nola's considering last time he visited Fargo he nearly died. I am delighted to report that we did not make one trip to a vet clinic over the entire weekend!!

One Sunday we woke up to find some treats from the Easter bunny! Here is Lucy reading one of her new books - Clifford's First Easter with her Uncle Brad as her mama and dad got ready for church.


We dressed Lucy is her sweet Easter dress before heading to church for services. She was so cute!!
Here is our little honey bunny:



And a family shot:

I love her smile in this one!

We wish you all Easter blessings and Happy Spring!!
Thanks Storm family for a lovely weekend! We had a great time! We love you.

Opening Day!

Big day on Friday - It was the opening day for our favorite team, the Minnesota Twins! They played the Baltimore Orioles. We listened to the game at Grandpa Ken and Grandma Nola's house in Fargo. Lucy wore her pink My First Twins tee to honor the occasion (Thanks for lending us your cute tee cousin Abby!). As a Twins fan, Lucy must learn the heartbreak of defeat early in the life. Our Twins lost 4 to 2 but our little peanut kept on smiling. Here are some pictures of her enjoying the game. We can't wait to take you to your first baseball game this summer Lucy Bear!

Weekend @ Home

We had a fantastic weekend at the Storm household. Lucy and I spent Friday afternoon with our Mom friends and babies! It was so much fun! We had not spent time with most of the kiddos since the end of January so it was great to see how much everyone has grown.

Speaking of growing...Lucy is able to sit up with support now. Here she is lounging on our couch. She looks like she is sitting in an executive chair. :)

On Saturday we went to the Lil' Badgers consignment sale in Monona. They had tons of baby/children's clothing and, since it was the third day of the sale, most items were half off!! We found some great deals. We got lots of 9 month and 12 month summer pieces for our lil' badger Lucy. Here is a picture of the sweet dresses/pile of summer clothes that we got for cheap!


Lucy showed off her artwork. She does lots of fun projects with her hand and foot prints at daycare. Here are the pieces - lots of cute hearts, flowers, and animals and one bizzare alien. Wierd. We are so excited to cover our refridgerator with art!



We went to church and, since it was Palm Sunday, we came home with palm branches. Lucy enjoyed playing with them and attempted to eat them on a few occasions.

On Sunday afternoon we also went to an open house!! We are keeping motivated to save $$ and get our house on the market so we can move to a new neighborhood. We'll keep you posted on our efforts.

Lucy's First Food

Exciting times in the Storm household! Lucy tried her first tastes of delicious rice cereal last weekend. She did a great job, she was a little unsure at first and then she just attacked the spoon. :) We can't believe that our little girl is already 5 months old! We love you Lucy and we can't wait for you to try all kinds of different foods!


Here are some pictures of the big event:

Dad took a super cute video too! I will post at a later date since I am having trouble uploading it right now.