Happy Birthday to my sister

This post is done by guest blogger Beth

Today is my favorite sister's birthday. Laura turns 30 something today. Here are some deep dark secrets not many people know about her.

• When we were younger (1 and 3) and taking a bath together, Laura pooped in the tub
• Laura has been married twice, within two days, to the same man. She also forgot to tell our mom about it
• During high school, Laura dated a rock star who wrote a power ballad about her. Their favorite date was to go dancing in the dark at houses under construction
• Laura was known in our dance classes to way over use "jazz hands"
• In middle school, Laura played the clarinet, not because she liked it, but because she knew the smelly reeds bothered me
• Laura, like me, was also a nerd in high school. She was also a member of the Science Olympiad team, but unlike me, didn't come in first place in the country in Weights and Measures.
  

Re-Enactment

This picture is a re-enactment of a photo I had taken about 3 minutes before. Beth is faking it, Reagan is actually sleeping. The first picture I took, it woke Beth up and she mentioned to me that her boob was hanging out. So she made me retake the photo.

Happy Birthday Laurel

My sister-in-law Laura turns 31 this year. Here are 10 things you might not know about her.

10. She takes her kids to McDonald's to play at the play land without buying anything.
9. Laura is the most organized person I know. During Christmas she always creates a spreadsheet of all expenses that she incures and what each person owes her for jointly bought gifts..
8. All of Libby's and Reagan's clothes come from Laura's children, Elise and Julia. When we get a plastic bin of clothes, there is a label on the front of what size clothes the bin contains, and all clothes are laundered, stain free and folded nicely. In contrast when we get clothes from my sister Susan, they have usually just come out of the hamper and are crammed into many plastic grocery bags.
7. Laura makes big babies. Both of her children have been in the 90th to 100th percentiles on the growth chart.
6. Laura doesn't drink, except for Leinenkugel Berry Weiss.
5. Back a few years ago, Laura and Beth bought the exact same weather vane chotsky that is suppose to look like a weathered antique. Laura asked Beth if she was going to sand it down, remove the rust and repaint it.
4. Laura is an expert on baby supplies. She does meticulous research on everything she buys. The only time she has steered us wrong is with the Graco stroller combo. I'm pretty sure she hated hers and wanted us to suffer also.
3. Laura wants people to think she is old, so she is getting a mini-van.
2. Laura is a great cook and always makes delicious meals for us when we visit. But for some reason she burns everything she makes in a crock-pot.
1. Lets just say it is a good thing Laura decided against hyphenating her last name.

23 Enigma

Do you know what today is? It's Beth and my 11 th anniversary. Also Reagan is 7 weeks old today. The irony of the whole thing is, Beth and I met at a 7-Eleven. Now for those of you who have studied the 23 Enigma, or watched the movie The Number 23 with Jim Carrey, you will notice that if you take the day we got married (27) and subtract the month (7) and add the number of cats we have owned and that have died during our marriage (Sonar, Cricket, and Scooter) you get 23.

Also if you add up the number of letters in my name, Beth's name and our daughters names, you also get 23.

We are also very happy to announce the birth of our newest niece. Beth's step-brother Ryan and his wife Jamie gave birth to Kendra Joy, 6 lbs 1 oz, 18 inches long. Kendra came 4 weeks early but is doing great as is Jamie. We can't wait to meet her. What a great anniversary present Ryan and Jamie gave to us, even though they didn't name her Beth-Jo.

Pool Rules

Each week Beth gets a copy of the St Jude employee newsletter called The Local Line. This week they had an article about combating recreational water illnesses. Their six tips were:

• Don't swim when you have diarrhea
  
• Don't swallow the pool water
• Practice good hygiene
• Take your kids on bathroom breaks often
• Change diapers in a bathroom and not at poolside
• Wash your child thoroughly (especially the rear end) with soap and water before swimming

While visiting Damon and Jen's house we noticed they had posted these tips near their pool. They had highlighted the first one, I'm assuming for my benefit.

First Zoo Trip

On Sunday we took Reagan to the zoo for the first time. The weather was beautiful, in the low 90's with a nice breeze.

Libby had a great time in the new butterfly garden.

Here is something you very rarely see: a giraffe sitting down. Also here is an interesting fact about giraffes: A giraffe's kick is so powerful it can kill a lion with a single blow.

Breast Pump

Libby has been watching Beth pump for the last few weeks and yesterday when Beth left the pump laying around, Libby tried the breast pump out on her tummy.

Reagan in Glasses

To my small mind there is nothing funnier then a baby wearing glasses.

Vacations Over

My six week vacation ended Monday when Beth went back to work. Reagan and I were both a little worried because until Monday, she had only taken a few bottles and wasn't crazy about them. Monday morning started with a lot of screaming from a hungry baby who wouldn't take a bottle. After a lot of sleeping and gentle convincing from me, Reagan now takes a bottle like a champ. To make things more complicated, Beth took call on Tuesday, which meant I was solo from Tuesday at 8 a.m. until Wednesday around 4 p.m. Other then getting up four times to eat during the night, everything went well.

During the past week, I have become aware of two things about myself:

1. At no time am I louder and more clumsy then when I am trying to be silent and stealthy.
2. I would rather touch poop or pee then get breast milk anywhere on my body.
   

Good Morning

On Beth's last day of maternity leave, instead of surprising me with breakfast in bed, Beth gavbe me these two little munchkins.

Time Out

On our last visit to Grandma's she was kind enough to babysit Libby for us. We didn't realize until later how seriously Grandma took "timeouts".

Her rule is one hour in the cage for every year of age.

Little Pineapple

Reagan finally fits into this cute little outfit that her Papa picked out especially for her. Who knew he has such good taste in baby clothes.

My Brother in Law

This is my brother in law Rudi (left) and his male companion Terrance.

The original picture of Rudi touching his testicles has been removed because Rudi asked me nicely.

My Girls

Aren't they beautiful!

Cow Blanket

Will and Monaca gave Reagan two very unique presents, one being a cow blanket. Since they had forgotten to get Stretch a "big-brother" present, we gave him the cow blanket. He loves to lay on it, and when his head is positioned just right, he activates the heart beat function. It lulls him to sleep like a big hairy baby.

Ben and his babysitter

During Beth's teenage years she made most of her money babysitting and house cleaning for this crazy lady who lived down the street from her named Sherry. Little did Beth know, Sherry's best friend had a very handsome son who Sherry knew would be perfect for Beth.

Ben, who is Sherry's youngest child and Beth practically raised, has now graduated from high school and is on his way to playing baseball at college. Beth remembers many a days of changing his diaper and rocking him to sleep. She attempted this again, but found out Ben no longer wears diapers and wasn't at all tired.

Grandparents

Reagan is blessed to have so many grandparents and great-grandparents alive to love her. She had the honor of meeting many of them for the first time on our recent road-trip to Michigan.

Here she is with her Grandpa who I am sure will be sneaking her ice cream the first chance her gets.

This is my Grandma, her oldest Great-Grandma, who was tickled pink when she met her. When we showed up to visit with Grandma, she was in the physical therapy room, so she got to show off her newest great-grandchild to all the other ladies.

Here are Beth's grandma's holding Reagan, who happens to be the 4 th great-grandchild for each. The Grandma on the right has 7 granddaughters and 4 great-granddaughters, as she always says, her family dosen't know how to make "handles".

Assuming

In my last post, I had mentioned that during our road trip we had traveled the distance equaling almost twice around the equator. What many people assumed was that I was talking about the planet Earth. If any of you who had commented, phoned, or emailed me really knew me, you would have known I was talking about my favorite ex-planet Pluto. Pluto's circumference is approx 1429 miles, and we traveled over twice that amount.

Road Trip

Over the past few weeks we have traveled over 3746 miles in our family truckster. If you were to lay those miles end-to-end, they would circle the equator almost 2 times. During our trip we traveled through 9 states, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. We also crossed the Mississippi River 11 different times. We can't even count the number of times we watched Libby's favorite show: Jack's Big Music Show.

Our Friend Anne

Last week during our whirlwind trip to Michigan, we visited one of our friends Anne. Here are a few things I learned about Anne during the visit.

• Anne loves large home electronics. She has the largest laptop I have ever seen, it is larger then most desktops. Her pager is so large that she must plug it in to a wall socket and carry it around in a fanny-pack. Anne's camera is big enough to even satisfy my brother-in-law Paul. The one exception to this is televisions. During the tour of her house, Anne bragged to me about her two televisions, one is a 13 incher in her bedroom, and then the granddaddy is the 17 incher in her living room that turns on whenever you walk near it.
• Anne has her priorities all kattywampus. She insists that she needs new bedroom furniture before she would redo her basement into a media room.
• While Beth and I consider Anne our friend, Anne always has to qualify our friendship by saying that we are "her friend Errin's sister and brother-in-law".
• Anne just moved into a great little house in the Alger Heights neighborhood, very close to were we use to live in Grand Rapids. According to Beth, it is the largest house she has ever been in and the use of space is second to none.
• Anne asked me some great questions about how to keep a clean house. She even asked me to start emailing her once a week with some of my helpful cleaning tips. I am looking forward to our next visit so I can see her progress.
  

Reagan's famous

While at the Kurt family reunion, Reagan got her picture taken with her great-great Uncle Edgar and it made the Bellevue Herald.

You have new Picture Mail!

You have new Picture Mail!, originally uploaded by Jon Kurt.

(Libby playing peek-a-boo with her mom.) So far Libby has been delightful on the trip. Only 300 more miles to go and about 4 1/2 more hours of Jack episodes.

You have new Picture Mail!

You have new Picture Mail!, originally uploaded by Jon Kurt.

On our way up to Michigan to visit all the grandparents. Reagan is entirely bored with Jack's Big Music Show.

Happy Birthday Paul

My brother-in-law Paul turns 31 years young today. Here are a few things you might not know about Paul.

10. When Paul was younger he was on the Bozo show and was selected to play the Grand Prize Game. He won't tell us how far he made it, but Rudi and I suspect he didn't do well and even missed the first "gimme" bucket.
9. Paul takes more pictures then anyone I know, he thinks he is Ansel Adams or something. He has already flipped the counter on his camera three times, and his first daughter is less then three years old.
8. These are Paul's favorite pair of shorts ever. He would wear them to weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs. Finally, Laura had enough of them and because she doesn't like to throw anything away, she packed them up and sent them down to Memphis along with maternity clothes for Beth. Now I wear them whenever I feel like going commando.
7. Paul has had the same hair cut since I've know him. He gets some of the best bed-head of anyone I know. He could scare a monster with it.
6. Paul is the pickiest eater there is, he makes my nephew Stephen look like a food connoisseur. He even hates condiments, so when he goes to McDonalds he gets a plain hamburger on a bun.
5. Right now, Paul is in the market for a new digital camera. Instead of getting something small that would fit in his pocket, he is looking for something large that if possible needs to be plugged into an outlet.
4. While camping last year, Paul sacrificed his daughter's dry clothes to lob one last water balloon at me.
3. Paul works more hours then anyone I know. Even when he isn't working, he is checking his email on his "crackberry". Paul knows that if he misses a precious moment from one of his daughters, odds are he can catch it with the other one.
2. Paul drinks no caffeine, he says it makes him gassy. While visting him last week, Paul farted around me for the first time in almost 10 years. He was embarrassed at first and tried to blame it on a dog or child near him. After I called him out on it, he giggled like a school girl.
1. Paul is a huge Chicago White Sox fan. His team really made him proud yesterday by losing to the Minnesota Twins 20 to 14 and 12-0 during a double header.

Happy Birthday Boom

My little sister turns 29 today. Here are 10 things you might not know about her.

10. Until she spent 2 years at Western Michigan University, we really didn't like each other and never hung out with each other. Now Susan is one of my favorite family members to hang out with.
9. Susan has great kids. I am always calling Susan to ask for parenting advice. I would be very happy if Libby and Reagan turned out as nice as her kids.
8. Susan use to whine a lot. One time on a vacation to the Leelanau Pennisula we had a cottage near a winery, and the family joke was that every time Susan was whining we told her we were going to drop her off at the winery.
7. Susan always knew she wanted to be a stay at home mom. She spent two years at Western Michigan University just to get her "Mrs".
6. Susan's first real job was working at Dunkin Donuts. I always felt bad for her because she always had to live up to my reputation. I had it easy because I only had to live up to Dave's.
5. After going through my one week intense house cleaning/organization class in April, Susan's home has really undergone quite a transformation.
4. Susan and her husband Kevin are polar opposites which is why they get along so great. Kevin loves watching movies, Susan falls asleep after 15 minutes. Kevin is a human garbage disposal, Susan is very picky. Kevin is very athletic, Susan trips while walking.
3. Susan has always been my parents second favorite child (except for the 3 months before her wedding), I am the favorite.
2. During family photos, Susan liked to wear my mom's khaki pants.
1. Susan is the only person I know who likes getting warts. Whether they are on her face, arm, or leg, she is always happy to let you touch them.