Books

Eden is learning to love books, which of course is thrilling to both Nathan and me.  Her favorite right now seems to be Harry the Dirty Dog, which is nice because Phin actually looks quite a bit like Harry.

She also likes to pull books off the shelves and thumb through them with a serious look on her face.  This is the one I found her with today:

The Lights of Christmas

Christmas has come to the Hitchcock house.  And it is very pleasant.

Busy Learning!

Children's Museum

Several of our friends have recommended the Children's Museum of Brookings, SD, and since Ann and Evie and Libby were out for a visit this past week, we thought it would be the perfect time to check it out.  What a fun place!  Full of information and hands-on activities, there's more than enough to keep children and parents busy for a whole day.  And downtown Brookings is very nice.  After 11 years as a South Dakotan, this was my first time there.  I was impressed, and a good time was had by all.

We spent at least 20 minutes in this construction zone:

Then it was on to the indoor water fun, with balls, waterfalls, steam and lots of splashing:

The girls (especially Eden) loved the giant light-bright:

Upstairs we discovered big, blue blocks:

Then on to the deli and icecream shop where the kids served us up lunch (and charged quite a price for it, too!)

Painting on the glass:

And Eden's back to the light-bright.

End of the day:

Autumnal

Autumn is here in South Dakota, and it's quite beautiful this year.

 I planted 48 tulips and 10 hyacinths with great hopes for the spring.  Sleep well little bulbs, wake up beautiful!

 Z, Eden and Nathan carved pumpkins.  Z drew the face for the big one, and Nathan carved it out.  Z makes his scariest faces in honor of the occasion.

 Nathan gets in on the fun.

And Eden and I enjoy just watching.

Kindgarten School Picture

By George, I Think She's Got It!

Eden walked for the first time today!  She's 19 months old and 5 days, so she's officially got the family record for latest first steps.  The record was formally held by her Mama and her Yaya, both of whom walked sometime in the 18 months time period.  The video is tilted, but you get the idea.

We've known for several weeks now that Eden is capable of standing and walking, she just didn't want to do it.  She was happy getting around on her knees.  I remembered she learned to crawl by going after chocolate chips, so I thought that might work again.  So I sat her down on the bottom step, tempted her with chocolate, and she stood right up.  We worked on this for awhile, and it was clear she could stand up, so I started making her stand up for a longer period of time before she got the chocolate (and then later an animal cracker).  During one of these standing up periods she just got sick of waiting for me to hand her the cookie, and she took a step forward.  Wow!  I ran for the video camera and captured this.  An hour later, at the USF cafeteria, she walked about 10 steps to Nathan, who was holding a brownie, got the brownie, turned around and walked back, all without falling down at all!

We're having a t-shirt made for her which says, "Will Walk for Chocolate."