Kayley's first time down a slide

Mark and I took Drew and Kayley to the park this morning. We left around 9:30 a.m. because we wanted to be back before it got too warm. (Yes, it is already that time of year again!) Kayley had her first ride on a swing and her first time down a slide, with a little help from grandma.

Drew took his first dive of the season in his pool last night. It was an unplanned event caused by losing his balance while helping his dad do some pool cleaning. He was just fine as Andy scooped him right out but he was a bit upset with the water temperature! I was hoping Andy would have to jump in after him but he was able to retrieve him with just a helping hand. :-(

Our time at the park:

Kayley's eating saga

Kayley had a good week eating her solids and even tried some new textures when the "feeding lady" came to visit on Friday. She put a slice of apple in a net device and Kayley seemed to like gnawing on that. We also gave her a teething biscuit for the first time and she loved that. This convinced the lady that Kayley does not have an aversion to food or putting things in her mouth. There are some babies that will put absolutely nothing in or near their mouths. I don't have a "feeding" degree (although I am a champion eater), but I could have told her Kayley will put everything into her mouth! We both came to the conclusion that she simply detests the taste of the milk formula and that is why she is such a picky bottle feeder. I have taste tested that formula and it truly does suck, thus preventing Kayley from "sucking"! :-)

Drew also had a great week. He keeps grandpa busy "playing train", having grandma run around the yard with each of us pushing a stroller chasing Sox or going to the park to slide and swing. Drew also loves to color so we sit at the dining room table for several hours a week doing that activity. I have decided that grandpa is going to really miss his little buddy when he returns to Iowa. :-(

I went on another group hike yesterday morning, this time to Cave Creek Recreational Park and a trail called Go-John. The news had warned that the warmer temps were bringing out the snakes so we were on the look-out for rattles, but saw none. Whew! This is a 6 mile trail so we took about 2 hours to complete it. The desert wild flowers were just starting to bloom. I would say next Saturday the hike will be a wonderland of desert colors and breath-taking for sure!

Short video of the kids:


Scenes from our week:

A haircut and an attitude

Andy gave Drew a haircut and he is looking handsome. Kayley just cops an attitude. :-)

Goodbye Grandpa

Butch flew back to Le Mars last night after three days visiting his AZ family. I think he had a great time watching Drew and Kayley. Drew warmed quickly to the concept of having two people called grandpa, which was probably confusing at first! The weather back in Omaha last night did NOT sound promising so we are hoping he didn't have to drive on icy roads to get home from the airport. What a difference a plane ride can make on weather conditions!

Mark and I had a great week-end. I did a 6 mile hike with the gals on Saturday morning in the McDowell-Sonoran Preserves again. What a gorgeous area to hike. We are really excited about this Saturday as the desert should be in full bloom by then with wild flowers and blooming cactus everywhere. It doesn't last long so hopefully this Saturday they will still be beautiful.

Saturday afternoon we went to the driving range and worked on our swing, putting and chipping. It didn't help me much, but it was fun being there! :-) We hope to golf a few more times before Mark heads back to Iowa for spring planting. Unfortunately, that is not very far away.

Sunday we went to the movie Gran Torino. Typical Clint Eastwood fare but we thought it was excellent and enjoyed it. Dinner was at the White Chocolate Grill. Very nice but very expensive for what you get! We had a gift card from Megan and Andy so that helped ease Mark's pain when the bill came. :-)

Well, that is about it for updates in our lives.

Here is a typical day watching Drew and Kayley:

Hey, there's a new Grandpa in town!

Grandpa Butch and Kayley:


Drew and Kayley's other Iowa grandpa landed in the valley Friday night. Andy's father Butch arrived from Le Mars to a warm welcome from his always smiling grandchildren and a bright sunny Phoenix day. He is only staying until Monday night when he has to return to work, but I am thinking he will really enjoy these few days visiting his precious family!

Drew and his best buddy "Frog"

A cloudy day

An unusually cloudy day for Phoenix. It reminded me of all those cloudy days in Iowa that I am missing. You almost like it when it clouds up down here....something "different"going on with the sky!

This week has flown by quickly. Mark went to a Cubs game on Tuesday with Arne and it sounds like he had a good time. I have done nothing special except watch my two grandchildren. Hey, I guess that's pretty special come to think of it! They are growing and learning something new each day. I took them to grandma's house this morning to watch grandpa cut palm fronds. Drew watered all my pots, several times, and Kayley enjoyed being out of her house. Other than doctor visits, the only time she has really been out was Sunday to the ball park and today at grandma's house. Once we get through flu season the doctor says she can start being out in public more often. They both have been very healthy all winter so we don't want to ruin a good thing.

Go White Sox!

Mark and I went with Andy, Megan and the kids to the White Sox/Dodgers spring training game in their brand new facility in Phoenix. It was a lot of fun but we could tell it was opening game for a new facility. The parking was horrendous getting in and even worse getting out. I think we sat there for at least 50 minutes not moving an inch! Also, the concession stands were unorganized but we had a beer stand right behind us so that helped. :-) I think they will work through these problems quite quickly and everyone should enjoy this beautiful park for many years to come.

My Bucket List just got shorter!

I have been wanting to hike to Elephant Mountain near Cave Creek for a long time and we finally accomplished that feat yesterday morning. Over 7+ miles of rugged trail, it was the most beautiful scenery I have seen to date in AZ. But, it had its moments and I will probably never set foot on that particular trail again in this lifetime! My apprehension began with one gal saying to really watch for rattlesnakes as it is "that time of the year". The trail was very narrow in certain sections with brush swiping at your ankles and all I could think about was a big old rattler coiled up in there and me not hearing it! (Too many years spent on the riding lawn mower has significantly cut into any acute hearing I once possessed!) Fortunately we never met up with one but the thought had my heart beating pretty hard as we discussed how we would get out of that terrain should one of us get "struck"!

Soon thoughts of rattlers began to fade and I started to enjoy the scenery once more. Then one lady, obviously a former girl scout prodigy, hollers "uh oh, very fresh mountain lion tracks." I did not believe her but two other gals confirmed that, indeed, they were from a mt. lion. Well, that announcement made me think of rattlers as nothing more than over-sized night crawlers and I started to really scope the landscape for this cat. At one point I asked my sister what that god awful smell was that suddenly surrounded us. I had no sooner said that when the girl scout wonder woman informs us that the mountain lion has just sprayed us and that means it is very close to the trail. I am now edging closer to freaking out and wishing I had my trusty shot gun from my raccoon killing Iowa farm days.

Well, to make a long story a bit shorter, we started out the day with 8 gals and ended with 5 at trail's end....... :-)

Seriously, I NEVER want to be that close to a mountain lion again and I am marking this hike off my 10 point Bucket List!

Some shots from the hike: (One is a fake. See if you can guess which one!) :-)

In like a lion?

I cannot believe the month of February is basically over. It makes me think about spring, farming and Mark going back to Iowa. He still has another month here so that is a good thing.

We had another fun week with the grandchildren. Mark took Drew to the park and the weather was really unbelievable. We hear about the weather in the midwest and I just cringe for our relatives and friends there. You all really need to come to Phoenix for a visit and get a reprieve from those temperatures!

Tomorrow I am off to a ladies' hike in Cave Creek. Mark is going to the Cubs/White Sox BB spring training game in the afternoon with Andy, Lisa and Erik. Tomorrow night we are babysitting so Megan and Andy can see Aaron's band playing at a bar in Scottsdale.

Drew is insisting he put his own shoes on now....."I do it" is the operative command. :-)

A smile for you

A good week!

The week went by quickly thanks to good kids and nice weather. We spent time outdoors going to the park and playing in the back yard. Drew loves climbing on the playground equipment and going down the slide. It is good for him because he gets to mingle with children his own age rather than just being around his grumpy old grandparents! :-) He's still very shy around strangers but he's getting better each week. We are going to take him to the park several times each week until it gets too hot to slide!

Kayley is making great progress. She loves solid foods, especially carrots and sweet potatoes. They have some concerns that she might be allergic to certain foods because she gets very red cheeks after certain items. She had a GI specialist appointment this week and they discussed trying several different options with her bottle feeding and eating in general. We are even practicing with a cut out cup trying to eventually eliminate her hated bottle all together. She has made huge strides since entering this world way too early last June and we all marvel at how fortunate we are that she is doing so well. Oh, and did I mention that she is really, really cute and very sweet? :-)

Mark spends time fixing odd things around the house and going to the driving range. We are golfing with Andy this afternoon so we are looking forward to that. Yesterday morning Sharon and I hiked Pinnacle Peak and it was a perfect day to do that hike. In the afternoon we watched Drew and Kayley while Megan and Andy went to see David Copperfield perform and then go out for dinner.

Hope you all had a good week, too!

Video of Drew in action:



Video of Kayley playing outdoors. Can you guess what happened to grandma in this video? All I can say is that it hurt! (Hint: VERY strong tail)

"Puuhlease"

Drew entertains Kayley....so to speak.

Happy Valentine's Day

Kayley says Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!

Firday the 13th

Kayley is now eating solid foods every feeding. She does extremely well with them but doesn't care much for her bottle following that squash or sweet potatoes or peas. We mix powdered formula with the solids to get more calories so hopefully that makes up for the lack of wanting that bottle. Personality-wise she is such a happy little gal but will definitely let you know if she is a little bored. :-)

Drew is.....just Drew. Never a dull moment. He is putting together sentences at a rapid rate now. Yesterday he told me that a puzzle piece was "upside-down" and today he mentioned that his "full" bucket of rocks was HEAVY! And to think we wondered if he would ever talk. Ha!

Kayley:



Drew:

Baby it's cold outside

We have all been secluded indoors so far this week. The temps yesterday were in the 50's and Monday was rainy so we haven't been on a walk yet this week. Today looks to be nicer so we will try to get outdoors later this afternoon. Sox needs a walk and so do I!

From the pics below, you can see Drew still loves his thumb when he isn't golfing and Kayley just likes to smile!

Grandma's day

Rainy days and Mondays......used to get me down. Retirement and Drew and Kayley changed all that. :-)

A typical day for granny and grandpa at the Thiel household.

Rainy Sunday

We finally have to say goodbye to our 80 degree weather that we have been enjoying for days on end. It rained during the night and is supposed to be rainy most of today. Rain is always a welcome occurrence in AZ so guess that is a good thing. Mark had a good chuckle while watching a local meteorologist last night.....he said we should expect "heavy" rains, anywhere from .25" to .50". That would be considered a drizzle in Iowa! But when you only experience about 8 inches of total rainfall per year, I guess a 1/2 inch in one day IS a downpour. :-)

We had a great hike in the McDowell-Sonoran mountain preserve yesterday. The scenery was beautiful as we made our way to a formation called Balance Rock. It was a guided hike and about 25 people made the walk.

Mark and I went to the PGA Superstore yesterday afternoon in Scottsdale. It is huge and I could have spent all day at that place. I would have been broke, though. Golf equipment and apparel is rather pricey but they did have several racks of 50% off which I enjoyed browsing!

Some pictures from the McDowell Mountains:

Saturday

Time for a hike this morning with the ladies. It is going to cool off rapidly this week-end with a good chance of storms but hopefully we will get the hike in before the rain appears.

Kayley and Drew had a very good week. Twice this week Drew had afternoon "power naps" of over four hours! He plays hard and sleeps hard!

Kayley had an appointment yesterday with her developmental doctor. I will let Andy describe the details in her blog but the short version: we are to work on her gaining core strength for future sitting and crawling and she would like us to start more solid foods since she isn't that great of a bottle feeder. When feeding her we are to let Kayley work the food off the spoon rather than the traditional way of scraping it on the roof of her mouth. Seems she doesn't like to use her upper jaw/lip a lot and this should help stimulate that along with some other tricks she suggested. Over all she thought Kayley was doing great. I agree!

A day at the park

A little bit about nothing

It's already Wednesday. Another week of my life flying by! We have had a good one so far......good weather, walks to the park with the grandkids. The only bummer of the week was the Cardinals loss in the Super Bowl on Sunday. They gave it everything they had though, so we cannot complain too loudly.

Andy took us to a Phoenix Suns game on Monday night. It was the first NBA game that Mark and I have ever attended. We had a great time watching Shaq and company.