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| Emily
enjoying herself in the bath. |
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Hanging
out in the exer-saucer. Surprisingly, while Jacob and Melissa spent a ton of time in
this when they were little, Emily was hardly ever in it.
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Melissa
and Jacob posing for pictures. |
 
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| Emily
working on crawling and enjoying her walker. She got really good at the walker
pretty quickly... she could zoom from the dining room into the kitchen at top speed.
Of course, Jacob running back and forth giggling served as inspiration. |
  
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| Emily
working on crawling some more. |
Emily in
her prison... er... crib. |
 
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| We
didn't have a lot of snow this year but we got a couple really good storms so there was
plenty of snow for a short while at least. |
 
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Melissa
got invited to a princess tea party and here's the pictures to prove it. Let's just
say boys were not welcome.
|
 
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An
entire sequence of Emily working on learning to climb stairs... we're gonna regret this
later, I'm sure of it.
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Emily
in her walker and slowing crawling her way from the hallway to the living room.
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Emily
in her carseat, in front of the sofa and playing with Jacob and Melissa.
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Jacob
in a variety of poses... he's so cute when he sleeps. The picture on the right
is hilarious... he sometimes waits for us to help him clean himself up after potty and we
told him to wait one day since we were chasing Emily and by the time we got to the
bathroom, we find him sprawled out on the floor asleep with his pants down. Just
wait until we pull this out when he's a teenager.
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Emily
would get super pissed off if Jacob and Melissa were outside and she had to stay in, so we
decided to bring her walker outside on the driveway and she just loved that. At
first, Jacob and Melissa were riding circles around her in their bikes, but once Emily got
the hang of the driveway, she was cruising along right with them.
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As
most kids do... Emily just loves the swing. Here's pics of her enjoying swinging and
being tormented by the other two kids.
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The
kids had their Spring Break late in March... it was still fairly cold so we decided to
take the kids on an Amtrak train ride to Galesburg. The tickets were cheap and it
was a two hour ride. Galesburg has a decent amount of stuff close to the train
station so there was no need for a car or anything. The kids enjoyed the trip but
Emily was a bit restless (to put it mildly).
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Right
next to the Galesburg train station, they have a Children's museum with a Caboose out
front that you can go in and climb up in the cupola. The kids enjoyed playing in
there. The two pics on the right are random buildings we saw in Galesburg.
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Here's
pics inside the Children's museum. They had a rock wall and a kewl fireman's ladder
tunnel thing that everyone enjoyed going down. Melissa and Jacob did a puppet show
and played with trains (of course).
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More
inside the Children's museum. By far, Melissa's favorite activity was dressing up
like a fireman and calling in fires on the fake phone. They had an ambulance and a
small house they could go in and she played fireman for the longest time... it was really
cute.
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Here's
everyone on the Amtrak train.
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Here's
Emily in the Galesburg train station waiting for our ride home.
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Here's
some pictures around the Galesburg train station. They have a steam locomotive, a
box car, caboose and other things. Galesburg sponsors an annual Rail Fest called
Railroad Days. I went with my dad many years ago and during that weekend, the place
is packed with trains and train fans. It's fun, but probably a little too crowded
for us - maybe when the kids are older.
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The
first 3 are actually of the California Zepher that's running around 4 hours late. It
came through about 10 minutes before our train, the "Carl Sandberg" showed up to
take us back to Naperville, and eventually home.
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There
are random train pictures my lovely wife took for me. They were doing rail grinding
with these special machines. It's a pretty kewl sight if you haven't seen it before.
Basically the track gets wear and tear so they grind off the top layer to make it
nice and smooth again. Obviously grinding metal produces lots of sparks which not
only looks awesome, but forces them to have a firehose out the back just in case something
catches on fire. Pretty awesome.
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