A Home in Mound

No matter where she is, Celia prefers to be on her feet. Here she is standing on mommy and daddy's bed - a little precarious, but enjoying herself and especially her friend in the mirror!

The girls enjoyed seeing all the lights on the floats and the characters. As I remembered Emily doing, Maeve kept looking expectedly down the street waiting for the next one to come by. So cute!

It really wasn't very cold on Saturday. We picked a really good night to see the parade!

As you can see, we have everybody bundled up really well!

Appearances would indicate it was too cool for a walk, but really I was just being overly cautious because the last time I had taken them for a walk I didn't have them wear mittens and they were pretty upset with cold hands by the time we got home. On this night, the day after Thanksgiving, it was actually "balmy" - we all enjoyed the walk while daddy worked on his fence for the daycare.

This hat was made by my mother, Velma. I had found it in the old house years ago and gave it to Mary so Emily could wear it. Here, Cecelia models the cute back of it!

Having a good time at Grandma and Grandpa's on Thanksgiving Day!

Can you tell by this picture how fast she can crawl? I swear you can see the motion in this shot! She can really motor, and pretty soon she'll be doing it on her feet!

I just can't get over how "grown up" Maeve is seeming these days!

We had our friends Chuck and Nan Boody over for dinner and afterwards we "wow'd 'em" with all the musical toys we have! Of course Chuck commented on the choice of certain chords or key selections and attempted to make the toys produce music never before imagined by us or the manufacturers! We all had fun!

Celia has been giving us more and more of a challenge when it comes time to give her a bottle. She just isn't that into it anymore. But Nan used just the right expression and got Celia to forget about how she doesn't want to lie still and take the bottle. They really enjoyed each other!

Showing off those new pearly whites! Celia actually has 3 teeth now, the two you can see here, and another on the top but off to the side. I can't tell if it's an incisor or an eye tooth. The amount of drool she is producing every day leads me to believe there are more teeth on their way soon, but they sure are taking their time!

She has eight now... but in a strange pattern... two in the middle, top and bottom, and then all four molars, top and bottom. According to other parents in our Down syndrome group, this is a very common pattern for kids with DS and we may end up waiting another year or so before we see incisors and eye teeth.

All autumn I have wanted to get a fun picture of the girls "playing" in the leaves. Either the weather wasn't good, or not enough leaves were on the ground, or something. Finally we got a good day, and a decent amount of leaves, and wouldn't you know it... when I was ready to take the picture, Celia was napping... so Maeve and I played without her this time.

Maeve models a poncho made by her Grandma Denenny. It was one of two matching "sister" garments, this being the smaller of the two. Who knows what ever happened to the larger one??

Since my days in college (that would be the early 90s), it's always been a big joke that people yell "Freebird!" at concerts. At first I didn't get it, and slowly realized they were asking for some hard rock tune out of the 70's that would definitely not sound good on trombone... and that was the joke.

But recently I've been wondering... why is it a joke?! What's the history? How did yelling "Freebird" out at concerts become such a joke?

Now we know!

Here's the latest Linkert family video. I'm trying a different service than Youtube here, let me know what you think!

It took me all evening just to get these three... guess I'll have to examine some other options.

Hopefully the video coming up will work out. Youtube is down tonight, so I'm trying another service. Le me know how it works for you.

She's pretty good at it.

She can almost reach it!

Just read the shirts!

It's here... quick, go find pictures of yourself and your children!

November LinkLetter

I am of course, excited about the results Tuesday. It's been a long time since we had a good one like that. 'nuff said.

I had the honor of serving as an election judge Tuesday. It was a great experience! It was fun to sit and work with others to be sure our democracy operated correctly. I was very impressed with everyone's conduct, and very closely following the laws and instructions to state mandates. And what a wide variety of people to come in and vote! Offering assistance and help to everyone who may have needed it. It's an experience I hope to repeat in the coming years.

A couple of highlights on a personal note...

My father's cousin, Jim Carlson, won his race for State Senate 38 in Eagan and Burnsville. It was close, but he won with a few points to spare! Congratulations Jim!

In Amy Klobuchar's victory speech, she mentions my Uncle, Claremont Anderson. He is the father of Stuart Anderson, my cousin, who was killed in Iraq in January 2006. You can hear it at MPR's website. She mentions my Uncle at minute marker 7:50. You'll need Realplayer to listen to it.

I'll try to post some pics tommorrow, and hopefully another movie soon.

This is awesum...

There are a few more of these at YouTube if you are like me and want to see more...

... and believe me. You do!