Walking and Talking!

Ellie is on the move! She can't walk by herself yet, but she is cruising around while holding on to something. She is so proud of herself, it is so cute! She's also become quite long-winded, and she's loud too. It is HILARIOUS and we are having such a great time with her lately.
However, I have to admit the Wisconsin branch of the Hemingson family went through a dark time there for a couple of weeks. We're all smiles now, but the #@%^& weather can really do a number on your sanity. Madison broke its record for snow fall in a season in early February. We still have another month of snow ahead of us and we've already had more snow than any previous winter on record. It is ridiculous. It has also been much colder than the previous winters. Ugh. Ellie's sleep progressed from bad to worse to god-awful. Otis had a skin infection that made him lose even more hair than normal and made him stink. We've had some damage to our house from ice dams (if you don't know what those are, don't ask, just be thankful you've never had to deal with them.) We're trying to get the house ready to sell and it was starting to feel like we needed a year or more. Did I mention that it kept snowing and snowing so we were stuck in the house most days. And if it wasn't snowing it was like -10 degrees. I could go on and on, but it might make you depressed just reading about it. So instead I will share happy news!
This might not seem happy, but after agonizing over it for some time it feels like the best decision for everyone: We need to find a new home for Otis. I firmly believe that if you take on the responsibility of another being then you need to see it through. However Otis's issues had been weighing on me for some time, but as Ellie became more and more mobile I started to worry for her safety. We had a behaviorist over on Tuesday and she confirmed my fears, that Otis, no matter how much work we put into him, would probably never be reasonably safe around young children. So if you know anyone who would make a great parent to a bright, healthy, obedient, reactive, high-energy, loving dog please let us know.
The house is coming along - we can now officially say that it has been completely remodeled!!! Whew - what a great 3 years its been. The last bit of business was painting and re-carpeting the upstairs. The carpet installer finished today and it looks great. We're hitting ourselves on the forehead wondering why we didn't do this sooner. Tate and I are both the kind of people who would rather do things perfectly and take 3 times as long vs just do the best you can under the constraints given and be happy. I think we've learned our lesson. We have been living with a grimy, ugly, depressing 2nd story and we just made it look absolutely lovely for pretty cheap. Now that we're parents I think this lesson is especially important. Feel free to remind us if we're focusing a little too much on doing things perfectly - we just might listen!
However, we will try to be perfect for our perfect little girl. Did I mention how entertaining she has been lately? She's started sharing! It is sooooo cute. She will be chewing on something, catch our eye, then hold it out for us to chew on. She smiles or laughs as if she thinks she is the most clever little girl ever for figuring out that we might like a taste. Either that or she thinks it is funny that she can convince seemingly sophisticated adults to indulge in a little toy chomping. She has also taken an interest in spacial relations. Prior to this week life was all about grabbing things, inspecting and chewing, occasionally making noise with the object, then discarding. Now she is sometimes putting the toy back where she found it or trying to put it in a container. Today she even helped with the laundry, taking socks out, mixing them around and then putting them back in.
OK, thanks for reading this far and still checking despite the fact that we haven't been sharing our cute little girl. I can't promise that it won't happen again, there's still a month left of winter :(