Vay-cay-shun

Harrison starts daycare Monday morning and with summer starting to wind down, Craig and Laura took a five-day weekend and spent some quality time as a family before Harrison starts his newest adventure. We had grand plans of taking a trip somewhere, but the need to purchase a new oven and the fact that we have a dog (totally forgot about Otis at one point) kept us at home...mostly.

We did take a day-trip to Rockford, where we went to the waterpark with Laura's sister Lizzie and her kids, Abby and Ben. Harrison had a lot of fun playing in the water, which is no surprise since he loves water. The above picture was the only one of about seven where we got all three kids to look at the camera. The weirdest part was it was probably the hardest to get Abby to look at the camera. You'd think a 7-year-old would be good at something like that.

I am having fun

All that water wore him out

We spent a lot of time close to home on our mini-vacation where Harrison got his first taste of mac n'cheese, which he found most enjoyable. We also purchased a new oven, went out for dinner with Craig's sister, Jessica, and got some landscaping done.

We also noticed recently that Harrison is really taking a liking to music. So Friday evening we took him to the Tyranena Brewing Company, which holds summertime concerts in the beer garden. Harrison is shown above intently listening to the alt-country sounds of The Dang-Its. Harrison really enjoyed the music and literally screamed with delight during instrumental breaks (he screams A LOT now - video of that to come when we catch it). The band acknowledged his presence in between songs and introduced him to the crowd as the kid making the feedback-like noises.

The video below further illustrates Harrison's love of music.



We wrapped the vacation with a trip to the Farmer's market (again) with our friend Hollie and her mother who were visiting Madison for the weekend. We bought cheese.

We're excited for Harrison to start daycare. While we had a great in-home situation for Harrison previously, it will be good for him to be with some kids his age where he'll work on his social skills and further develop his immune system.

All by myself

Every parent has conflicting feelings about their kid getting bigger. On one hand it's tough to see your kids growing so fast, but on the other it's pretty neat to see them become more self reliant.

Harrison cooked dinner for himself last night. It was pretty neat.


Ok, he didn't cook dinner, but he is learning to groom himself. At the suggestion of the doctor, Harrison has his own tooth brush. He mainly bangs it on the floor for amusement, but he does occasionally put the bristles in his mouth and move the brush around. So he's got that going for him.


Harrison can also grab his bottle and feed himself. On occasion. Usually he just lets the bottle drop but sometimes he likes to feed himself.


This new found independence is also causing some issues. Harrison gave himself his first shiner last week when he attempted to grab a camera (presumably to take pictures of himself) and instead pulled it down on his face. Other than a brief cry, Harrison got over it pretty quickly and was no worse for the wear.



Harrison still can't read, so every night Craig and Harrison enjoy a bedtime story together. It's usually pretty light reading, but Craig keeps an old literature anthology next to the rocking chair to read Harrison a poem now and then. Harrison's favorite poet is Langston Hughes. He has exquisite taste.

Grandma and Grandpa time

Lots of photo catching up to do since it's been a long time since a real blog post.

Playing in the pool with Grandma Cindy

A few weeks back Laura had to leave town for work for a couple of days, so Craig called in the cavalry to assist with Harrison. Craig's parents came to visit for a couple of days and Harrison had a great time playing with them all day while Craig and Laura worked.

Harrison had a great time playing in the pool (remember that one day this summer that was warm?) and going to the store with Grandma and Grandpa.

Harrison, learning the fine art of bullshitting from Grandpa Phil

Harrison loves playing with those dangly things on the ends of blinds. To each their own

Photo Break

End Photo Break

Harrison is a happy kid, but maybe sometimes we play up that angle a little too much. So here's a photo of Harrison crying. It does happen.


The above photo serves two purposes.
A) It shows Harrison's ever tightening bond with Otis. At first Otis wouldn't leave Harrison alone, now it's more the other way around.
2) Harrison likes to point at people and things. A lot. It's cute.


Harrison is also standing for pretty much as long as he wants. Still not unsupported, but he can walk around objects as long as he's got something to hang onto. We like it. It keeps him occupied.


Harrison also likes cheese. Who doesn't?


Finally, Harrison has finally graduated from his baby bath tub and is taking baths in the tub. We'd been debating that move for awhile now, but he was kind of wobbly while sitting up. Now he's rock solid.

Harrison also spent last weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Franz while Craig and Laura went camping with friends. We have no pictures of that, but he had a good time at the Sheboygan Brat Days Parade.

Moving pictures

It's Sunday evening and we're tired, but we realized we're past due on a blog post, so here are a couple of videos of Harrison.

Harrison has started crawling...sort of. He's doing the army crawl, like in the video below. It gets kind of shaky at the end because Laura was laughing so hard.


We have a second video here of Harrison showing off his musical skills, which come from Laura (obvious to anyone who has heard Craig sing).


Finally, a third - and brief - video of Harrison enjoying some time in his swimming pool.

A friendly visit

Much like a humming bird, Harrison can flap his arms at 20–25 beats per second

Last weekend we had a couple of friends come and visit and Harrison was so excited he nearly took flight.

Gee, everyone, don't look so excited

Much like the weekend previous, we started out the day with a visit to the farmer's market in Madison. It's hard to believe by looking at the above photo, but everyone had a really good time there. Craig even ate some sugar snap peas...and he enjoyed them! Crazy!

Wisconsin's first great and next great senator

We also walked around in the capitol building for a while since several in our group had never seen it before. It's a really neat building and Craig saw a guy bathing himself in the bathroom sink.

Inquisitive Brady

To beat the heat we walked over to the Monona Terrace where we hoped we'd get a cool lake breeze to go along with a nice view, but alas, no relief from the heat was found. Brady, pictured above, seemed confused. Harrison, pictured below, didn't seem to care. Harrison and Brady don't interact a whole lot at this point. Brady seems pretty disinterested in Harrison since he's immobile, but we're sure they'll hit it off when Harrison starts moving around more.



After lunch we headed back to Lake Mills where we took a relaxing dip in Rock Lake and then headed over to the beer garden at the Tyranena Brewery for a couple of cold ones. We also had a great time grilling out and hanging out after the kids went to bed. We took no further pictures of the evening, so that's all we have about that.

Random Photos

Wearing shoes for the first time

A weekend with Laura's in-law's

Craig's parents came and visited last weekend and Grandma Cindy got all excited about seeing her "Mr. Precious." Yes, that's what she calls Craig. It's disturbing. Ok, not really. She calls Harrison that and Grandpa Phil makes fun of her mercilessly for it.
Saturday morning we got up and headed to the massive Dane County Farmer's Market on the capitol square. If we're home on a weekend, we usually head there. It's fun with lots of delicious food, including the famous hot and spicy cheese bread, pictured in the background of the above photo. It's a big affair and we had to take a break to feed Harrison, which was nice because we got to sit around and watch all the interesting people and listen to the street musicians.

After wrapping up at the market we headed over to the Vilas Zoo, which is awesome because it's free. We took Harrison on a spin on the carousel, which he really seemed to enjoy.

After that we perused the many animals on exhibition in the zoo. Harrison took little interest in the animals. Not even the awesome red necked wallaby's, which had Craig singing a revised version of "Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mother."



After the zoo, we headed over to Grandpa Phil's favorite Madison area restaurant, The Great Dane, for some delicious brewed on site beers and appetizers.

Harrison hates fruit. Like really hates it. But Laura ordered a beer that came with a big slice of watermelon, so we broke of a chunk for Harrison and he attacked it. He even cried when we took away the fruit holder thing to refill it with more watermelon. So now Harrison likes one kind of fruit. It's a start.

After that we headed home where we spent a relaxing afternoon on the back deck, listening to the Brewers stink one up and bbq'ing some of Craig's semi-famous ribs.

Harrison really impressed Grandma and Grandpa with his burgeoning walking skills.

After Grandma and Grandpa left Sunday morning we took advantage of the warm weather and inflated Harrison's new kiddie pool. Harrison absolutely loved it, he's taking to the water with aplomb and we're hoping this is the start of a long and beautiful friendship between Harrison and water.

Welcome to the house of fun

Yes, it's been awhile since a post. Would you believe we're very busy? We hope so, because that's what we're pleading.

Harrison is growing up fast...still. And he loves to play. Oh, does he love to play. With improved (mostly) weather lately, Harrison is spending a lot of time in the outdoors. He loves swings. As evidence, we submit the below video. Note the strange, and hilarious laugh he makes while swinging.

Big Swinger

Harrison is using his playtime to get strong. Yep, he's standing up. Not to be misleading, one of us stood him up and he does have some support from that toy, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Harrison is showing very little interest in crawling, but he's still getting closer and closer to doing it. It really wouldn't surprise us to see him walk before he crawls. He loves walking. He grabs onto our thumbs, pulls himself up and waddles.

Speaking of thumbs. Full out thumb sucker. Cute, but not cool.

Harrison is still an incredibly happy kid. Just look at him

Playing in the super cool wagon in Grandma and Grandpa Corsten's basement

We took Harrison on a trip to the magical place where his mom and dad met and fell in love, River Falls, Wis. Home of THE University of Wisconsin - River Falls. One of Laura's college roommates bought a house there, so we tried to gather up all of her college friends for a weekend of family fun. Only not all of the girls could make it. And it rained. A lot. We still had fun. We had a hotel room for a night and Harrison loved to play in the pool, even if it was cold. In the background below you can see his new friend, Quinn. Craig busted Quinn checking out Harrison's booty, but she denied it.

The two most handsomest men in the whole wide world

Laura and her college friends and their kids, where applicable