To start it off, here are Hannah & Lucy’s Loves of 2011. Some things have changed, others…..(I’m looking at you, Mariah Carey) haven’t.

2011 End Of Year Questionnaire 

What is your favorite color?
H:: purple
L: pink

What is your favorite toy?
H: Baby Alive
L: GoGo Walking Pup

What is your favorite food?
H: chicken nuggets
L: mac & cheese

How do you like to spend your time?
H: get outdoors and ride my bike
L: do a puzzle

What is your favorite holiday?
H: Easter
L: Easter

Who is your teacher?
H: Mrs. Wall & Mrs. Epps
L: Natalie, Naomi, & Mrs. L

Who is your best friend?
H: Nolan
L: Sophia

What is your favorite song?
H: All I Want for Christmas

What is your favorite book?
H: Magic Tree House
L: Curious George

What is your favorite TV show?
H: Dinosaur Train
L: Cat in the Hat
Mom’s note: neither of these shows have been watched in ages! They usually watch Fetch, Family Game Night, or Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

What is your favorite dessert?
H: Ice cream
L: Hot Chocolate

Jack can only say “wa-wa” for water and make the signal for “more”. I imagine next year, he may have more of an opinion. However, we can say his favorite food is whatever you are eating that he can mooch off of you, his favorite thing to do is walk around the house with pull toys, steal peoples electronic gadgets, and watch the garbage truck come on Friday mornings. He doesn’t watch TV yet, but gets a serious groove on when Johnny Cash comes on the radio.

Alice just sleeps and eats at this time.

Happy 2012!

Definitely the most frequent activity this summer was swimming. Our beloved Reservoir just down the street was the perfect low key destination for late afternoons and weekend mornings. Both girls took swimming classes there for two weeks in July. Hannah went from a tentative swimmer to a full-out fish. She can swim under water, jump in the deep end, and by the end of the summer was furiously practicing her somersaults. She seemed to never get tired of swimming and usually had to be dragged out of the water to go home. Lucy also got much more comfortable – putting her whole face in the water and submerging her head to grab dive sticks off the beach floor. She loves the sand just as much as the water, though, and spent many an hour digging and filling her many buckets and pails.

Back here at home, the girls’ days were filled with lots of play. They are each other’s best friends now and concoct all kinds of adventures – usually led by Hannah, with Lucy providing her own spunky kick. They did lots of cooking with dirt and leaves, lots of playing with water in the little swimming pool on the deck, bike riding with their “bike crew” (a few older kids from the neighborhood we met who go to Hannah’s school), and tons of art projects – stickers, painting, coloring, and play dough. Their favorite, though, is when we have a “PART-EH” with the neighbors. Which usually means we all are hanging out on the street, having a few drinks, and they get to stay up late listening to music with the ladies or being chased by the young guys who tease them endlessly. We are so lucky to live on this fun street.

Instead of traveling far this summer, we did lots of little day trips – which are so much easier with kids. We went camping for Father’s Day weekend in Cape Cod.  We went to Plymouth Rock and visited the Mayflower with Uncle Kevin and also took a boat out to Georges Island to see the old fort there. Davis Farmland was a fun day of petting animals and playing in sprinklers.  We drove to the real beach (on the ocean) towards the end of the summer and had so much fun digging huge holes in the sand.

But above all, our trip to STORYLAND was the hit of the summer – the girls still talk about it almost daily. This place is like taking  a 5 year old girl’s wildest dreams and putting them all into one. Cinderella, swan boats, all the nursery rhymes – it was all there. I would definitely say that meeting Cinderella was ten times bigger than a trip to Santa. No question! It was a great way to end the summer.

As for us parents, we enjoyed it as well. Trapper started biking to the train every day and spent lots of fun mornings at the beach with the girls. This last month he has been busily preparing for his TED talk which is next week already! I’ve spent the summer focused on growing – a garden and a baby. In big and small pots throughout the deck, we grew tomatoes, peppers, lots of salad greens and herbs. It’s been decided that next year we need to get out of the containers and into the ground – with the help of our neighbor’s green thumb. And while the excessive heat didn’t make pregnancy fun, I’ve been blessed once again with a pretty easy pregnancy- no major complaints. It’s clear I’m getting close to the end, however. He’s simply running out of room in there and I frequently have the feeling that he has his hands on my left hip and his feet on my right rib and is pushing outward with all his might to try to create more space for himself. As long as he waits til Trapper’s home from his trip next week, I’ll be happy!

- We slept in a bunk bed. I got to sleep on the top!

- Juice boxes were my favorite food.

Lucy holding glowsticks in her toes!

INTERVIEW WITH LUCY

- My favorite part about camping was playing at the park. It had a silly slide.

- I liked the hot dogs on the campfire.

- I liked sleeping on the bunkbeds – I fell out 2 times!

Both girls had a great camping trip. Highlights included staying the in the cabin – which the girls were really into because we’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie. They washed the dishes after every meal and helped dad fan the fire. Lucy liked sweeping up the dirt in front of the cabin and Hannah liked running in the open field picking flowers.

At night, we roasted marshmallows (they like them better untoasted!) and played with glow-in-the-dark sticks and balls. They were a hit until Lucy chewed on her glowstick and filled her mouth with fluorescent purple. Guess she’s not old enough for that yet! We all laid on a big blanket and looked at the stars. Lucy saw the Big Dipper and mom saw a shooting star.

We could have done another day, but mom and dad were too tired – we didn’t sleep too well with a pregnant belly, hot cabin, and two loud, snoring kids. We’ll definitely go back though – it was a great trip!

(cross posted from Trapper Markelz’s Blog)

She is growing up fast. We celebrated Hannah’s fifth birthday this weekend. She received a lot of fun presents from family and friends, but her “big girl bike” was the main event and she spent all weekend riding it. Given that the Boston weather has been fantastic lately, it meant a great weekend spent almost entirely outside enjoying the sun.

It seems crazy to think that my oldest daughter is about to start school. I was lying there in bed reading both Hannah and Lucy a bed time story… and it is in those simply moments that it always seems to come crashing in that you are actually a real parent. It is hard to explain… and to all you other parents out there… I don’t know if you experience the same thing… but you just get these moments of extreme clarity where all of the expectation of what you thought it might be like to be a parent someday becomes particularly acute and you realize that this is is… right here… I am doing it…

We made lots of memories this weekend. Moments of excitement where she came down to a pile of presents at 6am… Moments of surprise where the staff at her favorite restaurant came out with a stuffed moose puppet singing happy birthday… Moments of accomplishment where she found the confidence to speed up and down the road without feat of tipping over… Moments of satisfaction when the last guests left the ice cream party on Sunday and the birthday weekend was at an end.

It was good knowing that she is still at an age where Maureen and I can still make her smile so much, so easily. Hopefully she never grows out of that.

Hannah and Lucy wearing their 2010 hats

New Year’s Interview with Hannah and Lucy

What is your favorite color?
H:: pink & red
L: pink

What is your favorite toy?
H: toy purse & jewelry box
L: jewelry box

What is your favorite food?
H: chicken nuggets
L: soup

How do you like to spend your time?
H: playing Wii
L: playing dress up

What is your favorite holiday?
H: Christmas
L: Halloween

Who is your teacher?
H: Susan & Natalie
L: Christine (ballet)

Who is your best friend?
H: Nolan
L: Hannah

What is your favorite song?
Unanimous: “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey

What is your favorite book?
H: Beezus and Ramona
L: The Cat Family (Richard Scarry books)

What is your favorite TV show?
H: Max & Ruby
L: Yo Gabba Gabba

What is your favorite dessert?
H: Ice cream
L: Candy

H: So was Jesus before or after the dinosaurs?

M: Jesus came after the dinosaurs.

H: Okay. So first there were the dinosaurs, then came Jesus, THEN came Little House on the Praire, then we lived in Flossmoor and now we live in Boston!

M: Something like that.

by Hannah & Lucy

1. Went to the ice cream store! (editor’s note: seriously? this is the #1 thing?!)

2. Dressed up in our Halloween costumes.

3. We went trick or treating!

4. We helped Gramps with his screwdriver.

5. We listened to the Scrub-Its with Grandma during bathtime.

6. We went to Philadelphia and saw Kobe & the aquarium!

7. We set up our new playroom.

8. We went to the Mexican restaurant with the mariachi band.

9. We decorated the porch for Halloween.

10. We found out Grandma TAKES BATHS and she READS IN THE BATHTUB!

We sure had fun! See you in February!

We saw pigs, chickens, and goats; lifted lots of heavy pumpkins; ate cider donuts; and took a pretty hayride out to the orchard. We definitely picked more apples and pears than we can use, but that’ll give us something to do this weekend – apple pie, apple crostadas, and applesauce.

Of course, we wished we’d had a big bjorn-full of June to carry around with us. It’s bittersweet to see families with little ones in tow. You want to grab them by the shoulders and impress upon them how lucky they are, but that would be creepy. So we just smile and wish them good thoughts.

Grieving is tiring work – lots of napping going on around here. But home feels good. And the girls are a constant reminder of all that we have. We are still very lucky people, too.

I gave the Eulogy at both services… many have been asking for a copy, so here is the most recent version that I spoke in Chicago.

For those of you that didn’t know June Elise Markelz all that well during her short life… my Boston neighbor Bruce Wright summed it up with the best quote I will remember about her:

“There is nothing small about that baby..” – Bruce Wright

She was big both in size and in love. And in capability… for she has brought all of us together today.

June was the perfect baby. She only cried when hungry. She enjoyed watching Hannah and Lucy play. She loved to be held, loved to stand tentatively on her chubby legs. She was just learning to laugh when tickled. Because she was such a good, happy baby, Maureen and I both felt like we really enjoyed her time. We are confident she knew how loved she was and we saw how much love she gave our family.

I am not religious in the traditional sense, but am guided by a strong ‘humanist’ belief that we all are collectively pursuing perfection both in being… and in knowing. And so from this terrible tragedy I hope that I can learn to live better. Learn to ‘be’ better. And as I reflect, I feel that June is already already teaching me these things.

Maureen and I have always known we were loved… by our family… by our friends… but the true extent of that love and the impact was much more amorphous than it is today. In the last few days we have rekindled old relationships… have been introduced to new people and new communities that have accepted us into their hearts. If June can do this… if she can help all of us be better… know better… live better, than I feel that is the greatest honor of her short time with us all. June has really taught us how loved we are. I thank her for that gift.

Maureen and I have found solace in the writings of many poets and authors this week. Our outlook is best described by one Ekhart Tolle who writes:

Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.

It has been one week since June’s passing. September 19th was the worst day of Maureen’s and my life. We accept this. But the next day was not the worst day… and neither was the day after that… or the day after that. And neither is today. It is said that a tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom. So we will carry this new tool with us. It will not define us. It will help us be better people. We will use this wisdom in honor of baby June. I hope all of you use it as well.

Goodbye baby June. We love you.

We now go forth to celebrate her life each day. Maureen and I are changed because of this and we look forward to seeing how this change affects our life.

June’s memorial song is “You are the New day” by the King’s Singers. You can listen to the song and read the words… for they also showcase the optimism that has been guiding us each day:

Song: The King’s Singers, New Day album, Track #1

Lyrics:

I will love you more than me
and more than yesterday
If you can but prove to me
you are the new day

Send the sun in time for dawn
Let the birds all hail the morning
Love of life will urge me say
you are the new day

When I lay me down at night
knowing we must pay
Thoughts occur that this night might
stay yesterday

Thoughts that we as humans small
could slow worlds and end it all
lie around me where they fall
before the new day

One more day when time is running out
for everyone
Like a breath I knew would come I reach for
the new day

Hope is my philosophy
Just needs days in which to be
Love of life means hope for me
borne on a new day

You are the new day

Hannah says: My favorite part was eating cupcakes with blue sprinkles, m&m’s, white frosting, and chocolate cake.

Lucy says: CUPCAKES TOO!

On Saturday, we went swimming at Reservoir Beach near our house.

Hannah says: My favorite part was dad throwing me up in the air and dunking myself under the water.

Lucy says: DIGGING! WITH THE SHOVEL! I LIKE SHOVEL!

On Sunday, we went to Beaver Pond Spray Park in Belmont.

Hannah says: My favorite part was swinging on the swings and playing in the water. I put my feet in the puddles where the water was going down the drain.

Lucy says: SPRINKLER! TOUCH WATER!

June was unavailable for comment about the weekend.

Hannah's drawing of playing in the water with Dad

Lucy's drawing: ME!