Wordless Wednesday (Because we aren't always happy)...

Slippin' and a slidin'...

He looks like he's having a blast but really he needed to be forced to do this:

Fun in the sun...

We have been having quite the "staycation" this weekend. Ron took a couple of days off and we've been enjoying our time around town. Friday we spent the morning at Como Zoo welcoming the polar bears to their new home and watching blue morpho butterflies flutter around in the butterfly garden. Then we went to see the chickens at Wild Rumpus bookstore.

Saturday we joined Darcie and her girls at Russ and Heather's for some playtime and catching up on what Darcie is doing way up in Thief River Falls. Then it was off to Battle Creek water park for a day in the sun with Russ and Grayson. It was a great day and both kids loved the water park. After some time in the kiddie area, water slides and lazy river the boys were off to the wave pool. At this point Addie had her fill so she took a nap on mama's chest, while mama had a relaxing time by the pool!

Family Update...

Addie's Sleep: After giving in to letting Addie cry it out, we have a better sleeper on our hands. Two nights were pretty rough, the third a bit better. Now the last few nights, she's woken only a couple of times and cried for a few minutes and gets herself back to sleep.

Addie growing up: Addie is signing for More, All-Done, Bye-Bye, So Big, Patty Cake and Milk. She's been wearing 12 mos. clothes for some time now. She is still a good eater and we've started to introduce formula to her here and there. I'm looking at giving up the pumping at work and continue to nurse for morning and night feedings. Her new favorite snack are puffs! She has also put it into second gear this weekend and is buzzing around the house at much greater speeds. We've had to install a couple of baby gates to keep her out of the kitchen and away from the stairs.

Jackson: This kid is a hoot! He makes us laugh quite often and just about as often we pull out our hair. He is still on the smaller side, wearing just 2Ts mostly. He adores his baby sister though still torments her, teases her and plays far too rough with her. Right now he is very much into using the outside hose to put out fires (accidently spraying anyone near, including poor Addie), pretending to go on treasure hunts and looking out for bad pirates, and flying around the house like Buzz Lightyear. We took him to see Toy Story 3 in the theater and watched Toy Story 2 on television last week.

The boat: Ron bought a boat. I don't know much about boats. I say this all with a big question mark over my head: it's an open bow, maybe 16 foot?, speedboat of sorts. We took the boat out on the lake on Friday with some success and some failure. First, Addie is not a fan of the life jacket = Addie cried for most of the trip. Second, Jackson's life jacket works = Jackson was picking up rocks along the shore, getting deeper and deeper and not listening to his mom. He toppled over and couldn't touch. Ron jumped off the front of the boat and pulled him up. Jackson was pretty scared and hopefully will be better at listening around the water. Now when retelling the story he says his lifejacket saved him from ending up on the bottom of the sea.

Ron: Ron had been spending a lot of time in the garage working on a project. The project being a cremation remains box for his dad's ashes when he passes away. The thought being that this box would stay in the family and would hold remains for visitations and until they can be spread. Let me just say that I am IMPRESSED with Ron's abilities. The box is beautiful. A lot of time went into researching and perfecting this box and it shows!

Sara: I am in the last week of my Services Marketing class and writing my final paper. Next week I'll start up again with two more classes. I have been keeping myself very busy between school work and my family. One enjoyable thing that I've added to my schedule is walks with my friend Libby. In order to get some exercise in, Libby has been meeting at my house at 8:00 and after my last feeding with Addie, we take off for our 40 minute walk. It's great! I enjoy spending time with my friend and because we don't take it easy I come back feeling like I've really done my body good. I've also taken on some work as a photographer! I've done two baby shoots and a graduation shoot on the calendar!

Strawberry pickin'...

It's that time of year again... strawberries are ready for harvest and my family is happy to pick. We drove through the pretty hills of Afton, seeing horses and cattle along the way to Afton Apple Orchard in search of strawberries. It was a beautifully cool morning, perfect for such an adventure. We toted Adeline along in the Kelty backpack and sat her up to watch us, which she did without complaint. Jackson had a blast finding "only the best strawberries that hid under the leaves."

On your mark, get set, go!

Jackson participated in his first bike race last night! We've been attending The Valley Bike Festival the last few years. Last year while at the race in St. Paul we thought that maybe we'd get Jackson out to try it next year. We asked if he'd be interested and he said yes. So we went out and signed him up and he raced on the same course as the pros. He wore number 202 and did great. He even got a medal for completing the race!

Jackson does have a two wheel bike with training wheels, but he's felt much more comfortable on the tricycle this year.

I didn't get to see him for most of the race, it was hard to manuver Addie in the stroller through the crowd. But I am so proud of this little guy:

Yawn!

And last night went something like this:

8:30 I fed her and rocked her
9:00 I put her down asleep
9:01 She cried, I put her nuk in her mouth, she cried, I rubbed her back, she cried, I picked her up
9:02 I rocked her back to sleep
9:20 I put her down asleep
9:21 She cried, I rubbed her back, she cried, I shhhhed her, she cried, I picked her up
9:22 I rocked her back to sleep
9:40 I put her down asleep
9:41 She cried, I rubbed her back, she cried and cried and cried, I picked her up
9:45 I rocked her back to sleep
11:30 I put her down asleep
11:31 She cried
11:32 Ron picked her up, rocked her back to sleep
12:00 Ron put her down asleep
3:30 She cried, I rubbed her back, she cried, I picked her up rocked her in the chair in her room.
4:00 I took her downstairs to rock her and try to sleep in the chair, she cried
4:30 I put her down in her crib crying
4:30 I almost cried
4:30 - 5:15 Ron and I listened to her cry
5:15 She fell asleep
8:00 She woke up

Random Thoughts...

Addie is 10 months old. It seems that this time with a baby around is going much faster than when Jackson was a baby.

Addie can crawl! She's been crawling two "steps" and then belly flopping and getting frustrated. Last night Addie crawled five or so "steps" multiple times! Where oh where do the babygates need to be?

A busy weekend in the kitchen again: Apple Salad with Yogurt Dressing, Candied Pecans, Spaghetti and Meatballs and Chocolate Marble Bread with Ganache.

I can't stop yawning. Jackson spoiled us with his sleeping habits, Addie is a different story. She is up multiple times a night, she did well for a while but now in the last few weeks, she's up all the time! We weaned her off of night feedings months ago, so she isn't waking in the hopes of getting fed. She wakes, doesn't know how to get herself back to sleep and cries. I suppose some would say that we should let her cry it out (CIO). If we do this though, she'll just wake up Jackson and we'll have two kids awake. I'm not sure CIO is the method I want to try. But I'm tired. Last night's schedule:

8:30 I fed her and rocked her
9:00 I put her down asleep
9:15 She cried, I put her nuk in her mouth
9:45 She cried, I rocked her back to sleep
10:45 She cried, Ron put her nuk back in her mouth
1:30 She cried, I put her nuk back in her mouth
1:45 She cried, I bounced her in her crib and she went back to sleep
5:00 - 6:00 Ron was up with her three times
6:30 She cried, I brought her to our bed and fed her

Joe Mauer II...

We just might have the next Joe Mauer in our house. Jackson and Dad have started to practice hitting and Jackson is proving to be quite the batting champ, we are so proud. Being a baseball family, we are hoping that Jackson and Addie take to the sport so we can set up our lawn chairs at the field and enjoy summers full of baseball.

Jackson's first couple of times up to bat he made contact and took off for first base. Ron and I were both super surprised and began cheering. He's had a couple of good at bats, but has had some off-nights too so we'll keep practicing.

Wordless Wednesday...

Jacksonism...

Jackson to Mom: "Your butt is much bigger than mine."
Mom to Jackson: "Why yes it is. Thank you son."

Random Thoughts...

Our life is about to get a little more crazy. The smallest one is getting a little more mobile: Addie is starting to crawl.

Addie can sign: More, Bye-Bye, Milk and All Done

I need to exercise. My body is getting old and craving more exercise. I'd love to go for long walks, but am always afraid of getting too far from home with kids. Chances are good that either Jackson will have to go to the bathroom or Addie will have a meltdown.

I need someone to clean my house.

Jackson is making good use of the word enormous. Enormous cranes, bunnies, bowls of cereal. It's even worked well for him in the bathroom too!

I made my first cake! Yes after 32 years I have made my very first cake, from scratch. I am very proud of my chocolate bundt cake and it tasted great.

My kitchen was busy this weekend: Turkey burgers, candied walnuts, cinnamon and sugar chips, fruit salsa, chocolate bundt cake, smoked salmon and cream cheese frittata and buffalo chicken salads. Yum!

Girls book club and clothing swap was a success! I scored a bag full of new dud... thanks friends.

Decorating

I think I'm going to try to pull something like this off...

The Kitchen...

Our kitchen is finally painted. The living room and the foyer was easy, I had colors picked out in my brain before we even moved in. I went to Hirshfields and found my Shaker Beige and Birds Egg and the painting began. The kitchen was a different story:

I wanted a a green that would go well with the blue and beige that we painted on the main floor.




After seven paint samples on the wall that mostly required individual stops at the paint store we finally found the one. Last Friday the painting project started. It wasn't long before we knew we had to tackle the grease problem atop the cabinets. I started with some Goo Gone and a rag. It worked but at that rate it was going to take me HOURS upon HOURS to clean. So I called in Ron's brain. He brilliantly came up with the idea of using a long blade putty knife. And it worked... we scraped up 1/8 inch thick GREASE off the tops of our cabinets. It was horridly disgusting.

Then we were able to tape and paint and came up with this: I wish that I would have taken a before an after shot.

Wordless Wednesday...

Who is the better fisherman?

On Saturday we piled in the car and took off north to Pine City to visit Great Grandpa Jim. Lucky for us Grandma Jan, Uncle Steve and Aunt Kathy were there too! We stopped in town to purchase our fishing license and buy bait and it was off to the boat we went. Kathy, Steve, Ron, Sara and Jackson went down the river to see if the fish were biting. We didn't catch enough for dinner but Sara got lucky and snagged a pretty good-sized sunfish. Jackson helped to take it off the hook and put it back in the water all by himself.

Addie didn't make it out for the fishing trip, but we really wanted to see how she would do on the boat in her life jacket. She wasn't really a fan of the jacket and wouldn't straighten herself out in it, just kept leaning back... it was very strange. After a fun afternoon we headed back home.