The various hats of Anders the inscrutable.

Aaaahhhhh.....

The picture below sums up how we all feel right now.  We've had almost 3 months straight of non-stop guests.  And while we loved having everyone here and we appreciated all the help, we are looking forward to being the guests and not the hosts at least until after the holidays.   

This morning Rob and Carrie and Eleanor had the honor of being our last guests for a while.  They were here for a quick weekend visit and the routing of the University of Minnesota by the Hawkeye football team.  Other appropriate words would be:  shellacing, decimation, destruction, trouncing, trashing, etc.  Go Hawks!  Will and Rob went to the game while Carrie and I stayed home with the kids - next year Carrie and I are going to the game while Will and Rob stay home.  For those of you who don't follow Hawkeye football, the final score was 55-0.  Carrie and I did get to go to The Crafty Planet - a fun yarn and fabric store in NE Minneapolis.  We did not come home empty handed.   It was really fun to see how many new words Eleanor uses.  

My mom also left this morning after an exhausting (both physically and mentally) week of cleaning up her parents' house with her siblings.  It was amazing to see how much stuff my grandparents saved.  After working all week long, my mom and aunt and uncles had an estate sale to try to unload all of the stuff that nobody in the family wanted.  They had a very successful sale.  Anders and I went to the sale for a few hours yesterday.  It was kind of strange to see a bunch of strangers walking through that house.  It is also really strange to think about the fact that this house will no longer be a house that I will visit.  I'm sure that my mom and her siblings have even stronger feelings about this - it makes me kind of sad for them.  

Just a quick rundown of the last couple of weeks: after Joyce left (there she is saying goodbye to Anders), Jean came to help us out for a week.  Anders and Jean spent lots of time collecting lovely leaves, like these.  

I just finished my 3rd week of being back at work - it is going pretty well.  And Will started his first of 6 weeks home with Anders.  That seems to be going pretty well too.  Anders is sleeping longer chunks of time at night - around 4 hours or so at a time starting around 6:30 or 7 pm.  He is sleeping the majority of the night in his bassinet, but we are still trying to find the perfect combination of sleeping attire for him - he seems to get sweaty a lot of the time, but then other times he is cold.

I'm trying to run in the mornings and am taking him to yoga once a week - here he is with his new maraca.  

Anders went out with the Sawbill Babes last Saturday - he was so excited to hang out with them that he stayed awake the whole time and then conked out on the way home.  

Winter has arrived in Minnesota...

And we had a visitor in the backyard the day that Will and Joyce left to get Joyce back to Iowa.  The light was pretty bad, so we really were not able to identify this hawk, but it was cool anyway.  

Finally, we received a really wonderful gift put together by Carrie and Betsy.  A Book for Anders is something that many of you participated in - it is full all kinds of advice, songs and memories from people we love very much.  It definitely made me very teary-eyed as I opened the package.  Thank you so much Betsy and Carrie for such a thoughtful gift and thank you to everyone else for your contributions - we love this book.  

Lucy loves it too.

Anders also loves his new monkey outfit from his Aunt Jan, Uncle Mike and cousins Russell, Matthew and Sam.

Will finished the bathroom.  The floor has been done for a few weeks, but he just finished the base tiles.  

What we haven't done: caught up on our thank you notes (sorry), finished Anders' room (we are close), finished Anders' fish tank (we are close there too), finished a book (well, Will has, but I am no longer the super reader I used to be), any knitting (just buying yarn), caught up on cleaning the house. 

2 Month Appointment

Anders went to the doctor this afternoon for his 2 month appointment.  He is now 23 inches long and weighs in at 11 lbs.  He is in the 50th percentile for both measurements - slightly under for weight.  They are very pleased with him - he is tracking right on his curve for growth, which is good.  He had to get some shots, but did just fine and has a clean bill of health.  Now he is sleeping.

I'm still walking on air from yesterday.  I was just telling Joyce that this is the first time in a very, very long time - maybe ever in fact, that I am proud and feel good about America.  For the last several years I have been embarrassed and have sort of joked about moving to Canada, but today I feel proud.  

Oh Happy Day

Anders is two months old and Barack wins!  

Here are Anders and Aunt Joyce enjoying Barack Obama's victory speech, which was very inspiring, but wasn't enough to keep Sleepy McGee awake. 

Catching Up Part Two

Ok, my hope is that the rest of our posts are NOT titled "Catching Up Part X".  That just seems to sum up things right now.  So here we go, time to catch up again.  

First we went to the cabin back on October 21 (Tuesday).  It was Anders' first trip up there.  We were all feeling lazy on Wednesday - here is how Will and Anders spent part of the morning.  Aw cute!  Oh, I should explain that it gets really warm in the cabin with the wood burning stove going - we frequently have to crack a couple of windows to keep the temperature bearable, so you don't have to worry that Anders was cold there.

If Will moved, Anders would pop up  his arm in protest.  It was rather funny. 

When he finally got out of bed, Will decided to work on his wall, while Lucy basked in the sun.  It was in the mid 40s, and felt really warm in the sun.  

Anders and I decided to go for a walk down our road.  It was a good hike, but I forgot the camera and had to go back for it, so we basically did it twice.  Lucy did not join us, she preferred to continue to be lazy in the sun.

So here is one of the hills that we tackled on our walk (our cabin is in some very hilly country).  I think of this as the roller coaster - I think that Anders could have some fun sledding on this.  When we leave the cabin at the end of our stays up there, driving up this hill is always a bit of a thrill as we wonder if we will make it to the top.  Last time we were up there (when we hit the deer) we didn't make it to the top and had to back down for another run at it.  This time we just made it.  Anyway, it is a good workout to walk up with while holding a baby.  

This is how it looks as you are nearing the top of the hill.  I'm not sure the picture does it justice, so you will just have to come visit us up there sometime.  

Then when you get to the top, you turn to the right and have more climbing to do.  

But when you get to the top, you have this view to check out.  Once again the picture doesn't really do it justice, so start thinking about when you want to visit us there.  

Ok, this is the view from the top of the hill heading back to the cabin.  It is the other side of the roller coaster, I guess.  If you click on the picture you should be able to see one of my favorite boulders on the property.  Actually this isn't on our property - it is on our neighbor's, but I like to think of it as ours.  

I found these cool fungi on the road while on the walk.  I'm working on identifying them, but they appear to be some sort of cup fungus - possibly Scutellinia scutellata but I'm not 100% sure.  They were cool though. 

Here is the view of the lake as you approach the cabin.  At this point we were on our property.  

Anders loved going for walks up there - in general, I feel like he really enjoys being outside, but I admit that I may be projecting my love of the outdoors on him.  We basically spent the week just hanging out.  Lucy helped with the dishes, without even being asked to help out.  

Will built a step going from the deck into the cabin.  We put the canoes away and covered the wood with tarps, but otherwise we didn't do much work.  

Yep, I washed diapers.  It took me around 2 hours to wash 7 diapers and 7 or so wipes.  I washed them first in cold water (with soap) and then in really, really hot water (with soap again).  I rinsed them many, many times and I have to say they came out cleaner than when we use the washing machine.  I used a washboard that Will's mom gave to us - it used to belong to her grandma.  It was very useful.  And yes, I used water from the lake.  

I had planned to write thank you notes and knit some, but Anders still really wanted to be held a fair amount so I didn't get much done there.  I do have to say though, he finally started allowing us to put him down.  He just started to really enjoy the baby papasan he is borrowing from his cousin Eleanor (thanks Eleanor) and he started smiling at us that week.  

We decided to go to the Gunflint Lodge on Friday night for dinner.  Neither of us had been there and it sounded like a nice change for dinner.  Anders really liked the drive there - that is until we went from the dirt road to the black top, at which point he woke up and started crying.  We got him back to sleep and ended up in the nicer dining room (as opposed to the more casual dining room) at the Lodge.  We had just gotten our salad and delicious Walleye Chowder when Anders woke up.   It is very difficult to eat salad with a baby in your arms - especially if the salad needs some cutting up.  I think Will actually had to cut something for me - but I cannot remember exactly what it was.  Anyway, when our meals arrived (more delicious walleye - this time beer battered and fried) the owner of the lodge, Sue Kerfoot, came over and took Anders so that we could enjoy our meal.  We got probably a half hour of baby free eating - we ate fast - it was super nice.  

On Saturday we left the cabin and headed off to visit our friends OB, Kathleen and their kids Hazel and Cy.  We enjoyed an easy and tasty meal of pizza and rootbeer and were entertained by Hazel and Cy.  It was nice to catch up with them, they are expecting their 3rd baby any time now - we cannot wait to hear what they have.  

After that we headed up to Sawbill for Anders' first visit there.  We got there just in time for pumpkin carving.  It was great to see everyone there and Anders did his best to make a good impression so that he can have a job there some day.   These are the pumpkins Will and I did.  There are more pictures on the Sawbill Newsletter.  

Unfortunately on that Friday my Grandpa Art died.  We found out after our dinner at the Gunflint, but did finish out our trip as planned.  My parents arrived at our house (messy house) on Saturday and were there when we got home on Sunday.  My sister Sarah and her family came up for the funeral on Tuesday.  Here are Zach and Uncle Will enjoying some movies of dogs doing crazy things on YouTube while the rest of us got ready for the funeral.  

And Anders making a goofy face at Grandma Ruth. 

Thanks to everyone for their kind words regarding my Grandpa.  It was a bit of a surprise to have him pass away - when I last saw him he seemed to be in good health.  That was back a few weeks ago when Anders was around 3 weeks old (the 4 generation picture on an earlier post is from that visit).  I have a happy memory from that visit - my grandpa didn't know who we were, but if you go look at that picture, you can tell he is so happy to be seeing a baby and I like to think that he knew we were people who cared about him.  Anyway, we had brought some pictures to hang up in his room, so we went down to his room to do just that and my grandpa took off in his wheel chair.  My last memory of him will be of him wheeling himself around, up and down the hallway in a rather happy-go-lucky way.   I'm glad to have that as a last memory rather than having some depressing memory.  I'm sad that he is gone, I'm sad for my mom, but I do have to say that my grandpa had a good life.   My sister Sarah has some good pictures and memories posted on her blog.  

Here are a couple of shots of one of Anders' favorite past times - he loves to look at his cranes that hang above his changing table.  Please note how stylish he is in his Banana Republic onesie (on loan from cousin Cam) and his orange leggings (a gift from Aunt Betsy) and his fun Robeez (on loan from cousins Henry and Clara).  The hat is his.  Anders is very lucky to have so many male cousins to give him hand-me-downs.  Anyway, he does a lot of dancing and smiling while looking at the cranes.  

On Friday we went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.  It was a nice day and my last day off for maternity leave and I wanted to do something outside.  Here is Will collecting Tamarack Seeds.  We would like to have some Tamaracks on our property (they are all around it, but not on it for some reason).   We also collected acorns so that Will can try to grow an oak tree - we aren't sure yet where we will put it if it grows.

Here is how Tamaracks look in the fall - they are part of the larch family and drop their needles in the fall after turning a beautiful gold color.  They are very pretty in the fall. 

Anders was kind of pesky on Friday - he was very fussy.  He split his time between this:

And this.  

If he was awake, he seemed to be crying.  It was a real bummer.  

So, I went back to work on Monday.  It was hard to leave home, I was sad.  Luckily Joyce came into town on Saturday night to help us out this week, so I didn't have to worry about Anders.  I was actually more concerned for Joyce's well-being if Anders acted like  he did on Friday.  He didn't act that way though.   He had a big first that day - he napped in the morning!  He has never done that for me, but somehow Joyce got him to sleep for 4 hours.  

Now we are spending the night watching the election results come in.  Things are looking good so far, but we will see...

We did get Anders involved - we took him to vote - we want him to know how important voting is from an early age and he is wearing his Obama Rocks shirt again for good luck.