Megaweapon

K-e-l-s-o, and Kelso was his name oh!

2012-01-24T20:56:00.001-06:00

It took us two weeks and many rounds of suggesting names to each other, but we finally settled on Kelso on Monday. For those of you who don't know, Kelso is the name of a lake in the Boundary Waters. It apparently is also the name of a town in Scotland and, yes, the name of that guy on That 70's Show. We've called him Puppy for so long that it is tricky getting in the habit of calling him anything else.

Anders is still getting used to having the puppy around. I have to say that I feel rather guilty rocking his world like this, but hope he doesn't surprise us 20 years from now with some huge revelation that we ruined his life when we got Kelso. They are still trying to figure out who is boss, and I have to say that Kelso is gaining the upper hand, er paw. It must be those sharp teeth. Anders claims he loves our puppy that moves (as opposed to the puppy he sleeps with) so hopefully all will be well. The 3 pictures below show a typical scene in our house.

But, these next pictures indicate Anders is having more fun with the puppy. And I just took these tonight, so they are very current.

Waiting for food!

Cuddling up to a railroad step box, comfy!

Introducing...

2012-01-08T22:07:00.001-06:00

Well, we don't have a name for him yet, believe it or not, but here is our new puppy! We drove to Sisseton South Dakota last night and picked him out this morning. It was a very tough choice between him and an older 1/2 brother of his. Our puppy is 9 weeks old and is a Blue Heeler, Lucy was at least part Red Heeler. He came from Drywood ACDs. We are working hard on coming up with a name for him and really excited about the sleepless nights to come! His black spots will grow together, so he will become more "blue" over the next few years. He has a beautiful dad and we are hoping he looks like him.

And here is the turn table Anders and his dad and the puppy had to go see - it caught their eye as we drove through Wilmar, MN today. Anders LOVES turn tables - it was what he wanted from Santa and got.

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash

2011-11-01T20:44:00.004-05:00

Many of you know that Anders loves Johnny Cash. What you may not know is how hard he works to emulate The Man in Black. When he watches videos of his hero, he strives to get his guitar situated exactly the same as in the video, he says the words that Johnny speaks to the audience, and he introduces other musicians just as Johnny does (except that he calls Carl Perkins Carl Kirkins). So, it was no surprise that he would be Johnny Cash for Halloween. Here is the making the of little Man in Black.

Ok and the pictures are all messed up. I really don't like this program, so NOT user friendly and what happened to loading multiple pictures at once? I don't get it.

2011-09-13T17:29:00.000-05:00

I posted the following on Google+ but thought I'd repost it here for those of you who can't see it on there.

So we're getting questions about the fire burning in the BWCA and how close it is to our property.
It's not really very close and I haven't been too worried about it but it has grown a lot in the past couple days. It's located just east of Ely, about 20 miles west of Sawbill which puts it 30-40 miles west of our property.
If it ends up near us it will have become huge and probably will have burned up most of the east half of the BWCA including the entire area around Sawbill.
The good news is it's much colder today and it's raining some up there.
Good sources of information are:
http://sawbill.com/www/news/newsletter/index.cfm
and
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/2534/

First Day of Preschool, Last Day of Work

2011-09-09T07:21:00.002-05:00

It is 4 am and I am up because I have a chest cold and started randomly coughing and clearing my throat at 3:30 am. So here I am a cup of tea and Blogger. I can hear them switching train cars in the rail yards over by the parkway. We looked at a house that was up against the railroad tracks, I'm kind of glad we didn't buy it, but it was also on the parkway and when we were looking at houses, we totally underestimated the value of having that extra "yard" space we could have had (and not had to maintain) to play in. Live and learn.

I have no idea where Will's camera is right now but there is a sweet picture of Anders on it from his first day of school. I think this updated version of the blogging software should make it easy to post the picture when the sun comes up. Anyway, he started preschool on Tuesday and seems to be doing very well there. He is still at the same Montessori, so the trauma of going to a whole new school was avoided, but we now don't go into the classroom with him, but instead say goodbye to him outside of the room. Yesterday (Thursday) he ran into the classroom without looking back at me - always a good sign.

Ok, I found the camera - apparently I put it away in the camera bag - how novel! Here is Anders on his first day of preschool. All summer long he has been interested in this wheelbarrow, especially because half way through the summer, the wheel broke off.

Anders is also 3 now! So crazy. He is a talker too. I love how kids communicate using such literal terms, it is very cool. Baseball is sometimes baseball, but also hit ball and one time catch ball - honestly, hit ball makes a lot of sense to me! He sometimes calls pointed things pokes. There are others, but I cannot think of them right now.

We drove home from the cabin and a week of raising the sauna on Anders birthday. We felt bad that his birthday was going to be spent in the car, so we planned on starting the trip back with donuts from World's Best in Grand Marais, throwing rocks into Lake Superior (a favorite past time of his) and a float plane ride from the harbor there. Unfortunately the plane was out of commission, but the donuts were tasty. So then we thought we would see if we could time our trip so that we were in Duluth in Canal Park when ship was going through the canal and into the harbor. According to the shipping info there were no ships going into or out of the harbor for the rest of the day - strike two. So, instead we learned that there was an ore boat being loaded at Two Harbors, so we headed to the harbor there so he could at least see that. Well we hit the jackpot here as the train from the North Shore Scenic Railroad was stopped over in Two Harbors!

Then we really hit the jackpot when the engineer looked down at us and said "Hi Buddy, you want to come up?" Sarah, you may not want to show these next pictures to Drew, I'd hate for him to have his feelings hurt over this again!

We had about 15 minutes before the train left, so we went out on the breakwater to get a better view of the boat being loaded. It turned out there were 2 ships being loaded, one huge one and smaller one.

Anders was less into the ships, so he and I went over to get some rock throwing in before we had to leave again.

Ugh, Anders just woke up yelling for his dad to come cover him up. This has been happening 3 times a night since we got back from the cabin (where I could just reach down and cover him up). I swear, we have setbacks in sleeping all night long every time we travel. It is so exhausting. Anyway, it was kind of tricky getting up to his room in the dark after staring at the computer for the last half hour. He asked for Johnny Cash to be put on and probably will sleep until after 6 now. The bad thing is that when he wakes up like this, Will and I don't just instantly go back to sleep - at least one or sometimes both of us lays awake for quite a while afterwards. Not conducive to getting over this cold.

Back to his birthday. We went back to watch the train leave Two Harbors for Duluth. The train has to back up for a ways before it can turn around.

As we were driving on the express way between Two Harbors and Duluth, I looked over at Lake Superior and saw the train on its way.

We finally made it home and had spaghetti (Anders' request) and cake - special thanks to Grandpa Bill and Grandma Kathy for ordering it from the 50's Grill for us while we were out of cell phone range.

I guess we didn't take a picture of him eating it, but he is a master at only eating the frosting - even the frosting between the layers of cake. He also just eats the tops of the chocolate frosted cake donuts from World's Best. We got him a cinnamon and sugar one on his birthday, thinking that since the cinnamon and sugar is all around the outside of the donut, he would eat the whole thing, but no, he ate so that all that was left was the inside of the donut.

So, today is my last day at the lab. I sent an email out to everyone in the company in North America saying goodbye, etc and got over 100 emails back and several calls. It was an emotional day and I know as I say goodbye to the people that I've worked with here in MN today, there will be many tears - on my part anyway. I never thought I would leave that place, but I know I'm going to a better place too. A very bittersweet day to me. Also annoying - they have two people taking over the work I'm doing and had to send them to MN for training on Wednesday. Now they want to do a follow up conference call today. Really? And I'm also amazed at the amount of stuff I've had to haul home! I've accumulated a lot the last 15 years!

How about some catch up pictures now. As I said, we spent last week raising the sauna. Bill has a nice post about that so I think I'm not going to reinvent the wheel - there are two entries here. I did find a nice series of action shots that didn't get on Bill's camera though.

Here are a few more pictures from the week. Oh and I just discovered I can put pictures side by side! I think it is safe to say that Anders will be into building things like his dad and grandpa - especially starting at an early age. Pounding is especially fun!

I love these two pictures - the raspberries were delicious and Anders thoroughly enjoyed picking and eating them. Unfortunately we missed the peak of the crop so we didn't take time to pick any to bring home, but they were a nice treat as one was walking around the property.

Anders got a couple of early birthday presents, both of which provided additional entertainment during the week. I found the truck at an antique store and couldn't resist it, Will made the paddle and on Bill's blog you can see pictures of the hit ball bat, balls, tee and glove he got. They all provided a lot of entertainment. Apparently we didn't take any pictures of Anders using his new paddle, but he really enjoyed going out in our solo canoe (with a parent) for a paddle. He can reach the water easily in the solo and likes to tell you to paddle on the opposite side that he is paddling on.

Anders also mastered the buttons on that orange flannel is wearing above. He has been able to do some zippers for quite a while, but buttons have been tricky. We were all very proud of this accomplishment!

I have a few more pictures to post from July. Anders and I have new friends, but we've struggled to find time to get together. The one time were able to get together with "the new" Zach (as Anders calls him) and his mom, Angela, we had lots of fun. Angela and I were introduced by a mutual friend who lives in Chicago, which is where Angela's family just moved from. Julie, the mutual friend, thought that we would hit it off and she was right. Zach is just a couple of weeks younger than Anders. We got together at Como Park for some time the zoo and at the amusement park.

Seriously, the boys were way more into the pop machines than the super cool bear exhibit we had just shown them!

Once we made it to the amusement park, the fun really began!

I loved watching them on this ride, which thankfully Anders was tall enough to go on. I wasn't sure what he would think of it - it is one of those rides that goes up and then drops down.

Anders was barely tall enough...

Loved it! They actually went on it twice.

I love this picture too - we have no idea who the kid is in the back seat, but he just relaxed back there the entire time, while Zach and Anders drove like madmen around and around.

Angela and I got to go on a ride or two as well.

A snack before leaving.

Messy snacks, there were many people walking by and laughing at these two.

Within two minutes of getting into the car.

Anders keeps talking about the new Zach, but we haven't been able to get together again - hopefully soon!

Ok, I'm done for now. I seem to be developing a pattern of posting when I should really be sleeping - not good! The tea and sitting up seem to have alleviated my cough, but now I really need to go to the bathroom!

July 4, 2011 and other happenings

2011-07-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

I'm enjoying what I expect to be the last of a few quiet moments before the other inhabitants of the house wake up. Getting up at 5 am may sound crazy, but there is something about that quiet morning time. Oh, I just heard a door creak open.

We spent the July 4th weekend down in Iowa City. We started the weekend out Thursday evening with losing the air conditioning in my car about 2 hours into the drive. And yes, it just happened to be one of the days that the heat advisory was in effect. It reminded me of the summers of my childhood when my parents would pile my sisters and I into our 1977 Scout to drive from Colorado to Minnesota, sans air conditioning. Thankfully the drive home on the 4th was cooler.

Oh my, just to show how quickly time goes by, those first two paragraphs were typed on Wednesday, July 6th at 5:30 or so AM. It is now, Sunday July, 10th at 7 am. I need a special thingamajig that can pause the rest of the world while I catch up on stuff. I promise I wouldn't abuse it and would only use it for good things.

Anyway, Bill just put up a nice post about the Victory Drive Memorial re-dedication, one of "other happenings" we enjoyed in the past few weeks. The Minneapolis Park service received federal funding to install lighting, a new memorial, and gates at each end of Victory Memorial Drive, honoring the 568 men and women from Hennepin County who died in WWI. It was fun and you can see pictures and a video of Anders riding his bike on Bill's blog right here.

The following weekend we were off to Burlington, IA for Will's cousin, Katie's wedding. We took some pictures, but kind of forgot we had the camera midway through the reception. We stayed at Fun City in Burlington - it has a wading pool for kids and lots and lots of slides, including some for adults.

Anders enjoyed the wading pool, he was not very interested in the kid-sized slides though.

He did enjoy the really small slides, but I saw both Anders and Eleanor bonk their heads on the top of this whale's mouth on the way down the slide.

That is Henry in the red swimsuit with his back to the big bucket. Pete is in the orange showing Anders the bucket, you can just see Anders' head to the right of Pete. Unfortunately I couldn't time the camera correctly to get a shot of Henry getting drenched by the water.

After all that swimming and no nap, this is what Anders did during the ceremony. He was asleep within a few minutes of us taking our seats. It was really quite a relief as we weren't sure how he would do during the ceremony.

A sweet dad-daughter dance.

Katie and Justin having their dance.

Anders really was enamored with Katie.

Clara was one of the flower girls and looked pretty darn cute.

On to the July 4th weekend. We headed down to Iowa City Thursday afternoon on one of the hottest days of the year. And wouldn't you know it? The AC in my car died about 1.5 hours into the drive. It brought me back to the years when my parents would pile all of us (plus a dog or two once in a while) into our 1977 Scout to drive from Colorado to Minnesota for a summer visit, also without AC. Ah, good times...

The heat continued on into Friday, so Anders and Eleanor took to her pool. Earlier in the week we had discovered that Anders is a bit of an exhibitionist, but Eleanor didn't seem to mind. Just a few days before heading to Iowa, one could overhear Anders having the following conversation with our neighbor, "Steve, I'm naked!" Steve, "Anders, you're a lucky guy."

Later that afternoon we were off to Grandpa Bill and Grandma Kathie's for some more fun. They had a new slip and slide that seemed to be a big hit.

Anders needed some help. Please note that this is also Will's bowling pose.

Henry was especially good at it.

Henry danced a little jig.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Ok, I have to do this another one of those series - the attempts to get all the cousins to smile at the same time and look at the same camera. It seems like by now, we adults would have figured out a way to make this work.

Ok, I have to give up. This is the longest post in terms of how long it has taken me to do it. I started on July 6th at 6 am and it is now July 14th at 10:40 pm. I've been too busy this week getting ready for our trip up north to work on the sauna, plus I rode my bike to work Mon-Wed (29 miles round trip each day) and that cut into my free time, plus Anders has been stubborn about going to sleep lately. Oh well, I guess an incomplete post is better than nothing! I'm not even going to proof-read it, so those of you who, like me, catch typos like crazy, enjoy!

Once again, a long over due long post with tons of pictures

2011-06-07T16:21:00.001-05:00

Wow, I just cannot keep up. Even after cutting a day per week out of work, I still feel like I don't have enough personal time. So, here are some of the things that have gone on since I last posted in April - Easter, a visit to the MN zoo, a trip to Colorado, my parents coming to MN, the North Minneapolis tornado, a trip to the cabin and our neighborhood garage sale weekend. I'm hoping that in my long absence, Blogger has made posting pictures easier. Here goes...

Even though we don't go to church, we got a visit from the Easter Bunny. I also tried to get Anders to watch the 1970s Here Comes Peter Cottontail, but given that he doesn't really watch TV, I ended up watching it by myself, which is fine. I had forgotten about the evil Irontail!

Wow! I like the adding multiple pictures option - this is a huge improvement! And, they uploaded where I wanted them to and in the order I wanted them!

Now the Minnesota Zoo. We went on a Friday as we both have Fridays off now. Weekdays are a pretty good time to go, except you do tend to run into field trips. It was the last week of baby farm animals and I wanted to make sure Anders got a chance to pet them if he wanted to. His favorite part of the visit was the playground - figures.

The big thing we did in May was about a 10 day trip to Colorado. We stopped in Des Moines on the way down and stayed over night. On the way down we had to stop to get a bite to eat. Anders is a huge fan of the Culver's grilled cheese sandwich. What he isn't a huge fan of is the fiber glass pole outside the Culver's in Owatonna. He got a handful of fiberglass there and was quite the trooper (no tears) but bummed out the rest of the trip down. Will figured out that using bikini wax worked well to remove the fiberglass that was still in his hand the next morning.

Anders and Drew in their triceratops shirts - totally not planned.

We had a 10 hour drive from Des Moines to Denver and Anders slept for the first two hours and never again. He was so good in the car and we didn't even have to break out a Johnny Cash DVD. The first full day in Denver was a good day, complete with a trip to the Railroad Museum with Dad and Grandpa. And then we were off to La Loma, a family favorite, for some excellent Mexican food and to celebrate Grandpa's birthday Cinco de Mayo style.

My dad got his drums out - Anders is a huge fan and seemed to get the moves immediately.

The Galloping Goose at the Colorado Railroad Museum.

Anders also likes to help in the garden.

Sunday was Mother's day. My mom, sister Becky and I went to Boulder for the Title 9 9K. It was very hot and dry and the altitude got to me. The conditions were a far cry from the snowy and windy half marathon I ran the weekend before - I was not ready for 80 degrees!

Later in the week, we went to Canon City to ride the Royal Gorge Railroad with my parents, my sister Becky, her husband Tom, and Cam and Myles. The train ride was really great, the boys loved it, the adults loved it.

Then it was over to Colorado Springs for a night in a hotel and some pillow hijinks.

The next morning it was off to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. It was beautiful - built up the side of the mountain. Honestly, I think it was the most attractive zoo I've ever been to.

This bird is called a Kori Bustard.

Hello

Cam got in on the pony ride as well, but Myles declined this time.

Since returning to Minnesota, we've continued to be busy. My parents came out a few days after we got home and some of us went over to my Aunt Mary and Uncle Paul's house to celebrate their 50th anniversary. For some reason I neglected to bring my camera to the party. Happy Anniversary Aunt Mary and Uncle Paul!

Then that same weekend the tornado hit Minneapolis. My mom and I had just gotten home when I wondered what the weekday MPR guy was doing on the radio on a Sunday. Then I realized they were talking about a tornado going through Minneapolis and heading north. Then the sirens went off and the power went out and Anders, my parents and I headed to the basement. The tornado hit the neighborhood just a few blocks from us. Here are some pictures from my bike ride to work the next day. I rode through there tonight and what used to be a cool, shady area is open and sunny. It made me want to cry then and made me want to cry today. The other super sad thing is that the heron rookery on the Mississippi just east of our house got hit too. It sounds like the adults survived but the nests, and I assume chicks, did not. It was so cool to have the rookery right there, we've brought many of you there in the spring to see the huge herons and their nests at the top of the cottonwoods on the island there, and our house was right under a heron super highway to a lake west of us so we saw flying over multiple times a day.

We spent Memorial Day weekend up at the cabin. We had good enough weather to take my parents on a paddle, which they seemed to enjoy. Anders is way more into the canoes than he was the first time we took him out - thankfully! We also enjoyed some delicious food at Nanibijou, the Angry Trout, and the Dockside Fish House. It was very relaxing.

Banana cake, anyone?

I started this post on Saturday morning before our garage sale, which was a success though now we have to put away the stuff we didn't sell. This post has taken too long. Since I started it, we have some big news - Anders can officially ride a bike. Here he is going down the alley. It is very exciting!

Oh my it has been a long time!

2011-04-14T04:57:00.011-05:00

When I went to bed last night, I was kind of excited because I am off today and was planning on NOT getting up at 5:30 to go for a run, but instead would get to sleep in until sometime shortly after 6. Its the simple things...

Well, that all changed at 4 am when Anders woke up crying. He was at the top of the stairs so I went to get him so he could go to the bathroom and go back to bed. He no longer wears diapers to bed and has been really good about getting up to use the bathroom. I missed the last at least 2 steps on the way down and landed hard on my right hip and arm, while I carrying Anders. Don't worry, he is fine as all I could think about in the few seconds that it took to come crashing down was how to protect him. I'm sore, but also fine, but could not get back to sleep.

Will is hopefully sleeping by now, but the sound of us falling jarred him awake as well. He thought it was Anders falling all the way down the stairs. I told him I would have gasped had Anders been falling by himself, but instead was concentrating on protecting him. It is funny how you react to things like that - my only thought was of him. It reminded me of this one time when Will, our friend John, and I went up to visit our friends Bill and Cindy one winter afternoon. When we left Cindy sent a pie for an upcoming bake sale with us. On the way down the Sawbill Trail, our driver took a curve a little too fast and we ended up spinning around and in the ditch, which was full of snow. Through the whole process, all I could think about was protecting that pie and in fact announced that it was fine, when we came to a stop. Luckily a logger came along a few minutes later and pulled us out of the ditch and the pie got to its destination safely.

I cannot believe it has been almost 3 months since I last posted anything on our blog. Is there anyone out there even checking for updates? I wouldn't blame you if you haven't been. Life has been very busy, however, they have finally hired my replacement at work and I am no longer Laboratory Director. I am now Director of Special Projects, a title my former employees and I joke about - as it seems to be a bit of a catch all title. I also only work 24 hours a week for now. This is supposed to be temporary and while it will be nice to have the extra time, it will be a strain on us financially and isn't something we will be able to sustain forever, I don't think, so Plan B is in the works. So, a quick summary of some recent times: you may have seen my sisters' posts about the big get together in Iowa - 6 boys and their moms = tired moms and tired boys, but it was fun. We've had some visits from Grammie Jean, a couple of visits from Grandpa Bill (who has helped us complete some projects around the house - thank you!) and we went to Wisconsin to visit Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill. We also had an extended weekend up in Grand Marais, where Aunt Joyce and I took a Selbouvotter mitten knitting class at North House. Maybe now with my new schedule I can do some more catch up posts. Now for the present time:

We are dog sitting Jean's dogs - Zeke has the stripe down his nose and Gracie is his sister. It is nice to have dogs in the house again, though it is amazing how much dirtier the house is with them here. One thing that Anders seems to have quickly picked up on is the fact that dogs will eat food that falls on the floor. Whenever he drops something he says, "the dogs will get it." Gracie will also eat paper muffin cups, which Anders has fed to her, and she will attempt to eat silicone muffin cups, which we think maybe Zeke got off of the counter for her, but she stole from him. No matter who got it off the counter, Zeke did not think it was fair that she had it and he did not.

Anders and Will skied into the cabin while Joyce and I were knitting, so now Anders spends time in his cabin. It is very cute, but also leads to a lot of toys strewn about the living room. Here he is coming out of his cabin, that sign in his hand serves as the cabin door.

We celebrated Will's birthday, with a delicious chocolate cake from the 50's Grill. Anders wanted 2 candles on his dad's cake.

Last weekend we had a true sign of spring. As you can see in this picture, the ice on the lake near our house is receding. Can you tell what those are in the water?

Here is a slightly better picture of Loons! Yes, the loons are on their way back to Northern Minnesota after spending the winter in Mexico. Woohoo! As Anders says after singing Ring of Fire and I Walk the Line. Another thing Anders says is "Ka-dah!" for Ta-dah, it is very cute.

This is an interesting ice formation on the same lake.

After checking out the loons and the ice, we went over to the park. Anders has been sleeping really, really well for the last 2 weeks. This is our first 2 weeks of good sleep since something like October. One theory we have is that outside air and activity is helping to contribute to the sleep, so we've been getting him out on his bike mainly, but climbing at the park helps too.

Doing some driving...

Will is testing the strength of this spring...

This park has several good slides, though Anders was bummed that the super high one was closed because it was cracked.

And more climbing.

One more sign of spring - the crocuses are up. Anders has declared this purple bunch his.

This is how excited we are about the sleeping thing.

Oh, Will got a new bike. He is hoping that riding this inefficient bike to work will lead to some major weight loss. We are still trying to figure out how to get a seat on it so he can pick Anders up from school.

Having his Strider (not pictured, but it is that balance bike we got for him last year) and his trike in the house all winter long has allowed him to master balancing and pedaling. Yes, we let him ride the bikes in the house, no we won't let him do that when he is a teenager.

The biking in the house has also helped him to do this.

Yep, he can almost ride a bike. Will isn't holding on in those pictures, but Anders is understandably a little nervous. He is doing well though, I wouldn't be surprised if he is able to ride before the summer is over. He loves his new red bike, which I got off of Craig's list for less than half of what it cost new. I love to get a deal!

Anders is also working on becoming one of the Boys of Summer. That terra cotta pot works well as a tee. Will did pull out a piece of PVC that can stand up in the sandbox and it works really well as a tee, though Anders thinks it is an even better microphone and he has started using it to belt out various Johnny Cash songs.

To say he is obsessed with Johnny Cash and now June Carter Cash is not an exaggeration. We listen to I Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, Jackson and a few other songs many times a day. He loves to play his little blue guitar along with Johnny Cash and lately has picked up Johnny's trick of putting a piece of paper in the strings to replace a snare drum (see I Walk the Line of Youtube, Johnny will explain it).

Ok, it is 6:08 am and I have blue font all of a sudden! I just heard Anders get out of bed, gotta go.

Snowshoeing

2011-01-24T20:29:00.005-06:00

We decided to brave the cold, cold temperatures - 0 degrees and windy, but sunny - to try out Anders' new snowshoes, which Will made him for Christmas.

I feel like Anders looks like the nerdy guy in Better off Dead in his winter clothes here.

He had some good moments.

And had to be picked up and set right a few times.

He needed some hand holding to get moving, our goal was a "tunnel" created by a tree - Anders is very, very fond of tunnels.

There was also some falling down. Actually in this case, he just decided to lay down.

I fell down too, but I didn't cry about it.

We finally made it to the tree tunnel.

Ok, so if you are like me, you've just spent 5 minutes laughing to the point of tears at this picture. Will and I have had a disagreement about who looks more hilarious - him or me? My vote is that he does, I feel like I look normal. Anders looks cute though.

This is how Anders got back to the car - he was DONE snowshoeing. Ironically, later in the day when my mom asked if he had fun snowshoeing, he said he did! Maybe that means he will go out again some day.

Lefse!

2011-01-19T21:19:00.004-06:00

A few weekends ago I thought it was high time that Anders learn to carry on the family tradition of making lefse. This is a tradition passed down from my Norwegian grandma Lenore and from her mom, etc. Anders was very helpful.

First we worked on kneading the dough, which is made from potatoes and flour.

Then we had to sort it out into smaller balls.

Then Anders got bored while I rolled out the lefse. Oh, and please note it was a ponytail day.

Then he decided to help me a bit.

Playing with the sticks was fun.

He even helped me move the lefse from the pastry board to the grill.

Anders left to take a nap and I finished up, he did pretty well for his first time. Next year he is on his own.

Pictures from Christmas 2010

2011-01-03T20:38:00.006-06:00

Ok, so I just cannot seem to keep up on things these days - is it me or life as a working mother of very busy 2-year-old? Anyway, here are some pictures from Christmas - actually a lot of pictures, but not as many as I could have posted.

We were home again this year for Christmas Day. Instead of buying tree, we dug out the old aluminum tree. If Anders told any of you that our tree was blue (I think maybe his Uncle Mike was a bit baffled by Anders telling him this) he wasn't confused - that light does have a blue panel, so at times it was blue.

Anders definitely didn't remember Christmas from the year before, but he quickly got the hang of things. Will made him some tiny snow shoes, which you can see in the back ground there.

His favorite present on Christmas day was the Lego construction set, but he was also very fond of these wonderful socks Aunt Joyce made for him - I think I need that yarn to make a pair for myself!

Ok and then we put the camera away for awhile! I'm not sure why and we didn't really take many pictures again until much later in the week.

On the 26th we headed to Des Moines to meet my new nephew Jake and see his family and my parents. Anders was very excited to hold Baby Jake, I was obviously a little hovery here.

Some hijinks were had while we tried to get a group shot of 4 of my parents' 6 grandsons. Sadly Cam and Myles were home in Colorado this year.

Ok fast forward another couple of days to celebrating Christmas with Will's family at Bill and Kathie's home. We remembered that we had a camera on this day.

We opened presents - lots of lots of them. Fun was had by all.

Anders and Grandpa Bill goofed around.

Eleanor's new dolls got all lined up for a nice nap by the window.

We got some wildlife watching in.

There was some napping.

Followed by some more hijinks.

Maybe this angle is better...steady now...

Rob thought he felt something tickle his head.

Clara and Anders had great fun on the chair lift thing. We had to unplug it eventually!

And then we put the camera away again despite having another Christmas celebration with Jean the next day! I don't know what our problem was.

Anyway, (oh blue font, but why?) fast forward to Jan 1 - Anders is modeling his new sweater from Uncle Rob and Aunt Carrie. As you can see, he is very, very excited about it, but alas he is going to have to hold off on wearing it until next year as it is kind of big - very, very cool though! I think I would do a happy dance if that was my sweater too.

Ok, this last picture is old, but I thought some of you may want to see it. This is the big snow that ruined the Metrodome and caused the poor Vikings to have to play two home games away from home. Will was just finishing up 3 hours of shoveling. This isn't the best picture, but it shows you how high it had to be piled up. This will be here until March at least. Need to get out on those new snow shoes that Anders got for Christmas. Happy New Year!

Biga Bed (aka an act of desperation)

2010-11-06T11:54:00.011-05:00

For the last week+ Anders has started a new and exhausting habit of getting up multiple times per night, frequently starting around 3 am and doing it every 20 minutes or so. It is very tiring for all of us. One thing we tried to remedy the situation was move him to a big bed (biga bed as he calls it). Though he was very excited about it, it was not so exciting that he stayed in bed all night. Hopefully this situation won't go on much longer.

We bought this cowboy bedspread last summer, I just couldn't resist putting it on the bed.

He is also very into wearing pony tails lately and when I tried to take this picture, he kept saying "smile" but wouldn't produce one. Sadly, he is getting a haircut later today, so pony tails may be out for a while.

Ok, now for some pictures from October.

Trying on Dad's bike shoes: I just thought the hat, shoes and boxers were pretty cute together.

Hide and seek with Drew in their big basement play room.

Using The Force to do some baking.

Getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating at the Living History Farms in Des Moines.

Anders was a little behind Zach and Drew the whole time, I guess The Force wasn't with him.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. I guess I should have let Sarah know that I was including her in the shot. The rest of us were holding our place in line for a wagon ride.

The next day we went to the tree and pumpkin farm. Notice how Anders just took over on driving the tractor - he loves to drive. Hopefully this picture doesn't make you cross eyed - a few of my shots were out of focus because the camera got switched to manual focus and I didn't realize it at first.

Herding cats: Mike is working very hard to get all 3 boys on the hay bale for a picture. They had all already been up there together and just as we were ready to snap the pictures they started getting down. Anders is trying hard to make a quick get away.

Ah, finally! Nice work Mike!

It was October 30th when we went to the pumpkin farm, the guy driving the tractor that pulled the wagonload of us out to the pumpkin patch basically wished us luck finding good pumpkins. They were fine, but perhaps a little uniquely shaped.

Dog pile on Mike. Zach is somewhere in the pile and Anders is totally going over the back on purpose. Mike stopped him in time for those grandmas and aunts that are worried for his noggin.

All dressed up and ready to go - this was Anders' first time Trick-or-Treating house to house. He seemed to like it. He especially liked handing out candy to the people that came to our house on Halloween (in Des Moines Trick-or-Treating was on Saturday night).

Ok, now to earlier in October when we went up to Northern MN for a week.

We stayed one night at Cascade Lodge so that I could help band Boreal Owls that night. It was great - we banded owls until about midnight. This is Anders outside our cabin at Cascade.

Here he is driving again, finally this boat is useful for something.

Transporting water is always fun.

This was actually a double rainbow and is taken from our deck at the cabin, but with the lens we have on the camera, I couldn't get it all in the frame. We actually had some good nature sitings that week - grouse, a moose, purple finches, chickadees, a fox, the rainbow, and...

here it comes...

this wolf on the Sawbill Trail! Oh sorry, Anders has informed me that this is a tiger, not a wolf - an even rarer sighting on the Sawbill Trail - watch out Bill and Cindy!

Joyce wins!

2010-10-03T20:42:00.002-05:00

After looking at the pictures Joyce sent the link for I think she nailed it.

I was thinking porcupine quills but that didn't look right. It definitely matches the pictures of the sea urchin spines, and the theory about the wind chime makes sense as well.

My mom gets runner up for coming up with the sea urchin explanation as well but she gets a penalty for insisting at first that it was wood and for taking over night to come up with sea urchins.

Anyways, thanks Joyce.

So we found a thing...

2010-10-02T16:45:00.002-05:00

OK, so Rob and I were digging some post holes in his back yard for a deck extension...

We dug this thing up. It was less than a foot from the foundation of his house in the top 10" of soil.

It's not metal or wood. It's kind of a reddish/brown mahogany color with two partial rings around one end, the rings are whitish/tan. It's pretty light weight, probably lighter than if it was a piece of pine the same size.

So I have one idea of what it is but it's really just a guess and I'm not going to bias anyone by saying what I think.

If anyone knows what this thing is Rob and I would love to hear your theories.

A Rare Moment

2010-09-26T16:24:00.007-05:00

When I started this post, I was taking a rare moment in which I was the one relaxing in front of a football game and Will and Anders were upstairs doing something. It was nice while it lasted, except that I feel like crap. I may have a cold and allergies at the same time - all I know is that I cannot stop sneezing and it is making my nose red and my head hurt.

We had a whirl wind weekend with family in town for Will's cousin Sarah's wedding. It was a very nice wedding, Sarah looked gorgeous in her dress. Congratulations to Sarah and Josh! Here are some pictures from the reception, where the kids tore up the dance floor.

This might be my favorite picture from the night. The couple's first dance and what is that in the background? Oh Clara! So cute!

Check out Henry's fancy moves.

Anders also had lots of fancy moves including some kicks...

Some fancy walking...

Dancing a with a cork, while Clara rests a little or maybe that is one of her moves.

And he also included some jumping in his repertoire. It was a fun reception, Pete was a great DJ, and the kids crashed when we got home.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend up at the lake. We had lots of work to do and Anders pitched in.

We had lots of timbers from the timber framing classes taken in the last two summers that needed stacking. If you enlarge the picture you might notice the gloves he has on - we bought some kid-sized work gloves after the trip was over.

We also took some time to go out in the canoe, or 'noo as Anders calls it. He loved it, which was a relief because his first time in a canoe last year consisted of a lot of yelling and crying.

He went "up, up high" many times on his own, which was alarming. Being up high and pointing out other things that are up high is favorite thing for him.

This was so cute. Will and I were working hard to stack wood the last day before we left and we looked up and he was bringing us this 2x4.

Couldn't resist the typical spaghetti face picture.

Oh and one final thing - I have a piece of scrap paper batting around there that says, "honey, no stop it" which is what he said to me when I was washing off his face one day.

Ok, free time is over, Anders just peed on the rug. Dang it!

I Two Now

2010-09-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

Anders is two now. Crazy. I took him to his two year appointment today and the doctor was pleased with how much he is talking, the fact that he has been wearing underwear for 4 weeks now (do I dare say he is potty trained?) and with his health. He jumped up to the 5th percentile with a weight of 23 pounds 8 oz and is in the 25th percentile at 33.5 inches. He used to not even be on the charts for weight, so we will take the 5th percentile. While we were at the appointment, he showed the doctor his climbing skills by scaling the exam table. Typical Anders - he also climbs fences, out of his crib, opens the back door now, etc. He keeps us on our toes for sure. So, here are way too many pictures from his birthday celebration (way too many in that it took Blogger two days to load all of these, so if you get worn out looking at the pictures, it seems to be for good reason).

We started the birthday celebrations a few days early with a visit from Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill. Here is Anders helping them put together the easel that Grandpa Bill made for him. It is very cool. Anders likes to fix things and figure out how things work, I won't be surprised to come home to this taken apart some day.

Beautiful artwork by Anders. And no, we did not get a puppy - that is Tighe and he belongs to Josie. Or maybe Bill and Kathie.

Fast forward to the weekend. We drove down Thursday night and spent Friday hanging out at Aunt Carrie, Uncle Rob and Eleanor's house. Anders requested waffles for breakfast (eata faffle) for his birthday so Rob was kind enough to make them for all of on Saturday. Oh and the best part of the weekend was that Anders absolutely refused to sleep in the pack and play - he insisted on sleeping in the "biga bed". It was real fun - we had to give in and let him fall asleep and nap in the bed we were sleeping in and then transfer him to the pack and play. What a nightmare, but thankfully, he was happy to sleep in his crib (with the side down of course to make climbing out easier) when we got home.

After breakfast we gave what may be his most important gift - a new Hawkeye jersey and a another Iowa t-shirt.

Eleanor and Anders on game day/birthday day with their coordinating Ricky Stanzi jerseys.

Before the game we had time to go to the park near Rob and Carrie's for a bit. Anders got some climbing out of his system.

Baby Dee (or is it D) even got in on the action.

Pete ran the general store, while Clara shopped.

After the game, which Iowa won, Anders got his hand in the cake - despite the fact that his Aunt Sarah and I were right there.

This is the cake that his Aunt Sarah made. The tire wasn't messed up when she brought the cake in the house, it still tasted great. We had another cake at the party too - a lovely green and purple angel food cake that Grammie made. I don't think she chose the frosting colors, though, I'm pretty sure Henry had something to do with that. Anyway, I didn't get a picture of it - bummer.

Ok, more park time - this is the birthday party - the picnic shelter we were at was right next to a play ground. Here are Henry and Zach flying and maybe checking out a real airplane, while Drew and Anders rush to a fire.

The park also has some amusement park rides, including this train - or choo-choo train as Anders calls them these days.

The birthday boy.

This is a music-less carousel. The kids loved it, but it was kind of strange to have no music.

Clara seemed to enjoy the elephant.

Drew and Anders teamed up again for some flying.

I love this action shop of Henry.

Eleanor and Rhiannon were very nicely color coordinated with their plane.

It was very late when we finally got a family picture taken. Unfortunately, this was one of the best shots.

The next morning we met everyone in Amana for breakfast. Anders enjoyed the food - especially this piece of toast.

Then we tried for a family photo - I think this one is pretty good considering all the people in it. After that, we left town to spend some time with Aunt Sarah, Uncle Mike and Zach and Drew at their house.

I love this shot of the 3 boys gathered around whatever Anders is looking at.

Anders got a new umbrella from Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Dick. He immediately headed outside with it, so Zach got out his umbrella to join in the fun.

For some reason, Anders decided he could go down this slide sitting down. All other slide rides were taken on his belly, feet first. We ended the day with some more amusement park rides and fire works, which thankfully Anders enjoyed. Then headed home on Monday. It was a fun weekend.

July 4, 2010

2010-07-05T20:27:00.009-05:00

We had a lazy, quiet (not counting all the fireworks in our neighborhood) holiday weekend at home. Anders did some biking, with his messenger bag - something he has recently gotten excited about. He and I also went running every day - we did a total of 12 miles, the most I've run in a long time - today a very fit guy caught and passed us and said, "you rock, it took me 7:08 to pass you." I was working quite hard and feeling miserable, but appreciated the compliment.

We got Anders a swimming pool and he spent all weekend in it. It was a nice way to cool off.

More bike riding in the house, notice this bike needs keys to get it started up. Oh and also notice the big boy underwear. We did a lot of potty training this weekend. The most exciting day was the 4th when Anders took off his underwear, for what I thought was a little naked time and wandered off, only to come back to me a few minutes later saying "I poop." When I asked him to show me, it turned out he had peed and pooped in the little toilet! It was crazy. He used the toilet a couple more times that day and proceeded to pee on the floor about 4 times today. Oh well, I think we are making progress - at least he recognized that he was peeing on the floor today.

More pool time - an improvised boat. Actually, that served as his pool last summer.

One of his favorite things to do this weekend was move the water from one place to another.

It was especially exciting to pour water into these boxes and watch the water run out and across the patio.

Gotta make sure you get all the water out.

Oh, we also enjoyed some soccer and the Tour de France, which Anders got really excited about, given his love of bikes, and I finished a knitting project. It took me 3 starts to get this bag right. The pattern is all messed up and my mom had to run to the yarn store in her neighborhood to get me more yarn (thanks Mom), but I finally finished it. I even was able to felt it our front loader, though I didn't couldn't (or didn't) felt it so much that the rows don't show. It seemed like the flap was shrinking faster than the rest of it and the strap is shorter than I was hoping for. Not sure what I will do with it and quite frankly, I don't remember what the sample in the store looked like that inspired me in the first place. Anyway, some before and after pictures are below.

I hope everyone else has a relaxing weekend and escaped the heat somewhat!

The Busy Days of Summer

2010-07-02T06:24:00.005-05:00

Father's Day weekend came and went very quickly, just like the rest of the month of June did. We spent the weekend at home, having a quiet weekend in between weekends spent with visits from family. The thing I remember most about that weekend is that Anders really started putting two words together and one of his "sentences" was "Will Outside!" as Will came inside and left Anders outside. It was definitely a command to come back outside and came out as "Wo ousi!" It was funny. He now strings 3 or 4 words together.

While outside, Anders did some work on his bike.

Later in the week, he discovered the flour shaker.

This past weekend was a big weekend with a bridal shower for Will's cousin Sarah (I didn't have the camera), a birthday party for Eleanor who is now 3, and lots of family over.

Uncle Rob provided entertainment and probably hurt his back a bit.

We had pizza and cake to celebrate Eleanor's 3rd birthday. It was tasty and fun.

Anders tried to excavate the patio during the party - he knows I want a deck.

Finally, on Sunday we got a few pictures of the 4 cousins together. It took some doing and I could post a lot of pictures taken before Carrie got this perfect shot. Too bad I washed the rags that Will and I had to use to mop up the huge amount of water deposited in our house during the Friday night deluge. Guess we should have checked the weather before going to dinner and leaving the window open that night.

Anyway, it was a whirlwind weekend, but lots of fun. A taste of what is to come in September when everyone comes for Sarah and Josh's wedding!

Ducks

2010-06-19T06:25:00.010-05:00

Ok, so I guess I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I just don't have the time and energy to post blog entries lately. Ironically, when I do finally get around to it, the posts are quite long with lots of pictures and actually probably take longer to post than they would if I would keep up.

We've done a lot in the last few weeks and had several visitors starting right before Memorial Day. Eleanor stopped by for a sleep over and some breakfast with King Anders on her way to see Grandpa Bill and Grandma Kathie in Wisconsin. She also brought her parents along, but they managed to stay out of the picture.

That Friday, we headed up to Grand Marais where Will and I were taking a timber framing class, in which we starting building a larger cabin for ourselves, at North House Folk School. I highly recommend North House for a variety of classes and activities from bird festivals to knitting to baking to jewelry to building. Another person who somehow did not get in any pictures was Will's mom Jean, who was generous enough to take care of Anders for us for the 9 days we were the class. Grammie took Anders to his first Memorial Day celebration.

Here I am using the mortising machine.

Anders enjoyed this little table of Cindy's quite a bit. I bet you didn't know it was so nice to sit on for a good read, did you Cindy!?

Trying on some boots.

This is one of the largest pieces we will need for our cabin. It is called the top plate and will be the top of a wall. We had to join two very large timbers with this scarf joint that had to be cut and measured very precisely.

This is how Will fit them together once all the measuring, cutting, and chiseling were done.

Will and I were able to walk to class every morning. It was super nice.

Anders had his eye on the forklift the whole time we were in the class, asking to sit on it, on the last day one of our instructors, Peter, took him for a ride.

Here is our pile of timbers that we completed after 9 days of class.

We got home Sunday night and headed to work and school on Monday, while Jean stuck around and caught up on laundry, making cookies and some general cleaning for us - thanks!

Then Anders stayed home with Grammie on Tuesday for some fun in the rain.

On Friday, my parents and my sister and 3 of my 4 nephews (from my side of the family) arrived for the weekend. Sadie started out the visit rolling in a dead fish that Will had put outside for later disposal...good times.

We had pizza for dinner that night (peepa as Anders calls it) - everyone enjoyed it. This picture was taken not long before Anders started pestering his cousin Drew with a glass of milk in the face, which then became a glass of milk poured all over Drew (we think by accident). This reminds me of the highlight of the weekend, in which Anders chased Drew across the living room and to the front door, which wasn't latched and which Drew proceeded to fall through onto the front steps, all while his mom, his aunt and his grandpa were cracking up over the scene unfolding before them. It was very funny - the deal was that Drew had one of Anders toys and I don't think Anders wanted to take it from Drew, but more wanted to play with Drew who just freaked out and ran. I guess Anders' animal instinct to chase a fleeing thing must of kicked in. Unfortunately, we have no recording of the incident.

The weekend was kind of rainy the whole time, so we packed all the boys in Sarah's car to go to Edinborough Park to burn off some energy. Cam is back there beside Anders.

The indoor park has real trees and plants growing in it, a gym for the kids to play in and this huge climbing thing. I think this is something like 3 storeys tall and full of slides and various ways to get to places. It was kind of crazy, but the boys loved it. Here is Cam on his way up and probably asking us if we knew where Zach was.

After spending about an hour dodging some of the crazy-acting big kids while accompanying Drew and Anders in the big climbing area, we discovered the empty toddler area.

I think we spent about 2 hours running around and going down slides - I haven't gone down a slide in a long time - and then it was time for lunch and a quick drive home that consisted of lots of songs to keep Anders awake. I've never seen him so tired!

That night Zach opened his birthday presents and Cam got to Skype with his Mom and Dad, who he was away from for almost 2 weeks! Zach is showing Aunt Becky and Uncle Tom his headlamp here.

The next day we headed over to the parkway to check out the heavy machinery and the big holes they are digging. Surprisingly, none of the boys crawled through this pipe!

I'm told this is called a track hoe, all I know is that it is huge and there are three of them working over there.

This next series of pictures is kind of long, but I had to put them on the blog. When we got home from the heavy machinery excursion, we discovered these two ducks in our neighbor's yard. Anders loves ducks and he and Drew were pretty excited about them.

It was a fun couple of weeks and now we are enjoying some down time before the next round of visits starts next weekend.

Hats

2010-05-20T20:49:00.006-05:00

Some of you may remember the post back in November 2008 of Anders in his collection of hats. If you don't, here is your chance to walk down memory lane: http://megaweapon.blogspot.com/2008/11/various-hats-of-anders-inscrutable.html

Well, in the last month or so, he has been into hats again. In the last week, he has been especially into them, grabbing one right away in the morning and some times going to bed with one on.

Buckets are also fun to put on your head if a hat isn't around.

This is actually the last weekend in April. We went to his school program Saturday morning and then had to make a very quick (1 night only) trip up to the lake to meet with the guy that is designing our cabin for us. I'm making a public commitment to get the video from his program posted. Hopefully tomorrow night.

Breakfast - some yummy yogurt (don't tell him I'm sneaking vegies into it, yep, I'm still flavoring his yogurt now with things like sweet potatoes, peas and fruit - the fruit actually seems to out flavor the vegies).

Oh, I had to stick this picture in - we bought this sweet table and chairs set at the flea market last weekend. They need to be stripped and repainted, but there is a hole in the table for an umbrella. And yes, he is eating yogurt again.

Here he is this morning. he likes to wear his hats backwards.

Ok, this next series of pictures is also from this morning. I got him dressed and thought he looked so cute in Cam's shirt and shorts and I think Henry's shoes (thanks guys!) that I just had to take a picture. He wouldn't hold still though. These pictures crack me up.

Big News

2010-04-17T20:28:00.011-05:00

Anders and I went to Colorado last week - I was a little unsure about the flight, but Anders was super good even though the flight was during his nap. Luckily he napped a little earlier in the day and the flight is only about an hour and half long.

My parents picked us up and we headed over to Becky and Tom's house for the remainder of the afternoon and dinner. Apparently the flight wiped Anders out.

On Friday we headed to the Denver Zoo. Myles was ready for a day in the sun. The weather was perfect - mid to upper 60s and sunny.

Anders was all about holding cousin Cam's hand at the zoo. (He calls Cam "Na").

True to form, he was climbing fences.

And he was WAY into Myles (who he calls "My-mo").

Back at Grandma and Grandpa's house he enjoyed climbing into this cheap stroller I bought last year and then strapping himself in. This stroller was a total pain until my dad fixed the front wheels - they kept getting stuck sideways, but even when it was a pain, it was nice to have in the airport.

Anders also made lovely music for us. This is his very own set of bongos that Grandpa found for him at an antique store.

And he really enjoyed riding in the jeep in the big backyard Grandma and Grandpa have. I swear, their backyard is twice the size of ours - I cannot imagine what we would do with a yard that size. We would love it for sure.

Grandma, Anders and I took Sadie for a walk down to the play ground at the elementary school my sisters and I attended. As usual, Anders was all about the slides.

One day we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens. I worked there writing interpretive information for the exhibits when I was in college and hadn't been there since. Unfortunately I didn't have my MN Landscape Arboretum member card along, so I didn't get in free. I need to find that card...

Cam was a very good older cousin and hung out with Anders, keeping an eye him and playing with him. When we first sat down to eat there were tons of elementary and junior high school kids playing in this amphitheater and I told Cam that I really didn't want Anders to go down there. After lunch the kids had cleared out and as I suspected Anders got up from lunch and just started heading down hill. Cam was quick to try to stop him, but Anders is pretty fast. I tried to get a picture of him running down the hill, but I had our old camera as I wanted to take a smaller camera on the plane and it is just too slow.

After lunch we walking through the gardens. Anders was very interested in these tools.

He also decided to go down a different path than the rest of us. I love this picture with the flowers in the back ground. The other bummer about the old camera is that it doesn't take as nice pictures as the other one. I am very spoiled by that other camera - it is just too big to carry on the plane when I was loaded down with snacks and toys for Anders.

We saw some koi in the pond in the Japanese garden. Anders climbed right up to the top of the fence overlooking the pond. After this, I had to put him back in the stroller - he was just all over the place and there was a fair amount of running water and cacti around and I didn't feel like dealing with him after getting into either one of those.

This is our last night in Colorado having dinner at my parents house. He was very silly.

And now to some pictures from today. Anders rode on a tricycle with Cam in my parents house and seems to be even more interested in this old trike I bought at the flea market a few years ago. He can almost pedal it around and when he has shoes on, he can push himself around on his tip toes.

His hippie-hair, fly away and fine like mine.

And no more hippie-hair. Anders got his first hair cut today.

He was very, very good. No tears, no sudden moves. He didn't want to sit in the chair by himself, so he sat on my lap.

Checking out the new do.

And another first - an ice-cream cone. Or whatever you call the stuff you get from Dairy Queen. We rode our bikes over for the haircut and treats.

He got silly and decided to give his dad a kiss. It was very funny.

And then we stopped at a park on the way home. This is his first time swinging like this (instead of alone in a baby swing). It must have been tickling his tummy because he kept cracking up at random times.

And of course, he went down the slides. He had a big day - started it at 6:15, went to his new music class, and then crashed at 7 pm.

Oh and in case you didn't figure it out, the big news is that we finally cut his hair.

Dare Devil

2010-03-28T18:20:00.009-05:00

Anders and his dad have been riding home from work and Montessori for a week or two now. This has greatly increased Anders' obsession with bikes (which was pretty big to begin with).

He really likes to wear his helmet now, and mine and Will's...

He might miss winter and bundling up a bit, I bet he won't miss it too much in a few months.

He did some building today. This was all done on his own, maybe he can be an architect if professional biking doesn't work out.

Or maybe he will be a chef, famous for his use of applesauce as a condiment. I actually did get him to eat all of this, despite how disgusting it looks.

Oh! We just had an exciting moment, Anders just came and got me and said "ba-ba" which means bathroom. So, we went in there and he sat down and pooped in the toilet! This is the first time he has told us he needs to go. I would love it if it was the first of many, but I won't hold my breath.

I'm cleaning out the secretary and Anders discovered these twine balls. I worked out a trade for a real ball before I had twine all over the house.

Here is an action shot of his throw to his dad.

We also had some outside time today.

This is his new coaster bike. He loves it, but is a little leery of it. He is much more comfortable on his little Radio Flyer tyke bike, but he is getting the hang of this. Hopefully we can get motivated to put a video of him on the bike on the blog soon.

We also refilled the bird feeders for the squirrels, chickadees and cardinals.

After nap time today we rode bikes over the park near the Mississippi. We had two main purposes in going - so Will could ride his new bike and so we could check out the herons, which have returned to their rookery.

Anders has a new found love of slides.

He went head first down this one on his own. No kidding.

This is a big slide - probably 7 feet or so. Here he is getting ready to go down.

Again this was all his decision to do this. He decided to treat it like stairs.

And go down feet first on his belly! He went at least twice more and loved it!

Hah!

2010-03-15T20:20:00.005-05:00

Usually this time of year my sister, Sarah - who lives in Iowa, and I have a conversation that goes something like this:

"Mom called me today and just happened to mention that the crocuses are blooming. It is 20 degrees here."

"Yep, I was on the phone with Becky today and she was getting hot sitting on the deck in the sun. We have 6 inches of snow on the ground still."

Becky and our parents still live in Colorado.

Well, this picture is for those of you who usually experience spring several weeks ahead of us in the upper Midwest (and who got snow while we had a 60 degree day yesterday).

Yes! My tulips are coming up already and they are even about 3 inches tall. I just discovered them tonight when the Schwan's man stopped by. It is very exciting.

We do still have some piles of snow, but those will be gone this week.

So, Anders is 18 months old as of March 4th. We went to his 18 month appointment and his doctor was pleased with him. He was back down to slightly above 20 pounds, but he had been sick for a couple of days and hadn't eaten, so she figured that was the issue. He had a bit of a belly ache last week, complete with messy morning diapers and throwing up a few times right after breakfast, so we kept him home Wednesday and Thursday.

Here is what happened with his play dough on Thursday. This happened while he was in the seat.

He also did a little reading.

On Sunday we enjoyed some tea and milk in our mugs after breakfast. That lump on the table is what is left of the banana he ate. He lately has been interested in eating bananas out of the peel rather than sliced up.

So, as I said, we had a wonderful, warm, sunny day on Sunday. We spent a bunch of the afternoon out in the backyard. Anders is trading in his shovel for a broom.

I had forgotten how dirty Anders gets when he plays outside, so that combined with being sick this week led to lots of baths. Last night he didn't want to get dressed, but instead wanted to watch his dad make spaghetti (which he called getti).

Finally, this is one of his new things. We give him a napkin and he puts it in his lap. It is very hilarious. He did it for the first time last week and had to remove his bib in order to get the napkin just right.

Another thing he just started doing is when the 3 of us are standing close together saying goodnight or goodbye he pushes Will's and my heads towards each other so we kiss. It is very funny! New words include: owl (which he correctly identified in one of my bird books), goose, turkey, chapstick, dirty, back, and truck. Also on the way to Montessori every morning we see about 8 buses, which means I hear "baa!" about every 5 minutes.

Catching Up...Again

2010-03-07T20:09:00.005-06:00

Why is it that I feel like I am in a perpetual cycle of catching up? I'm trying to remember when it last was that I actually had real free time where I had absolutely nothing I had to do? Anyway, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Anders made some wrapping paper for me to use to wrap presents for his cousin's birthdays. Drew just turned two and Cam will be 4 very soon. This highlighter was left out by his dad and one of us (I think it was me) gave it to him to use. He now loves markers way more than crayons. He looks like a very serious artist at work here.

He found some M&M's in Grammie's bag. Nothing is safe from him any more - he can climb pretty much anything these days and does. Thankfully he cannot doorknobs yet.

Ah, the new skis. It was a very exciting day when we opened the skis. Anders was very excited about them. Skis in one of his words - it sounds more like keys though.

Once we got outside on the snow (aka "no") he was a little less confident, but did well. There were a few tears involved and now the snow is melting away, so we probably won't make it out again this winter, though I'm sure there is a huge March storm in store for us.

The other morning he decided to take some of my shoes for a spin. This is the first time I've seen him do this.

So the highlighter led to washable markers. He did get some on the paper, despite how it looks.

And some on his face...

And some on his shirt. He didn't want to pose for this picture. Thankfully, the markers truly are washable and the shirt is clean again.

Saturday morning I was sitting across from Will, eating breakfast and looked out the front window behind him and saw this!

Yep, that is a wild turkey walking down our street, right in the middle of Minneapolis. Anders and I looked for it on our way to music about 45 minutes later, but it wasn't in plain sight.

Crazy!

Out of laziness, or rather being behind-ness, I have a laundry basket full of diapers in the living room and we just started changing his diapers downstairs for the day. Well, that led to trying some more time on the toilet and Anders ended up pooping and peeing in it twice. It was very exciting for all of us!

Weekend Goings On

2010-02-22T07:55:00.008-06:00

I'm going out of town this afternoon for the remainder of the week, so I decided to hang out with Anders for the day. We started the day with some bus watching. We seem to be on at least 3 bus routes, maybe 4 - it is very exciting.

Anders likes to stand on the window sill for a different point of view.

Next, we headed for the play ground at the nearby elementary school. It was around 25 degrees or so, but nice and sunny.

Anders loved the slide, until the one time when he went a little fast and ended up laying down at the bottom.

This thing was only kind of fun for him, despite the smile.

This weird swing was his favorite thing.

He wanted to walk home - this is what happens when you let him walk home. So I put him back in the stroller and got to the corner of our street and let him walk the last block home. I bet that took us a good 15 minutes. We met some of our neighbors that we didn't previously know. They have a 2 year old and I cannot remember the mom's name - annoying! At any rate, I think we have some good play time ahead of us this summer. They were heading out to take Huxley snowboarding - people after my own heart - we just ordered skis for Anders (skis is one of his words).

After our big trip (we were gone for 1.5 hours) we came home and had a smoothie together. Anders loves smoothies. Now I'm hoping for a good nap as I need to pack!

The rest of the pictures are from this weekend. We weren't too busy - stayed home and watched the Olympics, Anders and I went for a 4 mile run both days (for some reason my quads are killing me - I think from pushing the stroller in the snow), went to music and walked around in the snow.

Will's mom called shortly after Anders and I got home from music. Anders was playing in the living room when suddenly it got very quiet. I discovered him in the back bedroom.

I have no idea how he knows this is a phone, but he does. Will and I never use it, but it is plugged in and now a favorite toy.

He is getting better about putting things away - they are working on this at school.

I also went to REI and discovered they were having their super clearance - an additional 50% off anything ending in .83 - REI Super Clearance and Scratch and Dent sales are a good way to get some good deals.

Here he is modeling his new rain coat. The pants that I bought to go with it come up to his shoulders. This will be good in a few years - hopefully they will keep the rain away on a canoe trip!

Some hijinks were had in the box that Will's new bike came in. Actually, Anders might think it is his bike - I heard him say "me bike" on Sunday.

And Anders got to eat his first piece of toast without having it cut into tiny pieces! I wasn't there for this, but Will said he ate it right up.

2010-02-18T17:05:00.002-06:00

I'm not saying Betsy's comment (after the previous post) about keeping the Play-Doh colors separate is wrong...

But anyone who would do this with their breakfast might be inclined to not mix up the Play-Doh.

Happenings, in no particular order

2010-02-17T20:39:00.008-06:00

Lots going on in MN: work, work, & more work, Grammie came for a visit, New Mamas went to Roller Derby, skiing and snowshoeing in the North Woods, and more...

Valentine's Day Party at school - good food and lots of fun was had by all.

A huge milestone - peed in the potty for the first time ever! We were all very excited, the reward: lots of cheering and flushing the toilet!

Play dough from Cindy Lou - he loves it!

Helped Dad put fenders on his bike so that they can start riding home from school and work sooner than later.

Found something better to watch.

Goofed around a bit.

Helped shovel a bit.

Added a few more words to his repertoire: gentle, down stairs, skis, stink, cereal, shovel, apple and figured out how to climb up on the chairs and the couch, now we have to figure out how to keep the counters and table tops clean! Never a dull moment.

Winter in Wisconsin

2010-02-03T21:39:00.006-06:00

We headed up to Wisconsin this past weekend for some time with Grandpa Bill, Grandma Kathie and Josie. Will and I got a very rare chance to go out skiing together, while Anders hung out with Grandma and Grandpa - thanks! I skate skied for the first time in 2 years and the 8K ski I did was exhausting, I did change into my new classic skis for a quick 2K loop while Will finished up his ski. Oh, did I say we skied together? I meant we drove there and back together - Will has surpassed me in his skate skiing skill. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Anders is really into dogs these days - he was exposed to several of them over the holidays and seems to really love them. Here is Josie being very patient with him. She was very tolerant, though I'm wondering why we decided we would let him pester her on her bed long enough for us to take a picture! I tried to get Anders to understand that the bed was Josie's space and that he should leave her alone - he didn't always listen to me.

I'm a huge advocate of getting Anders outdoors in winter - I am really hoping he embraces outdoor winter activities as he grows up in Minnesota. So, he got lots of outside time over the weekend. An no, he isn't down on the lake alone.

Here he is making sure his dad's sled is in good enough shape to ride in. It passed the test earlier in the day with Grandpa Bill, but he had to check out again.

Here Anders and Grandma Kathie seem to be wanting to go to different parts of the lake. We ended up making a big loop and they both seemed happy with that.

We went out with Grandpa on Sunday and this time the sled really wasn't worthy of a ride (in Anders' mind, anyway). He really enjoyed walking and pushing the sled. He fell a few times and would get stuck in the downward dog yoga pose as he got up. He would saw "oh-oh" as he fell - it was pretty cute. He also enjoyed picking up snow. He just loved it out there.

I love the trails he made in the snow.

All that fresh air and a full belly led to falling asleep within a couple of minutes of us leaving the house. We didn't even get to the mailboxes before I took this picture and the mailboxes are less than a mile from Bill and Kathie's place! He slept almost the whole 3 hours back home. Thanks for a great weekend Bill and Kathie!

Words

2010-01-27T21:14:00.003-06:00

No, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I'm just a bit (ok a lot) overwhelmed by work these days and TIRED at the end of they day. So here is a quick entry, while I listen to Obama and simultaneously crack up at the faces Biden and Pelosi are making and feel sorry for them for having to sit where they are. I guess that is just part of the job though.

Anders is growing up fast. We started making a list of the "words" he is using. Some of them, probably only Will and I would understand, but some of them are very clear - like diaper! He is also very interested in sitting on the toilet - with the lid up like the adults do. On one hand the idea of potty training him is exciting (the Montessori will help even) but on the other hand also seems daunting. So we are starting with pointing out when he is pooping - if you ask him he will point to his diaper. Don't worry, we have no delusions of grandeur here. The first thing he did with the potty was put the bowl part on his head, he then spent the weekend pushing and carrying the potty all over the house. Not a good habit to get into...

Ok, words and my attempt spell his way of saying them.

Diaper = generally clearly diaper
Boo = boo!
Chickadee = ka-dee
Dad = da or da-da
water = wawa
banana = nana
apple sauce = bapa, though last night he clearly said apple
Brr = burr
All done = ahh dah
Bye-bye = clearly bye-bye, with either a wave or sometimes a kiss, which involves a nice kiss sound
Hi = clearly Hi - I love this - he and Will get home a few hours before I do, so when I come in each night I am greeted with a hearty Hi!
Yogurt = gogur
Hot = hat! hat! hat!
Dog = dah
Outside = ow-si
Oh-oh = oh-oh or sometimes ooh-ooh
Good job = goo jaaa
Bike - ba-ba?! The question mark at the end is because he always says it with question because he wants to go downstairs to see the bikes.
Go Hawks! - this doesn't really sound quite like Go Hawks, but he clearly is saying it and he gives a little arm pump, which is hilarious.

He also loves brushing his teeth - if you ask him if we should go brush his teeth, he drops whatever he is doing and heads for the bathroom. This morning as we were getting ready to leave, I said "we need to get your hat and mittens on" and a minute later he brought me his hat and mittens. I was pretty impressed. Things are going well at the new Montessori. He really loves it there - sometimes he doesn't even want to stop to take off his jacket before joining in whatever activities they have going on. Today when we got there, he said hi to one of his classmates. It was cute.

Pictures from Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T21:26:00.005-06:00

We had many visitors for Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, Will and I spent so much time running around the house, that we didn't get the camera out often enough.

This is actually a few days before everyone arrived, but explains why all of his Aunts and Uncles voted Anders mostly likely to have the first broken bone amongst the cousins.

The kid has no fear - in fact last night shortly before getting ready for bed, he wanted to look in his fish tank so I put him up on the chair that he was patting. He then wanted something up on top of his fish tank and I wouldn't get it for him, so he climbed up on the arm of the chair in order to reach the wanted item.

Anders got to ride on Uncle Rob's shoulders while at Como Zoo.

The obligatory picture showing how tricky it is to get so many people to look at the camera at once. Carrie looks cute though!

Anders also likes to wear hats around the house. This one was made by his Aunt Betsy last year.

Another hat - this one was given to him by my friend Michele last year. I'm wondering if he is going to be one of those guys that wears stocking caps all of the time...

This was taken after everyone was gone. If you click on the picture it should get larger and you can see that Anders is fixing the locomotive. His dad is right next to him trying to fix the dehumidifier. Anders spent quite a bit of time fixing this toy yesterday. He also thought it might work on it a bit tonight possibly as a stall tactic right before bed.

It was very nice to have everyone here all weekend, hope everyone had a great weekend!

No time to blog

2009-11-09T20:35:00.002-06:00

We went to IA this weekend. Got back late last night and I had an audit today and need to pack to go to California for the rest of the week. Other than the Hawkeyes losing and losing their QB, it was a great weekend. We celebrated Pete and Carrie's birthdays and enjoyed some time outside.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T19:49:00.002-05:00

588 Minutes

2009-10-29T21:25:00.002-05:00

That is how long our phone was off the hook Monday night into Tuesday evening. We suspect this guy had something to do with it...

Trip to Colorado

2009-10-25T20:06:00.010-05:00

We just got back yesterday after being away for a little over a week. We started our vacation last weekend in Iowa. Saturday involved football, soccer, obstacle courses, shopping, the race expo, and homemade pizza.

Sarah and Mike have this great basement where the boys can play. This is Drew looking cute in his backwards hat.

Zach is going through the tent as part of the obstacle course. I also participated and I have to say it is hard to crawl through that tent and doing a somersault was harder than I remember.

Here is everyone in their Hawkeye gear playing with a toy that blows balls up into the air.

Anders took off with some of the balls.

Zach loves to make pizza with his Uncle Will - the picture is hazy because we filled the house with smoke from something on the pizza stones.

The pizza was as delicious as it looks.

After dinner, the boys got in some piano time before bed. They played quite well.

The next day was Sunday and time for the Des Moines 1/2 Marathon for me and Sarah. Sarah had a goal of finishing in 1 hour, 50 minutes and suggested I go along with that. She finished in 1 hour 46 minutes and I finished in 1 hour 55 minutes. We were both happy with our times, but we didn't get to celebrate with each other until something like an hour and half after I finished because we couldn't find each other for that long. It sucked. We both had to borrow a stranger's cell phone to call Mike at home to find out if the other called. We both checked the medical tent for the other, and we were both frustrated to find that there was a spot for every letter of the alphabet for family meeting places except V, W, X, Y and Z. When I mentioned to a volunteer coordinator that their family meeting places end at the letter U, she acted surprised and then said that it was implied that the rest of the alphabet would meet there to. Implied how? Anyway, about an hour after I called Mike, Sarah called him and he told her where I was.

Sunday night Will and Anders and I left for Colorado on the train. We had a berth (room) with room for 2 adults and 2 kids to sleep.

Here is Anders on his bed - we are just leaving the station and he was up way past his bed time.

Right before we left Sarah and Mike's house I did a mad search for my running hat and gloves. This picture is taken at the very moment that Sarah is telling me that her dog, Maggie, had hidden them under Drew's crib. Sarah said very sheepishly, "um, I found your hat and gloves under the crib." Obviously this cracked me up.

Here we are in Denver Monday morning! It was a good night. Anders slept really well in his bed and it was nice to wake up almost at our destination.

Monday was a beautiful day, after having breakfast with Aunt Becky, Cam, Myles, Grandma and Grandpa, Anders, my mom, and I headed to the park. Will and my dad went to the Colorado Railroad Museum, which happens to be a few miles from my parents house (lucky grand kids).

Anders is very comfortable walking now, but this ramp did throw him off a bit as he hasn't done a lot of walking on slopes.

My parents have a very patient dog and lots of fun containers that Anders enjoyed getting out of the cupboard. The whole time we were there he had plastic containers and pots and pans out all over the house. He also really enjoyed going up and down the stairs at their house. Sadie was frequently waiting for him at the top of the stairs and I think the first time he climbed our stairs at home yesterday, he wondered where the dog was that is supposed to be at the top of the stairs. Which reminds me, he says dog by making a K sound. He also says oh-oh, which is hilarious and today he pointed at the cow on his cup and did a darn good job of saying cow. He also uses the sign for milk for "I want that" - we aren't sure how that developed, but he combines that with pointing and the sign for please to communicate with us a lot. Then says oh-oh when we drop what ever he wants.

More piano playing, though he is really, really into drumming. He got to go to music at Aunt Becky and Uncle Tom's house on Friday and his favorite part was the drumming. So later that day when Becky and I went out for a few errands, I bought him a drum for Christmas. It is going to be all I can do to not give it to him early.

Here is Myles taking a snooze on his Mom's lap. He is just a month old and a cutie.

Here he is on the blanket I knitted for him. This is the same pattern that Joyce used for a blanket for Anders. I have to say this is probably the knitting project that I am most proud of to date. It turned out beautiful. It took 4 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in Hummingbird. Thanks Joyce for the border pattern - it worked perfectly!

Here you can see the colors of the blanket better. Or you can just look at Myles.

Sadie really thinks she is a lap dog.

Anders seemed to like Myles. If you asked him were the baby was, he would point to Myles. Becky had just changed his diaper and Anders sat there watching very intently, it was very cute and I, of course, didn't have the camera out.

Anders is giving Aunt Becky a high five over how cute his little cousin is.

And now he is blowing her a kiss goodbye.

And now waving, to her. He also waves to passing cars and today was waving to nothing that I could see.

This time Cam shows Anders how to play some real rock and roll.

Our last dinner in Colorado. We also got to go to our favorite Colorado pizza place and favorite Mexican place while out there. Shortly after we finished dinner Friday night we packed up the car and headed downtown to catch the train. We had a deluxe family room for the ride home - it had a shower, toilet, and sink and room for 3 adults. Anders and Will slept on the double bunk and I slept up on the single bunk. I think I got the better end of the deal there as Anders moved around a lot. Will wanted the option to look out the window all night though...

Thanks everyone for hosting us. We had a really good trip. I am so not ready to get back to work tomorrow.

Race Day Weekend

2009-10-04T16:01:00.005-05:00

My sister Sarah came up this weekend so that she and I could run the Twin Cities 10 mile race together. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Oops, this is actually from Friday I think (based on what Anders is wearing). Obviously he and his dad were being kind of squirrelly.

It was a good Saturday, we went to music, Anders showed Aunt Sarah how he walks and the Hawkeyes won their game. I'm pretty sure they won because Anders was wearing looked so cool in this t-shirt and jeans.

For dinner Saturday night we had pasta with mizithra cheese and some high jinks.

It was delicious.

Anders uses the sign for please quite a bit now. It used to be just for food, but he now understands the concept beyond wanting more food. Here he is asking for Drew's new sunglasses.

And modeling them, looking really cool.

Sarah and I both had great races today. Sarah finished in 1 hour 25 minutes and I finished in 1 hour 28 minutes. This was even with being stuck behind a bunch of slow pokes and running our first mile in something like 10 minutes 15 seconds. We spent that first mile, or maybe two, getting around people. Our second mile was 9 minutes plus 15 or so seconds and we decreased our time each mile for the next few. I hope that I feel as good I did today when we do our 1/2 marathon in a few weeks.

Here Anders and Aunt Sarah are saying goodbye to each other. He blew her kisses and waved from the window as she left.

Anders has a new concentration face which involves letting his tongue hang out. He just started putting this clown stacking toy back together this week - he used to just take it apart.

He is very proud of himself when he gets done. He also says chickadee (I'm so proud). It is really rough, but he gets the number of syllables right and he seems to get the ch and the k sounds. He is very into watching our bird feeders and today I after added the ibird application to my new ipod (which Will got me for my b-day - thanks!) I played some bird songs, which got Anders looking around at the bird feeders. Right now we have only safflower in the feeders and it has generally kept the sparrows at bay and attracted chickadees, gold finches, a downy woodpecker, cardinals, white throated nuthatches, and now house finches. With the sparrows staying away from the feeders, the seed isn't going as quickly. Oh, that reminds me, today a chickadee seemed to be using a pair of Will's jeans hanging on the clothes line for a seed storage spot.

After dinner tonight there were some more high jinks. Anders has discovered my belly button, but I don't recall him paying attention to his own. Anyway, it is very exciting for him.

He also likes to crawl all over me when I am laying on the floor being lazy or stretching.

Here comes the flash!

Random Silliness

2009-09-28T20:11:00.004-05:00

Anders seems to be growing up very quickly. Each day he does something that surprises us. Lately he has been experimenting with walking - doing about 3 or 4 steps at a time. We also just realized that blowing kisses also means something like "I want" or "eat" - we aren't totally sure yet. That or he loves everything so much he wants to kiss it. I don't know.

He has very few fears and constantly surprises us with the stuff he has figured out. He knows that keys go in the lock in the back door and what I mean when I ask him to turn the light off or on.

He likes to put things inside or on top of things as he is doing here, though, I'm not totally convinced he wasn't going for Will's toast 0r whatever that is. You can also see in this picture that the naughty elves that constantly put stuff all over our counter tops had visited the night before this picture was taken. They drive me insane! I can spend an entire evening cleaning the kitchen and less than 24 hours later have no counter space on which to make dinner.

You might think this is Anders trying to do his own silly face, like his cousin Drew, but actually, he has started anticipating the flash which can lead to some funny pictures.

This spider hat on loan from his cousin Cam might serve as his Halloween costume this year, it just fits him, but doesn't stay on very long.

Anders is so brilliant he can already print his name, unfortunately, he also likes to put the chalk in his mouth, so his time with the chalkboard wasn't very long lived.

I have no words for this one. It just cracks me up. Another hat on loan from cousin Cam, which buys me more time to decide what kind of hat I should knit for him. It also matches the winter coat we got for him at REI at the scratch and dent sale last year - bonus! Thanks Cam for loaning Anders your hats. He will take good care of them so that Myles can wear them too.

In other news, I've confirmed that spending time in laundromat and running out of fuel are not good uses of my time. Our washing machine conked out on Friday, after I had loaded it up with dirty diapers. Will tried to fix it that night, but to no avail. I really didn't want to spend any of my Saturday at a laundromat, but we really needed to wash those diapers. Hopefully the repair guy will show up as scheduled tomorrow.

And then today on the way to work, I ran out of fuel for the first (and I hope last) time ever. Stupid! The low fuel light went off on Friday on my way to work, but we can usually get 50 more miles out of the tank. Well, looking back at it, I probably got 60 miles. Apparently engines don't do so well with air in the fuel line, and diesels are even worse to get started after the fact. I nearly killed my battery and Will had to borrow a coworker's car to give me jump while we got my car running again. I also had help from one of my managers who was nearby on his way to work. Take it from me - don't let this happen to you!

The Tradition Continues

2009-09-26T21:02:00.002-05:00

On my dad's side of the family, there are 8 grandchildren: Tom and Pam, Mary, Ellen and Cathy, and me and my sisters (Sandy, Becky and Sarah). My sisters and I are the only people out of that group of cousins with kids and we now have: Zach, Cam, Drew, Anders and Myles. All boys. Myles was born last night in Denver. Congratulations Becky and Tom!

New Mamas

2009-09-21T20:43:00.005-05:00

Around a year ago I made one of the best decisions ever. I signed up for the New Mama class at Amma Maternity. Through that class I met 6 really wonderful friends, who I'm quite certain helped me to get through this first year. The class lasted only 6 weeks, but we've continued to get together and see each other through the highs and lows of being new moms. Now, don't get me wrong, both of my sisters and my sisters-in-law have been a wonderful support system, but there is something about talking through stuff with other women who are going through the same thing at the same time. I love you all!

Look at these adorable babies a year ago. The babies were born from the end of July to the beginning of September, with Anders just missing being the youngest by 1 day. Ironically, Ellis, the baby of the group was the first to crawl and the first to walk! The babies in order from Anders counterclockwise are Mary, Stella, Arthur, Thomas, Owen and Ellis. So cute!

Here we are the New Mamas (we still refer to ourselves that way). I remember Anders was fussy that day and I had to walk around with him in the sling a lot.

So yesterday, Monica was nice enough to host a birthday party for all the babies. It was so fun to see them all together again! All but two are walking (Anders and Stella want to take it easy still). I hadn't seen many of the babies for a few months - I think it was snowing the last time I saw some of them. It was amazing how much they have changed. Here we have Mary, Owen, Stella and Ellis enjoying Thomas' toys. Also in the picture are New Mamas Tracey and Sarah and Caroline, whose mama Sara, got us all together through Amma Maternity.

Anders and Thomas enjoyed putting stuff in Thomas' stacking cups.

Arthur takes it all in here - the poor guy fell asleep right before getting to the party.

Anders took a break from the party to check out Stella's stroller.

This picture is so great - Monica opened up Thomas' Bee Bop Band toy and all of the kids came over to her from all parts of the room. It was both amazing and funny.

Here is Anders trying to make his Uncle Pete and Grandpa Dick proud. I wish I had a video of this - he was drumming like crazy!

New Mama Yesenia got all the kids balls and Sarah got them boats to play with in the bathtub.

And here is Ellis getting a new CD to rock out to. I actually think this might be a ploy to stop him from fighting with Owen over something. It was this point in the party (about 2.5 hours into it) that the kids all started to lose it. So we ran outside for some quick pictures.

Maybe next year we can get them to all lay still in a circle! Thanks for a great year ladies!

Lots of Random Pictures

2009-09-18T21:10:00.008-05:00

So, I've had trouble getting posts up, but we have been taking pictures. These go back to before Anders' birthday.

The Sawbill sweatshirt from Will's childhood finally fits Anders and it was cool enough for a sweatshirt a couple of days in August. I'm actually not sure if this was ever Will's sweatshirt. It may have been Rob or Betsy's.

Anders likes to do a lot of climbing on things. He thinks it is especially fun to rock in this chair standing up.

A little light reading...this also helps diaper changes go a lot better.

He really likes going for rides around the yard in his Tonka dump truck. It is kind of hard on my back though!

And playing in water is still a favorite past time.

Ok, this next series of pictures may make me seem kind of vain since I'm posting several pictures of us, but the progression of goofiness cracks me up. This is on Anders' birthday.

More climbing on things. Apparently he is very much like his dad was.

A ball rolled under the entertainment center, so what does he do? He goes right up to the entertainment center and rolls another ball under it! Actually, I think they are still there.

Anders has also gotten way into sitting in his walker wagon.

He ate half of my post run breakfast smoothie. It is hard to not share with a face like that!

I love this picture. He loves to watch Will leave for work in the morning. He stands there and pounds on the door and blows kisses. It is really cute. I found out today that it is fun to be on the other side of the door as I left for work.

We've had these sunglasses since before he was born, but he wasn't into them until this week. Apparently last night he was so into them, he wouldn't go to bed without them on. This is first thing this morning.

And this is what happens when he just takes them off and randomly drops them as you are walking through the kitchen. They landed right in the flour, which Will had open as he was making waffles for the two of them this morning.

Will called me before they left for the Montessori today and said that he happened across Sesame Street and Anders basically froze in front of it. It was his first time seeing it. I hadn't really planned on exposing him to TV yet, or rather, TV geared specifically for kids (he gets way more exposure to the Daily Show, Steven Colbert and sports than I ever dreamed he would) but apparently he loved it tons. Will says he was very needy and didn't want to be put down and then this came on and he was spellbound. Hmmm...sounds kind of tempting.

This Past Weekend

2009-09-16T21:15:00.004-05:00

I feel like this past weekend was really busy. Anders and I started Saturday with a quick 3 mile run and then I went to get my haircut. I stopped in at my favorite Twin Cities yarn store (Crafty Planet) and almost bought some more yarn. Luckily they didn't have 3 skeins in one dye lot. I certainly have enough knitting projects, but I kind of wanted to do something for myself. Anyway, after that I rushed home and got my bike and Anders ready and about 10 minutes later we rode over to the park to meet up with Beth and Will, giving Will some peace and quiet in which to watch Iowa crush Iowa State.

I think the park is called Mississippi North Regional Park. We went there in June with Sarah, Mike, Zach and Drew. Beth and the boys and I ate a little lunch at this cute little picnic table. It was just the right size for Anders McClimbs-a-lot and Will, who was very good about hanging out and eating his lunch, that is until he decided to go exploring.

There was lots of sand to play in. The boys really seemed to like it. I was pretty surprised to find no sand in Anders' diaper when we got home though. Sadly the little wading pool was closed (I guess most pools get closed in MN after Labor Day), this was too bad because I know Anders would have loved to play in the water.

Will demonstrated his survival skills and showed us that he knows how to find edible snacks out in nature. This is good as he is sure to have many outdoor adventures in the next several years with his parents!

Despite being at the exciting park, Anders decided to spend a fair amount of time with one of his favorite things - the bike trailer. Bikes are special favorites for him, but really, anything with wheels like a bike really catch his attention. You may notice that I only have one bike shoe on the ground there. That is because he had already put the other one in the trailer for me. This was after he took Will's maraca out of their stroller and put it in the trailer.

Will decided to get in on the action.

And then decided it wasn't all that exciting after all.

They did some swinging. Will especially seems to be having fun here.

And Will got some sand on his face. This was after Beth had cooled him down with some water. We looked over at him and he was covered in sand. I'm not sure how it happened, but he didn't seem to mind.

This look cracks me up. We were packing up to go. This is a combination of "I'm not ready to go and I need a nap." Anders was almost asleep when we got home - it is about a 10 minute ride, so we did a quick diaper change and put him down for what I thought would be nice long nap after all the fresh air and playing in the sand. Hah! Not quite. I had just enough time to do a much needed mopping of the kitchen floor and he was back up. I bet he slept for maybe 45 minutes and then was visited by the Poop Fairy. Oh well. It was a really nice time at the park - thanks for meeting us Beth and Will!

Messy Faces

2009-09-05T20:10:00.005-05:00

Today was day two of Anders' birthday celebration. He started the day with blueberry pancakes and apple cinnamon pancakes made by Uncle Rob. He liked them.

The big breakfast he ate led to a big nap - 4 hours! Much of which occurred while Rob, Carrie, Will, Mike and Zach and I were at the Iowa-UNI game. It was an exciting game. On the way to the game a chipmunk tripped me and Carrie as we walked down the sidewalk. It came out of nowhere and tripped me first (I thought it was somebody trying to trip me from behind by kicking my foot). Then as I was trying to avoid stepping on it, it got under Carrie's feet. It was very crazy.

After the game it was party time.

Grammie made Anders 2 cakes. The chocolate train cake with the candy cargo was a huge hit. Eleanor and Baby D are scoping it out and laying claim to a piece with gummy bears on it.

Anders and Drew showed off their Iowa team spirit with Aunt Sarah.

And there was lots of game playing - Anders even joined in the fun.

Since the angel food cake was so close, Anders decided to start with that cake, first by dragging his finger through the frosting. He was very civilized and used a fork.

Then all hell broke loose. He enjoyed the chocolate cake as well. His favorite thing to do was play with the cake and throw it overboard. He was having lots of fun.

Next we all moved on to the rides. Everyone started with a train ride on the City Park Express.

Anders got a new engineer hat to wear for the ride.

Then there were rides on the carousel.

And the mini ferris wheel.

Next we opened presents. Anders really liked this one from Eleanor.

Unfortunately, the balloons escaped out of an unnamed uncle's sunroof on the way to the party. When we got home, the balloons were in the tree across from Uncle Rob and Aunt Carrie's house. The unnamed uncle felt very bad, but at least we got a picture with them! Thanks everyone for coming to the party!

Birthday Boy

2009-09-04T14:42:00.006-05:00

It is really hard to believe that a year ago we were suddenly new parents. How could a year have gone by already and how in the heck did we survive it? It is also interesting to consider the things you forget. As I was looking for a picture from last September, I'm reminded of some of the stuff we experienced those first few weeks home.

So, we are down in IA - originally to go to a football game, but it worked out that it is Anders' birthday as well. We started the day at Uncle Rob and Aunt Carrie's house, playing with cousin Eleanor and her toys. For some reason we didn't have the camera out, which is too bad because Eleanor was wearing some great Hawkeye PJs. After a quick morning nap, we headed out to Grandpa Bill and Grandma Kathie's house for some good times.

Always the bike enthusiast (lately one can find Anders climbing on bikes in his room or in the garage), Anders was interested in the Big Wheel. He is obviously too small to use it, but it was fun to sit in and crawl on.

Speaking of crawling, it is still his preferred way to get around. He does like to stand up and use furniture or walls to get from place to place, but he is very cautious when it comes to walking. He normally crawls on his hands and knees, but every once in while he finds a surface that he doesn't want to put his knees on, such as the driveway.

His present from Grandpa Bill and Grandma Kathie was a beautiful, handmade set of blocks. Grandpa made them and a nice box for them to be stored in. Anders was very interested in taking them out of the box. He likes to toss stuff over his shoulder as he empties whatever container he is emptying. This can be kind of pesky when it is a basket full of newly folded laundry. These blocks are made from 9 or 10 different kinds of wood. I cannot remember all of them right now - cherry, bloodwood, walnut, oak, cedar, poplar and that is all I remember. Anyway, they are beautiful - thanks so much Bill and Kathie!

Anders also enjoyed standing and looking out the window.

And riding the chair up and down the stairs with Grandpa.

He wrapped up his day at Grandpa and Grandma's hanging out on the deck and checking out the yard. It was kind of cute.

Next it was back to Uncle Rob and Aunt Carrie's house for some Pagliai's Pizza and more birthday fun.

Anders finally got a wagon! This was from his Grammie Jean and he loves it.

Eleanor and Baby D even joined him on a ride, though Eleanor was a little concerned that Anders was going to tackle her and give her kisses.

He finished his big day with a big drink of bath water - yuck. When I took it away from him he was very, very mad.

He is wiped out and this was without the birthday party. Happy Birthday baby!

Superdad!

2009-08-04T17:41:00.005-05:00

So Tuesday is my day to stay home with Anders, I also work a half day from home Tuesday.

Today he took a nice three hour nap in the morning which allowed me to get a bunch of work done. So when he started his afternoon nap I decided to take one too.

When I woke up Anders was still asleep so I decided to do a little more work. He woke up soon but over the baby monitor it sounded like he was entertaining himself so I decided to finish up what I was doing. After about 10 minutes he started crying so I went to investigate.

I found him sitting in the middle of this:

First of all I'm not sure how he could reach the fish food. Several times I seen him try to do pull-ups on the fish tank to try to reach a pacifier or something else he's thrown up on top of it but he doesn't have the arm strength required to lift himself up. At least I don't think he does.

Second I'm not sure how he unscrewed the cap. It's not hard to do but he's never shown much ability to open containers.

Anyway, the good news is I don't think he ate very much of the fish food. Although you can see from this picture that he did manage a sample or two.

He was very sorry.

When I asked him how it tasted he got all excited:

After I got him cleaned up and changed the sheets we went out in the back yard, he explored while I wrote a couple emails.

After about 10 minutes I heard a bonking sound which I ignored until Anders started crying. I turned around to see what was up. It turned out that he was bonking his head on the bottom of my car which he was completely underneath. Obviously I didn't have time to get the camera which is unfortunate because it would've been a good shot.

So that was our day together, now I'm going to go put him to bed.

Ok, so I have a problem.

2009-08-02T18:28:00.004-05:00

For the last several years we have been going to a local flea market on Sunday mornings. There is a variety of vendors there - antiques, food, records, bikes, plants, dollar store crap, etc. The picture below is today's flea market haul.

From left to right for those who are interested: a Dietz lantern (Will's newest interest), a North America Amphibians field guide, a Tonka traxcavator (look it up), a VW bug (covered with lady bugs, obviously I picked that one out) a mini Tonka dump truck, a big Tonka dump truck, and a Great Northern Railroad fire extinguisher. Oh and um, my problem...a 1963 Schwinn Hollywood bike. I fell for this bike the moment I saw it and it was still there when we were done. It is a one speed with a coaster brake and a pink and white paint job. The seat is pink and white too. It is really great. I haven't had a bike with a coaster brake in I don't know how long and it took a little getting used to as I rode to a plant sale in our neighborhood this afternoon. So my problem? I really have a weakness for bikes - I now have this bike, a 1972 Schwinn Breeze, Will's old mountain bike, and my road bike, oh, plus half a tandem. So 4.5 bikes. Plus I'm pretty sure I can take full credit for the 2 bikes that Anders has. Well, admitting it is a start, right?

The garden picture for Carrie's challenge. I just refilled the bird feeders yesterday and the Chickadees found the feeders really fast. Unfortunately, the sparrows did too and they were the reason I got turned off filling the feeders in the first place. I need to go buy some safflower - sparrows supposedly don't like safflower.

The following pictures are from our weekend (last weekend) in Wisconsin at Bill and Kathie's place near Hayward.

There was a fair amount of pinball playing. Henry is fascinated by the monsters on Monster Bash. He likes to have somebody downstairs with him when he plays, but especially for when Dracula shows up. He also wanted to know which monster was my favorite, and wasn't very satisfied with my answer of Wolfman, but did like my answer that I liked Bride of Frankenstein (does she have a name?) because she has cool hair. It seems that Anders might be interested as well.

Anders had to deal with a life vest again. The last time he wore one was in May and he really hated it. It makes him hold his head up funny and if he tries to crawl, he kind of gets stuck. It is pretty funny to watch.

Anders and Clara went for a ride in the boat. They both seemed to enjoy it. Anders liked looking over the side of the boat at the wake the boat made. In fact, he got quite pestered whenever Bill slowed down the boat.

Today we went for another 5 mile run. I went yesterday by myself and finished in 44:16, which was a pleasant surprise. Today, the wind was in my face for the first half of the run and it was quite a chore to get to the turn around spot. Anders, however, loved the wind. He was screaming and squealing with joy at the top of his lungs. It was funny and not something I have heard him do on a run before. Despite being a pretty rough run, we got done in 48 minutes and some odd seconds.

Squash Anyone?

2009-08-01T15:25:00.005-05:00

For Carrie's recent challenge: some gardening pictures.

I love growing squash, but it always takes over the yard. If you look carefully, you will find 3 giant spaghetti squash hanging on the trellis.

And only one Acorn squash as far as I can tell.

And now some obligatory pictures of Anders. We don't have any pictures of him sleeping since he was a wee babe. I couldn't resist. He was taking a late nap and I needed to get him up for dinner. He loves this puppy and always rolls on his side and hugs it.

On Tuesday I came home early so that Will could catch a plane. I was desperately trying to get some reports done and turned in before the end of the day and Anders was particularly busy. He wandered off and I took a few minutes to catch up on those reports. I decided I better check on him and discovered him half way up the stairs. Here are some shots of him climbing the stairs the other night.

Sometimes he has to rest.

And today he got busy in the backyard. He is especially fond of water.

And then later, he was very quiet and we discovered him in his favorite corner of the living room. This is where we keep the phone. He seemed to have snuck over there.

He is also starting to stand on his own a bit and lately has been wanting to feed himself with whatever utensil I am using. He is actually quite good at getting the food to his mouth, that is when he isn't waving it around in triumph for getting it away from me. There is a lot of food on the floor after meals these days.

Filling in for Lucy

2009-07-23T19:23:00.003-05:00

Today Anders and I went for a 5-mile run. I need to start training first for the Twin Cities 10 mile race on Oct. 4th, which I am doing as a training run for the Des Moines Half Marathon on Oct 18th (both with my sister Sarah, though I suspect she will leave me in the dust). So, off we went for our first 5 miler ever and my first 5 mile run in well over a year since I stopped running when I was pregnant in January. It went well, but let me tell you, running with a jogging stroller looks a lot easier than it is. Plus I'm out of shape. Plus, I've been sleeping like crap lately. Anyway, I generally have a smoothie for breakfast after I go for a run and Lucy used to love to lick the glass when I was done (which sounds kind of gross, I know, but whatever - the glasses got washed afterwards). She was even known to try to sneak a taste before I was done with the smoothie. Well, it seems she isn't the only one who wants a taste...

Ok, now I'm sad. I miss Lucy. I've been reading a book (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) that has made me think about her a lot lately. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I miss her at random times.

Redial

2009-07-21T20:06:00.003-05:00

Tonight this little guy called his Aunt Betsy while playing with the phone. We thought he was just turning the ringer volume up and down and checking our voicemail, but it turns out they had a minute long conversation and then he hung up on Betsy. We need to work a little on phone etiquette.

Another Fun Weekend

2009-07-19T20:51:00.008-05:00

Sarah, Mike, Zach and Drew came up to visit us for a whirlwind of a weekend. They arrived at bedtime on Friday night, so we didn't do much that night, but Saturday started out with some good times including feeding the fish, dropping clothes down the laundry chute, and eating some tasty blueberry coffee cake and yummy scrambled eggs. Then we rushed off to the zoo. You might notice that we are all wearing sweatshirts or jackets because fall seemed to come a bit early this past week with temps barely getting into the 60s. Will refused to wear a sweatshirt because it is the middle of July.

Zach and Drew's parents are cool enough to shell out the $5 to feed the giraffes. Who knew giraffes ate crackers?

Anders skipped his morning nap due to all the fun stuff to look at, he also got tired of the stroller and found this prime seat for checking stuff out (and for pulling hair).

Here he is ignoring the really beautiful Siberian Tiger. The tiger was nice enough to roar for us a few times, it was pretty cool and got Zach roaring. It also got several grown men roaring, which seemed a bit odd.

After a rather chilly lunch, we went into the tropics building to warm up a bit. Does anyone know what made these tracks?

Here is your answer - the Radiated Tortoises warming themselves under this lamp.

The zoo was great, but it would have been good to have slightly warmer temperatures. After the zoo, the 3 boys took naps, as did I. I had had a terrible night - I was asleep for about 20 minutes when something woke me up. Suddenly wide awake, I ended up reading for a couple of hours and then ended up waking up early. I got around 3 hours of sleep Friday night and was obviously tired as napping for me is unheard of.

There was lots of playing at our house this weekend. Drew had a tough time with Anders, who seemed to like to do everything Drew was doing. The old tractors from Will's grandpa's house were a big hit, as was Anders' walker wagon. It was interesting for me and Will to see Anders interacting with the boys - it makes us wonder what he is like at the Montessori. In this next shot Anders is terrorizing Drew.

We ended Saturday with some delicious home-made pizza and brownies made from scratch. The boys slept extremely soundly Saturday night. We started Sunday with some really good waffles that Will made. After Anders took his nap, we rode bikes over a park on the Mississippi for a picnic and some playing.

Zach really seemed to enjoy this digger quite a bit.

This thing is a teeter-totter of some sort. They made the other side so an adult can join in on the fun too.

Somebody asked if these two are twins.

Slides are always good. There is also a fun water play area, but it still seemed a bit cool for swimming suits followed by a bike ride home, so we avoided that. Next time though...

We forced Drew to ride in the trailer with Anders on the way home. We expected some pestering by Anders, but it seems that didn't happen. Will just told me that at one point he looked back at them and they were just staring at each other. They are just 6 months apart and we are expecting some good times between them, but maybe also some good fights.

Drew and I took some time to relax while his parents packed up their car.

Zach played with the old school Tonka truck we have. He wants us to bring the claw to Iowa the next time we go down.

And Anders rested a bit.

Anders ended the night with a much needed bath and hair inspired by his cousin Zach. He is looking forward to see you guys again in September, thanks for coming up!

Busy! Busy! Busy!

2009-07-13T21:04:00.009-05:00

We had another very busy weekend. I cannot remember the last time we had a weekend with nothing do to. We aren't very good at doing nothing actually, so even if we had a weekend like that, I'm sure we would fill it up. To start things off, Anders practiced walking sideways - he went all the way to the kitchen like this.

After that, he and I went for a quick 3 mile run. I don't have any pictures, but lately he gets very, very excited when he sees the jogging stroller. In fact, on Thursday, we were heading for it and I forgot something and when I turned away from the stroller he got really upset. After our run, he took a nice 2 hour nap and I mopped the floors.

After lunch we headed out for a 47 mile bike ride. Anders took his afternoon nap in the Burley, which he loves as much as the jogging stroller. Hopefully that will be his attitude towards canoes...

He also loves water bottles. So we rode from home out west to Wayzata then south along Lake Minnetonka, or rather some of the many bays on the lake.

Then stopped in Excelsior for a little break. The weather was perfect - 75 and sunny, it was actually a little chilly in the shade. We were on bike trails for 90% of the ride, which was nice, but crowded.

We relaxed and watched the boats on Lake Minnetonka and the people in the park. Then we went and got some custard and frozen yogurt, neither of which Anders liked. I guess he was spoiled by my peach ice cream (which I made with a modern Cuisinart, Carrie). Then we headed home, which was still 22 miles away. This was Anders' longest bike ride ever and he was so good. He used to get upset when we rode over bumps, but there was no fussing on this ride. What a guy!

After dinner, it was time for all of us to get cleaned up. Anders finished up his big day with some big splashing.

Then on Sunday, oh good the font is mysteriously blue again, anyway, we went to the flea market and got suckered into buying Anders another bike. We are bike crazy. He isn't even a year old and has 2 bikes already. He is bike crazy too - he loves to check them out. This one needs some work - it was only $4. He will now have his choice between riding the yellow bike with the old school seat or the blue bike with the banana seat.

Then, what? What is up with this font changing? Arrggghhh! He wrapped up his Sunday playing in the water again. It was a good weekend.

Oh! I just remembered a first we had with Anders. I was feeding him dinner on Saturday and he reached over, put his hand on my leg and then dug his nails in. I said ouch and told him not to do that. The next thing he did was look at me with those big blue eyes, and then lean forward and put his hand on my knee and then look at me again and then DIG HIS NAILS INTO MY LEG! It was one of those moments when I knew I needed to not laugh, but it was so funny to watch him think through that whole cause and effect process. He tried it about 10 more times and I finally moved my leg out of his reach, but it was interesting. He also has been copying us lately with fake sneezes, coughs and other random things. It is very interesting to see him pick these things up. Ok, bed time for me.

Mmmmm....Ice Cream

2009-07-10T20:19:00.003-05:00

So, my peach ice cream is pretty good, but I think I could have used one more peach. It seems like it was more flavorful when it was being made vs. now that it is frozen. I might have to try again some time - I'm very peach crazy for some reason. Anders shared my ice cream with me tonight. I guess he didn't get quite enough though...

Almost there...he actually screamed in frustration when we pulled him away. It seems he might be living up to those AWD initials. I think we might have our hands full.

Um...that looks good. Can I have some?

Lesson Learned

2009-07-07T20:59:00.002-05:00

Um, can anyone recommend a carpet cleaner? Tom?