Bentleyville 2011
29 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
Between walking at the Walk to End Hunger event and putting up our Christmas decorations over the long Thanksgiving weekend, we took a drive north to Duluth to see Bentleyville, Tour of Lights. 
Because of Josh’s gorgeous red hair, his friends have started calling him Ginger so he wanted his picture in front of Ginger Park full of playing gingerbread people.
Andy wanted his picture in front of the Christmas train and the Depot. He loves trains!
I have a thing for Nativity scenes and I take a picture of this particular scene in lights every year.
During our half hour wait to see Santa, we were preparing a reluctant Andy to sit with Santa and to tell him what he wanted for Christmas when Santa asked. Andy kept saying that he wanted a present even when we tried to get him to be more specific. Finally when we reached Santa, he asked Josh what he wanted to which Josh replied “A snowboard.” When Santa asked Andy what he wanted he told Santa he wants a skateboard!
After visiting Bentleyville, we went to Grandma’s to eat dinner before the drive back home. I think we all had fun and I enjoyed carrying on what seems to have become a tradition for our family.
Thanksgiving Living 2011
24 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
For the fourth year we have participated as a family in the Walk to End Hunger at the Mall of America on Thanksgiving morning.
There was a kids station where kids could make something to wear on their heads. They could choose cutouts of their favorite foods, stickers, streamers, and ribbons.
Andy chose green beans, a red apple, an orange, a green apple, and a carrot for his hat. And a green ribbon to represent his favorite color of the day.
Josh chose to make a tall chef’s hat with an apple, a pear, a carrot and some ribbons but it bugged him so much that he ended up throwing it away.
We walked a couple of times around the mall, stopped at Cinnabon for some breakfast, and strolled through Old Navy which was open for shopping. I have mixed feelings about stores being open on major holidays. I wouldn’t have made a special trip but since we were there I wanted to take a look.
We had fun spending time as a family and being a small part of giving back to our communities and helping those less fortunate. It’s definitely become a tradition that I hope we can continue for years to come. Unless hunger becomes no longer a problem. Now that would be something!
Football Hero
22 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
This fall Josh played football for the Prescott Black team. They were such a good team with a great rookie coach. They didn’t win a lot of their games but they did learn a ton about the game and playing different positions. The coach wasn’t too worried about winning games, he wanted the boys to learn the fundamentals and to play with integrity. And that they did. Winning was just a bonus.
Josh played several positions on offense and defense including center. He even got to carry the ball a few time too. I was too excited for him (and nervous) to actually take any photos of those moments. Sorry, Josh! He did so well and I was so proud of him the whole season!
There’s Josh, #60. His helmet gave him the worst red mark on his forehead and was so uncomfortable but he was part of just about every single play for every single game that he didn’t have many breaks from wearing it. That’s part of the game though. No complainin’!
Last Spring I bought a new 8-point-star lens filter and thought about taking stadium light photos at Josh’s games almost immediately. I was excited to try it out and I am not disappointed with the results. So this photo of the boys in a huddle is basically for me 
Josh played hard every game but the last game of the season was exceptional. Not only did he rip a fingernail halfway off but he lost a tooth. In fact, it was knocked out during a play. There was lots of blood, which normally makes Josh very nervous, but he was so proud and tough. He is my football hero!
It’s A…
20 Nov 2011 3 Comments
We found out in July that we are pregnant and expecting a baby in March. After experiencing a miscarriage this past March we were a little gun-shy about announcing our news and waited several weeks to tell friends and family. Even now, at 21 weeks, I am still taking it one day at a time. It’s been slow but at the same time is going by fast and every week that passes I feel like we are one step closer to welcoming a precious, healthy baby into our family.
I decided I needed to find out the gender of the baby but I wanted to do it in a fun way. I asked the O.B. who did the ultrasound to write the gender on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. Then I took it to our local bakery and asked them to make a cake with either pink or blue inside so that when we cut into it we would then know if our baby was a boy or a girl. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with the cake but it was very tasty so that made up for the craftsmanship. It wasn’t the colors and fondant that I ordered and I feel that I could have done the crappy icing job and neon icing dots but oh well. It was fun and we were able to spend time with our families celebrating the coming of a new baby.
Boy!
I am so excited to be expecting our new baby boy and I feel like I can bond with our son better now. We can start to really discuss names and make more specific plans for our home. I am so thankful for our tiny blessing!
Snow!
19 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
We got our first snow fall of the year today and the boys were so excited to go out and play in it. Me on the other hand? Not so excited. I had to search the house over for all the various outdoor cold weather clothing and I probably definitely cussed a couple times in the process. The good thing about it, though, is that they shoveled the driveway. The bad thing about it is Josh thinks he deserves $10. I’ll probably give him $1.
Our Big Boy
19 Nov 2011 1 Comment
Ok. Here’s the deal: I have a ton of stuff floating around in my mind and heart and that seems to be the reason I can’t manage to blog. So until I can find a way to put into words all that I am thinking and feeling, I am just going to go ahead and blog about all the other stuff going on in my family. I’ll start with blogging about our big boy, Andy.
Early this year we decided Andy was big enough for a big boy bed since he was able to crawl up and into the crib. There were attempts to crawl out but those were thwarted by his fear. He was just a few months from turning three years old so the timing was appropriate anyway.
Because of Chris’s great love for the outdoors and his background in Boy Scouts, I purchased a camping themed quilt set on clearance for Andy’s new bed. I had all these plans for decorating his room but I am so lazy that it is still half set up for a baby and all that I have done is make his bed. It’s been 10 months so if it hasn’t happened by now it probably won’t happen anytime soon. He’s happy though and loves sleeping in his big boy bed! The transition was fairly seamless, thankfully.
Do you know what wasn’t so seamless? Potty training. Not seamless.
In March, over spring break, Chris thought we could start potty training Andy and I was all for it. We were both extremely tired of changing diapers. It wasn’t successful. When Chris went back to work the next week, I became lazy about it and then I went through the miscarriage. After that, I completely stopped working with Andy and we went back to diapers full time. Then over the summer we picked up where we left off but this time we were armed. Chris bought a Cars potty chair, Cars Pull-ups, and a Cars watch that we could set to go off however often we chose to help Andy and ourselves remain consistent. But even then we failed and Andy didn’t seem to care about going in the potty. Finally in early September, one Saturday morning when I was at Josh’s football game, Chris was frustrated enough that he threw underpants on Andy and took him to a church carnival. That brave soul. By Monday Andy was using the toilet “all myself” and after a couple of weeks, when he was consistently dry all night, he was in underpants exclusively. He was more than ready and has had very few accidents. Now we’ve just got to work on aiming.
I can’t believe how fast Andy is growing up. He is soaking in everything and loves to learn all he can. He is quite independent and such a big boy!
I would post photos but any of Andy’s room would just be dumb (absolutely no décor) and I certainly won’t post photos of his behind in underpants. Ok, I might, but not today.
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