4 years & 8 months

My babies are now 4 years and 8 months old!!! 

Julianne - sass-a-frass!  

On April 19, she turned 4 years old - holy moly.  I can't believe she's 4 already.  I'm  going to guess my post from last year will probably be pretty much the same - except the sass factor has probably quadrupled!  She an intelligent, fun, witty little girl who still loves her lip gloss, princess shoes and dresses, her Barbies, and her rocks and sticks.  At times she has an imagination you wouldn't believe - there always seems to be crocodiles we're stepping over at home, or she likes to tease me that there's snakes or worms in the house because she knows I don't like them.  We often go on "trips" to my room and our bed is the boat or the car. The other day in the car she told me in her matter-of-fact voice "mommies who don't go to work have to live in the ditch."  Whhhhhhat??? When I asked where she got that - she said one of the daycare boys. :-)  But boy, do we struggle with her!!  She is so independent and sassy!!  It's a daily struggle to get her eat, go to bed, change her clothes, brush her teeth, get her coat on to go.  Basically if we ask her to do something and it's not her idea - forget it - she's sassy!  The nightly routine goes something like this - she wants to put her on jammies on by herself, but then gets mad when she can't get them, but then gets even more mad when you ask if you can help her (she can "do it herself"), so tries to get them on by herself again and by the end of a few minutes she on the ground flailing around in a hissy fit.  She's our "spirited" little girl and we love her so much!!!

Silly Willie!

And our Prince William... He's changed so much in the last couple of months.  He's now over 20 lbs and built just like his daddy and grandpa! He's going to be one stud muffin when he grows up!  He started to crawl at 7 months and at now is constantly on the move!  He can pull himself up and is into everything.  He's mommy's little boy right now and is usually found at my feet whining until I pick him up.  He's got the cutest little smile and can melt anyone's heart.  He's still a great eater and loves most food.  He is eating food three times per day plus bottles.  He loves the little Gerber puffs.  He still has great eye-hand coordination and can pick up the Puffs and feed himself.  He still doesn't have any teeth...  He has great hearing and reflexes - one sound will catch his attention and he immediately turns around to find out what it is.  Following his stay in the hospital in January, he had been really healthy - until 10 days ago.  Ever since then, he's been battling a cold, which turned into an ear infection, plus he got his wheeze back and following my post I need to research the rash that he developed yesterday.... uff duh.. .  It's been rough 10 days for Will - and mommy who's been getting up with him every night (sometimes multiple times) and dealing with his whining   But I still can't get enough of his snuggles!!  We love you too buddy! 

Florida

Finally - some pictures from our trip to Ft. Myers, Florida - only a month late!  We left MN on Friday, March 15 and returned on Friday, March 22.  We met my parents down there and shared a condo with them until they left on Monday, March 18.  We then had a few days to ourselves; although some of my parent's friends were also down there at the same time so we met up with them a couple times.  It was a great time!  The weather was so-so, it was a little cool and rained a couple times but still WAAAY better than the MN cold!

 As soon as we landed in Ft. Myers we headed over to my parents' friends' rental house and then headed to the Red Sox ballpark to see the Twins take on Boston.  First of course we had to do a little tailgating!

Look - they  made a sign just for us!

With mom and dad by the big Red Sox

Our seats....  see the very last row, on the very top... yep - that's where we sat!  We had a good view.

The crew at the very cold game - Nick, mom, dad & Jim, Konnie, Abby and Jill Bartels

 Yay - we finally made it to the beach!  This was our first day on the beach - and right outside our condo.

Our "home" - we stayed in one of the two twin condos

This was the view from our condo balcony - yes that's a HUGE beach!!!  It had the most powdery, soft sand!

 My mom and I having fun with our margaritas at a restaurant near us.  Ft. Myers Beach has the most awful traffic so it was nice we had several fun restaurants and bars within walking distance.

On Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, we headed an hour or so south to Marco Island to Stan's Idle Time Bar.  It's not the most glamorous place - but they sure know how to have fun!  They throw the best parties around on Sundays!

Plus they have some fun hats!! 

Nick and I with our green beer for St. Patty's Day! 

 Here's the wild crew!!! 

And the party got a little more wild when we found out we had three Tequila drinkers in the bunch!! So, of course they had to do a shot when we stopped at a bar on the way home.   

Monday we headed over to Hammond Stadium to watch the Twins play the Marlins.  This is the outside of the stadium.  It was a really fun place.  We made sure we got there early to watch batting practice (Justin Moreneau hitting off a "T"!) and of course to tailgate some more. 

 Before the game...

Lookin' good Joe!

Looks like batting practice paid off for Justin!

And then the rain came....

... and didn't stop - we got rained out!!!  Everyone huddled under the beer tent waiting for the rain to clear - but it never did. 

After the game in our rain soaked clothes.

So, what else can we do - except drink our sorrows away at another local bar!  My mom dad and the Bartels' girls had left by this time so we hung around Jim and Konnie and their friends for a while.  Thanks for showing us a good time guys!

So now we're at Tuesday and we decide to just hang around Ft. Myers Beach and walk around the "downtown" area and go shopping.  This is on the pier on Ft. Myers Beach.

The public beach

 Here's a picture of the pier

  And this is the view from the restaurant where I got into a little bit of trouble.... Let me paint the picture for you... it started out as a cool, cloudy day.  We were just leisurely walking around, browsing in shops, had stopped for lunch earlier in the day and decided to stop at this restaurant/bar for a drink.  They ended up having a fantastic acoustic guitar player/singer on the patio - we sat on the roof top deck.  We were enjoying our beers and listening to the good music and just then the clouds went away, the sun came out, and the dolphins starting jumping... it was so warm and the beers were tasting soooo yummy. Life.was.good! Then some very talkative, very nice people sat down next to us and before you know it, Nick had to basically carry me back to the car - and it was only 5 pm!  

Needless to say I wasn't really the same the rest of the trip and there aren't very many pictures from Wednesday and Thursday.  Wednesday it rained and we took some naps, then went to eat at a yummy steakhouse that was close by and Thursday we spent some time on the beach by our condo with Jim and Konnie and their son Adam.

The palm trees in front of our condo 

Gettin' some sun on the beach on Thursday!  "Got my toes in the water, ass in the sand... Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand... Life is good today!"

Our last sunset in Florida.... 

 And then we got to come home to our babies!!!!  Julianne (with Grandma's help) made these signs for us and had them posted on the door when we got there.  I couldn't have asked for a better home-coming!

So, there it is - Florida 2013.  Whew.......

Stay tuned...

I can't believe it's April already and I only had one post for March - oops - time just got away from me!  I have lots more in my head that I need to get typed up and published and I will soon, I promise!  The computer where I store my pictures is currently sitting on top of Julianne's dresser while we remodel our basement so it's a little inconvenient for me to upload pictures at the moment.

But as soon as I have some extra time, I'll post a bunch of pictures from our Florida trip and Easter. Stay tuned!  

And he's off!

And, we have a crawler!!!  While we were on vacation (geesh - go figure!) William started to crawl.  Guess that's what we get for leaving him with Grandma and Grandpa! It didn't take him long and now he's all over the place.  I think the 2nd day he was crawling I heard Julianne say "MOOOOOOOOOM - Will-we-um is in my stuff!" He loves to crawl over to her Barbie house and get into her things.  Just tonight he tipped the entire Barbie house over and when we scolded him he just took off to her color books and started eating some of the pages.  Well, maybe at least this will teach Julianne to pick up after herself, yeah right...

 Here's our little mover and shaker!

The cutest little monkey butt I've ever seen!

Update

We have been keeping really busy, but just haven't done anything blog-worthy lately... Here's an update on our last couple of months:

William and Julianne have both been happy and health since their round with the icky stuff in January.  I'm so thankful we got over that crud!  Julianne has been busy with school and had her first school program in church a couple Sunday's ago.  She was so excited for the day and talked about it all the way to town - but then she chickened out when it was time to get up and sing in front of everyone.  She went up in front of the church but stood by her teacher rather than with her class on the risers.  This was her first program in front of people so I wasn't too surprised by it.  Next time she'll be the star!!

Back in May, our basement flooded from a crack in one of our pipes and we're now just getting around to remodeling the basement living room and computer room.  We decided to keep the structure the same and not move any walls, but we are getting new sheetrock, the ceiling sprayed and new doors.  We're also putting in a new front door and door to the garage.  We're smack dab in the middle of it now, so our house pretty much looks like a missile-testing zone!  It will be nice when it's done!  I'm most excited about turning our computer room into a complete storage room.  Now I have somewhere to hide all of our junk!!!!

And - I'm most excited about our Florida trip!!!  Nick and I are leaving for a week long vacation on Friday!  I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself!  My suitcase is just about packed.  The kids are staying with Steve and Sheri Friday-Tuesday, then my mom and dad will take the kids Tues night - Friday when we get home.  We'll be meeting my mom and dad in Ft. Myers, Florida, on Friday and will spend the weekend with them before they come back to MN on Monday.  We have tickets to a couple Twins games and are all set to relax at the beach!

1/2 Year Old!

In February, Will turned 6 months old - yes, that's right - half a year!!!  The last few months have really flown by and I can't believe he's half way to one year old! He's finally over his respiratory troubles from January and has turned into a happy, content baby - most of the time!

Will - 6 months

At his 6 month check up he weighed in at 17 lbs 8 oz (46th percentile) and was 27.5 inches (80th percentile).  He's gained back the weight he's lost and is going the right way on the charts again!  I can understand why he's gained just about 1.5 pounds since he was sick in January - he's a GREAT eater!!!  He'll eat 8 ounces in a bottle at a time and will eat at least 5 bottles per day.  So that's 40 ounces of formula he is eating per day.  Plus he is now eating cereal twice a day plus and entire container of baby food at supper.  At suppertime he gets quite upset with me when I can't get the spoon to his mouth fast enough!

He's also finally sleeping well again at night.  He's asleep by 7:30 pm and will wake up between 5:30 or 6 am.  He usually wakes up once per night, but will put himself back to sleep.  I don't even really count it as "waking up" because I don't have to get out of bed, which is AWE-SOME!!!   It's been a long time coming... after he was sick, he was waking up several times a night so I was getting pretty sleep deprived.  But, I'm slowly catching up!  He's still not the best napper; he'll usually only sleep for an hour or less twice a day.

His fine motor skills are definitively working well.  He's a grabber - he grabs everything!  When holding him, I can't walk to close to the fridge, or he'll pull the papers off that are on with magnets.  We have to make sure that our dinner plates are pushed way to the middle of the table or he will grab them if he's sitting on my lap and Jules better make sure she has a ponytail in when she goes in to give him a smooch because he'll surely grab onto her hair!  He's starting to love his Jumperoo and is rolling and scooting all over the place - it won't be long before he's crawling!

And he LOVES his big sister.  It just melts my heart when I hear them giggling in the living room together or the look in his eyes when he's smiling at her.  And Julianne loves her little brother.  She has to give him a goodnight hug and goodnight kiss every night and is so proud of him.

Ok - so maybe this picture doesn't prove it - but he really does love his sister!

Fishing!

Last weekend, Nick's parents, his sister and her boyfriend and Nick and I all took a little (LOOOOOOONG) drive up to Lake of the Woods for some ice fishing!!! We stayed at Ballard's Resort in Baudette, MN.  They set up our fish house, drilled our holes, provided us with bait and brought us to and from the house.  All we had to do was bring our poles!  We had a 3 bedroom cabin complete with a kitchen and a living room.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but I actually had fun!  I wish the fishing would have been a little better, but you couldn't beat the company!

Our theme for the weekend...

We drove in these rigs 9 miles out on the lake!  Ashley and I sooo excited for fishing!

 Nick caught the first fish of the trip! A walleye

An hour or so later, Nick also caught the biggest fish of the weekend - a 25" walleye 

 

Even I caught a walleye - he was little, but he sure tasted good! 

The view outside our fish house - nothing but snow and fish houses

The crew in our fish house - it was cozy but all 6 of us were in one house.  We got there at about 8:30 am and they picked us up between 4 and 4:30 pm.  It got to be a long day, but the hours passed quickly - we had beer, sandwiches and LOTS of laughs!

Nick "the fish-slayer" Frank - another monster - 23" walleye.

Ashley got to drive the bombadier!

 Fishy, Fishy in the lake, come and bite on my bait!

Our fish house - and our potty.  Hey -we're girls - we needed some place to go, so they brought us a pail with a garbage bag inside a house.  It worked! 

Dan, Ashley, Nick and me - on the way back from our first day of fishing 

Pretty sunrise from our cabin front door

 Fishing - Day 2.  Dan showed us how it was done on Saturday!!

Dan's walleye - 24" 

Sheri and Ashley - "fishing is so fun!" 

The crew - not the best picture - but it's the only one I had of all of us! 

 And when the fishing was done - it was time to have some fun!!!  One of the neighboring resorts had a live band so we headed over there to celebrate our catches!

Much, much later in the night - how do you know this?? Nick is on the dance floor!  That would NEVER  happen early in the night!

It was a really fun trip and a great vacation.  Although next time we decided we are going to find someone to fly us there in a plane - 7 hours in a car is just too long!