Up north ...

What a nice weekend we had up north with Grandpa and Grandma Mischnick! Everything was wonderful ... except not being able to start our car on Sunday when we were ready to go. Something about those negative temperatures and our Honda just don't agree; this was the second year in a row we had issues with leaving the grandparents' house because of the stubborn, cold car.



Anyway, Matt's parents have a "course" set up in their basement for both wagon rides and plamsa car trips (very cool toy!). Anna seemed to prefer the wagon rides, especially if Matt was pulling, or pushing, her along as fast as he dared.



Matt and I both prefered playing with the plasma car, and trying to figure out how it worked. Anna seemed to get the idea of how to move it (just wiggle the steering wheel back and forth), but definitely didn't go as fast as we did.



Grandma and Grandpa's house also comes equiped with a train table set-up (imagine that ... with two grandparents who love trains themselves and four grandsons who also adore trains). Anna prefered making "train wrecks" to actually playing with the trains :)


Both of Anna's grandmothers absolutely adore books so it's always a pleasure for her, and us, to have a new supply of books to enjoy when we visit them. Anything with animals, songs, or catchy rhymes quickly gets asked for again and again :)

Finally, Matt's mom found a great train cake pan that she has been using to make cake whenever any of the grandchildren visit; we were excited to have a tasty train shaped cake on Saturday night after dinner.



It didn't take Anna long to realize how good it was ... and how easily it fit into a wide open mouth.



Overall, it was a great trip, even if our departure was a bit stressful. Maybe next year we'll have to have a different plan if temperatures aren't expected to hit zero degrees when we're there ...

Busy week!

Just wanted to give a quick update on our busy week and share some pictures of Anna and Josh. Besides music class and Bible Study, this week also included a visit from Gretchen and Josh on Tuesday and a trip to the Children's Discovery Museum with Emily, Benjamin, and Mary on Wednesday. Plus, we're leaving tomorrow afternoon for Land O' Lakes to visit the Mischnicks, Sr. Like I said ... busy week.


Anyway, on Tuesday Josh and Anna totally hit it off. We're pretty sure they must remember each other, even if they don't see one another more than once a month, because it sure doesn't take them any time to warm up to one another and get playing. Besides that, Josh was asking to see "Ahh-eee" the whole way here from Milwaukee.

About half way through the day, Josh and Anna initiated playing hide-and-seek around the house, with Josh doing most of the hiding. Anna still thinks it's hiding to put her head down between her legs so she can't see you. They also were comfortable giving hugs all around (to each other and with both Gretchen and me), but usually when given the suggestion.

We did have to keep an eye on the two of them before lunch, though, because Josh kept wanting to close the door of the room where they were playing together. No boys in Anna's room with the door closed yet ... PLEASE!

In the end, we decided we're very sad that the Stanfords live an hour and a half away now instead of just 15 minutes :(

The Children's Museum on Wednesday was great ... until about three daycare groups showed up at the same time. Then it took all of Mary's and my attention to simply keep an eye on where Anna, Emily, and Benjamin were ... could you imagine trying to keep track of a group of 5-7 preschoolers on a field trip?!?! I think in the future we may take advantage of the members-only days on Mondays when outside groups aren't allowed ... a little easier for me and a lot more relaxing of a time for Anna, too. Poor kid can get overwhelmed pretty easily by big groups like that.

Having a garden pays off in January :)

I like to play this game at our meals where I point to different parts and say "that's from our garden and that's from our garden and that's from our garden", always seeing how many things grew in our yard. It's a lot of fun to be able to come up with a meal by just going to our "grocery story" in the basement. Our menus include lots of spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, salsa, and frozen veggies. Matt and I joke sometimes about how if anyone were to look at our grocery receipts, they'd wonder why we didn't eat many fruits, vegetables, or meat (the side of beef we got last summer also lasts a LONG time).

Having food on hand definitely paid off last week when we really couldn't (or shouldn't) make quick trips to the store. We were in the midst of the deep freeze covering most of the Midwest from Wednesday through Saturday morning. Schools were closed on Thursday and Friday due to the -30 (or greater) degree wind chills.

I tried to get out a bit on Wednesday with Anna because I knew we'd be cooped up the rest of the week, but it must not have been enough. Thursday was a LONG day for the two of us; we didn't leave the house once. Of course, it didn't really get to 0 degrees either.

Friday morning I decided that we would just have to brave the cold and get out of the house to preserve our (especially my) sanity. After calling around to some friends, we planned to meet Sadie and her dad, Peter, at the Madison Children's Museum for a bit in the morning. So I got Anna bundled in a fleece full body suit with warm boots, hat, and gloves. Then I slathered her face with vaseline before we left the car to make the 3-4 block walk to the museum. Well, as we got into the entry there was a sign that says the museum is closed whenever the Madison schools are closed ... hmmm ... change of plans ... new destination being the downtown Madison libary. We ended up walking another 3-4 blocks to the main Madison library. When we finally made it in the building and upstairs to the children's section, I was feeling like a terrible mother who had been out in subzero temperatures for 10+ minutes with a toddler whose face was a very bright red!

It all turned out fine, though, and by the time Sadie and Peter arrived about 10 minutes later, Anna's face was no longer cold and she was having the time of her life in a place with lots of toys and books (that wasn't home). Definitely worth it for all of us to get out of the house for the morning!

On a different note, Matt is learning that when Anna is having a lot of fun with him, it's hard to get her to stop whatever the activity is, even if it's very tiring for Matt. He's had to deal with ending piggy-back rides, tractor rides, games of chase, etc. before Anna's quite ready simply because he's too tired to continue or it really strains some part of his body :)

Here's one of the games they were playing the other night. Anna put the monkey around her neck and plopped down into the toy wheelbarrow while Matt pushed her around and around the basement. Not the most comfortable for Matt, but whenever he tried to stop Anna would shake her head furiously and say "sit, sit" then "daddee!" while pointing at the wheelbarrow.

New babies, haircuts, and blueberries

Our friends Tina and Peter (Sadie's parents) finally had their second baby last Wednesday; he was about 10 days overdue!. Anna and I went to visit Tina and baby Lukas in the hospital on Thursday afternoon and were both enthralled to see a not-so-tiny (9.7 lbs.!) newborn. Anna picked up on the idea right away and kept saying "baby" and "Saysi", even though Sadie wasn't there. Amazingly, Anna didn't seem jealous at all when I was holding sweet baby Lukas ... a good sign, we hope!

On Friday Anna got her first "haircut", albeit not much of one. I'd been thinking for awhile that she needed some kind of trim since her hair is so straight and she'd never gotten any hair cut off; the flyaways were getting a bit much. So after talking to my hairdresser on Wednesday (who gave me some great advice!), I attempted to trim things up a bit. Matt and I aren't quite sure if anyone else would be able to notice, but we think her hair now lays a bit more smoothly, even if it's still in her eyes. We decided against giving her bangs at this point since my hairdresser informed me that would be a several year committment if we started now.

In the past week, Anna has decided that blueberries are her favorite food. She's often had blueberry pancakes, fruit salad with blueberries in it, or blueberry yogurt, but Friday night was her first experience with pure blueberries. Holy cow ... she's in love. For the next six meals, Anna asked for "bu? bu?" It wasn't too hard to say "no blueberries now, hon" until last night when she was already super tired and crabby and proceeded to throw a fit. Gotta love those toddlers.





Before blueberries ... or at least at the beginning.









During blueberries ... we can't quite get a picture of a good smile these days, just this goofy one :)








After blueberries ... where are there?

Growth spurt?

Or maybe just too many holiday treats? Anna had her 18-month check up yesterday and we had guessed that she had grown a bit in the past three months, but I wouldn't have guessed that she gained almost 2 1/2 pounds! Yikes! Here's her official information:

height: 32.5" (73%)
weight: 26 lbs. 6 oz (77%)
head: 48.5 cm (93%)

Before all the snow came I was really working with Anna on walking to and from the house to the garage and other buildings on her own ... and now I know why! No wonder I have bigger biceps than I've ever had in my life! Unfortunately, packed snow and ice aren't the best for a toddler and we've had a few spills and slips that make Anna prefer to be carried.

Besides her statistics, Anna is meeting or exceeding all of her milestones and she's growing and developing perfectly normally. Have I mentioned we love "normal" appointments?

Now if only I could sleep well past 2 a.m. ...

It's a girl!

I had originally planned to update this tomorrow after Anna's check-up, but I forget how exciting the ultrasound appointment can be and just couldn't wait to share. Anyway, as the title says, we're having another girl!


Matt and I got Anna up early and were out of the house before 8 this morning to get to the appointment on time ... a pretty big accomplishment in our house :) We had a wonderful technician who included Anna as much as she could (at least to the extent that an 18-month old will be interested in ultrasound pictures). Everything is progressing normally with nothing out of the ordinary--always a relief to hear. The best part is that they moved my due date up until May 18th ... hooray :)


These next pictures aren't the greatest, but they're always fun to share. We got a nice shot of the baby's foot poking around and then a 3D picture of her face.

It takes a little imagination to see the face looking from left to right here, but once you can see the picture, it's pretty amazing. Looks like we might have another thumb sucker on our hands considering this one already has her hand in her mouth :)

I know people always say that every pregnancy is different, but I now realize what that means. For example, this baby does not like mommy's tummy to be empty at all! And she tends to make me have some pretty odd-ball dreams that wake me up at 4 a.m., 5 a.m., and so on. Plus, she's been pretty active already and I've been feeling all sorts of movements for several weeks now.

So hooray for baby #2! We thank God every time we have a "normal" appointment :)

Where's Daddy?

I don't know how many times I've answered the question "Where Daddy?" today, but I'm sure to answer it several more by the time Matt gets home from work. After two weeks during which Matt worked a total of 4 1/2 days, Anna's very used to him being home and definitely enjoys her "daddy time". This morning when I went in to get her after she woke up her first words were "Hi, Daddy" ... then a pause when she realized who it was ... and finally "Hi, Mama" ... although not quite as excited. Good thing Matt was still around to say good morning and give hugs and kisses before he went to work--although that also meant that we (mostly Anna) had some tears when he left.

I must admit it will be nice to get back into some semblance of weekly routine, though. Anna and I both missed our weekly play groups and other activities. I guess there are always ups and downs to "vacations".

Anyway, over this past weekend we did some major furniture moving in preparation for baby #2. I know it's a bit early, but we thought it was a good time when we'd both be home and I'd still be physically (and motivationally) able to help out. The main task was to turn the guest room into Anna's new room ... which meant cleaning out the closet, finding a place for the piano, and moving the spare bed to the basement where our "guest room" would merge with our office area. After a rough start during which we discovered that the box spring didn't fit down the stairs, we managed to get everything where it belonged. Ask us sometime how to turn a regular queen sized box spring into a foldable one :)

In the midst of all of the excitement the past few weeks, Anna has entered into a language explosion. We went from mama, dada, hi, and sit, to all sorts of other words. It's been pretty amazing to see which word she tries next and whether or not we'll understand it.

For example, when she wanted a snack the other day I kept offering her different things until she finally looked at me intently and said "ceryo". I thought a minute, asked "cereal?" and she smiled a huge smile. Then during her bath the next day she was using a washcloth to "wash" herself, turned to Matt with the washcloth held out and said "soah". We asked "soap?", another big smile. She definitely knows what the words are, and she just tries another one out every day or so. This morning she kept trying to say "Sadie" (because we were going to go over to Sadie's house to play), but it kept coming out as "Say-si" or "say-say", then she'd say "Day-dee".

We also get to hear "high?" for "Can we play hide and seek?", "pop" for toast (because that's what toast does!), "bees" for any kind of insect, "bah" for anything that looks like a ball, and a myriad of other generalized terms. Anyway, it's been fun. I can't wait to see what comes out next.

Tomorrow is the big 20-week ultrasound for baby #2 and Wednesday is Anna's 18-month check up so I'll try to get an update out on Wednesday or Thursday with information from both of those appointments.