The Big Boy Bed

Tonight Adam is sleeping in his big boy bed for the first time. (Wish us all luck that it goes well.) We bought the bed from some friends and it is a really nice little bed. It's the perfect color wood and matches the crib- not that we wouldn't have bought it if it didn't. Dave put the bed together and then called us into Adam's room. Adam climbed up on it immediately and then called Brockway up to join him. I won't be surprised to find the two of them cuddled together on his bed someday.

Soo Big

First off, the Christmas tree is down. I do miss the warm glow of it lighting the stairs at night and in the morning. Maybe I should put one of my lamps on a timer?

Our bedtime routine consists of diaper change, jammies, reading three books in the rocker, putting the milk away, brushing our teeth, saying goodnight to the family and a prayer in the crib. Tonight when I finished the three books Adam seemed to not be done yet. I asked if he wanted to read me a book and he said yes. So we read the So Big book. I would read the first page, "baby animal is soo big, how big is baby?" and he would flip up the second page and read "soo big". Too cute, he actually did it through the whole book.

Christmas Recap

The Christmas Tree is still up at my house. I thought it was time to take it down the Sunday after New Years, but then Father mentioned that Christmas actually continues until the following Sunday, so I said hey what's the harm in leaving it up one more week. Well last weekend was our Tech Hockey weekend, so between that and the Packer's Playoffs we didn't get it done. It is coming down this weekend for sure and I'm going finally get my Christmas recap blog post up, too!

We left the Wednesday afternoon before Christmas for Cheesesconsin. We finally stopped in Chippewa Falls for a Linenkugels Brewery tour. So much fun and a nice way to break up the trip. Adam loved the tour too. He was telling Dave all about the pipes that went up and down during the tour.

Thursday we went to Algoma. We ate lunch at Penguin Pizza and while we were there the Andres and Winges stopped by and it was great to visit with the extended family and eat pizza.

We then went to visit Adam's great-grandma at Bay Road. It was probably the best visit we've had with grandma in a long time. She had a great time holding James and talking all about her two great grandsons that were there for way longer than a typical visit. When we got home from Algoma it wasn't long until the Marthalers came over for probably the 25th annual Christmas get together.

Christmas Eve morning was relaxing. Dave, Adam, Brockway and I toke a walk and played out in the snow. I swear Christmas Eve mass is getting earlier and earlier each year. This year it was supposed to start at 4. Bob went to church to hold us seats and we rolled in with the kids 10 minutes to 4 PM and the church was packed. The music program actually went until 4:30. Adam has a pretty good attention span and we can make it 1 hour, but if church goes much longer than that we start to struggle with him. At one point Dave was holding him and church was really quite and Adam points to Dave's face and started saying, "eyes, eyes, nose, honk, honk." The choir could hear him and they all started giggling. After communion when Father got up to end mass there were several little ones throwing fits and the whole congregation just started laughing, it was just way too long for them.

We ate our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of ham and potatoes and than sat down for the Schwedler Christmas Program. James got to put Jesus in the manger this year. We had to speed up a few of our songs because of James and Adam's short attention spans.

Adam totally got opening presents this Christmas. We let him open a few presents every night, because other people were opening gifts and so that there would be fewer to open on Christmas morning. I wish we had had more time on Christmas morning to allow him to play with each toy and do present opening slowly, but unfortunately Aunt Annie had to leave for work by 11 AM and we left shortly after that in order to spend some time with Uncle Matt and Aunt Shar at my parents house before they went back to Chicago.

Adam had the Christmas of Little People and puzzles. He got a Little People fire station, farm and car parking garage. I loved Little People and it's the one thing that I can't seem to say no to. When we got to my parents house late on Christmas evening my mom had pulled out all of our old Little people toys. Adam sat down and just started playing and playing and didn't say a peep for 30 minutes. Finally I said I haven't heard Adam talk once since we got here and he turned to me and said, "momma, I playing, I playing."

We have a video of Adam from last year playing/lying in the wrapping paper pile just like this:

5th Annual MTU Hockey Weekend

We go to either Mankato or St. Cloud for a Tech Hockey game and a hotel stay with some other alumni. This year there were five little boys six and under (an 18 and 22 month old, two 4.5 year olds and a six year old). Thankfully our trip started a little after 10:30 AM Saturday morning with Adam napping on the way to St. Cloud. We ate at Chipotle and then went over to the hotel for early check in. The Holiday Inn in St. Cloud is a kids paradise. We started out with hockey. Adam received two hockey sticks for Christmas, so dad and Adam have been practicing. The boys- all 7 of them (dad's included) played hockey which meant lots of running.

After hockey probably should have been a nap again, but Adam noticed the pools. So to the kiddie pool we went. He was a little overwhelmed, but enjoyed it more this year. Then we tried to take a nap, and when that didn't happen we decided that relaxing on the bed all three of us with a show about the MTU professors who study the moose and wolves on Isle Royal was a good second choice. Adam thought the Moose were sheep, he kept saying "sheep, baaah" every time a moose came on the TV. We tried to teach him moose, but he wasn't sure.

Then it was time for dinner at the hotel. We all walked to the restaurant and it was so fun to watch the twins (they're 4.5 years old) hold Adam's hand as we walked there. They really acted like Adam was their little brother, too. It's going to be fun to have two boys.

And then the main event- Michigan Tech Husky Hockey. The game started at 7:30, so it was a little late for our Little Man. Adam was in awe the whole time we were at the game. He loved the 'bonis (Zamboni) and the hockey. He just stood there hanging on the railing almost the whole game and took it all in. Unfortunately the wrong Huskies won, but at least Tech scored first and held the lead for a period before the game fell apart. Tech lost 5-1 again this year.

Our family slept in the same hotel room- Adam in his pack 'n play. The room must have felt wrong to him, because he woke up a couple times in the night. The last time he woke us up by asking "daddy doin'? Momma doin'?" We told him sleeping and he should go back to sleep (it was 4:30 AM) and he did. That's the second time that trick has worked!

Sunday afternoon we met my parents at Lake Maria again. We went skiing while grandma and grandpa watched Adam in the warming hut. We worked up a good appetite skiing 5k and when we got back we had home made chili and cornbread. We left and grandma and grandpa went out to ski. We got home just in time to watch the Packer game. I am so happy that they won, because I have a happy husband.

Text Message

Fr: Dave

Adam went potty on the big boy potty!!

7:28 PM Mon, Jan 10

____________________

I missed this big first tonight.

18 Months

Wow 1.5 years old! I'm in awe of everything you can do right now. Right before Christmas you started saying your first word again after many months of refusing to call Brockway anything but puppy. Then you realized you could repeat and say anything and everything. You are so talkative and you enunciate so well that everyone can all understand what you are saying.

You love sports and can tell the difference between football, hockey, baseball and more recently basketball. I'm not sure which sport is your favorite and if you're anything like your dad you will like them all.

At your 18 month check up your doctor told us that the pediatricians have decided that 1 year olds don't necessarily need to drink whole milk. Two percent milk is just fine as long as the child isn't in the lowest percentile for weight. Then she looked at your stats and said I think staying on whole milk until he's two is just fine. You are in the 12th percentile and weigh just 22 lb 11 oz. You're 31.75 inches tall which is the 35th percentile and your head is still in the 99th percentile at 20 inches in circumference.

Watching It Click

Dave and I got New Years Eve off, so we spent most of it just hanging out as a family at home. I was having fun snapping pictures of Adam play with his favorite toy- his Little People Bus (I got it at a rummage sale full of little people for only $3!) when all of a sudden Adam dropped his bus got up and ran into another room. I looked up at Dave on the couch and we both wondered out loud where he went and what mission he was on.

I could hear him clunking around in the dark bathroom. He came out huffing from caring the little stool we use to sit on during his baths. We plan to eventually use it as a step stool for him to reach the sink or potty, but he's not there yet.

He brought that little stool all the way over to the love seat and put it down. Then he climbed on it and up onto the couch to play with Brockway who was curled up in the corner of the couch.

I was so amazed. He decided he wanted to get up on the couch with Brockway and instead of fussing and reaching for the couch he figured out how to get up there all on his own. I'm so proud of my little guy!

Little Brother

Well we had the 20 week ultrasound and we peaked. Adam is going to have a little brother! The ultrasound was on December 14th and it stills feels weird to know that we're having a boy.

We brought Adam with us to the ultrasound because he had a low grade fever and we weren't sure if we were going to send him to school. Originally I was going to have the ultrasound tech write it in a card that we would open via skype with the whole family on Christmas Eve. But the day of the ultrasound I decided I wanted to find out the three of us as a family first. We didn't tell our parents we knew. We waited a while to tell our friends and coworkers, too. It was nice to have a little family secret.

The weekend before Christmas at my Mom's family party we gave my mom a present and inside was a newborn Onesie that said "Little Brother". It's only fitting that our family find out that we're having another boy the same way they found out we were having another baby. We wrapped up the same onesie and had Dave's parents open it the first night we were there for Christmas.

Little boy #2 has big feet just like Adam. There was no Choroid Plexus Cyst and so far his head is a normal average size. He measured right on with my estimated due date- April 30th.

My coworkers had teased me a bunch that I was having twins, so as soon as I got back to work from my ultrasound I emailed them a phony ultrasound picture of twins. They believed it for a few minutes, but I probably shouldn't have used the first picture I found when googling ultrasound twins and I should have added my name and hospital to it. Oh well...