The Schwedskala Rink

What you don't have a hockey rink in your house?!?! With two little boys and lots of adults to fuel their love for hockey you better believe we play.  And when you hear that little Eli voice say, "momma, play hockey?" you can't say no.

We turn hockey on the TV and the boys run to get their sticks. Todays game was really one on one on one and I had front row seats as cheerleader and ref. I got to send them to the penelty box a lot.  Look at little Adam purposly holding!

We all cheer everytime someone scores. It's family fun! Now we just need to get Adam on some skates!

Coudles on the Couch

Grandma Rose and Grandpa Dave came to visit this weekend.  Saturday morning started with grandma coudles and ended with Adam falling asleep in her arms before jammies.  A good day to be a grandma and a grandson!

When the Blankie Needs a Wash

 It's a hard day when mom decides to wash your blankie. Waiting and watching it dry is the hardest, especially when you need a nap.

Mommy Date Night With Little Men

When I watched the trailer for Wreck it Ralph I new I wanted it to be Adam's first movie we watched at the theater. So a few weeks ago when I saw it was at the State Theater our second run theater in town it was time for a date with Adam. Well it didn't work out exactly how I had originally imagined. Dad was at work so Eli tagged along and we went with my coworkers who frequent the cheap theater every Wednesday. 



Dad got them really excited for the date this morning. They put on their "theater clothes". Adam wore his button down shirt that he typically refuses to wear. And then he made sure Eli wore nice fancy clothes, too. Adam talked about his date all day at school- too cute.

I snapped some cute pictures of the boys as we walked to the theater. Adam pointed at every door and window as we walked asking is this the theater? My coworkers were already there when we walked in. Eli is so young I didn't have to buy him a ticket. I brought a huge bowl which the theater filled with popcorn for a really low price and I think we ate less than a quarter of it.

When the theater dimmed Adam and Eli sat in their own seats on either side of me and they were into it. The only time we got up was when Adam had to go potty. It was so cool that the previews, movie and popcorn kept their interest for 2 whole hours. I really liked the movie too- it had the right balance of kid/parent humor.

We finished up our date night by coming home and eating a "snack" (because Adam refuses to call dinner by it's real name and we were all full from popcorn). We had pb&j, apple slices and peas- I guess that could be a snack. Then we all put on our jammies and had a dance party.

Eli fell right to sleep, Adam needed to spend some extra time chatting tonight. So I curled up in his bed next to him and he told me about what he and daddy were going to play in the morning. "Maybe we'll play Wreck Ralph- I can be the Fix it Felix. Or we can play Ironman." The perfect ending to my date night with my sons.

This Morning

This morning I heard my eldest child get up and use the potty. Normally he then comes downstairs to wake us up or crawl into bed with us, but then I heard nothing. Nothing on the monitor and only and ocasional banging (every 30 seconds or so). I figured Adam crawled back in bed and was banging his feet on the wall or bed. After a while it was apparent it wasn't going away so we got up to go check on the boys.

Dave found Eli locked out of his bedroom banging on the door. And when he opened up the door Adam responded, "hey, I wanted to sleep." As Eli bounded into the room and went straight for Adam's bed.

We had a talk about not locking little brother in or out of the bedroom, but I'm guessing Eli will be able to open the doors at a much younger age than Adam at this rate.

2013 Running Goals

I ran the Mankato Half Marathon last fall with several girlfriends.  One of them actually spent gobs of money to buy the offical race pictures and then this showed up in the mail for me (thanks Heidi)!  I put it on my fridge and it makes me smile everytime I see it, well that and want to sign up for more races!

After the Mankato Half in October I started thinking about all the races I've done in 2012 and what races I'd like to do next year. 

These are the races I did in 2012:
5/12/2012 Common Cup 5K 0:25:35
8/11/2012 Shanty Days 5K 0:24:56
9/1/2012 Women Rock 10K 0:56:38 PB (and first race of this distance)

10/21/2012 Mankato Half 2:05:20 PB (and first race of this distance)
10/27/2012 Spooky Sprint 0:24:54 PB by 1 second

The list of races for 2013 I made then was long, too long-
3/16/2013 Get Lucky 7k
May Common Cup 5k
April/May 10 mile Spring race
6/22/2013 Water Carnival 8k
July Triathalon?
8/10/2013 Shanty Days 5k
8/31/2013 Women Rock 10k
Sep Nickle Dickle 10k
9/22/2013 Women Run the Cities 10 Mile
10/6/2013 TC 10 mile
10/20/2013 Mankato 1/2
10/26/2013 Spooky Sprint (I hope they have a 10k)
November Turkey Trot

The bold races I've already signed up for. I really enjoy doing races here in Hutchinson because the logistics are just so easy. But I also like the longer distance races and to do that I have to travel to the Cities or further. It's also fun to do races when we are on vacation (like the Shanty Day's 5k I always do when we're in Algoma).  I don't want to force my family into spending the majority of our weekends watching me race, so it's doubtful I'll do all the races on my list, but it's fun to plan ahead and look for 2013 races. For the next three months I'm giving my racing a rest and focusing on cross country skiing which I also love.

Goodbye 2012, Hello 2013

On New Years Eve Dave asked me what my favorite memories from 2012 were.  These aren't necessarly my favorite memories, but they are what 2012 means to me.

2012 started out very low with me coming to the relization that I was suffering from post partum depression.  Thankfully realizing it and talking to family, friends and my doctor and then starting a very low dose of zoloft helped me get back to normal.

Adam sucessfully became potty trained in January.  He went from toddler to preschooler!

Eli went from crawler to walker shortly after his birthday in May and baby to toddler.

With the lack of snow in Minnesota we took a family trip to the Upper Pennisula in February for lots of cross country skiing.  Adam got to ski for his first time!

 





We lost three family memembers in 2012. First was Dave's grandmother, then his uncle Mike and last was my grandfather. Although we were sad to say goodbye each funeral/memorial service ment spending time with family that we don't normally see. 

I planned two awesome birthday parties for my boys.

I trained for and ran my first 10k in September and half marathon in October. 

Dave won his fantasy baseball head to head compition with his coworkers which ment he got an all expensed paid trip to a Twins game in September. And he got to meet Kent Hrbek.

We took another vacation in the fall to the North Shore of Lake Superior.  It was a wonderful long weekend with lots of hiking and exploring with my little men.



At the end of June one of the production team advisors asked me if I was interested in becoming a product engineer and in the end of September I started my new job.  It's a challenge, but it is exciting to be doing something new.

Dave also accepted new responsibilities in 2012. Starting January 1st he is training to be a team leader.  It means doing swing shifts, but we are hopeful that it will mean the boys spending less time at daycare and more time with their parents. It does mean less time for Dave and I to be together, so scheduling a sitter and going on dates will be a must.

I'm not a huge fan of New Years Resolutions, but somewhere along 2012 I fell off the cloth diapering band wagon. My goal is to do cloth with Eli more often.  And if it means he's potty trained in year like Adam that would be awesome! (not going to hold my breath for that one though)

Christmas Recap

The week before Christmas I got a brand new toy.  A pretty Canon 60D and I ordered and got it in time for Adam's Preschool Christmas Program in the mall. And then he got a fever- four of his 10 classmates were sick that day. I was so heartbroken, but there will always be next year!

Saturday Eli woke with that same fever.  We quicklly brought him to urgent care and our peditrician said, "oh don't deprive great grandma of her grandson because of a cold." So despite being ill we packed up that afternoon to go to Christmas in Hibbing with my dad's side of the family.

Before we left Adam and I got to go out cross country skiing.  Adam in the backyard and me at the local golf course.

Eli took a really long nap and then slept in the car for almost the whole drive.  So I shouldn't have been surprised at 2:30 AM in the hotel room when he decided not to sleep.  He was wide awake- for an hour we struggled to get him back to sleep.  Then Dave finally gave up and brought some toys into the bathroom for him to play.  Around 4:30 I relieved Dave and brought Eli down to the continental breakfast.

Normally my dad's family Christmas party is in the cities at one of my aunts houses.  But this fall my grandmother moved into a memory care facility so to make things easier the family travels to her.  We had a nice little Christmas brunch.

Monday was Christmas Eve. We got the house ready for my family to come.  My two brothers, my sister in-law Shar and my parents came to our house for Christmas Eve.  I was slightly worried about making it to mass, but decided 15 minutes early was all the more my little ones could handle and sitting at the back of church would be just fine. When we got to church the only seats were at the very back on folding chairs.  We settled in and two seconds later Father came over saying there was a spot in the very front row.  He ushered my family at the last minute to the very front pew.  Awesome!

We did the Christmas Program via skype with Dave's family in Wisconsin. It was probably the smoothest Christmas Program we've done since the boys came into the family.  Watching each other on a computer screen was that interesting.

Adam via skype putting Jesus in the manger

Eli putting the Little People Jesus in the manger

After the boys went to bed my family watched The Nutcraker while I outsourced my Christmas wrapping to India. (Seriously Shar is amazing at wrapping presents and she loves to do it- this year she even made picture tags so that Adam and Eli could hand out the presents).

Santa showed up and our tree was plum full of pretty presents. When Eli woke up the first thing he saw was the wrapped shovel, he walked over and picked up and said, "shovel." So much for Christmas surprises.

Santa brought the boys some awesome presents. Adam got Thor's hammer and Iron Mask and Eli got a Little People Santa Train and a bouncing ball and he filled their stockings.

The best part of having Christmas at home is we didn't have to go anywhere. There was time for playing with toys, watching Matt play video games, a work out at the gym, go running or skiing, eat roast beast and crab legs and have a late afternoon movie cuddle time. 

Before the boys went to bed we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. We didn't have cake so instead we used a cookie. It was a great Christmas, too bad we had to go back work the next day.