On the path to Wiilightenment

Amy/Joe

It almost goes without saying but we had a great time at Amy and Joe's wedding a couple of weeks ago.  Amy was beautiful and everything went as close to plan as you could have ever hoped for. I know I speak for Gina and Molly when I say that we were all honored to be a part of the big day.  It was so much fun seeing two of our favorite people take the plunge.  It was also great to see the out-of-town family as well.

While we were waiting between pictures before the wedding started, Gina asked Tisha if she'd take a few pictures of us.  They turned out really well so I decided to share.  I'm including one of the pictures of Gina and I and one of Gina, Mo and myself.  Thanks to Tish for taking these for us.





Wii

Yes, the rumors are true.  We now own a Wii. 

The day I bought the Wii (at the downtown Target store) I was walking back with my buddy Matt who was carrying a big box of diapers with him and he said something along the lines of "well it's easy to see what points in life we are at isn't it." 

While there is some truth in the statement I suppose, I clarified with him that we may not be in the full fledged diaper mode anymore but it's not quite as it looks.  At this point, we need to sell things we currently own, recycling our worth, so that we can apply it to other items that we may want to own instead.  In this case, it was my birthday money that I had hung onto, some award money that I received from work and by selling our PS2 to Beno and Heidi.

Right now we are on hold to buy anything else until I sell the BowFlex.  Supposedly I have a buyer though who is working on coming up with the money for it.  Once it sells we will be getting Wii Fit, Super Mario Kart and a couple of additional accessories.

Nattie

The girl is crazy.  I mean that in a good way.  I'm blown away every day by how much she is growing up.  This week she was able to say the days of the week and counted to twenty for Gina's aunt Bev.  She also loves tracing her name and writing letters/numbers.

Last night I asked her what day comes before and/or after certain days of the week and she had some trouble with that.  Gina said some of her first graders struggle with it still so I was asking a little much of her.  My bad.  She is always eager to learn though so I plan to challenge her (in healthy ways hopefully) whenever possible.

Another thing with her is that she is so loving still.  I hope that never changes.  Whether it be cuddling with us or someone visiting, giving Casey hugs (which he only welcomes about half of the time) or holding lamby, a different stuffed animal or one of her babies...she is so sweet and gentle.  Maybe being motherly just goes along with being the oldest grandchild on either side, I don't know.

Mace

A lot has changed with Macie in the last couple of months.

For one, she's talking.  She's not annunciating a whole lot very well yet but she has about a dozen words she will say with some regularity and there are others spoken here and there as well.  For example, she just decided to point out the window and say tree out of nowhere Saturday night as we were driving to watch my parents bowl / see my cousin K8 and her boyfriend Mark.  My favorite is when she says up please.  It's adorable.

We also decided to take the plunge and convert her to a big girl bed over the weekend.  I was not sure if she was ready for it but both Gina and Mo thought she was.  I must say, she has made the conversion with ease and I was definitely wrong.  Whether she is sleeping or in a time out, she stays in her bed until we come and get her.  Hopefully that trend continues.



More around the house

I gave up on the yard.  I’m not too proud to admit it.  With all four lots around our house being sodless, it has allowed the weeds to definitely dominate my battle with them.  Our friends Nick and Carrie have someone they use to spray and/or fertilize five times a year for them and we decided to sign up for the last two applications of the year through the same place.  While it’s not very green of us, I can say that our yard looks so much better.  It will probably be one of those necessary evils that we'll learn to accept until the sod issue fixes itself.

We also had gutters put on our house.  That and the shelves in the garage were the 2008 projects we wanted to complete.  We didn’t put them on one area of the house that we should have (I’m scheduling that to be done as we speak) but everything looks very nice.  They were able to match the color of our siding with the downspouts and if you weren’t looking for them you probably wouldn’t even notice they were there (which is a good thing in this case).

Our only major item on the 2009 agenda for the house will be putting in a patio.  I’d like to have that done before school ends so Gina and the girls can enjoy the back yard over the summer.  I may also add a work bench in the garage now that we know we can fit one there after all.

Gina, Molly and I have been having a good time together as well.  While both Gina and I were comfortable with the decision to have Molly move in, I don't think either of us ever expected it to be going this well.  She's absolutely become part of our family.  What makes it even better is that I'm comfortable saying that we'd all make the same decision again about having her move in if we had a chance to do it over.

I've also very much embraced that our house will forever be dominated by women (Casey only counts on some levels).  If we decide to have a third child, it will undoubtedly be a girl as well.  At this point, it would make more sense that way anyways.  And, you know what, I'm just fine with all of it.

Going green?

Gina’s been on a green kick the last couple of months (sans spraying/fertilizing the yard which was mainly my decision).  We’ve been forced to buy more organic foods because of Natalie but she has also converted to the reusable bags and has diligently focused more on our recycling efforts.  Good work G.

Nick/Carrie

Recently, everyone in our house has been spending a lot of time with our neighbors Nick and Carrie (see above) who live just across the street. 

We’ve been blessed with a wonderful neighborhood and we’ve made a number of friends that I believe we will stay connected with regardless of how long we/they remain living around here.  Some of them we wish we could see more but lives are busy and finding time is not as simple as it would seem, especially when it becomes a ghost town outside as the weather gets colder.

But, it’s been different with Nick and Carrie.

I was talking to Mess about it last week and he called them the new version of him and Ann to us.  In a lot of ways, he is right.  It’s nice when you can have people living near you that you’re able to spend time with when it doesn’t feel like work to get together or be around…and finding that is not very easy.  We had that with Matt and Ann in the townhouse and finally have it again here.  Needless to say, they are great people and we are having a lot of fun.

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weekends ago we went with the Otters to a pumpkin patch near them.  It was a blast.  At first I though the $8 admission was a bit steep but after seeing all that there was to do I decided that I had no problem with the price.  The girls loved it and we were only able to see about half of what was available before it was time to go because the girls were hungry / needed naps.  We also bought a pumpkin for each of the girls (that we still need to crave).  Halloween should be a lot of fun and one of us will make sure to post a picture of the girls in their costumes shortly there after.

Baby Otter

We recently found out that we will be an aunt/uncle again in May and are very excited.  Congrats to Sarah and Chris!

Sickness

I’ve been under the weather in some capacity or another for at least the last month or so.  It’s been weird for me since I generally tend to stay pretty healthy.  The same thing happened last year at this time and it turned out to be mono. 

The craziest night for me so far was after Joe and Amy’s rehearsal dinner when one of my ears registered a 104 degree temperature.  Currently, I am having some sinus issues.  If it’s not one thing it’s another.  Hopefully it will all clear up soon.  I have a feeling once the sinuses clear up I should be on the path to good health.  As a whole, I have definitely been feeling better the last ten days or so.

Election

It’s taken me quite a while to figure it out but I’ve finally decided on who I will be voting for next week for president.  As you can see by this link, no candidate represents me very well.  I wish I was more confident in my decision, but I at least feel comfortable on some levels with the choice.

Mosephina

Molly and Gina have started making jewelry.  Nothing big, just something fun that they are both enjoying doing.  Molly has been doing it for a while but Gina just started up recently. 

To try and help out I put together a spreadsheet for them to figure some of their expenses and put a simple starting site for them to use on our homepage.

Twilight

I started listening to Twilight recently based on Carrie’s suggestion.  Her and I were talking about books/TV/movies recently and we determined that we have similar tastes (much like Amy and I do).  She has definitely enjoyed reading the series and thought I might like it as well.

I also figured it was good timing with the movie coming out next month. 

Other then the fact that it’s clearly directed at a teenage female audience (which I’ve noticed more and more since a comment that Amy made) I am definitely enjoying the story.  Hopefully that continues as I progress through the book.

Matt and Morgan

Matt and Morgan finally found a house after a very exhausting search.  Trying to find the right place, they looked at between 90-100 homes.  The one they bought is about a mile or two from where they had hoped to be but it is still in a great spot in St. Louis Park all things considered.  I will see it tomorrow and I am very excited about that.  From what I know, and in talking to them and my parents, I already feel that they made a good decision.



World Series

I did pretty well predicting the playoffs this year other then the Cubbies, but my Rays in six prediction does not look very good right now.  Philly has definitely been the better team and I expect them to win tonight or, at a minimum, take one of the two games in Tampa to win the series.

What's the point of the frog suit again?

Couch rearrangement

When Matt and Morgan were home for Christmas, Matt decided that our living room needed a make over.  At first I was very reluctant to let him move things around but as he talked about different ideas it began to interest me more.  I have to say, the change has grown on me.  It's not easy to see the girls when they are in the living room if you are in the kitchen but other than that it's a definite upgrade.

Nattie update

Whatever "normal" has become for us, I feel like our lives are moving towards it these days...which is a good thing.  A big part of that is Natalie's progression over the last couple of months.  Since we went gluten free, on January 21, she has done so much better.  It's definitely still hard to be 100% gluten free but we are doing well and Nattie is back to her old self.  She's also began to grow again and her budda belly (from all the bloating) has begun to shrink, both of which are fantastic to see.

On a different note, I'm still blown away by how smart two (almost three) year olds are.  She generally does something to amaze me every night.  One of her recent revelations was figuring out that she could turn on the light in her room (she can't reach yet) by grabbing a book and using it to flip the switch.  She doesn't have a trick yet to turn it off though (Sscratch that, I just saw her do it this morning for the first time.  See what I mean...).

Also, on 3/6 Natalie had her first hair cut (by Molly).  All we did was trim up the ends but it added a lot of bounce and curl back into her hair.  We even got the first couple cuts on film.

Macie update

All and all, things are going pretty well with Macie too. 

That doesn't mean she's a joy to be around though.  The girl has far more attitude then Nattie ever displayed at her age.  In fact, I have even joked over the last couple of months that if we end up having just two kids it's going to be because Macie is such a handful.  In reality, I'd never blame her for that but some days I probably could.

I have to cut her some slack though because her eczema has flared up on and off, she's seems to be cutting teeth constantly and she's in the frustrating stage of being able to pull herself up onto things but is still unable to walk yet. 

She has only three moods: extremely happy, extremely upset and blah.  Most of what we are dealing with should eventually pass.  Her temper though...I don't think that's going away anytime soon.  She's a hot head and she will likely remain one.  Many a battle with her lie ahead for Gina and I.

In the last week or so we have began to see a lighter side of her however.  She has been much happier and we've had a lot of fun playing with her.  Cross your fingers, we'd like this Macie to stick around a while.  When she is being sweet she absolutely melts your heart.

She finally began crawling.  If she needs to get somewhere quickly she still scoots though.  Frequently she does both when making a single trip somewhere.  It's worth the price of admission just to watch her manuver around the house.

That darn laugh

Matt / Morgan

Matt and Morgan move home in July.  I know they are going to miss Chicago but I am really starting to get excited for them to be nearby after being away now for six years.

Minivan

We did it, we gave in and got a minivan.  It's just too dang convenient considering our current family situation.  Gina's still struggling with the idea that she drives a minivan but I am definitely a fan of it.  If it only got better gas mileage...

We bought a silver 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan.  My parents purchased our Ion from us.

I'll leave any more discussion on this topic for Gina.  She probably has more to say about it then I do.

Home value

Fun fact: Our house has lost so much value since we bought it in April '06 that when I recently inquired about refinancing I was told I couldn't because our loan amount was greater then the house is currently worth. 

How much has it dropped?  $60k.  Good golly!  It's not a huge deal since everyone else is in the same boat and we are planning to be here a long time but it's still worth noting none the less.

Super Mario Brothers 3

Over the past couple of weeks, some of Molly and I's free time has been devoted to defeating Super Mario 3.  Last Sunday, we finally accomplished our goal.  Koopa's Castle was not easy to beat but I happened to catch him on an off day or something and I was able to get the job done.  Molly and I teamed together well.  With the exception of board 8.1, which we both stunk at, we complemented each other pretty well.

My favorite part of playing was when we would use a frog suit when it seemed least likely to help us.  Molly and I would laugh during the whole turn.  Really, what's the point of that thing?  It's even a hassle to use in the water.

I had beaten it once before (with Rory long ago) but this was Mo's first victorious experience.  Yeah Mo!  It was a lot of fun and we have now moved onto Super Mario World, which I have not played much of at all before now.  It's a good game and I look forward to defeating it someday as well.