Back in the Saddle

Where do I begin? I think I'll start with my most recent memories, and work back into the murky darkness of late January/early February. First of all, a shout out to Aunt Margaret and Aunt Dori, who have both mentioned enjoying reading my blog. Thanks for the prompting, to get me started again.

I had the most amazing day today! I started out getting a facial at the Aveda Institute, followed by toy shopping at Creative Kidstuff for a birthday party Annalise is attending tomorrow. Then I had a haircut at noon, and returned home to spend the afternoon with my family, and making invitations for Bennett's 2nd birthday party. I snapped this cute pic of my darlings playing in the snow.

Last weekend, Mike took the kids to his parents' farm for the weekend. He helped out with butchering of I don't know how many cows, and A and B enjoyed attending their cousins Christine and Corrine's birthday party on Sunday afternoon. Where was the matriarch, you may ask? I was co-host of a baby shower for our lovely friend from Oregon, Stokes (Jen). The shower was held at Danielle's house, and after the shower we enjoyed shopping and dinner at the Mall of America. The weekend was especially festive because our college friend living in Indiana, Cynthia, flew in to surprise Jen. It was really weird (but nice secondary to sleeping in) coming home to a totally empty house, as even Shug made the trip down south.

We had a delightful Presidents' Day! Mike had the day off from work, and Annalise had the day off from school, so we started the day out at my very favorite place, The Good Day Cafe. Going out for breakfast is one of life's best little pleasures for me. After that we picked up some tin panel nails at Home Depot, which the kids thought made great musical shakers on our way down to HOM to look at couches, and then to Grandpa and Grandma's. We left the kids there for the afternoon, and Mike and I went to pick out our couch. We had a nice time picking out our fabrics, and accent chairs, and Mike has such an eye for color and pattern! I think he missed his calling. After picking up the kids and making burgers with some darn fresh beef, I went to Edina Grill with some moms from last year's 2 yr old Play Pals. We always have such a nice time catching up, and the sweet potato fries at The Grill were delicious!

I spent the second week of February in Madison at Bridget and Steve's. Our Christmas gift to them was LABOR, as they are preparing their house to put on the market, for their big move back to MN! Steve picked me up on Tuesday at the Dells, and brought me back to Madison, where we were snowed in on Wednesday (which was good for home project productivity) in Madison's blizzard. Bridget worked from home on Wednesday, and we got the basement primed. I/We also painted the basement, repaired holes and painted a few other rooms, repaired some drawers with wood putty, spray painted some old vent covers and a rusty ring surrounding a shower light, and sewed some new kitchen curtains. Whew!

I also registered remotely at 7 am on Thursday for Bennett's ECFE/pre-preschool class which will start next fall! We got in (Edina residents had first dibs)! It's going to be fun, it's the same class Annalise had last year, and hopefully will be with the same teacher. Also, some siblings of Annalise's classmates are also registered, so I'm looking forward to a fun group of moms.
While I was hard at work in Wisconsin, Mike was hard at work back at home. He drove the kids home from Madison, and spent the week dealing with Annalise's unyielding ear infection, on top of the usual day to day details of life. Since I'm writing this in reverse chronological order, I now will tell you about said ear infection!

We planned a trip to Wisconsin Dells with Danielle and Mark and the three kings, and Hope and Chad and their two- Hailey and Jackson. We booked a Village Suite at Kalahari Resort for Superbowl Sunday, to stay until Tuesday. The room was great, because we all had separate rooms, with a main room including a full kitchen, dining room table, fireplace, etc. The rate included water park admission for all of us. On the way to the Dells, A and B were watching Madeline's Christmas on DVD, and listening with the headphones. About an hour away from the resort, A started to complain about ear pain, and Mike told her her ear might just feel funny from wearing the headphones. Apparently not. We stopped for a potty break, and I bought another bottle of Motrin, because ours was packed too deeply. That was her first dose, of what was to be 6 straight days of around the clock dosing, alternating with Tylenol. She was absolutely miserable on Sunday, running a fever and very lethargic. Mike took her to the urgent care in Baraboo on Monday morning, where she was prescribed Amoxicillin, an ear wick was put in, and she was given some drops for an infection of the canal as well. Long story short, with the exception of about an hour when she was happily splashing in one of the toddler pools (with an ear plug and headband), she was so unhappy and in pain the whole time we were at the Dells. Mike brought her to our pediatrician once they returned home, and she put her on Augmentin, and by the end of the week, and some missed school days, she returned to semi-normal.

Bennett started a music class at MacPhail the last week of January, and although the first class was rough (he had trouble giving the materials back, wouldn't sit on the parachute, etc.) it is now going really well, and he is having so much fun! It is so fun to watch him enjoying music. He loves to dance to the music, and he really loves the drums. He was playing a wide, low drum with mallets last week, and he is really good at keeping the beat, banging his rhythm sticks on the floor.

We've seen Mom and Dad quite a few times since Dad retired on my birthday (Jan 14), and they seem to be doing really well. We went to a neighborhood restaurant for Taco Tuesday this week, and afterwards they went to a dive shop to get fitted for masks for their upcoming cruise. That's really amazing if you know my parents, that they were out on a weeknight, after supper! Woah.

I guess no post is complete without a basement update. I was looking back at the calendar to see what's transpired since my last January post, and saw that our carpet was installed the last week of January. I now remember that I had a video posted of the new carpet, but I had to remove it because its poor quality was disturbing to me. So now we are tiled, carpeted, the cabinets are in and the countertop is installed. The tin ceiling panels for our backsplash arrived from Canada and Mike got them polyurethaned. They are proving to be a bit difficult to trim for all the light switches and faucet pipes, and everytime I check when Mike is working on them, I catch him mopping up his blood. So I guess he'll really be able to say that the basement came to fruition with a combination of his blood, sweat, and tears (more often my tears), and more so a contribution from the home equity line of credit!

There, I'm back!!! And that's our life in a nutshell! More frequent posts here on out- it's much easier that way! And my public is demanding, so I'm feeling the pressure to keep you all happy. Bye for now! Oh, and I'll have to have Mike take a picture of my haircut from today- it's lovely!