To those who actually read this blog, I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. Andy was sick, Stephan was sick, and just this weekend I was sick. I’m still getting better but I feel a lot more with it than a few days ago. So here’s my little bear. Apparently, I only thought he was taking a nap and really I was the only one doing any napping!
Mommie only thought I was asleep, but I was having LOTS of fun discovering the wrapping paper after I pulled most of my clothes out of the drawers and books off the shelf and trash out of the trash can.
Mommie was thankful I didn’t discover all the gift bags and tissue paper stashed in my closet.
After mommie came I with her camera I was a bit more interested in getting ahold of that … but she didn’t let me.
When daddie came home we cleaned up the whole mess and then we got to play sword fight with the paper rolls, how fun is that? I was a super giggly boy after all this!
Apparently, he fell asleep sending a few important faxes.
Thankfully we got him all tucked in and cozy again.
Thursday night Andy went to check on Stephan and had me come look too. We do this often because a sleeping child, especially ours, is just so darn cute. We are often amazed at the positions he gets himself into. Tonight tops everything we’ve experienced so far. He went down without a peep. However, before he went to sleep he must have decided he needed to send a fax to someone with the recently discovered fax machine mommie and daddie have stored under his crib (and now know needs to be donated soon) and after that was apparently too tired to get back in bed. I pulled him out and got him covered up and tucked in again. Silly boy!
This post will be all about Stephan. First off, I went to get material to make some curtains for his room and ended up giving up on that when it got close to $50 and getting some cozy flannel to make him a blankie. I’ve wanted to do this since I was preggo and FINALLY, two years later, he’s got a mommie-made blankie. I’m mostly happy with the way the blankie turned out, just not the stitching. It’s a bit of a mess, but hopefully it will stay together.
Other Stephan news bulletins:
He’s not falling out of his daybed as much, he’s actually not fallen out in 24-hours. However, he got up this morning at 6:45am and with no way to keep him in his crib and get him to fall asleep again, he started playing and was just up … way to early for me!
What a vocabulary! The kid talks all the time and I’m understanding more and more every day. It’s incredible!
Still a little ray of sunshine, everyone enjoys taking care of him … nursery workers … MOPS childcare … the gym. His nana and papa are sorely missing him too, but they haven’t gotten so bad they came down to see him. Think they’ll be just itching to see him next Thursday though!
He’s branching out now, eating corn, grapes and the occasional chicken nugget and will also drink an ounce or so of milk from a sippy cup every once in a while too.
I can’t believe he’s so big now. Growing so fast it’s a bit overwhelming.And just because … here’s a picture of my first baby.
Graycie sure does adore her catnip and this particular scratch mat has some that is apparently most easily accessed by getting under it and licking away!
Things have been busy since we’ve gotten back! After getting in on Friday night, ordering a pizza for dinner, picking up milk at the store and unpacking the essentials, we crashed. The good thing is that Stephan adjusted to the time change well. I feared he’d be ready to rise and shine at 5 am but he’s been sleeping till 7:30 in the morning. We had to turn his crib into a daybed and I was nervous about that but he’s handling that pretty well too, aside from falling out once or twice a day. I love that I can lean down and kiss him good night now.
The FL trip went well, as you can see I took the most pictures at the beach. I’m bummed I didn’t end up with too many at the wedding but I’m usually the one taking pictures and as I was occupied with the wedding and Andy with chasing after Stephan, there wasn’t anyone to snap pictures for me. I think I might try getting us both dressed up again for some pictures, we’ll see if there’s time!
We enjoyed spending time with our friends Scott & Rebecca at their home in northern FL. Spent some time at the Jacksonville Zoo and were able to get a tour of a nuclear sub on the Navy base where Scott works. Even Stephan got to go with. He was cute too. Cramped quarters on a sub and we were often in the way so I was constantly saying sorry. Stephan picked up on that and after a bit was saying sorry to every person we saw like it was hello or something. We also got to shop is a cute little downtown area where I got my souvenir, a Vera Bradley purse. I was very excited.
On the way down to my aunt & uncle’s house in Vero we stopped in Daytona, hoping to drive on the beach. This did not live up to expectations since it’s not like a road really, it’s more of a parking lot. So people were walking from cars to the beach and driving super slow because they wanted to park on the beach. We didn’t end up driving on the beach at all. We also stopped in Cocoa Beach to go to Ron Jon’s surf shop, also a disappointment. Though I did get some new flip flops and Andy got a hat. The best little “pit stop” was St. Augustine. Such a cute town and fun to explore a bit from our car. I’d love to go back and wander more and see what the town has being so old and full of history and all.
The time in Vero was great, very relaxing and laid back. I really loved reconnecting with my aunt. It’s been WAY TOO LONG! Maybe we’ll be able to go back again soon. The beach was great, we got lots of pictures and seashells. Even some pretty large ones.
The airport was insane, but the wonderful person to check us in let us check three bags, a PNP and a car seat when technically I think we should have had to pay for the PNP. She said the car seat didn’t count and we surely didn’t complain! Security was a nightmare and the adrenaline was flowing freely till we were on the plane and in the air.
Because yesterday was our 8th anniversary and we spent the weekend in Estes & RMNP …
So I’m one of those girls who knew it was coming. We had talked about getting married and Andy asked my dad’s permission (we all went to lunch together since my dad can be somewhat intimidating) and went shopping for rings before I left on my summer missions trip to Russia. Then halfway through the summer, when my team actually got mail, one of the letters Andy had written included a small picture of my ring. He’s not the best with surprises JWhen I returned to Colorado I knew he was taking me to dinner at a nice restaurant and since I had hoped to be somewhat surprised I asked him not to propose when he took me to dinner, because I’d expect that.Instead, earlier in the week he took me up to Rocky Mountain National Park with a picnic and a huge backpack in tow. We ate lunch in the Endo River Valley listening to the sounds of the river and then went off on a hike that was supposed to lead us up one of the smaller mountains/foothills. However, every path we took dead ended at a swampy marsh. Apparently whoever gave him the idea to do this hike didn’t give the greatest directions to the trailhead JIn spite of the swampiness, we still had fun. Andy bent down once to “get some water” and I thought “he’s going to ask me now!” but, he drank some water. After dead ending another time or two he did pull out the ring instead of getting water! I honestly don’t remember anything more than him asking if I’d marry him and me saying yes. Course I have an awful memory most of the time.After giving up any ideas of finding the trailhead we left the swamp and went to the Alluvial Fan. Part of my surprise was a delicious dessert of chocolate dipped strawberries. Then we spent some time climbing around the rocks and watching the waterfall.When we got back to Andy’s parent’s house they made us a steak dinner to celebrate and I called my family.Later that week, the fancy dinner was in celebration of our engagement!
So we had a great weekend away this past weekend. Sorry, that’s a bit redundant. Oh well. Took forever to get up to Loveland where we ate dinner with Andy’s parents and then dropped Stephan off and drove up to the mountains to stay in Estes Park at The Stanley. (Yes, they love and promote all the hype of The Shining and to a lesser extent Dumb & Dumber. They sell both movies and Stephen King’s book and other various paraphernalia in the gift shop). Check out the slideshow here.
The hotel was beautiful and it was fun to stay in yet another historic hotel, but the service wasn’t what I’d expect from a “fancy” hotel. We’ve apparently been spoiled staying at The Drake, The Cliff House and The Brown Palace. They are always wishing you a happy anniversary/honeymoon and doing special things when they make up your room. Not so at The Stanley. The woman Andy called to make dinner reservations at the hotel was all conspiratorial and then no one said anything or made a big deal about our anniversary once we got there. Bummer. Our fancy dinner in the restaurant was delish. We started with some salads since they had anchovies on the Cesar (Andy LOVES that) and I got a salad with pomegranate and some other dried fruits with other tasty stuff I don’t remember. I had elk medallions with some HUGE asparagus and butternut squash mashed like potatoes with some yummy seasonings and Andy got some fettuccine in garlic sauce with divine scallops. Dessert was blueberry bread pudding for Andy and raspberry and mango sorbet for me. We were super stuffed after!
We also enjoyed wandering around Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) on both Saturday and Sunday. We didn’t do any major hikes since it was a bit on the chilly side but enjoyed wandering around the Alleuvial Fan, which is my favorite part of the park since it’s one giant waterfall, and driving around to see the scenery and snap a few pics. Check out the slideshow here.
Of course we also spent a considerable amount of time wandering around Estes Park and checking out all the shops. Enjoyed a couple nice breakfasts out at a local restaurant and at The Egg & I which is a chain but still tasty. We ate pizza for lunch on Saturday at Andy’s favorite restaruant since childhood, Bob & Tony’s. Pretty tasty pizza. Got Andy some caramel corn and I got a blizzard at DQ since the ice cream shops don’t make all the advertized flavors in the winter. Bummer for me. But it was the BEST blizzard and the people who own the shop were super nice and they had apparently just opened, a week early according to the EP gossip. We even bought some girl scout cookies and strawberries from the grocery store and had a little dessert picnic in the hotel room. Never made it to the movies since there wasn’t anything we wanted to pay to go see. Another bummer but we’ll have to try and get to the movies sometime soon when it’s worth spending the $$, like Indiana Jones or something.
Think that’s about it. We wrapped in Loveland, went to lunch at Chili’s and then shopping. I got some great clothes from LB and we got two new toys for Stephan at Target, one for now, one for the airplane ride to FL next week. I had really wanted to post my engagement story since the whole anniversary thing and we went to RMNP and all but I need to get to bed. Maybe tomorrow since all this online job app stuff is taking most of Stephan’s naptimes away from my blogging time.
… and Vicodin is great. So far things are going well after having oral surgery to extract all three of my wisdom teeth this morning. I haven’t been in much pain (course my mouth is still numb and I’m on a pretty hefty pain killer ). Andy’s doing a great job making sure I get the pain meds and my antibiotic too. We’ll be setting alarms to make sure we don’t forget them in the middle of the night too. The woman helped during my surgery talked with Andy when everything was over told him things went really well and while I can vaguely remember the lower tooth extraction hurting some I was worried that they’d forgotten to take out the top two! Crazy dreamlike anesthetic state! Oh, and the dentist gave me a stylishly functional headband that holds the ice packs right by my cheeks to help with the swelling, which thanfully hasn’t been too bad either.After my lunch of tatsty eggs made by chef/nurse/best hubby ever, Andy (using our fabulously wonderful, new (and cheap) KitchenAid pots and pans from Sam’s Club), I had a wonderfully restful Nap while he watched a TV show and then went to pick up Stephan.
Right now the thing that sucks is that I can’t eat much of anything. Tomorrow for lunch my food choices will expand some so I’m looking forward to that. I’ll be able to make a smoothie (probably not very frozen) and we’ve got some mango, oj and banana so I’m going to have some real fruit and not just jello! Andy make me some yummy mashed potatoes with rosemary and garlic they were delicious even though I can’t have dairy, so no butter. I might ask him to make me some eggs more if the potatoes leave me hungry later
I’ll also have some sorbet tomorrow. It has lemon in it and nothing acidic for 24 hours so bummer I can’t have it tonight but apparently Super Target doesn’t have a fabulous selection of frozen sorbet!
The hubby and I partook in Denver Restaurant Week at The Palm, SO DELICIOUS! And the best part is that it’s cheap, $52.80 for a three course meal for two. We had a great date. Uncle Dan came down to spend some time with Stephan and we enjoyed our SECOND date of the month.
We enjoyed and appetizer of clams with some bacon and other stuff that were really good and then both got the salad with strawberries and walnuts and balsamic dressing. For the main dish Andy got the steak with crab meat and I had the mahi mahi and we shared. Both were fabulous and we also added some au gratin potatoes that were hands down the best au gratin potatoes I’ve ever had! For dessert he got NY cheesecake and I of course got the chocolate cake. We both ended up bringing home half our desserts since we were stuffed.
Great restaurant and lots of fun to get a nice fancy meal for half the cost.
We love Denver Restaurant week and try and go every year to a new restaurant.
I posted this on my other blog in response to a group discussion item. Thought it might be worth posting here too.
Write a letter to your child(ren) or your unborn child and tell them why you love them or why you think you’ll love them.
Stephan,
You are such a wonderful bright spot to my life. I love your smile and your laugh. Either can instantly make my day better. The wonder and awe when you discover something new that excites you, the pride you have when you learn a new word. The satisfaction of being able to communicate with others. Your love of the telephone and anything electronic.
When you look at me and say, “mommie” my heart melts. I love your hugs and kisses. I love that you are starting to be able to tell me exactly what you want.
I’m often amazed by how fast you are growing up right before my eyes. There are moments I wish I could pause and hang on to for a little longer. Like the rare times I get to cuddle with you under a blanket and watch tv or read a book.
When I think about things you might do or what job you will have when you are older I’m excited for you. You will be able to do anything you want. Right now I would guess that your future will hold something dealing with electronics since you love them so much and are always curious about how things work.
Watching you with others I always see how sweet you are. Everyone you meet loves you and I often hear that you are a wonderful little boy. It amazes me how much you already care about others, wanting to make people laugh and repeating something over and over if it gets you a giggle. Whenever you hug one of your animals or your baby I know that one day you’ll also grow up to be a wonderful husband and father.
Stephan’s 18-month well baby visit was this morning. I was nervous about it for two reasons. 1) Last year at his well baby visit there was a issue with weight gain (that after a significant amount of drama we discovered might have all been unecessry). 2) Stephan was sick several times last January-April and I was worried he’d show up sick with an ear infection or something this January too.
Thankfully my worries were unfounded! God blessed me with a great Dr. visit and a healthy little boy!! Growing like the jolly green giant too. He’s 35″ tall and weighs 24lbs. So he’s above the 95th percentile for height still and gaining weight right on target with where he should be. Tall and skinny like his Uncle Eilert. The Dr. even commented on his happy disposition saying that he’s only like that because he knows his parents love him and feels very safe and secure. I always love hearing I’m doing a good job as a mom since I often feel just the opposite.
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cherish life, mommie musings, photo gallery, the men in my life | Tagged: naptime, no sleep, photo | 
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Posted by AngieK
). Andy’s doing a great job making sure I get the pain meds and my antibiotic too. We’ll be setting alarms to make sure we don’t forget them in the middle of the night too. The woman helped during my surgery talked with Andy when everything was over told him things went really well and while I can vaguely remember the lower tooth extraction hurting some I was worried that they’d forgotten to take out the top two! Crazy dreamlike anesthetic state! Oh, and the dentist gave me a stylishly functional headband that holds the ice packs right by my cheeks to help with the swelling, which thanfully hasn’t been too bad either.
