February Already?

I just realized that tomorrow is February 1st. Where did December and January go?!?

One of the first things Tod and I both thought when we learned that our first child would be born in late December was that the poor kid's birthday would have to compete with Christmas. And sure enough, on the same day that we celebrated Milo's birthday this year, we celebrated Christmas with my Grandma Joni and aunts Lisa and Laura. Some day that may not fly with Milo (we are seriously considering celebrating his birthday on his HALF birthday when he gets older), but this year he didn't know any better, and it worked out just fine.

Milo turned 2 on December 19, and had a great birthday! We started the festivities at a really cool train store in St. Paul called Choo Choo Bob's. They have all sorts of mechanical trains on display, and a bunch of wooden train sets set up on tables for kids to play with. The kids (Milo and his cousins) had a blast! Afterwards, we met for pizza and cake at Broadway, and we were so lucky to have so many family members there to celebrate with us!

Our Christmas plans went up in smoke with one of the biggest snow storms to ever hit Minnesota. I heard one weatherman refer to it as the "Snowpocalypse," which I though was a little dramatic but pretty funny. Despite the bad weather, and for the most part having to reschedule Christmas, everything turned out great. We were basically snowed-in at my parents' house for nearly a week, but enjoyed every second of it, spending lots of time outside sledding, skiing, making snowmen, and skating on the lake.

In mid-January, a bunch of my girlfriends from high school invaded Tampa, Florida and the home of my best friend Carrie for a little girls' weekend. There were six of us total, and although the weather wasn't perfect, it was just great to be together! The last time we were all together was just before Milo was born, so we were long overdue for a get-together like this.

Last weekend we were up in Duluth for Hockey Day Minnesota. Hockey Day is an event put on by Fox Sports Net in which they televise a number of hockey games--from high school to college and pro--throughout the day. And to make it even more enticing, the high school games are played outside! Ironically, the team that Tod coaches (Hopkins) was chosen to play Tod's high school team (Marshall) in one of the televised games. It was such a cool event! Hopkins ended up beating Marshall 6-0, which was bittersweet for Tod, but the whole experience was one to remember!

The other big news of the past couple months was that Milo went to his very first movie and graduated from tumbling class! And he is also pretty much talking in full sentences now. He is absolutely hilarious and so much fun!

Birthday Boy!

What a goof!

Playing with Sydney and Sam at Choo Choo Bob's

Choo Choo Bob's

Presents!

Christmas!

Murphy all pooped out from Christmas

First time skating!

Skating is tough work!

My girls!

Hockey Day Minnesota

Hockey Day: Hopkins (Blue) v. Marshall (Black)

Hopkins' goalie wore a stocking cap over his helmet!

Graduation from tumbling class!

Tumbling (Tod has forbidden me from calling it "gymnastics")

Milo is really enjoying his tumbling classes, and is getting to be quite the little daredevil. As much as he loves it, I think he likes the drive just as much because on the way there we go by a bunch of road construction with "tractors," "diggers," dump trucks and cranes. I never knew big machinery could be so exciting! It is a good incentive when we wake him up on Saturday mornings. A lot of the time he will say, "no gym," (he's NOT a morning person!) but as soon as we remind him about what we see on the way up there, he's ready to go!

My parents came with us to class last weekend, and my mom was the photographer, as usual. Here's a sample of some of the stuff Milo gets to do at The Little Gym.

Riding the tube

Bars!
Bars!

Bars!

Getting a spot from Daddy
I'm stuck!

What a goof!

Foreward roll

Hamming it up for the camera

Beam!

Hanging out inside the tube

Hanging out inside the tube

Happy Halloween!

Parade at school

Milo the engineer

Garrett, Miss Darcie, Milo and Austin

Miss Darcie, Porter and Milo

Milo, Daddy and Mommy

Practicing our trick-or-treating skills

Trick-or-treating!

Auntie Ry, Milo & Uncle Sean
Trick-or-treating!

Trick-or-treating!

Happy Fall!

For the first time in as long as I can remember, we had close to nothing going on this weekend (hence the TWO blog posts in three days!). We used our free time on Saturday to clean out the gardens and get the yard ready for winter. Milo was a great helper and it turns out that he really loves dirt. At one point he was actually laying down in the vegetable garden! It was a nice fall day (finally!) with cool crisp weather and even a little sunshine, so it felt good to be outside working. Rumor has it more rain is on the way, so I'm glad we took advantage!

Helping Mommy clear out the annual garden

Dirty boy!
Punkins!

Happy Fall!

Catching Up

The infrequency of my blogging of late is a true sign of how crazy life as a working mom can be! We have had a fun and exciting last few months, so this post is an attempt to recap some of the highlights.

At the end of August, my sister Ryanne and her fiance Sean got married in an intimate and extremely romantic ceremony at Le Chateau Boutin in Bayfield, Wisconsin. The Chateau is a georgeous old Victorian mansion with an awesome view of Lake Superior and just enough rooms to fit both of our families for the weekend. The weather on the day of the wedding was unfortunately not very cooperative, but the wedding was still beautiful and the reception was a blast! And Milo did an excellent job as the ring bearer!

In addition to the wedding festivities, over the past few months we have enjoyed trips to the Minnesota State Fair, the Renaissance Festival, another trip to Bayfield--this time for the Apple Festival--as well as numerous visits to Northern Wisconsin to see my parents at Middle Eau Claire Lake and their "farm" in Lake Nebagamon and Tod's parents at Lake Chippewa in Hayward.

In early October we had some excitement with the Minnesota Twins' push to get into the playoffs and their subsequent not-so-awesome first round playoff appearance against the Yankees. We have also caught a few Minnesota Vikings games, including the AMAZING Monday Night game against the Green Bay Packers. Milo didn't get to go to any of these games because it is just too loud in the Metrodome for exciting games like these, but he has been watching a lot of baseball and football at home and is becoming quite the little sports fan! The program that we brought home from the Vikings-Packers game (his "football book") is now one of the only "books" he wants to read, and he can point out "Brett" (Favre), "AP" (Adrian Peterson), and "Jared" (Allen) and giggles everytime he sees the picture of the cheerleader. He also screams "touchdown" whenever he sees a football player on TV, and when you ask him what they score in baseball, he says "home run." It's hilarious!

Milo also started going to tumbling classes, which has been a lot of fun. He is on the cautious side of trying new things, so this class has been a good way for him to get over that cautiousness and let loose a little. Every week he does something new that he wouldn't do the week before, so it is great to see that progress! He is also doing really well at "school," despite his recent tendency for "owies" (see below), and will soon be moving from the Ones room to the Toddlers room. Rumor has it that the Toddler teachers are masters at potty training, so we're really excited about that!

It seems that Fall has simply decided to skip us this year, as we went straight from weather in the 70s and having our air conditioning on to weather in the 30s and 40s and SNOW! Our fireplace has been going virtually non-stop since the first week of October. It's really unfortunate since fall is my favorite season of the year, but I'm still holding out hope that this is just a cold spell and our fall temperatures will make a comeback before winter really starts.

The handsome ring bearer waiting attentitively for his turn

It's go time!
Le Chateau Boutin

View of Lake Superior from the Chateau

Milo checking out the view from the Chateau

Checking out Papa's tractor

Riding with Papa on the tractor at the farm

Riding the tractor

Fun in the sun at Lake Chippewa

Driving the boat at Lake Chippewa

Fishing at Lake Chippewa

Guinness sunbathing at Lake Chippewa

Murphy waiting for someone...ANYONE...to throw him the ball

Sunset at Middle Eau Claire Lake. No wonder my parents love living here!

Milo checking out the sunset at Middle Eau Claire Lake

Playing in the water at sunset.

Milo got his first black eye at school when he fell off the "motorcycle" (I imagine it to be a rocking horse type thing but instead of a horse, it is a motorcycle. Milo's teachers say he rocks that thing like no other kid ever has!). He actually hit his face on the handlebar as he was falling off--ouch! This was followed by a bloody lip a couple days later, and another bloody lip (this time with a couple of his teeth actually going THROUGH his lip) as soon as that one healed. It was a rough week and a half at school for the Buddy, but his teachers said that he handled it like a rock star. When he hit his lip the first time, he was more concerned about getting back the stuffed shark that he dropped when he fell than the blood coming out of his mouth! What a BOY!

First Shiner!

Daddy says my shiner makes me look tough!

Me and a shocked Tod after the Twins beat the Tigers in the bottom of the 12th inning to win the tiebreaker for the AL Central and move on to the playoffs!