Chronicles of G Man

it's been awhile

2009-08-26T10:25:00.005-05:00

i haven't written for a really long time! i keep meaning to update but then i hadn't downloaded the photos and kept waiting until i got them downloaded. then- we download them to our new desktop computer and now i've been too lazy to actually sit up at night and post/upload. doing it from my couch or bed on the laptop just seemed to be sooo much easier.

anyway - we have had a great summer. we had our big trip out west which was fantastic. of course i'm not on the computer now that has those photos, so i'll post photo updates later this week. for reals.

we spent 5 days in san fran with my cousin, her husband james and baby jaden. awesome time. we did quite a bit. fireworks on the 4th from the boat, camping, golden gate park, muir woods, sonoma wine tasting, trolley and cable cars, fisherman's wharf area, berkeley, haight-ashbury area and lots of good wine, food and company.

from sf, we went to boise to visit my grandma. she's in a nursing home and hasn't been feeling good...but she had a pretty good few days when we were out there and we managed to go out to dinner with my grandma, my aunt, uncle and cousins. great to see the family and catch up with everyone. we pretty much spent all of our time in boise seeing family and having griffin catch up on all of his sleep he missed while partying it up in sf.

from boise we flew to spokane and hooked up with friends guy and dawn. we stayed with them and had a great time. saw the sights of spokane (isn't a whole lot to see), and caught up.
under normal circumstances i'm sure g would have been at the end of his rope by the time we got to spokane...but the bonus is that guy/dawn live on the top of a canyon that overlooks...TRAIN TRACKS. trains went by about every 20 minutes and he nearly exploded from excitement each and every time one went by.

we managed to do lots of fun stuff and griffin got to do something train related every single day of our 10 day adventure. he still talks about all of the trains from our trip and it feels good to know we are creating such fun memories for him.

coming back we were all pretty crabby for about 2 weeks. it was SUPER hard to adjust back to reality and the time zone. and griffin was used to eating whatever he wanted, staying up really late and basically being the center of everything. so - getting back to reality was tough!

in other news....we have a new niece! Aliyah Grace Lawrence. Matt, Wendy, Alex, Andrew and Addi have welcomed their baby girl. and we are excited to meet her too!

other things we've been up to: had a visit with my parents, my dad had back surgery, went to WI for grandpa bruce's b-day celebration and hung out with dave, cindy, aidan and reese, had some fun wedding-related activities for dyle, taken long bike rides, spending time with the krugers now that they are back in minne, dan had a guys cabin trip, g and i had a girls cabin night, g and i went back to WI for my hometown festival and i caught up with some great hs friends, hanging with jes before she leaves to australia for a 5-month adventure, gone to the beach, have done a lot of babysitting for friends, and dan ran another half marathon. i DO actually have pictures of that...
he did great once again. he had some knee/leg injury...so his training for this event was a little slower than the previous one...but he still was fabulous.

here is griffin trying to give daddy a high five. it took about 5 attempts to actually do it.

and finally - a family photo.

it's been a good summer. it's gone by waaaay too fast, of course. but we have been enjoying every minute of it.

this weekend brings grandma lynne (he calls her grandma precious) to town. we are also going to celebrate dyles wedding on saturday and then sunday dan does the minneapolis duathalon!!

pictures of our trip to come.

dan's run!!

2009-06-16T15:35:00.005-05:00

i forgot one of the most important updates! i thought i had already written about this...it already seems so long ago.

anyway, dan completed his half marathon (13.1 miles) in awesome time. he was shooting for an 8 minute mile and he ran it in 7:44 per mile.
his overall time was 1 hour and 41 minutes.
AND the most impressive thing...he was 158th place out of 2271 runners.

have a looksie.
he wouldn't let me post the photos of him in all of his shirtless glory...so this will have to do.

also - our friends dina and jessica ran this too and did amazing. they both finished in amazing times and looked hot. (and not in just a sweaty kind of way)

where does time go?

2009-06-16T14:26:00.002-05:00

i was so set on keeping this up more regularly when i first started and now it's already mid-june and i haven't updated since the end of may.

we've been busy and having fun.

early june brought the krugers back into town. it's been awesome having them here.

this past weekend:
friday night was spent celebrating melissa's birthday. a great time had...as well as way too many drinks.
saturday, once i finally felt semi-human - we found a cool new park in bloomington that g loved. it's called "chutes and ladders". it was totally like that board game. windy slides, lots of climbing and he really was being adventurous, so that was good to see.
we followed that up with dinner at a place on the light rail line...and of course g sat there in amazement the whole time watching the trains.

sunday dan and i celebrated our 6 year anniversary. laura, lee and mallory were kind enough to take griffin with them to the zoo and keep him for the afternoon, so dan and i spent the day canoeing, hiking, picnicking and even hit the local swimming pool. a really great day to just enjoy each others company and remember what life what like before having a child (i think we spent time talking about him, of course...but nice to have times like that)

of course the train obsession continues. we got griffin's room all together and he's loving it. we have pictures on his walls of train things that we've taken through the last year or two. we also got one of those big yellow RR signs as well as the white crossbucks that say railroad crossing.
the first night he slept in there with the photos on the wall he said goodnight to each and every train photo.
"good night trolley"
"good night osceola train"
"good night jackson street round house"

pretty cute.

so a couple of break-throughs this week:
miss yvonne has been reporting that griffin has been trying fruits lately. i half didn't believe her because we try ALL.THE.TIME. to get him to eat fruits and veggies.
so, last night we gave him watermelon and he exclaimed that it tasted just like candy! and he proceeded to eat the whole dish.
and apparently he had the same sentiment about kiwi too.

the other thing is he spent all evening playing with the neighbor kid last night. this is a big deal because typically he doesn't want to play with many other kids...he just wants to hang out with mom and dad (which of course we love...but we try to encourage playing with other kids too). now granted - they had an electric train setup in the basement and apparently he spent the whole time laying on the floor watching it go around and around...but griffin asked if he could go over there and play and he was there about an hour and a half!

dan and i didn't know what to do with ourselves...we sat outside for awhile waiting for him to come out at any moment...but after awhile, we decided to go do our own thing and managed to get our exercise and dishes done. this socializing thing could be a whole new world for us!

the neighbor reported that griffin sang them the entire song of "folsom prison" by johnny cash. even the "i shot a man in reno, just to watch him die" part. ooops.
i think the train at the beginning of the song is what turned him onto it.

so, that pretty much sums it up.

dan's good - taking a bit of a running break until he gets his knee looked at. still signed up for some half marathons though. work is still at 80% for him - but they are hopeful it'll come around after summer (fridays off aren't too bad...it's just getting used to the reduced pay that still needs to be worked out)

my job is busy and stable and i continue to love it. and i still don't love running.

may updates in photos

2009-05-27T21:51:00.008-05:00

it's been awhile. we've been keeping busy. as the following picts will show...we've done a LOT of train things. this boy is really into it..so it's fun.
in all of the pictures, he's pretty much hanging out the window!

anyway, a good few weeks.

we took a trip to chicago to see our nieces dance recital. aidan and reese were super cute and it was so awesome to see g interacting with his cousins.

we hit his favorite chicago restaurant...the choo choo restaurant.

a train pulls the food out to the customers. i don't think g could get any closer:

but the highlight of the trip was taking the el train around town. he is still talking about it...and how you have to "stay behind the blue line".

he and aidan waved goodbye to the el:

we've been working on griffin's new room. dan's been busy sanding, scraping, painting and getting everything put together. it shouldn't be too much longer. g even picked the accent wall color. (he says blue is his favorite color).

griffin and i went to cheer our friend dina on at her duathalon. she rocked.

this past weekend was a great long holiday weekend. dan and i went to a twins/brewers baseball game which was a lot of fun. then went to pie's surprise 40th.

on sunday we met the friedrichs in taylors falls and did a boat ride.

the weather couldn't have been better. the kids were great and we decided to go 10 miles to osceola, wi and go on a train ride. g loved it.
he and jimmy are super buds:

we followed up the day going to their house for an impromptu bbq and enjoying the weather.

a great couple of weeks - it's crazy how time flys and we are already starting the summer!!

dan runs his 1/2 marathon on sunday. he's going to be awesome. looking forward to cheering him on!!

yay for may

2009-05-08T13:57:00.003-05:00

i'm thrilled the weather is nicer. but it sux because with the changes of weather has come another COLD! i feel that i've pretty much had a cold for the last 6-8 months. sure, i have a week or two of feeling fine...but then it comes back.
this time around i feel ok...just a sinus headache and a persistent cough that annoys the household in the middle of the night. i think i'm banished to the basement this weekend.

anyway - despite that - we are doing well.

last weekend..what did we do...oh, we took the light rail downtown to see a "thomas the train" performance at the target center. the light rail ride was the best part.
of course griffin liked it...but OH MY...was this cheeeeze e. grown adults romping around on stage. i told dan we should have played a drinking game on how many times sir topham hatt said "your a really "useful" engine". (or mostly he told them they were NOT useful engines. what a dick.)
anyway - our sweet boy liked it well enough, so of course it was worth enduring the pain. a $5 soft pretzel with $1 cheese sauce didn't hurt either.
i do have to say though---griffin lit up the most on the light rail.

sunday brought great weather and g and i went to the powderhorn park mayday festival/parade. it was nice to just walk around the park. the parade was a bit of a bust for us...we were at the very end of the route and the parade-participants kinda gave up by that point and half of them just veered off the course before passing us. griffin liked running up and down a hill over and over though. wore me out, but it was good fun.

dan's been busy painting and doing house projects. we are switching griffin to a new room (train themed room, of course). dan's been sanding, priming and painting a lot and it's looking great. our goal is to have the man sleeping in there by memorial day. we still have a lot to do, but it's coming together.

this week has been fairly uneventful. of course my excuse for my lack of exercise is this cold...but that can only last so long..since i apparently have a chronic cold. (and a side note: i have made a dr. appointment. big step..since i do a lot of complaining but never actually GO to the doctor)

we had a small incident at daycare this week that we are feeling a bit sad about (a couple kids ganging up on the sweet little bird). he is such a sweet, sensitive kid that wants to please people and of course as a parent i worry that people will take advantage of that down the road. i'm looking forward to the krugers moving here...maybe chloe can show griffin how to be a bit more sassy and assertive!!

anyway, we are helping him through and he is thriving in so many ways. i feel so lucky to have such a sweet, caring and thoughtful child. he will definitely do good things and i can only hope he touches others the way he has us and makes his sweet little mark on this world.

photo updates

2009-04-30T21:49:00.003-05:00

finally uploading some photos:
easter morning...on the egg hunt

some of the kids he hunted eggs with

sweater vest for easter (not sure how long i'll get away with dressing him in sv's)

chillin' at the breakfast table

at the zoo with cousins. (uncle matt, auntie wendy, alex, andrew and addi came to visit for a couple of days. we had a great time with them and griffin loved being with his cousins). they are expecting a baby girl this fall!)

g and dan in front of the monorail at the zoo

griff holding his ticket for the jackson street roundhouse (train museum) - he didn't want to let go of it...he was super excited!

at the helm

the boy loves his trains

update

2009-04-23T15:44:00.004-05:00

i realized it's been quite awhile since i've updated. i hate letting too much time pass, since i use this to reference what we've been up to, and like to keep a journal of what is new.

dan and i had a date night a couple weeks ago. it was good...except we were home and in bed by 8:30 or so! we had an OVERNIGHT babysitter lined up (thanks to a sweet babysitting exchange we do with our friends beth and jason).
anyway, we drop g off and head to dinner. we decide to go to this burger and fries joint that people have been raving about. except dan and i really haven't eaten fried stuff for so long. so, we start the meal out with cheese curds (which were horrible) and then proceeded to get our burger and fries (and dan got tots).
neither of us finished our meal because we were basically doubled over in pain from eating so much grease. the cheese curds totally ruined it. the burgers were good. of course that didn't stop us from going and getting ice cream cones from DQ. of course not. if you already feel like shit, you may as well stick a bit more fat in your body.
so, our wild night sans child turned into us in bed at 8:30...both complaining about how bad our stomaches hurt. we did manage to watch slumdog millionaire, so at least we achieved something good.
i will say though...the morning was fantastic! rather than wake up and watch cartoons, we both got up and ran (dan 12 miles...me a measly 2), then i still managed to go to target and grocery shop...all before picking the man up at 10 a.m.
he had a great time with his friends, but of course it was awesome to see him.

that night we babysat for jake and sam over at their house. griffin liked playing with his cousins, and i love spending time with them, and teaching them funny dances and words to say to their parents..

then easter was on that sunday. griffin was doing a bit of a croup cough for some reason that a.m., so he got up super early and we had to do the steam and go outside trick. bleh. after a few hours he seemed to be doing fine and we had a little easter egg hunt in our neighborhood. he loved it. it was cute to see the little kiddos hunting for their eggs.
we had a nice breakfast and then went to church, where griffin exclaimed loudly during service that his "peeny was a little warm". i think he also asked if he could touch my boobs too somewhere in there. ooops.
it was a great lazy day though just hanging with the fam.
griffin continued this horribly early wake-up on monday and we had to repeat the routine. but again after a few hours he was doing fine and able to go to daycare.

this past weekend griffin and i traveled to wisconsin. dan stayed home and was able to make some headway on griffins room (we are redoing it). he also had a couple concerts to attend. sounds like 1 of them stunk and the other one was awesome. dan also managed to surprise me and had purchased a new piece of furniture for our living room...its a stereo cabinet and it is awesome!!! it was great coming home to a sweet looking living room.
griffin and i had a great time. friday we just hung with my parents. saturday g, grandpa and i went to breakfast then the boys got haircuts. my mom and i hung out while griffin napped and then that night i spent the evening with some good friends. we had a little get-together in honor of my friend julie. it was awesome to see some old friends i haven't seen since high school, and of course catching up with other friends. a good time was had by all and it was lovely to be able to be there.

this week has been busy - i've had training for work a few days and trying to catch up from being gone.

dan has been continuing to do awesome with his running. he's been doing 1 long run per week (about 12 miles) and 4 of the other days he's doing between 3-6 miles. he's amazing and has totally gotten fit.
i'm working at it still...i'm in week 6 of my training program and still hate running...but it is getting a bit easier i guess. i know it's all mental.

griffin continues to amaze us. he knows all of his upper and lower case letters. and when we are driving he'll read the letters on the sign (he doesn't know how to spell it out to see what they say, but still...he knows them!
he still isn't interested in writing or coloring...but mizz yvonne says that is next on her agenda...so that's good. we try and encourage it, but of course since we don't see him that much in a day...we just want to play and love on the boy at night.

grandma's visit

2009-04-06T15:53:00.003-05:00

we had a great weekend. dan's mom came to town and spent the weekend with us. dan and i both had to work friday, so she spent the day with griffin. they went to the park, played around and had a great time.
over the weekend we managed to color easter eggs, go to the library, get our new bed delivered (yes!), go out to dinner, buy some frames for all the artwork we have for our living room, dan ran a 10-miler, and just generally have a nice, relaxed weekend.

griffin learned a new trick...hanging a spoon from his nose.

i'm so proud. that trick will come in handy, i'm sure, down the road.

in other GREAT news...our friend lee is cancer-free! we are so relieved. he had a scan a couple of months ago that showed enlarged lymphnodes, so he had to do some further tests to make sure his cancer he had 2 years ago hasn't come back. there was a stressful waiting period for them...but in the end...he's free and clear! excellent.

here is a collage of g photos grandma lawrence put together..

updates

2009-03-30T13:51:00.003-05:00

we have had a great few weeks here.
griffin and i have managed to pass the same cold back to one another though. he still has a bit of it and i do as well. i'm sure the changing of the weather isn't helping at all.

this past weekend i met up with some high school friends for dinner on friday. great catching up with them and fun to hear what they are up to. hopefully we'll keep in touch now!
although when i got out to my car after dinner (it was kinda late) someone had sprayed shaving cream all over my drivers side door. LAME.

saturday dan did his long run and g and i spent the morning outside playing. he's getting really good at riding his trike...he loves it. although when i pulled out his little bike to try riding that, he didn't like that so much. he got really mad and kicked it and said, "i can't do it!" awww -learning new things is never easy.
we spent the rest of the day just hanging out, playing, napping and then went to the park and rented movies. we were supposed to go out with some neighbors but it was cancelled, so we cancelled our babysitter. i felt crappy anyway, so it worked out fine.

yesterday we bought a new mattress. i can't WAIT until we get it. it's like sleeping on clouds. it better be for how expensive it was. then ran some errands and i did a workout over griffin's nap.

last monday i went to get my foot looked at. after rollerblading i had horrible pain shooting up my foot/leg. last winter a doctor told me i had a bunion which required surgery (god, i'm like 90 years old). i decided to go into another doctor after i was in such bad pain (all stemmed from wearing tall boots.) anyway - he tells me it's hallux limitus (which is basically arthritis in my toe) - so, i guess i really am 90! i don't know what is worse - a bunion or arthritis! this procedure also requires surgery and he says it won't get better and will only get worse.
i'm just having a really hard time bending my big toe, which leads me to walk on the side of my foot to compensate. It's making exercise a pain.
i know i should get it fixed, but it's starting to feel better this week, so in typical fashion, i will probably avoid for awhile.
basically - i have to accept that i can't wear shoes that are cute.
my extra wide hoof can't hack the trendy boots and heels anymore.
i'm going to have to start buying these:

or these:

or these:

my friend commented last week when we were walking that i sounded like her grandma...because i was telling her about a great deal i got on a whole bunch of clothes and i told her that this pair of pants was only $4! i told her that i didn't know if they fit me, but for $4, they'll fit someone i know. she's like..."ummm...you are totally like a grandma...buying random clothes for people, because it was such a good bargain."

pretty soon i'm going to start wearing sweatshirts with puppies on it, and polyester pants. at least that will look nice with my new shoes i just ordered above....

february and march in pictures..

2009-03-22T21:02:00.006-05:00

finally updating with photos! here is what we've been up to in february and march...

getting his valentines for his friends ready

bowling in the dells

waterpark

MOA aquarium (waste o' money)

birthday train cake.

steam engine on the train cake

cousin sammy and griffin posing by the cake!

still staring at the cake...he loved it.

different day...still staring at it.

finally eating it!

fun birthday weekend visit with grandma and grandpa teeter

the 3 year old!

showing off his hat (wishing it would warm up!)

present from grandma lawrence! of course he loves it...it's trains!

finally warm enough to get outside and ride his trike!

to griffin...

2009-03-16T09:35:00.003-05:00

today our little boy is 3.
3 years ago today, we were at the hospital, about ready to be wheeled in for our c-section surgery. you were breech, so we had a planned c-section, as we didn't want to go through the process of having you turned. sounded too painful and the outcome didn't have great odds.

It was a thursday. we sort of got to choose the day. it was dan's spring break from grad school, so we wanted to have it earlier in the week so he could spend more time at home, but that is the earliest they would do it.

around 10:25 a.m. you were born. you were the sweetest little thing. you had this really dark hair and a LOT of it. we were both in such awe that we had a little baby!

the funny thing from the delivery room...our doctor is irish and he plays in a band. the next day was st. paddy's day and he was chatting up the nurses telling them he played out the next day at keirans. they were asking what time they should get there so they could have good seats and he was just flirting away telling them the best food on the menu, etc. i'm thinking to myself...."ummmm...you have a sharp tool that your cutting me open with...and there is a human in there. pay f__king attenion!!!" for him...this was just another day at the office. but he did great, and he would later comment how awesome the scar was. he kept saying..."this is the smallest scar...it's just beautiful!" (even at my 6-week post pardum appt. he brought someone in there to show them what a great job he did..)

anyway, back to my baby.

i can't believe that 3 years has gone by. to think of all of the things you have learned, how much you've grown and how much happiness you have brought us. we are in constant amazement over things you do and say. you are the happiest little boy, you listen, you are sensitive and sweet and you make us smile and laugh all the time.

the first few months seems like a blur. dan was finishing grad school, we were trying to figure out life with a little baby, and we had to start jobs or go back to jobs that we didn't like...and leave you with miss yvonne. that was so hard.

but, we got the hang of being parents, you started growing more, smiling, laughing and becoming more mobile. we loved you so much that very first moment we laid eyes on you, but as the months passed and things became more of a routine, we realized how much we had fallen in love with you and how you seemed like you were a perfect fit to create our family of 3. we can't remember what it was like before you were here. nor do we want to.

it's an amazing feeling to be your parents. we learn so much from you. we have learned patience, understanding, sadness, happiness and how to enjoy the small things. the best times we have is when your telling us a story, or pretending to be a lion, or telling daddy to drive fast because the polar bear is chasing us!
the funny things you say makes us happy each and every day.

you are really into pretending right now. it is so awesome to listen to you craft your story and use your imagination. you have great manors (probably a lot of that is thanks to miss yvonne), you are always considerate, you love to snuggle, and you are a very sweet and sensitive little boy.
the other day you told me that you just wanted to be sad for a little bit because mommy had taken away a piece of paper you were playing with and you needed to feel sad. then when i felt sad about it, you hugged me and said, "it's ok mommy, i'm happy now!"

you love reading books, you love trains, you love giving hugs and kisses, you love music, dancing (or shaking your booty as you like to say), you love pretending, you love helping us cook, snuggling and being outside.

we are so proud of the little boy you have become and all of the amazing things that make you happy. you make us so happy to be your parents and we wish you a very happy 3rd birthday. we love you.

cake overload

2009-03-12T21:58:00.003-05:00

so yeah...i have to obsess about something.
first it was taking a trip. every night i scoured every travel website looking for the ultimate deal. i would spend hours researching and comparing prices from site to site. then i would cross reference with trip advisor where there are unbiased reviews of the hotels. it got to the point that taking a trip wasn't even exciting anymore. i felt like i had already been to ixtapa, or puerto vallarta or riviera maya...just because i had researched the hell out of it. anyway - my trip dream was put to rest when dan's work has taken on reduced hours (and pay) in hopes of pulling through the economy.

so...what the hell do i do with my time after griffin goes to bed now???? clean? no. exercise? pfft. write letters, read books, start doing some of the hobbies i enjoy that i don't make time for anymore? or update this blog? no. i decide that i have to put all my efforts into making the perfect birthday cake for griffin.

what is our sweet boy into these days? trains - of course. so, i will build a train engine cake for him. but - it doesn't stop there. i have morphed my train engine idea into the full island of sodor. i think i'm biting off more than i can chew. but - my baby NEEDS a tunnel, a circus train car, an oil tanker and a mountain (all made of cake and candy). i have a vision. and tomorrow night - dan and i will be turning it into reality. unless we drink too much wine while decorating and wind up f'ing it all up. then we will go get a dq cake.
so, yeah. that's what i've been researching, thinking about and sketching each night. i hope i don't let myself down..i have such big ideas in my head!

other than my cake obsession - we have been keeping busy. we had our last night of music class this past week. it's been fun, and we will miss it...but i'm good and tired of all the songs. i hope we still get together with the group now and then for fun nights on tuesdays.

this past weekend dan and i celebrated his birthday with a great dinner out on friday night. it was fantastic. saturday dan went to see the watchmen at the imax with his friends. i had wine club (i mean - book club), and did a workout with my friends.

sunday we had a family day and went to the midtown market for lunch and to walk around. there was a woman playing her guitar and singing and g was dancing up a storm. she had a tip jar out so i gave grif a buck to put in her jar. he walked up there so cutely and kept turning around looking at me to direct him where to put the dollar. i was pointing and he walked right past the tip jar and dropped the dollar in the large garbage can. it was pretty humorous.

dan continues to train for his 1/2 marathon and i continue to barely make it off the couch for my training. but - it's going. i have had a bit of a cold off and on for the past couple of weeks, so that tends to be my excuse for my lack of energy. (couple that with the fact that i'm up till 2 in the a.m. thinking about my cake and i'm tired!)

this weekend my parents are coming to visit for griffin's birthday. he turns 3 on monday! my brother and family will come over for dinner and the train cake (or DQ cake...i guess we'll wait and see).

i swear we are going to finally take some photos and post them. we would be the worst parents ever if we didn't take picts for his birthday - so for sure we'll have some picts next week.

ok - gotta go get the mountain cake out of the oven...

fun weekend

2009-03-02T13:42:00.003-06:00

we had a great weekend. friends bridget and shane came to visit with their kids (kallie & wyatt)
we had a great time catching up and we managed to do quite a bit.
we went to a timberwolves bb game on friday night. the kids enjoyed it. griffin liked watching the mascots and all the lights. the game itself was pretty unmemorable and boring.
saturday we went to the moa. it was SOOO busy. i have not seen it that busy before, even at christmas. but, it was still a good time and the kids liked going on rides.
that night we just hung out at our house, had some drinks and food and enjoyed the company.

griffin loved hanging out with their kids. they were so good with him too. dan and i barely had to lift a finger all weekend...they kept him pretty entertained!

yesterday what i thought were allergies has now turned into a full-blown cold and i feel like shit. hopefully i can shake it soon!

this week is dan's birthday. wednesday night. he's looking forward to a night watching Lost. (not much different than any other Wednesday night). his request is to have one of his comfort foods from his childhood....$5000 casserole. Not sure of the exact ingredients, other than it has cream of mushroom. of course. all caseroles have that.

nothing much to report. griffin continues to be funny and sweet.

dan and i have started our running training. he's got a 14 week program for his half-marathon he's running in may. I've just got my "couch-to-5k" program. the couch is way better, in my opinion.

finally updating!

2009-02-23T12:00:00.003-06:00

wow, it's been awhile since i've posted.
i'm super busy at work, and then after g goes to bed, when i typically would update this blog...i've been obsessing about taking a trip, so pretty much spent every night looking for deals.

so, what's been up with us...we've been really busy and having lots of fun.

a couple weeks ago dan had his work party at the office. g and i came and ate our way around the party. the fish head with the eyeballs didn't appetize us, but plenty of other junk to eat! his parties are always great. we spent another weekend evening at pete/kims house having s'mores and watching the kids play. g, haugen and burke are becoming quite chummy.
i was able to go out one night to my friend myra's party. she had just gotten back from a 2-week trip to africa and she had her photos. it looked to have been an amazing experience...helping be part of an orphanage clinic being built and also climbing mt. kili.
last weekend we got out of town. we went to THE DELLS! it was a nice little valentines day get-away. and it was just what we needed to feel a bit more rejuvinated! we spent a lot of time in the waterpark. griffin is pretty timid of the water still..but he loved watching others splash around. there were a few things he was comfortable doing and he had a great time with that.
we had a new experience for him as well - we went bowling! he liked that, and it was nice to be able to do something fun, and he kept himself entertained.
in addition to that - we saw family, spent time with our super friend, and just had a great long weekend.

oh, a couple of concerts have also highlighted our past few weeks. we saw michael franti and spearhead...which has to be one of my top 5 concerts of all times. it was amazing...a totally positive vibe and lots of energy. dan saw some metal show, which i can't really report on...but he's been talking about it alot since then, so it must have been good. i have no idea how to spell the name...but it sounds like more sugar. i think it's meshuggah. on a positive note - he was worried he'd get forearm acne from all the mosh-pitting and that didn't happen - so score one for dan!

the past weekend we took g to the aquarium at the moa. he liked it...i thought it was a rip-off. luckily we had discount tickets!
saturday night dan and i had a babysitter and had a date! we went to a great restaurant in sw mpls - la chaya. it was GREAT. after dinner we were able to see our friend steve from london who was in town visiting.

yesterday griffin got a cute new haircut and then we went to choo choo bobs. he loves that place, and always has so much fun watching the electric trains going around and around. he could sit there for hours.
last night i rounded out the weekend by going to a concert at the varsity with some work friends. we saw gary louris and mark olson (of the jayhawks). it was a fantastic show and i love that venue. luckily it was an early show, so i was able to get home and get some sleep!

griffin has been a lot of fun lately and he's really articulating what he wants to say and saying the most adorable things.
he did say "poopyhead" yesterday - so dan and i had to let him know that wasn't funny to say. ooops. all of our "poop talk" from his younger days must have caught up.

he's been so much better in the eating department. he's trying at least a bite of everything so we are thrilled about that.

music class has been fun...he seems to enjoy having all his little friends over. i'm getting sick of the songs, but i'm trying to come up with new stuff to do each week (the kids don't always like doing new ones, but i can only stand to hear some of these songs so much)
last tuesday at class he and haugen were jumping on his bed after class and it was funny to hear them talking to one another. it's so crazy how quickly time has flown by. they are carrying on conversations! i called griffin out to the living room to tell him something and i heard him tell haugen: "haugen, i'll be right back, my mom needs me. ok, haugen? stay here, i'll be right back".
he comes running out and is like "yes, mama?"
i doubt he'll be obeying like that in a few years from now! but at least for this moment dan and i the most important thing and he will come a-runnin when we call him. he's a sweetie for sure.

i got some new running shoes and am going to really try sticking to a training program. this is my last ditch effort at running. i think i hate it...but i want to be sure. i know it's mostly mental - so if i can get over that hump, i really WANT to like running - it's easy, convenient and a good workout when your crunched for time. but, if i REALLY try for the next couple of months to stick to a program and still hate it at the end - i think i'm going to just accept it and do other things that i do enjoy.
dan has been AWESOME at running. he was a runner in high school, so i think it comes naturally. he's been going regularly and saturday he ran for an hour straight. wowza. his goal is to do a couple of half marathons this year, as well as a duathalon. i'm amazed at how motivated he is. now if some of that would rub off on me...

i will post some photos one of these days. i don't think we took any photos since christmas - so we really need to get the camera out.

wheel of sickness

2009-02-06T13:54:00.003-06:00

we have been trading off who has been sick in our house. i was feeling a bit crappy a few weeks ago. then griffin, then dan...and now me again! i think i'm on the upward swing, but this week has been a long one.

we had music class tuesday night and though it was a smaller class, everyone had fun. i tried to incorporate a couple of new songs in our repertoire, but g didn't want to have anything to do with them. he voiced his opinion loudly telling me, "i don't like this song, shut it off!" who doesn't like james taylor??? apparently griffin. i guess he doesn't have a friend in grif.

this yo, gabba gabba show that i mentioned in my last post...damn. seriously. THIS is the kind of show i need to create. just complete trippy nonsense that has catchy tunes and you are wondering how on earth people are dancing around in these costumes and singing about snacky snack snacks, but yet your kicking yourself that it wasn't your genius idea. i make up at least a few songs each week that has as good of lyrics as dj lance and his gabba land characters.
anyway, this has been the show of choice for the past week. we let griffin watch 30 minutes of tv each night before bed...and this has been his pick. i will just have to be jealous that i didn't come up with this idea before nick jr. picked it up.

the weekend should be swell - tonight dan has his company anniversary party. g and i will head over there for a bit to eat some snacky snack snacks.

tomorrow we are going to get our taxes done. our tax dude is awesome...he makes all kinds of fantastic noises while doing our taxes. he takes his spit and swishes it around in his mouth in many different ways. and he does all of this clicking and clucking with his mouth. it's really fascinating to listen to. i have to make sure not to laugh out loud.

tomorrow night i will go out to celebrate myra's belated birthday and hear all about her trip to africa and climbing mt. kili! looking forward to catching up with some friends.

january - be gone

2009-01-30T21:39:00.003-06:00

tomorrow is the last day of january - thank goodness. we are tired of the cold and this month has been a long, cold one.

the boys wound up sick last weekend. griffin wasn't himself last thursday and by friday night he had a fever and was just really tired. dan and i had a feeling...and we were right. he woke up around 11:30 with the croup cough. ugh. so, we spent the rest of the night/early morning outside in the cold, or in the steam shower. that seems to help him. he finally fell asleep for an hour or two around 6 a.m., so dan and i were able to get a bit of sleep.

saturday morning dan babysat for burke while i tried to get g feeling better. we did a lot of watching tv and laying around. that afternoon i managed to get out to have a bit of fun. dina, nena and i met for pedicures and an early dinner. we decided that since jes and julie were soaking up the sun in mexico and we were stuck in the crap -20 weather that we should treat ourselves. it was great hanging out and getting pampered.
by the time i got home saturday evening, griffin was starting to feel better, but dan started feeling sick. griffin managed to sleep most of the night on saturday night, only waking up once, but with not too bad of croup symptoms.

sunday brought griffin feeling better and dan feeling worse. i took g to choo choo bobs to get out of the house for a bit...we all needed a break from the tv watching.

monday griffin was pretty much back to normal, so we decided that i should go ahead with my work trip as planned. dan stayed home from work that day to fully recover.

my work trip was good. i went on a couple of press checks and managed to have fun with my co-workers. i got home wednesday night and it was great to see my boys.
dan was feeling better and g was good.

this weekend is pretty low-key. tomorrow night we are babysitting george and jimmy overnight. i'm sure it will be fun...especially for griffin and jimmy to play together.

apparently it's supposed to warm up to 30 tomorrow. woo. a heat wave.

not much else to report...except that whoever created the tv show "yo, gabba gabba" had to be tripping on acid.

updates

2009-01-21T10:31:00.002-06:00

it's been awhile. i have actually been busy at work and then don't have a ton of time at night to update. i could say because it's all of the freelance work i've been doing (which is true), or the exercise i have been doing (umm, yeah), but in reality...i've been spending my nights searching caribbean destinations. not to say those dreams will become reality...but it gives me something to think about, other than this crap weather.

just to be ready if anything ever came up...we went this past weekend to apply for a passport for the little man. (and renew mine). a total racket. they charged $17 per picture (and your required to have 2), so between mine and g's...it was $68 for the pictures alone, as well as $100 for my passport to be renewed and $85 for his! there goes our trip money. i guess we just get in our swimsuits, flash our new passports around and eat chips/salsa while wearing fanny packs, large brimmed hats and a camera around our neck. oh, maybe to be real authentic, i can go get some braids put in my hair. sweet.

in other news...our music class has gone surprisingly well. the parents really get into it, which is awesome, and the kids all seem to enjoy it. it's cute watching them all interact with each other. i'm guessing our neighbors are wondering what kind of kinky shit we are into...as they probably see a bunch of grown adults marching around while doing hip moves and hand gestures. (the windows are just high enough they probably don't see the cute little kiddos that are also in our train line as we pass the windows).
anyway - it's going great and all (but 1) parent came back last night for round 2.
dan is going to have to lead it next week, as i have to go out of town for work. he'll be great. although - he may try to mix it up with his metal music (griffin calls it "cookie monster" music)

last weekend i went out to dinner to celebrate emilie's life. it was on her birthday. it was great to celebrate such a wonderful person - with people that knew her in the same capacity as i did. it was fun to catch up, chat with these lovely women and of course eat loads of carbs at buca.

the first week of 09

2009-01-11T15:05:00.003-06:00

so far 09 is off to a fairly decent start.
things are picking up a lot a work, which makes the days go by quickly.
this weekend was a good one. we were able to see some friends, fit in some exercise, get some cleaning done and put together our plan for our music class.

we did have to make a pit stop to walmart yesterday. that is the only place that sells the filters for our brand of humidifier. sorry in advance if this offends anyone...but that place is a shithole. dan and i were immediately put in foul moods just by stepping foot in the store (actually, for me it started in the parking lot). it is dirty, poorly laid out, completely disorganized and it just gives you a nasty feeling. after spending about 10 minutes looking for something particular, i asked an employee and they just stared at me and said, "i don't think we have that". (a shower curtain liner? really?) anyway - besides that awful 30 minutes of our day, the weekend has been great.

so, we had taken griffin to music together music classes when he was a year old. we took about 5 sessions of this and griffin seemed to enjoy it...but it's gotten super expensive and didn't seem to be worth it anymore. i had some lame-o idea that we could recreate the music class at our own house. dan went along with my idea and we promptly put off doing anything about it. well - class starts on tuesday! and we actually have a bunch of friends and their kids coming over. this will be humorous.

we just burned our master "class" cd today. next we have to practice. we were dancing around the living room this morning (ummm..maybe it was just me), while griffin looked at me as if saying "who's mom are you? i'm not going to claim you, your embarrasing yourself".
usually singing to a captive audience is right up my alley, but it usually involves alcohol and the lyrics to alanis morrisette on the karoke screen. i'm not sure if my antics will hold a bunch of 2-3 year olds attention! if nothing else - it will be fun to have griffins buddies over (i imagine in 15 years the same buddies will come over and be like, "hey, remember when your mom showed all of us her awesome musical abilities? she is so cool, how do you even stand it? your so lucky g-dawg!" - or, you know...something like that)

the year in review

2009-01-03T21:58:00.000-06:00

2008 was a good year. some sad moments, some scary moments and some amazing moments.

i will try to briefly recap some of the highlights:

january:
• we started the year out right...bringing in the new year with good friends.
• the next weekend, we got a quick overnight visit to dan's dad in wi. rapids. we followed that up with an overnight stay with friends sam, marta, bridget, shane and kids at sam/marta's near menasha, wi.
• i was also able to enjoy a 4-night vacation with my girlfriends. i went to isla mujeres, mexico with nena, jes and julie. we had an amazing time. it was tough being away from griffin, but he and dan enjoyed themselves.
• upon getting back from mexico, unfortunate circumstances brought melissa, martin and the girls to mn (for a funeral). it was great to see them though, even if it was brief.
• griffin wound up in the emergency room with a case of croup. we had to call an ambulance because we had no idea what was going on. we woke up to a faint wheezing sound and when we went to check on him, he was not able to take a breath and he appeared blue. we freaked. as soon as we went outside with him, he caught his breath. we were in the hospital for the night, and upon receiving treatments...he was as good as new. no further symptoms. thank goodness.

february:
• i can't remember too much about february! apparently nothing too thrilling happened. lots of hanging out inside. i'm sure we also went to the mall of america alot...we were there on weekends to walk, and we would let griffin go on rides.

march:
• dan's birthday was at the beginning of the month. he spent a night in chicago with his brothers, then another night in wisconsin dells.
• we had another major scare that led us to childrens hospital icu. griffin again had severe croup. this time we felt a bit more prepared so we rode it out a few days doing the steam shower/going outside. it became worse, so in we went to childrens. it ended up turning very severe. the doctors told us they hadn't seen a case turn so extreme so quickly. he was hooked up to heliox for a few days and was under a watchful eye until he could breathe on his own better. such an eye opening experience. as scared as we were about griffin - we knew that he'd get better...but other children that were there - weren't so lucky. it was definitely an experience that made us appreciate this precious life, and hug our baby tighter.
• we followed up this ordeal celebrating griffin's 2nd birthday. (got out of the hospital the day before his birthday).
• we rounded out the month with my parents coming to visit.
• i also started a new job on march 24. it was a much needed change and i love it. malt-o-meal is a great company to be a part of!

april:
• we spent april trying all kinds of malt-o-meal cereals that i was able to bring home from work. i think we ate enough to last us awhile.
• besides that - april brought a visit from dave, cindy, aidan and reese. a great time hanging out with them!
• i think the rest of the month was spent resting up for the busy summer that we were about to have.....

may:
• i spent a weekend in wisconsin. i went down for my friend lisa's wedding shower/bachelorette party. i spent friday with my parents, and then saturday drove to wisconsin dells to spend the night at a cabin to celebrate!
• we went to denver memorial day weekend to spend it with melissa, martin, chloe and nicollette. we rented a place in aspen and had a super time exploring, driving around the mountains, swimming and just enjoying the scenery.

june:
• started the month out with a visit from dan's dad. he took the amtrak up. it was great to have him. we took him to a few places around town, and dan took him to a twins-yankees game. sunday i did the 8k rollerblade race for the grand old day. dan and bruce joined us for the parade.
• we had a cabin trip to phil's place near bemidji. a great time and nice to get away. griffin loved it!
• later in the month, dan and i celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary with an overnight in stillwater at a bed & breakfast. it was awesome.
• we spent another weekend in wisconsin for our friend lisas wedding...griffin enjoyed the waterpark with grandma lawrence! on the way home the 3 of us went to the jack johnson/mason jennings concert...g LOVED it.
• the month finished with us leaving on a week-long family vacation.

july:
• we enjoyed our family vacation. first was waunakee where we got to see some friends, a parade, and spend time with my parents. we met up with wendy, andrew and addi at the zoo in madison. the grandmas joined us too. we headed to milwaukee for a couple days and enjoyed summerfest, waterpark and the zoo. we rounded out the trip in chicago visting dave, cindy, aidan and reese. we had a great time and were able to celebrate dave's birthday with him with a night on the town. grandma lynne was there so the kids were in good hands!
• later this month i took a trip out to boise, idaho to attend my cousins wedding. it was a lot of fun and good to spend a weekend with my parents and brother, as well as grandma and aunts/uncles and cousins.
• towards the end of the month we did another cabin trip - this time to pie's cabin. griffin had fun on the paddle boat!
• we had a couple of concerts - saw our wedding band play at an outdoor pavillion. g was cute dancing around.

august:
• the month started out with me doing the st. paul inline marathon.
• dan enjoyed a long weekend with his dad....they went up to powers, michigan to visit family and go on a fishing trip.
• another weekend brought the krugers back into town...this time for a happier event - a wedding! it was great to spend the weekend with them. we babysat the kids while they went to the wedding.
• the unfortunate passing of my dear friend, nuala brought a sadness to august. she had ovarian cancer. she was an amazing person, full of life. she is sadly missed.

september:
• labor day weekend brought a fun visit from grandma lawrence. we went to the state fair, on a long bike ride, trolley rides and had a great time.
• the big news of this month: griffin is potty trained! we started in august and he was officially trained by labor day!
• we saw a couple of concerts this month.
• i did the iron girl duathalon! biking and running. it was tough, but felt great to finish.
• baby mal had her 1st birthday party, so we had a good time going to that, as well as a benefit for jes' dad.
• we said goodbye to the jeep. after 18 years of being in my family - the last 2 with us - it finally bit the dust. we are attempting to be a 1-car family.

october:
• another great visit from melissa. she came alone this time, so it was fun to hang out.
• we were able to go to sandusky, ohio to visit dan's brother and family. dave, cindy and the girls surprised us all and joined us out there..great to see everyone. we went to the zoo, cedar point amusement park, hung out at the waterpark and had a good time seeing matt/wendy's new house and their new town!
• dan and i had a date night and saw mason jennings in concert. beau and amy hung with the little man while we were gone!
• towards the end of the month, another person i know passed away. katie was my friend julie's good friend and i'd met and hung out with her on occasion. the cause of her death is still unknown. very shocking and sad.
• on a happier note - it was my birthday on the 26th and we went out with friends and had a great time singing karoke!
• we finished the month out with my parents coming to visit for halloween weekend. griffin enjoyed trick-or-treating dressed as thomas the train, and we enjoyed some fun time in stillwater with my parents too.

november:
• i hosted a soup night with my neighbors. we all made different types of soups and exchanged them. it was fun!
• i was able to go see wicked with some co-workers...it was amazing!
• dan and i, along with friends, went to see the hold steady and drive-by-truckers. it was the best show i went to this year. laura was awesome and came over to watch griffin.
• thanksgiving came and we had a great visit with grandma lawrence. we went on a polar express train ride, saw the holidazzle parade, got our christmas tree, and dan and i finished the weekend by going to a vikings/bears game. it was fun, even if we don't like either team!

december:
• started the month off with a couple of cookie exchanges. i have had enough cookies to last all of 09 i think.
• dan's holiday party was in the middle of the month...we enjoyed an awesome dinner and wine and his company was very generous this year. our friends beth and jason spent the evening with g.
• we hosted a holiday party at our house. it was fun to have our friends over and enjoy their company before we left on our trip.
• we left for wisconsin and spent time with the lawrences. great to see everyone. we missed seeing bruce, dave, cindy and the girls this year. we were sad about that. we wound up at my parents house where we had a wonderful time and griffin really enjoyed christmas.
• car problems kept us there a bit longer than we expected, but it turned out alright in the end.
• a friend passed away from cancer toward the end of the month. emilie was a friend i met 6 years ago when planning our weddings. she was an amazing person with such zest for life. she was a person that truly lived her life to the fullest and she will be missed deeply. i am very sad for her husband and her 2 young children.
• to end on a happy note - we spent new years eve with wonderful friends. we started out at pete/kims where the kids all hung out. from there we headed over to dina and lyles where griffin promply went to sleep and we were able to share a great meal, drinks and laughs with close friends.

overall - the year was decent. griffin has been a constant joy watching him grow. we are amazed at how much he's learned this year and how his personality has developed. dan and i couldn't be luckier to have this little man in our lives.

we are looking forward to 2009 and all the changes it will bring our country. we are hopeful we can get through the year healthy and no er trips. dan and i want to make a change to our health and increase our fitness level and make healthy eating for our family a priority.
i want to work on treating people with more respect, not being judgemental, be more kind and patient and try to be a better friend, wife and mom.
my thoughts go out to everyone that has lost loved ones this year and i hope they can find peace.
i am thankful for my amazing family, friends and job.

here is to a great 2009! happy new year!

home, sweet home

2008-12-30T15:31:00.005-06:00

it's been quite awhile since i've written.
we had a busy couple of weeks.
we spent the week before our trip getting things ready, having a holiday party, finishing up with work obligations and just generally trying to prepare for christmas.
we left monday the 22nd for wisconsin. we spent monday evening with grandma lawrence and matt, wendy, alex, andrew and addi. it was great seeing them and griffin loved spending time with his cousins.

tuesday was supposed to have been a trip to see dan's dad...but weather didn't agree with that plan. wisconsin has really gotten pummeled with snow. they have SO much more than we do.
we made our way to my parents and hunkered down for a lovely christmas. gregg, dawn, jake and sam arrived as well and we had a super time. again - griffin loved hanging with the teeter cousins.

santa was way too generous with everyone...these stockings are just a taste of it.

griffin really enjoyed everything about christmas. you could really feel the magic.

we were able to celebrate my mom's birthday with her, spend time playing piano,

playing with all the new toys, making gingerbread houses (mostly griffin ate the candy and frosting right off the house),

after a bit too much frosting...he was pretty happy.

playing a lot of hide-and-seek (griffins new favorite game) and just having a nice relaxing time.
my mom and i were able to get away and see a movie...the curious case of benjamin button. it was really good. (although it was about 3 hours long!)

we attemped to leave saturday to go see dan's dad...but again..our plan was foiled. our car wouldn't start. we had it towed and they couldn't fix it until monday...so we ended up spending a few more days with my parents. we got to see a few friends here and there, see dan's mom a few more times and extend our vacation a bit. as much as we needed to get home (jobs/house/responsibilities) it was nice to have some extra time.

we were bummed to have missed dan's dad, as well as dave, cindy and the girls. the holidays didn't seem complete without seeing all of the family. hopefully in the coming months we can see everyone we didn't get a chance to see.

on a sad note, a friend of mine passed away from complications from cancer. emilie passed away tuesday night, dec. 23. please keep her family in your thoughts...her sons ben (9 months) and daniel (2.5) will surely miss their beautiful mother. she was one of those people that was just a truly good soul. upon meetiing her, you were drawn in. she was creative, smart, witty and even in the ugly face of cancer, she found good in things. definitely a person to look up to and she has affected my life in so many positive ways by having known her. i feel lucky to have had the opportunity.

i was pretty bummed to have missed her funeral yesterday...since we were stuck in wi.

as i have mentioned before - this whole cancer bullshit is out of control. i have known too many people that have died from this.
2009 has got to a better year...there were numerous people i have known that have died this year.

On a happier positive note...it's good to be home.

here are a few more pictures from christmas
griffin really liked playing with grandma lawrence's dogs!

he LOVED his new conductor outfit from mwaaa:

and, his new big wheel from grandma and grandpa - he went around and around the house on this...

santa sucks

2008-12-15T21:56:00.005-06:00

saturday we decided to take g downtown to macy's to see the 8th floor display (a day in the life of an elf) and then meet the big man in red. he's been talking about santa quite a bit, since his 20-day marathon of the polar express.
so...we take the light rail. griffin was excited to get on the train. here he is posing at the station.

"where is that train?", he wonders.

things were still going great as we headed downtown.

we get there and had a bit of a wait for that elf display. it was cute enough and griffin was tolerable of the wait.
after we made our way through that, we jump in line to see santa. i had high hopes for this...i had already seen photos from someone at work with the santa from macy's...and he was a good one. the real white hair and beard, big and fat, rosy cheeks and a jolly fella.
so, we proceed to wait about 40 minutes through a horrible line that doesn't really go anywhere.
what i didn't like was that you don't get to see what your in for. you have to wait and wait and finally after all that waiting, they let a few people behind the doors and you wait some more for your turn. the first time you get to see s-man is when you walk around the corner into this lame photo studio they have setup (clearly they want to make this all about having to purchase photos).

anyway, g starts losing patience about 5 minutes before we are up. he's crying and wants to go home. ummm...no. we are this close. so, we round the bend and take a look at santa and griffin loses it.

i would too. this santa SUCKED. he weighed about the same as griffin...not the fat man you would expect. he had fake hair and beard, and he didn't say one word. just sat there and stared at us. he didn't try to talk to griffin or get him to feel more comfortable. he sits there looking all meek and fake.

so...here is our coveted santa shot we were so excited to get this year.

not unlike last year...

first attempt he was crying his eyes out.

then i had to get myself into the shot for him to even tolerate. never thought i'd have my photo with santa so many times!

next year i think i'll come prepared and actually take a shower before we head out. chances are good i'll be getting my picture taken.

faith in humanity..

2008-12-12T15:55:00.002-06:00

i think everyone in the world reads this blog. If you don't - you should.
his latest post is absolutely amazing. it renews my faith in good people. an anonymous person donated $25,000 to a wonderful charity in matt, liz and madelines name.
matt chose to share his horrible loss with the world through his blog and we were all riveted and brought into his world through his brutal honesty through writing and photography. instead of curling up in a ball and sinking into misery (which i imagine would be very easy to do)...he has brought good to others through getting people to open their eyes to other people in need. because of him sharing his story and publicly endorsing this charity...some good soul has donated enough money to brighten many childrens lives.

anyway...some days you wonder if there are any decent folks left. and then you hear of stories like this.

it's easy to be fearful that our kids will grow up in a totally f'd up world. so many bad things going on, an economy that is going down the toilet, a war that is taking so many lives, unspeakable crimes going on every day. but things like this make you stop and think that there is hope.

anyway - i'm feeling good...went to see a holiday show last night with work friends, tomorrow night we have dan's swanky holiday party and tonight i'll spoil my baby.

griffin apparently has impressed mizz y. with his smarts. he knew all of his letters by sight except for 3. he even helped a girl that is 6 months older than him and showed her where "n" was. show off. ha.

he told me this morning to stop pushing him (i was trying to get him to stop jumping on his bed so that i could put his socks on..i slightly nudged him onto his pillow so he would sit for a minute). he said clear as day..."mommy, don't push me anymore, i not like it". i responded back, "ok...but then you need to listen to me then, deal?" he then says, "deal" and puts out his hand to shake on it. funny.
so now...whenever i want him to do something...i'll have him shake my hand to seal the deal.

oh, and in exciting news - we have finally broke him of his 20-day stretch of watching polar express every.single.night. ahhh. i was getting mighty sick of tom hanks and that whiny fricken kid.

feelin good

2008-12-10T21:31:00.003-06:00

griffin is pretty much back to normal. the weekend was more of him waking up early and having that croup cough, but by monday things were back to normal. thank goodness.
the past weekend was pretty low-key...just hanging around the house getting our man back to full health. sunday i had a cookie exchange which was good fun.

this week has been fairly uneventful. we got some snow monday, so that ended up cancelling my plans to head to wisconsin for a press check. instead we've had a nice few evenings at home.

my friends and i started a weekly work out night at my house. we have such a big upstairs, so once a week we are getting together and doing a workout dvd together after g goes to bed. last night we did "jillians 30 day shred". it was a good one. i'm sore today.

tonight griffin had a little outing to choo choo bobs. it was a nice change of pace for him to get out of the house and he loved it. he loves all of those electric trains going around.
we are realizing that we need to find different things to keep griffin occupied. when we are at home he wants to watch movies (video clips from our digital camera, which are downloaded to our computers) all. the. time. so yeah...good to get out.

a few pictures from recently:

griffins new haircut. he looks like such a big boy!!! where did the time go?

sledding:

croupy crap

2008-12-05T21:34:00.002-06:00

so, i stayed home from work with griffin today....he woke up with the croup cough. he was having a tough time catching an inward breath and had that barky cough.
we had him in the steam and also outside and it seemed to help. by the time dan left for work griffin was doing pretty well...but anytime he gets upset...the cough comes back. so....we do everything we can not to upset him (doctors orders).

sometimes i think he takes advantage of that. he knows on days like this we'll do what he wants to not get him riled up.
he demanded to watch the video clips on my computer about 10 times, and had me play exactly the way he wanted me to all day.

when he took a nap, i attempted to make a bunch of cookies. i have a couple of cookie exchanges coming up. i decided to try some new kinds...i don't think they turned out that awesome. the first one i made...i got distracted by something and i'm fairly certain i dumped in an extra cup of flour by accident. the second one took longer than i thought and i don't think it was worth the effort. griffin helped once he woke up and dumped sprinkles all over everything...so that adds a special touch...
oh, and he snuck dough when i wasn't looking. at least he seems to like the cookies.

so, tonight dan and i have the monitor cranked up to 11. i'm sure we'll be sleeping pretty light tonight. let's hope it was just a day of this and all will be better tomorrrow!! we are obviously a bit paranoid after march.

photo update from thanksgiving weekend...

2008-12-03T21:15:00.011-06:00

griffin wearing my slippers...

my attempt at a self portrait. (sorry about that, little man)

griffin and dad at the christmas tree barn

griffin and grandma l. looking up a silo

g in his christmas (cosby) sweater

griffin and his matching sweater monkey

griffin and the polar express elf (the big smile indicates that he likes her...)

griffin and santa on the polar express (doesn't have as big of a smile as above photo...)

griffin giving his full approval of tooty fruitys cereal at my work

hollidazzle parade downtown

fireplace and christmas tree

51 facts

2008-12-01T15:30:00.003-06:00

so, i meant to post 50 random facts about myself in honor of my 50th post on this blog. but...i just ruined that by posting about my thanksgiving update...so this post has now been changed to "51 random facts about me...)

this blog was originally started to journal about my little man, but it's evolved into more than that...so rather than gush about 50 things i love about griffin (which i'm sure i could come up with way more than that..), i'm just going to post 50 random things about myself.

maybe someday griffin will look back and understand where some of his crazy traits came from (let's just hope he doesn't follow in my footsteps on #3, 4, 5, 10 & 11....

51 random facts about me...

1. i am left-handed

2. i hate coffee

3. i used to charge the neighbor kids $1 each to look at playboy centerfolds

4. i charged the same kids .25 cents each to have a piece of my "candy" that i made. (it was really flavored chapstick that I cut into chunks and wrapped in saran wrap. i had chocolate, grape, root beer, strawberry and the kids thought it was candy, so i thought I should make some money.

5. when my parents and brother were gone one afternoon, i gathered up all of my brothers smurf collection and sold them to neighborhood kids. once they found out i had to go back and retrieve all of them and give them their money back.

6. clearly, my parents always told me i should be a sales person...i could talk people into doing anything.

7. i never could be a sales person because i'm scared of rejection.

8. i had a neurofibroma tumor wrapped around my spinal cord in high school.

9. i have no feeling in my neck, ears and head as a result. (i can still feel pressure, so dan doesn't get out of giving massages!)

10. i smoked my first cigarette in 6th grade

11. i drank alcohol for the first time in 7th grade

12. i would die if i found out griffin was drinking or smoking in the 6th or 7th grade!

13. i have lived in 5 states (indiana, virginia, illinois, wisconsin, minnesota)

14. i regret never getting a 4-year degree. i only have a 2-year associate degree. (i don't think i regret it enough to go back to school though...)

15. i love being griffins mom. it's the most rewarding feeling i've ever had.

16. i talk to myself in the car when i'm alone.

17. i also sing loudly in the car when i'm alone. but pretend i'm not singing when i pull up at a stop light next to someone.

18. i lose things easily (jewelry, sunglasses especially).

19. I NEVER take my wedding rings off, due to the above problem i have. the only time it's ever come off my finger is when it's being cleaned or when i was 8 months pregnant and it didn't fit.

20. i cry pretty easily, but don't admit it or i try and hide it.

21. i don't wash my face. never really have. but have only had the occasional zit in high school...otherwise my skin is clear and healthy!

22. i have spent thousands of dollars on products for my face...and always act like i want to try and do some great skin care regimen...but in reality...it's a waste of money, since i am fine with good old soap and water.

23. i only wear eyeliner and chapstick.

24. i hate knick-knacks. i even hate how it's spelled...

25. i love listening to the kqrs morning show.

26. i like to make up songs and sing them to griffin or dan.

27. i am a very organized person at work, but not at all at home.

28. my favorite band growing up was depeche mode. i still love them!

29. i love hollywood gossip.

30. i dream of being in a band...but have no musical talent, so that won't ever happen!

31. i want to protect my baby from mean people. i am so sad to think of how cruel kids (or people) can be to one another.

32. i know all of the lyrics to "it's the end of the world as we know it"...and whenever the band i used to be a groupie of would sing it (road trip), i would act all smug and excited and sing every lyric hoping people would notice how cool i was...

33. i hate my feet. and they kinda stink too.

34. i like my eyes (trying to spin a positive for each negative....)

35. i am quite sure that i would have a unibrow if i didn't pluck my eyebrows.

36. i tend to over-commit myself. i don't like to say no...so i pretty much tell everyone yes and end up stressing myself out at times!

37. i drink everything FAST. from water, to soda to beer...i drink very quickly. Good when it comes to water...bad when it comes to everything else.

38. cooking meat grosses me out. i do it occasionally, but i still think it's nasty.

39. carbs are my weakness. pasta, potatoes, rice, bread...i could live on that alone.

40. i get sentimental quite often.

41. i am a blog lurker. I regularly check about 15 blogs...but have never once posted a comment or made my presence known.

42. i am a planner. i try to act like i'm laid-back and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-like...but in reality, i like to plan, like things to work out how i envision them and enjoy all that goes into executing the perfect plan. (whether it's a party, wedding, weekend, trip, exercise, etc)

43. i don't really like being alone. i know quite a few people need "me-time" or time alone...but i tend to get bored, anxious or stressed when i'm alone. i would rather be around family or friends.

44. in jr. high and high school, i racked up hundreds of dollars a month by calling my bff long-distance. my parents had to take the phones out of the house when they left (i solved that by buying a phone and plugging it in when they were gone), they had to put a long-distance block on the phone only allowing calls to be made if you knew the secret code (i spent an entire day working to crack the code and finally succeeded)

45. i love to travel.

46. i was once on a horseshoe league. (and pool too).

47. i learned to drive stick-shift before even having my license.

48. i can do the splits...but only with my right leg forward...not with the left leg forward. apparently when at parties, i like showing this party-trick. i've tamed that down in recent years though.

49. i used to be on a jump-rope team that traveled all over the country. i was really good and really enjoyed it...that is, until our coach was found guilty of child molestation...and the whole squad folded shortly thereafter.

50. i spent some time in belize for a "save the rainforest" project. and i let a tarantula crawl all over me! what was i thinking?????

51. when i was looking over this post, i probably should give my parents an apology for having to deal with me growing up...i was a big pain in the ass.

back to reality

2008-12-01T13:17:00.003-06:00

so, after a nice long 4 day weekend, it's back to reality.
it's always so nice to be able to laze around in the mornings and not have to rush right out the door, so today was tough to switch into that mode of work and daycare.

our weekend was great though.
dan's mom came to visit and we had a great time.
thursday i ran the turkey trot 5k downtown with my friend, jessica. we did well and had a good time. and it made me feel like i deserved to eat a pound of potatoes and 1/2 of a pan of dessert later that day.
griffin didn't really participate in the eating of the thanksgiving meal itself, but the rest of us enjoyed a good meal.
we spent the rest of the day hanging out, lighting a fire and being thankful.

friday we got our christmas tree. it is nice to sit there with the lights and just stare at it. very peaceful.

that evening we went to this polar express train ride. from a childs point of view..it was probably pretty cool. santa, elves, cookies, bells, hot chocolate, being in their pjs, and a train.
from a paying adults point of view, it was a total rip off. $25 per person got you a tiny yellow ticket stub, a train that once inside you really couldn't tell you were even in a train or moving, elves that were 14 year old girls trying a bit too hard to get the group singing carols and playing games, and hot chocolate that wasn't hot.
oh well...seeing griffin excited was worth it.

over the course of the weekend we also managed to go to the hollidazzle parade, go sledding, go for some walks, go to the vikings-bears football game, have many fires in our fireplace, run about 50 loads in the dishwasher, eat an entire 9 x 13 pan of this oreo dessert and watch polar express probably 15 times. a really nice weekend overall.

griffin certainly enjoyed all the time he got to spend with his grandma. she is very sweet to him and gets down and plays with him...so he loves that.

his new trick for the weekend was having us all sit in tiny chairs in the basement and pretending he was the conductor and we were his passengers on the train. he would get out a flashlight and put on this cute striped hat (his engineer hat, he said), and then blow this train whistle and make us sit there until we arrived at the north pole. he would then make us all get out, only to have us get back in seconds later. this went on for quite awhile. of course dan and i kinda quit obeying his rules after a few rounds of this ("no, we are going to sit in this luxurious sleeping car here - a.k.a - the couch - we can't get on your chair train") but grandma probably went to the north pole 100 times this weekend via the little chair train.

week of thanks

2008-11-24T21:51:00.006-06:00

before i talk about the coming week...i will recap the weekend:

we spent a nice relaxiing night at home on friday..just chillin out. saturday we ran a bunch of errands...met our friends beau and amy and their daughter vinetta for lunch. v turned 1 on friday..time flies.
that night we babysit for our friends beth and jason. they went to dinner and we watched george, jimmy and g. they were all well behaved and fun to hang with. griffin and jimmy were playing together and it was super cute to see.
they got home and we stayed and had a few drinks with them before heading home.
sunday i went for a run, then we spent the day hanging out.

griffin's new excitement for the weekend was watching the polar express movie. he LOVES it! trains, christmas, santa...what else in life is there??

so, this week is the week of thanksgiving. i used to write letters to people telling them why i was thankful for them...i need to get back into that.
i am thankful for many, many things. our health, wonderful friends and family, jobs that are stable and we enjoy that help us afford our great house and many of the things we want or need. it's this time of year that i try to not take things and people for granted. i need to do that all year around! we have so many luxuries in life and it's easy to lose sight of how lucky we are.

the other thing i'm thankful for is having known a wonderful woman. my grandma died 6 years ago. i miss her and think about her often. i wish griffin had the chance to meet her. we were lucky and got to see her about a month before she passed away. this photo was from then.

we are so thankful that we are all healthy. not everyone is that lucky. my friend is still battling more crap from complications with her cancer. and our neighbor was just diagnosed last week as well..in his colon and spread to his liver. one of my best friends from childhood just lost a baby, some other good friends lost their twins at 18 weeks, and a co-worker lost her father-in-law to a brain hemmerage. ugh. you feel so helpless when these things happen all around you.

onto HAPPIER news...we have a short week of work, and dan's mom is coming for a visit. we are looking forward to having a low-key weekend and being thankful!
here is a photo of griffin's first thanksgiving - nov. 06. we spent it in denver with our favorite peeps...melissa, martin, chloe, laura and lee. (nickels and baby mal weren't here quite yet at that time!) we rented a cabin in the mountains and enjoyed friends. (and laura - we totally have to have a redo of that trip so you can thoroughly enjoy it this time....)

i've been working on a photo organization project this past week and found some photos that made me smile, so thought i'd post them here. man - our little bird has grown so much. i am definitely thankful for my boys.

wicked

2008-11-19T09:18:00.002-06:00

i went to see wicked last night. it was great! i loved wizard of oz as a kid and this was a fantastic untold story of the witches. the singing and the sets were great!
my department at work went as a holiday gathering. we had dinner beforehand, then went to the show. it was a late evening, but fun. i'm not feeling that great today though. my cold has kicked in a bit more, along with an upset stomach that i've had since dinner last night.

in other news, an amazing woman that I know has wound up in the hospital with complications from cancer. as i've said before on this blog...it's just so heartbreaking the number of people i know who have been affected by this disease! she's had fluid build up in her lungs and a blood clot as well. my most sincere thoughts are with her and her family and hope that she'll feel better soon and be able to get home to be with her family.
my grandma is also in the hospital...also due to fluid being built up and causing major swelling. i spoke with her on the phone the other night and she sounded to be feeling better, but they are still keeping her in the ICU to keep an eye on her.

griffin continues to amaze us with his vocabulary. he is a little sponge and seems to remember the things he learns and uses it correctly. they are working on body parts, shapes and writing their names at school. he's also getting better with coloring time. he used to only draw 1 line on the paper and then wouldn't want to do it anymore...and wanted mizz y. or the other kids to draw for him. now, he's participating more, and this morning when i dropped him off, he showed me a picture he colored yesterday. very sweet.

the hold steady/DBTs

2008-11-17T09:36:00.004-06:00

this weekend was great. friday we just hung out at home.
saturday we ran some errands, then worked outside to clean up the leaves.
that night we went with some friends to see the hold steady and the drive by truckers at first ave. it was AWESOME. we got there early enough to get right out on the floor and be super close for the hold steady. the show was amazing.
half way through the truckers i had to go to the loo and didnt want to fight the crowd to get back to the floor, so i just hung out upstairs and watched from above. i wasn't feeling that hot either...my cold was getting the best of me.
after taking about 45 minutes to get out of the damn parking garage, we swung by phil and jes' house for a beer and taco bell and then i wanted to get going to try and sleep off my cold.
griffin had a swell night with laura. he really enjoyed playing with her. he was going to have a sleep-over at their house, but baby mal wasn't feeling good and we all decided it may be best if g was just at his own house and laura came over. they had a good time and he was a great boy. he's quite comfortable with her, so we knew all would be super.

sunday we pretty much hung around the house all day. griffin got some new fake food for his kitchen...so he liked making us cake, ice cream and pasta. it's funny how he totally avoided all the plastic vegetables...just like he avoids the real-live ones.
I went for a run around the lake, then hit the grocery store...but otherwise it was a nice lazy day at home.

random updates

2008-11-14T11:11:00.004-06:00

well, my back is back to normal. just a day of stiffness and now i'm back in business.

so, i realized last night that i've signed up for the turkey trot 5k on thanksgiving morning. ummm. right. i haven't done a lick of running since the iron girl in september. this will be fun.
i guess in my goals to get in shape i've committed to these things and i need to stick with it. but, it would be great to have to head out of town at the last minute, so i can get out of it..

this week has gone by quickly. probably not for dan, who has worked till about 1-2 a.m. each night for a project due today. i'm sure he's looking forward to the weekend off!

griffin has been really getting into pretending he's a lion lately. every morning he wants to go under the covers in our bed and call it the cave. then he'll call out to dan and say "lion! come here lion!" then dan will growl and find him in the cave and then griffin will do it and pretend he's the baby lion. it's cute. he will mostly say he's a nice lion..but occasionally he'll say, i'm mean...i bite you!"

he also has been getting into dancing around in a mosh pit lately. "mama mosh with me?" and he'll run around and bump into various things like he's moshing. i haven't actually BEEN in a mosh pit to verify these things happen, but dan's probably been in plenty....so he can teach griffin the technical ins and outs of moshing properly.

anyway, griffin will ASK dan to put in "cookie monster", so he can mosh.

i think it all started when dan would listen to some of his metal music upstairs in our room while working or cleaning. griffin kinda seemed to like it. so, dan told him the guy sounded like cookie monster, and ever since griffin wants to hear cookie sing.

we'll have some nice wholesome music playing and griffin will demand cookie monster...so in goes the death metal. i think griffins current favorite is "neckrofagious" or something like that. i'm sure dan will correct me on the spelling of that one.

clearly as he gets older we'll be more particular with the lyrics...but with this death metal...you can't even understand the lyrics anyway...so if griffin thinks its cookie monster singing...then hey, that's cool.

hide & seek and down for the count

2008-11-12T20:56:00.002-06:00

so, i already didn't feel like going to yoga tonight. none of my friends were going to be there and i was just feeling lazy. add to that the fact that dan's been working a lot of OT this week for a project due friday, and he needed to be at work tonight, thus needing the car.

after dinner we decide to play a little hide & seek. griffin is funny with that...he will hide and we'll be saying "is griffin under the couch..no, is griffin behind the door...no"..and he'll be screaming "here's griffin, i'm here! right here!" i don't think he gets the whole keeping quiet aspect of it. he also hides in the exact spots that he has just found dan or i in.
anyway, it's my turn to hide...so i decide to hide on the stairway landing. i am running over to the stairs before g counts to 10. i turn around to see if he's peeking (which he is notorious for doing), and i proceed to fall down the stairs. shit. that hurt. i fell down about 4 stairs and landed right smack on my shoulder/back with a big, fat thud. damn slippery dress socks. so, yeah..i guess my going to yoga decision was kinda made for me. serves me right for being wishy washy about it in the first place.

it didn't hurt too bad after i finally peeled myself off the floor, but now it's starting to hurt a bit.
the bright side is that griffin came running over asking if i was ok. he sat down next to me and kept saying, "it's ok mama, it's ok. my turn to hide now?"

the ironic thing was dan and i just talked 5 minutes earlier about how we need to pull ourselves together and get in shape. i say this like every. single. day. but dammit, i'm serious. so i had just talked about how i was going to spend the evening doing the exercise ball and treadmill. and now i have a frozen bag of edamame on my back, while watching some E story about a woman that is about 600 lbs. and can't get out of her bed. a real feel-good story...er, yeah.

lets go to chrismas

2008-11-11T14:03:00.002-06:00

it's interesting to try and teach a child about time. they can't really grasp the concept of time and it's hard to explain to them that this WEEKEND we will go to the mall, or the park or whatever it is.

when my parents were visiting he was waving at them as they were leaving and he said, "see grandma and grandpa again?" i told him that we would see them again at christmas and we would be going to their house to stay with them then.
i then proceeded to explain what christmas was to him. i tried hard not to tell him he'll get all kinds of presents...i don't want him to ever expect that. anyway, he seemed satisfied with my christmas explaination and he proceeded to run and get his coat and said, "lets go to christmas now?"
so, i had to explain that it wasn't quite christmas yet. we had to get past thanksgiving first..where he would get to see grandma lawrence (grandma precious as he calls her), and then we had to wait a bit longer..maybe have some snow first, and then it would be christmas. (so then we went through the same bit with him wanting to go to thanksgiving now).

anyway, it snowed this past friday. when we looked out the window in the morning he said, "go to christmas now?".

i think we'll get him one of those advent calendars or whatever they are called where there is a piece of chocolate every day. then when all the chocolate is gone...it'll be christmas!!! now that is probably something he'll be able to understand.

in other news, griffin is learning to write letters at school. he apparently doesn't want to do it, and would rather other people write for him. he does that at home too...he wants dan or i to color a picture of something, or write his name, or whatever it is...but when you ask him to do it, he'll say, "i don't want to...momma do it".
we are trying to get better with having him do things on his own. taking his clothes on and off, putting shoes on and off, pulling pants on/off for the bathroom, etc.
maybe we coddle him...we're trying to get better with it all.

apparently at school his little girlfriend kendall does everything for him. according to mizz y, she even wipes his bootie and pulls his pants up for him. so, he always turns to her to have things done for him.
i guess mizz y has banned kendall from going to the can with g because she wants him to start doing it on his own.
see - she thinks he's being lazy...we think he's being a total genius! why do something if someone is going to do it for you??? :)

weekend

2008-11-09T19:56:00.002-06:00

friday we had a pretty low-key evening. after g went to bed, dan and i lit our first ever fire in our fireplace. a success.

saturday dan worked around the house getting some things winterized, while g and i met friends laura, mallory and her nephew jamie for the choo-choo bobs/riverview theater train movies. griffin enjoyed eating a bucket of popcorn and watching a bunch of cute train clips. some of them went on just a little too long, but overall it was a good time.

saturday evening dan went out with some friends to go to an art showing at our friends studio. while they were out, a couple friends came over for dinner, wine and a spa night! very relaxing and great convo. my bunioned feet are still feeling nice and soft from the magarita foot scrub.

today has been a lazy sunday. none of us got out of our pjs for the entire day. we played around, i prepared a bunch of meals for the week, and we watched football.

our fridge and freezer is stocked with lots of healthy food food, including a bunch of soups from my soup exchange the other night. it was fun and there were some great soups. dan did some kind of magicians act to our house and it was amazingly clean. i've never seen our bedroom looking so clean. if you open the closet or storage areas...i'm guessing things will come tumbling out...but it's all about the surface, baby.

today a co-worker came by to pickup a bunch of donations for a family in need that she knows. an unbelievably abusive relationship led a woman and her 2 kids to being homeless with nothing but their clothing on their back. we were able to donate quite a bit, and i'm grateful that our things will go to someone truly in need. my co-workers determination to help this family is very inspiring.

well, this sweet little bird is wanting me to get off the computer now so he can cuddle a bit. he still says, "hold you" when he wants to be cuddled. tonight he said to dan and i "both hold you together?" cuz he wanted us both to cuddle with him.

photo update

2008-11-09T19:49:00.004-06:00

here are some picts i've been meaning to upload.

our ohio trip and halloween/parents visit:

halloween weekend update

2008-11-05T10:09:00.004-06:00

i will post photos soon...i keep forgetting to download them! we have 500+ picts on the camera and i just need to find time to get them organized.

anyway, after the work festivities, we got griffin from mizz y's. they had gone to the mall of america that day to play around. once he got home, we got him suited up in his thomas the train costume and our neighbors had a bonfire and hayride for the kids...it was fun. we hung out outside and then went trick-or-treating with the neighbors. griffin was super cute...he would be all shy and say "trick or treat" all quiet at the door. after a few houses, he seemed to get the hang of it.
once he wanted us to start carrying his bucket for him, we figured it was about time to stop...if he can't even carry his own candy...he doesn't need anymore.

griffin asks me every day on our way to school what the signs in peoples yards say. clearly there are quite a few obama signs in our neighborhood, so he's learned to say obama.
anyway, one of the houses we trick-or-treated at had an obama sign in the yard. when we got to the front door where the man was going to hand over a piece of candy, i say to griffin, "what do you say"? (as in...trick or treat). he smiles and exclaims loudly..."OBAMA!". the guy high-fived him and dumped about 1/2 of his candy into g's bucket. score!

my parents showed up shortly afterwards and we hung out with them for awhile until g went to bed. then dan and i got into our costumes and headed over to a friends party. had a good time and saw some great costumes. we ended up leaving fairly early, just because we knew we'd have a big day on saturday.

saturday we headed to stillwater with my parents and spent the afternoon there walking around shops, by the water and having lunch. it was a perfect day to be outside. great weather!

that evening, my brother and jake came over to our house. samantha has bronchitis, so she and dawn stayed at home. we ordered pizza and g and jake played around outside with other neighbor kids.

i had wanted to meet up with a friend in town visiting from wi, but with my parents there and being pretty wiped out from the day...we just rented a movie and hung around the house.

sunday was a big day....griffin moved out of his crib and into a bed! he LOVES it. we went shopping so he could pick out his new sheets (not much of a selection for a double-sized bed, so we went with diego).

we spent the day jumping on his bed, playing around the house and enjoying the great day.

a few updates from this week:
• i went to the doctor on monday and found out i have to have surgery on my foot. i have to have a screw put into my toe to straighten it out...the bone is growing at an angle and it's quite painful when i exercise or wear most shoes.
ok...let's just throw it out there...i have a really bad bunion. a BUNION? what, am i 70 years old? it sounds like something your grandma has.
anyway, i'm trying to decide if/when to have this surgery. apparently i'll be on crutches for a couple weeks, and have one of those glamorous boots on for awhile.
this means no exercise for awhile...it will be 8 weeks until the screw would be removed...which is why i'm trying to figure out when to have this. 08 was supposed to be the year i got in shape (clearly, i'm behind since i have less than 2 months to go).

• i'm finally having a "soup exchange" tomorrow night at my house! i've been wanting to do this for quite awhile and my neighbors were interested. we will all bring soup to exchange and also bring one to sample. should be fun to get a bunch of different types of soups. but, i'm also feeling this huge pressure to clean my house and have it looking good. these people have not been in our house since we've owned it...and i'm feeling this pressure to make it look good. i know i shouldn't care...it probably looks way better than what it did when the past owner had it.

• wow about last nights results! landslide anyone??? amazing. and such a historic election that we were part of. i only had to wait in line about 45 minutes, so not too bad!

ok, pictures will be coming in the next couple of days for sure.

welcome to the hen house

2008-10-31T09:24:00.003-05:00

here are a couple picts from our work insanity.

the "hen house" theme.

our little thomas the train

2008-10-30T15:44:00.002-05:00

tomorrow is halloween and the little man is going to be none other than thomas the train. very fitting seeing how all he does these days is make choo choo sounds and pretends every object he's holding is train gates going up and down.
originally he was going to be a chicken...a costume borrowed to us by our neighbor. that faded quickly when he got his hands on a party city catalog and saw the thomas costume.
we had told him that he could choose something thomas upon becoming potty trained, and this is what he wanted.

he's wanted to try on the costume quite a bit lately and i think he's getting excited.

mom on the other hand is going as a chick. a punk rock chick to be specific. my department at work has been labeled as the "hen house" due to the fact that its all women who laugh alot and sit around clucking or something.
i guess the graphics department really does it up for halloween, and this appears to be no exception. we have been busy today cutting out our makeshift barn, having hay delivered, making our waddles (that sounds dirty) and getting all our chicklets and chickstick candy treats arranged properly.
there will be a "hippy chick", a "spring chicken", a "biker chick", a "chicken of the sea", and the "punk rock chick". Oh, and "the chicken with her head cut off".

should prove to be a F-all day doing nothing but parading around in our costumes. my kind of day indeed. showing off while doing nothing productive.

my parents will be coming to town tomorrow and spending the weekend with us. looking forward to having them here...they haven't been here since april, right after g was sick.

in other news...
• our friend nishant is home from iraq. he's like dan's soul mate...so he's happy to have him back. and we are thankful he's able to come back. hopefully for good..

• i better start running again...i've signed up for 2 5k's coming up in the next few months. the turkey trot on thanksgiving day, and the jingle run in december. i haven't run since the iron girl. ooops.

• i found a blog that is cool...http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/. this woman has set out to make something in the crockpot each day for 365 days. there are some interesting ideas...and most of them are fairly healthy to boot. i certainly don't have it in me to use my crockpot that often...but maybe once every week or two i can get some new ideas.

• griffin has woke up in the middle of the night 2 times this week. ugh. as soon as my parents are gone...he's is being tranferred from the crib to a bed. it's high time. i'm just hoping he won't wake up tomorrow night when my parents are there and we are
at a halloween party. he would probably freak.

• we got g a flu shot this morning. we also talked to our doctor in length about croup and how we can be more prepared this winter. he's already had a few croupy coughs and of course we are a bit paranoid after the ICU stay in march. if he has any severe episodes this winter, they will refer us to a specialist.

i'll post some halloween picts after the weekend!

birthday weekend

2008-10-27T10:00:00.002-05:00

i had a fantastic weekend.
friday i went out with friends and co-workers for happy hour. from there we got some food/drinks, and then made our way to glueks where i ~~made a fool of myself~~ rocked out while singing along to live band karoke. u otta know by alanis. damn, i'm ~~awful~~ great. (clearly i just learned how to do that strike through thing...i may go a little strike through crazy)

anyway, it was a great night, surrounded by some awesome friends and of course, dan!

little g played with his cousins jake and sam, and then was a great little man for gregg/dawn.

saturday we spent the late morning/early afternoon going downtown to see my office. griffin enjoyed looking out the windows from the 27th floor and eating cocoa roos (cereal that he doesn't get at home!). we had lunch and walked around a bit, then took the train home. he was pretty thrilled.

we had friends beth, jason and their boys jimmy and george over for dinner and great conversation. jimmy and griffin are a few months apart and while they still aren't "playing" together...it was super cute to watch them interact and copy one another.

sunday i woke up to dan and griffin singing me happy birthday. it was cute. we lounged around a bit, then we decided to get ready and go shopping. dan ~~forgot to get me a gift~~ took me on a shopping spree at the mall. i was on a mission for some tall black boots.
thanks dad for giving me ~~fat calves~~ toned, muscular calves. it was nearly impossible to find any that fit. i just want to look trendy, man! so after getting mad about it and moping out of the mall, dan was sweet to drive past famous footwear for one last look. i found some that were ok. i couldn't come home empty handed!

we rounded out the weekend by renting some movies, eating left over pad thai, playing the lion/cave game, reading books and snuggling with our favorite little guy.

a top notch weekend with friends and family. nothing better.

apparently there are some photos floating around from friday. i told laura that she had to send them all to me first for approval. i need to ~~photoshop myself to make me look skinny/cute~~ verify i look alright first!

in honor of katie

2008-10-24T13:58:00.003-05:00

so, an acquaintance passed away unexpectedly on tuesday. she was a good friend of my great friend, julie. i'd hung out with her occasionally at parties or outings through the years.
they are not entirely sure of the cause yet...but regardless...she was 34 and it is really tragic.

i read her obit today in the strib...and the link to the funeral homes site has one in greater detail.
reading this, along with the guest book tributes that her family, colleagues and friends wrote...it is evident she was a great soul that always put other people first.

it seems as if it always takes great tragedies or awful events of other people (whether they are people i know in real life, or people i feel like i know, by following their blogs) to make me realize that life is too short.
we never know when our time on this earth is going to be brought to an end.

it's time to not take people and things for granted. we are healthy. we have the basic necessities in life, and we have the love of our friends and family surrounding us.
i'm sick of sweating the small stuff and getting bent out of shape about things that don't matter. and i would like to strive to be a better person that puts others before myself.
easier said than done. i still snap at dan and griffin for dumb things. i still worry about things that don't really matter, and i still don't treat everyone with the utmost respect that they deserve.
i'm trying though. life is too damn short.

katie: from the little i knew of you...you had an exuberant personality. you were warm and open to people you didn't even know. i remember your great laugh and your awesome "jimmy" story. i've retold that story to a million people.
i am sorry that was all cut way too short. and my heart hurts for your family, friends and for my friend julie that knew you so well.

i will hug my baby a bit tighter, and relish in the little things. i will tell dan i love him more often and show my friends and family how important they are. i also will try to have more patience, tolerance, love and happiness.

on that note...i'm spending the evening celebrating my birthday with good friends and my wonderful husband. and tomorrow i will spend the day spoiling my little bird. and i'll spend a lot of time telling them how awesome they are.

dear griffin:

2008-10-23T21:54:00.004-05:00

whats the dealeo? how come you don't eat your fruits and veggies?
we put salad in front of you and you have a fit.
we put beans in front of you...and you'd think we were torturing you.
we put melon in front of you and you have to leave the table because your so appauled by the sight of it.
we put an apple in front of you and you whip the slice across the room while crying uncontrollably.

see - it wasn't so long ago that we could get you to eat anything! it's true! if you don't believe me...just look!

here you are happily eating apples...and i didn't even have to dip them in a gallon of caramel!!

and tomatoes and corn: (and i probably DID see them later..)

wait...what is that i see there? why, it's canteloupe! see - melons are tasty.

gasp! a PEA? there was a time, little man...where you hogged these down.

carrots? now i really have seen it all.

so, whats it going to take? am i gonna have to jessica seinfeld your ass and sneak it into everything from brownies to meatloaf (which i'm fairly certain you wouldn't eat anyway)?

how bout you save mommy some precious time pureeing all this crap and just eat em, mmmk?

thanks for your help in this matter.
now, i'm off to eat a dove chocolate. (and i just can't seem to understand why he wants to eat like shit...i wonder where he gets it from?)

love, mom

back to work blues

2008-10-20T13:32:00.004-05:00

mondays always suck. they suck relatively less than they did at my old job...that was just downright miserable to go into work monday morning after a great weekend.
but, still. we had an awesome weekend and i wish work didn't get in the way. back to reality..

friday griffin and i spent the late afternoon and evening together. picked him up early from daycare. apparently miss y. was going on a weekend booty call. just the thing you want to talk to your provider about...right?
griffin and i met a friend for dinner, then came home to hang out a bit with dan. i ended up going to play guitar hero with some friends after g was in bed. that is pretty fun and addicting!

saturday we woke up and the first thing griffin did was make a really barky cough and made a sharp seal sound when inhaling. shit. it's only mid-october!! after our experience last march...we are a bit paranoid.
anyway...we took him outside and it seemed to do the trick...no more sounds out of him all day.
spent the morning playing, raking leaves, running errands and watching as our boiler was being demolished.

we are getting a new boiler put in TODAY...so saturday they had to remove the asbestos and get rid of the thing. apparently it was the original boiler to the house (built in the 20's) and super inefficient and parts of it weren't even working due to major errosion/rust.

one of the guys removing the boiler had that spray-on hair. it was hard not to stare at it. it seriously looked like someone took spraypaint to his scalp!! wow.

that evening dan and i had a date. we had tickets to see mason jennings. our friends beau, amy and baby v came over to babysit. griffin was a doll and didn't even seem to mind that we left. he's getting WAY better with people and not being so shy/clingy to us. (which is somewhat sad at the same time...!)
dan and i went to dinner first and had a great meal. (all covered by a gift certificate...even better!). then, we went to see mason. our seats were AMAZING. 2nd row in the orchestra pit. we were like 5 feet away from him...pretty much got a guitar lesson because we could see every little thing he did. it was great. he's super mellow...but that was perfect after eating a big meal! sheer talent for sure.
pict from my camera phone...not great quality...but you can tell how close we were!

we made it home in time to see the last skit on SNL...i loved how the actor playing palins husband was dancing around in his "snow machine" gear.

sunday morning dan got some things done around the house in preparation for the boiler being installed, while i met laura, lee and baby mallory at the MN zoo. it was great! the new bear exhibit is amazing. i stole these photos from laura's blog, because i didn't have my camera.

griffin enjoyed himself and liked riding the monorail, seeing the sea otters, monkeys and hugging baby mal.
on the way home he said he wanted to go over to their house to play. he likes them!

i spent the majority of the afternoon preparing a bunch of food. due to our disgust with our eating habits...we are trying to do a better job of eating healthy.
i made 2 different types of soups, pesto, eggplant parmesan, tilapia and marinated chicken. we have no excuse this week of not eating healthy...because we are prepared! we'll see how it all goes down.
griffin ate the tilapia last night and seemed to like it. we actually dipped it into egg white, and coated it in ground up fiber one cereal. then baked it. so...in regards to my earlier post regarding fiber issues with griffin...let's hope this helps!

during his bath last night he pretended his little foam fish were getting dumped on by the water bucket at the great wolf.
he would do the dinging noise and then pour water out from the cup. he would then say, "oh no! i got all wet!! let's do it again!" this was about 20 minutes OVER AND OVER. he sure loved his stay at the waterpark!

we rounded out the weekend cuddling with g (he likes to come over to me and cuddle...and then dan will act all sad, so he'll run over to him and say, "its ok daddy, i hold you". then i will act sad, and he'll do the same thing. this could go on 10 minutes...it doesn't get old for him)

dan and i finished the evening watching horrible tv. the pickup artist on vh1.
this douche that calls himself "mystery" is supposedly some great pickup artist and he teaches 8 socially awkward men the art of picking up woman. it was so stupid. but...of course i'm certain we'll be tuning in next sunday. i'm rooting for rian. the 30 year old virgin that crys regularly and is really awkward talking to girls.

a great weekend and hopefully the week goes by quickly so we can do it all over again!

favorite things

2008-10-17T08:57:00.003-05:00

we were playing around last night and griffin said a few things that have become some of my favorite things. i want to document what he currently loves right now and what he is into.

he is really into playing with things and saying it's the mama and baby. whether it's stuffed animals, trains, bath toys, action figures, food...whatever. he'll find the bigger one and hand it to me or dan, and he'll take the smaller one and then he'll put his smaller thing up to the bigger one and say things like, "hi mama, want to go to the mall?"
or, he'll hold both the small and the big and he'll tell the little one..."it's ok baby...mama's got you" "shhhh, i got you" "there you go baby, there you go".

he also really loves when dan pretends he's a lion...griffin will always run over to me and say, "save your baby mama!!!" as dan growls. then he will ask dan..."are you a nice lion?"

last night he proclaimed that "macca" (who is a bear stuffed animal) was his best friend. it was so sweet to hear him say that.

his favorite things right now are trains, books, airplanes, music and playing with his daddy. he likes to hide under the covers and say it's his cave. he likes to pretend that the light shining through the blanket are stars. and he likes it when dan stomps around the house and plays this funny little game that they have made up. he totally squeals with delight and last night he was laughing so hard he had a hard time catching his breath!
he likes to jump...usually on the bed, couch or anything i'll let him jump on. he will do this funny counting where he says, "and a one, and a two and a three and a four!"...then he'll do it in rhyming verses. "and a pun, and a poo, and a pee and a pour!" (my personal favorite version) "and a bun, and a boo, and a bee and a boar!"

he will remember the things we say to him and he says them back to us...usually in the right context.
"have a good day at school mama, be good?"
"miss you mommy"
" come here, give me a kiss, i love this boy"
"your a lucky, lucky boy" (or girl if he's talking to me)
"go to the corner, your naughty" (ooops...i didn't think i said that!...i think he's adding the 'your naughty' on for effect...i really don't say that. we DO send him to the corner from time to time though)
"no comment"
"chillax"

he's been so much fun and still really sweet and cuddly and besides him still getting up entirely too early.....things are perfect.

weekend in sandusky

2008-10-16T11:24:00.003-05:00

we had a great family weekend. left saturday morning via airplane to cleveland. dan's brother and family live in sandusky, where matt manages the greatwolf lodge.
dan's other brother dave and family also made the journey, so it was great for everyone to hang out...and the cousins to all be together. it was totally cute. griffin really enjoyed himself.

we spent time at the waterpark, went to cedar point amusement park, toledo zoo, dinners out and just had a good time. griffin really enjoyed himself and he's been wanting to look at pictures of all his cousins and aunts/uncles since being back.

**i will post some photos as soon as i can get them uploaded.

going to cedar point reminded me of when my cousin laurie and i used to go there in our younger years. we would wait in lines for hours to go on these rollercoasters. we also had a crazy day where our truck broke down, the creepy service station guy dropped us off at cedar point, where it proceeded to pour on us. we had to check into a seedy motel, because the truck wouldn't be done until the next day. (somewhere in this story, my cousin also locked the keys in the car, so i think that added onto the timing of getting the car fixed).
we had no clothes, so we had to wrap ourselves in the sheets. i'm sure the pizza delivery man who brought us dinner didn't know what to think about 2 teenagers wearing togas and staying in a shady motel.

anyway, back to our trip...it's amazing how much all the kids are getting older/bigger. alex is going to be 13 next month! alex and andrew were able to go on the rollercoasters with us...and the younger cousins all hung out together and took cute photos.
griffin rode his first little rollercoaster. apparently dan said he screamed most of the way, but when he was finished he said, "i'm not scared!"

i'm glad we sucked it up and bought him a plane ticket. we considered trying to get away with it one more time...but in the end we bought him one. we last flew in may and he pretty much slept or watched a movie that entire time. this time around he wanted to play and be moving...so it was nice having the extra space. although the plane from cincinnati to cleveland was the size of a large bus basically, and i thought i was going to pass out on the plane on the way out there because it was hot.....

it's been nice only having to work a couple days this week. i wish all weeks were 3 day work weeks!

tomorrow will start the weekend once again! dan and i have a date on saturday. going out to dinner and then seeing mason jennings in concert. looking forward to it.

random friday tidbits

2008-10-10T13:37:00.004-05:00

i'm feeling a bit scattered today...so this post (similar to most of my posts) is random musings of what is going on in my brain.

first...a product review.
fiber one toaster pastries. (think pop tart...only healthier)
yeah, yeah...they are chock full of preservatives and what not....but they also have 6 grams of fiber for 1 pastry and they have less sugar, calories, carbs, etc. than pop-tarts.
i tried the maple & brown sugar this morning and thought it was delish.
g wasn't having any of it...he wouldn't try it. i had to laugh at myself as i realized i was arguing with him TO eat a pop-tart. ummm..."griffin...it's a treat! eat it!" "it's like a dessert! eat it!" "no mama...i don't want it...get it out of here!"
i realized i should just let him eat his healthy normal breakfast and not force this on him...but damn...it has 6 grams of fiber! this boy NEEDS 6 grams of fiber...so why not get it from a pop tart?? hello?
anyway..it also comes in blueberry, strawberry and chocolate i believe.

2nd item of business: i have finally bought an umbrella. after 34 years of not owning an umbrella...i have bought one. what the hell...have i come out from under a rock? why didn't this crazy new invention click with me years ago? it keeps you dry! what a concept!

finally: have i turned into one of those people that i NEVER thought i would be? where i talk about my kids poop to other people? (that probably don't care or more likely...are completely appalled?)
yes. i think i have. ugh.
but doesn't EVERYONE find poop fascinating? i do. so i guess i feel like it needs to be talked about! i would be fine hearing about my childless friends poops. "hey ( )...tell me about that corn muffin you just ate?..did you say..."ill be seeing you guys later when you ate it?"
"hey ( )...seriously...TRY these fiber one pop tarts...they totally send you right to the crapper after eating one delicious pastry! you gotta check it out!"
"hey ( )...did you KNOW that mushrooms don't digest that well??"
and one of my favorites....(from a family member...)
"you know how i just drank baileys and vodka last night? well come check this out...have you EVER seen THAT before? its pure white!!!"

anyway...i had to stop myself as i was talking to a co-worker (sans kiddos) about the fact that since griffins poops are normally so hard...you barely even have to wipe his butt...cuz they aren't runny and gross...they just come right out...clean as a whistle!

her face was one of utter disgust. and then i realized...what the f k! who am i? and what happened to the person that used to filter the actual thoughts going through my head to what actually came out of my mouth?
i guess that flew out the window when i had to stick my finger (covered with a wipe, people!!) up my babies butt to pull out his poor hard, stuck poo.
see...THIS is why i want him to try the high fiber pop tarts!!! (and you thought this post wasn't going to come full circle and have a point...)

kids being abandoned...

2008-10-09T09:43:00.002-05:00

this story is sad.
basically - people are taking the "safe haven" law in nebraska and taking advantage of the fact that it doesn't specify an age. they are dropping their teenage kids off that they can't handle anymore.
and then there is a story of a man who dropped off his 9 children ranging in ages from 1-17 after his wife died unexpectedly. he couldn't deal with the loss/financial responsibility on his own and didn't know what else to do.
as much as its hard to put ourselves in any of their shoes...i have to imagine there was another option for all of these cases! how are these kids to feel now? their mom died...and now the only sense of familiarity is gone because the dad just couldn't deal and didn't think he could afford it.

now, i'm sure there were times while i was growing up that my parents wouldn't have minded dropping me off somewhere (i was really a handful growing up...hard to imagine, right?) but this all just seems so selfish to me. to just wash you hands of your responsibility as a parent??

i do think the law is a good one for INFANTS. it will help prevent mothers leaving their unwanted newborns in toilets and dumpsters...unthinkable. so i do think this law can help eliminate that if people know they can leave the baby with no questions asked. but for older children? no.

in more upbeat news....griffin has been a good boy this week...sleeping in his own bed all week and not getting up in the middle of the night. it's made for us all being much more rested and happy. (and we are no longer considering going to nebraska with him. i kid, i kid.)

weekend update

2008-10-06T12:38:00.005-05:00

made it through another great weekend.
my great friend melissa came to town for a weekend visit. i met her friday for a quick happy hour, before leaving to babysit jake and sam. it was gregg/dawn's 10 year wedding anniversary! wow! i remember their wedding like it was yesterday!
anyway...the kids were great, we had a fun time playing with pictures.

after babysitting, i met melissa at liquor lyles where she was hanging with some friends. i haven't been there in a few years! it was funny...a lot of the same folks that used to hang out there when we used to go...they were still there. nothing changes i guess.
stayed for a little bit and then we made our way home.

griffin managed to wake up once we got home and proceeded to have a fit. i went in to soothe him and put him back to bed and it just made it worse. he screamed and cried and finally climbed out of his crib. we were listening to this all...and he was saying things that just break your heart!
"i'm crying...come here right now!"
"mama, your naughty! help me now!"
"i need you mama!"
"stop it mama, stop it!"
"i'm scared!"

anyway...it worked. i brought him into bed with us...where he proceeded to sleep like a king between us..while rolling around and leaving us with a sliver of space.

saturday melissa, dan, griffin and i headed out to walk around campus,

go to a few stores and then have lunch in uptown.

when we got back, dan and melissa headed out to drive the stick shift. dan's finally learned! yippee!! he did great and has since been driving us around here and there!

saturday night, melissa and i met friends, lisa, jes, nena and julie downtown at imperial room. we had a drink and some appetizers. lisa and melissa hung out there while the rest of us went to see liz phair. it was great! she played pretty much the entire exile in guyville cd. it seemed short overall...but she is always awesome. i totally want to be in a band. i guess there is talent and all that (which i don't have)...but whatever...it would be awesome.

saturday night brought another griffin sleeping debacle. he heard my phone ring once we got home and he woke up. we decided that we'd let him cry it out and he needed to stay in his bed.
well...after 1.5 hours of griffin saying "mama" over and over and over again...i went and got him. he had another royalty night of sleeping in our bed..while we were left to minimal covers and his feet kicking us.

what happened to our sound sleeper? we have had large parties, music and shenanigans going on while he's slept right through it. why suddenly does he hear the slightest sound?

sunday we got up and walked down to the parkway to watch phil run the twin cities marathon.
as soon as we got down there...it started POURING. HARD.

we found a tree to stand under, which didn't really do all that much. we saw the front runners go by...quite impressive. and we stayed until we saw phil run by...right in the 3:10 pace group like he hoped. good for him! he ended up finishing in 3:19..which is great considering he was getting over a cold and it was pouring like a MF. way to go phil!

we spent the rest of the day laying around. melissa wasn't feeling that great..probably caught a cold from the rain! i made chili and we just hung out, watching bad tv and eating all day. went to bed really early and bargained with griffin. we told him that he couldn't watch cartoons in the a.m. if he didn't stay in his bed all night.

i had to get up at 5 a.m. to take melissa to the airport and when i got home he heard me...so he was up at 5:30...BUT...that is better than 1 a.m.
he woke up and exclaimed "i did it! i stayed in my bed!" well...yeah...i guess. but it's still 5:30!
you'd THINK i could get up and exercise, but i proceeded to lay in bed until 7.

anyway, we're hoping this week will be better in terms of sleeping. and we know we have to get him in a regular bed and out of the crib, stat!

a nice weekend and always so fun to see melissa. wish she lived closer! griffin asked all morning, "where's melissa?"

party weekend...

2008-10-01T16:17:00.011-05:00

this past weekend was a good one.
friday we took it easy and went to dinner. g loved sitting outside watching all of the trains go by. (and it beat going to chuck e. cheese for us...something he's been asking for the past month, after seeing it on tv)
saturday we had a super busy day. we headed out to b.f.e. (east bethel) to jes' dads benefit. he had cancer and had treatment done that was not covered by insurance. lord knows we understand stupid medical bills...even though griffins didn't come near to what her pops were...it still sucks.
so...we went out to this biker bar where they had an outdoor tent setup with music, beer and bbq. it was great. met some cool folks, caught up with other friends and griffin enjoyed looking at all of the motorcycles and dancing to the bands.

after that we headed to roseville. lee and laura's daughter mallory was turning 1!

they had a great party, with lots of good food. mallory seemed to enjoy herself and got lots of nice things. griffin had fun playing with new toys over there, and other than a trick-fart that went awry...things were good. (gee, should i not be putting those things on here...will he look back in 18 years and be mortified that i'm talking about him trick-farting?)

sunday rounded out the weekend by a trip to b.f.e west (delano) to visit an apple orchard/farm. we went to this same orchard last year and it was fun to see how much more griffin interacted with everything.

we met friends beau, amy and baby v out there. we went on a hayride and learned that the "women" may like to take home some some of the berry/swag stuff to decorate with. and the "ladies" may find it interesting to cook with some of the things we found out in the orchard. (i guess dan and beau can sit around while trick-farting and drinking beer...)
anyway...we picked a bunch of apples

got some gourds, pet all the animals and jumped in big vats of corn.
picture of griffin in fall of 07 in the vat of corn:

picture of griffin in fall of 08 in the same vat of corn:

picture of griffin in fall of 07 in the pumpkin patch:

picture of griffin in fall of 08 in that same pumpkin patch:

picture of griffin in fall of 07 as a pig:

picture of griffin in fall of 08 as a pig:

finally got griffin to eat apples by dipping it into obscene amounts of caramel. whatever it takes.
a great weekend had by all.

the past week has been a bit rough with sleep. griffin has been wearing undies at night for the past couple of weeks. all has been going well..but the last few nights he's woken up in the middle of the night to pee. by the time we drag ourselves out of bed to get him...he's wide awake and thinks it's time to watch movies. and then we've dealt with reasoning with him at 3 a.m. that he needs to go back to sleep.
he's also been a wee-bit crabby this week. we've been lucky that up to this point his crying/tantrums have been kept to a minimum. maybe he's making up for lost time..because this week has been brutal. i imagine he's finding his independence and all these new things are overwhelming.....but i do have to say...its getting old!
this week we've picked up cereal he's thrown across the room. (and stomped on for added effect)
we've had 1 hour crying sessions over chocolate milk (he wasn't getting any, because he was naughty at school).
we've had to reason with him that he does not get snacks for breakfast. (and listen to him cry the entire way to daycare in a high-pitched scream saying, "SNAAAAAAAAACKS..NOW!"
we've tried to calm him down while he's freaking out that he can't watch this train video clip for the 500th time.
i watched him as he and a boy at school pulled on the same toy back and forth until the other boy won. and griffin proceeded to throw himself to the floor and roll around screaming.

at least he's cute. and we know it'll get better.

family photos

2008-09-29T15:29:00.005-05:00

someone sent me this link. decided to waste some time. nothing i couldn't do with a little photoshop....but some of these turned out pretty funny.
i especially like the overweight dan, and the 2 g's in the 80's. that looked like every guy i graduated with.

me in the 70's & 80's...(i think my mom had that hairstyle in the 70's...and this looks like her!)

the little man in the 50's

70's

80's

and dan in the 70's...

80's

and adding a few lbs in the 90's.....

RIP to the jeep...

2008-09-25T14:59:00.003-05:00

well, it's been a good car.
the jeep first came into my life in 1990. my mom brought it home...it was all new, shiny and smelled of that new car scent.
i had my own car (1984 toyota celica), but it was much cooler to drive my moms car. plus...you could fit like 11 people in there. (i know...i've had that many in there).

it has seen some good times.
•driving a bunch of drunk people around the country roads of dane.
•seeing how fast it could go on woodland drive...while listening to the steve miller band.
•hauling my room full of stuff at my parents house out to my new house i was renting right out of high school.
• laying in the back looking at stars after concerts at alpine valley.

it's had a couple of accidents (me at the wheel for one of them), and my mom certainly had her share of good memories. it drove her to and from school every day. it took her across the country when my folks moved to canada. it brought her back when they moved back to wisconsin.
it has hauled duffy (and probably molly too) to various dog parks, trips, moves, visits to nursing homes.

then..2 years ago it came into dan's life as well. his car had blown on a family camping trip to wisconsin. my mom was finally going to let go of her baby after 16 years with her jeep. so...the timing worked out and dan and i became the proud owners of a 16 year old jeep.
it still has the american flag sticker and the canadian triple a sticker. (i think that would be double a)

we got 2 good years out of it. we added to my teenage memories and made memories for our own family.

those days are all over now. over 18 years...it's finally given up.

it's been a good run. we knew this day was near. at this point, we don't think we are going to replace her.
we may realize that we need to replace her, but for now we are going to try and make it work with our other baby. the 10 year old jetta.

fist things first...dan has to learn how to drive her. any volunteers? but it's high time. he wants to...lord knows i want him to.

so, we'll see how it goes. it will mean a lot more planning, biking (for dan), and coordination. we aren't sure how things will go when one person needs the car for a day or evening or weekend...but we'll figure it out.

we'll miss you, jeep. it's been a fun ride.

any resemblance?

2008-09-21T21:56:00.001-05:00

our sweet little man....

steve urkel....

i am iron (wo)man

2008-09-21T16:32:00.007-05:00

has he lost his mind? can he see or is he blind?
oh ozzy. you were so much better with black sabbath.
it's like you wrote this song for me today.
today i am iron (wo)man.

dina and i completed our very first duathalon. the iron girl duathalon in bloomington. shit. i'm proud of us.

our goal was to finish in under 2 hours and 30 minutes. dina finished in 2:03 and i came in 15 min. later at 2:18. it would have been great to shave some time off of that...but next year.

the course goes like this....run a loop around the lake (2 miles). next, do 2 loops around the bike course (total 22 miles). then you finish up by running another loop around the lake (2 miles.)
i ran the first loop without stopping (albeit a bit slow). then the bike ride came. there were some steeeeep hills. i was least worried about the bike portion, but some of the hills were crazy. and once you finished that loop...you had to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.
then, once your legs were nice and wobbly...you had to jump off your bike and run another 2 miles. that part was hard. but...i finished and i wasn't last!

i will definitely do it again next year and train differently. now i know what to expect.
the name iron girl sounds probably a lot more awesome than it really is...but who gives a frack....i finished and i feel great!

in another event that went on today...a blog i follow...they held the first ever 5k memorial run/walk for matt's wife, liz, who passed away 24 hours after giving birth to their new baby, madeline. it would have been great to be able to make that and support them and see all the wonderful people that have rallied around them...but it didn't work out. i like to think that the iron girl would have been something his wife would have found fun...and i certainly thought about her during the event...all those strong, beautiful woman out there..testing their strength.

in other news...i am the proud new owner of a root canal. lovely. the procedure sucked. the novacaine started wearing off when they were digging around down there and i totally felt it! i started yelling..."ahhh, i can feel this!" so, they shot some more down there and it did the trick. voila.

this weekend was pretty low-key. just hung out around the house on friday, and we were all in bed around 9! saturday dan spent the day at work, while griffin and i picked up our race packets, walked around the lake, made lunch, took a nap and then went down to the local church for their little carnival.
it was pretty decent until some little shit spit on me while we were on the ferris wheel! i saw these 12 year olds spitting off the top of the ferris wheel, but they were in front of us, so i didn't think we'd be the victims. well, turns out other punks thought it would be funny too...so all of a sudden i feel wet on my head. i look up and there are 2 boys there. we were stopped while waiting for them to unload some people, so i yell up at him..."ah, did you just spit on me?" he said..."no, it wasn't us...must have been them" (while pointing in a complete impossible direction that the spit couldn't have come from)
so i said to him, "ok...well when we get off we can go find your parents and you can try to convince them that you didn't spit on us".
unfortunately, they were let off before g and i were...and they made a run for it.

well, the little g is stirring now, better get him up from his nap..

rainy weekend

2008-09-17T10:16:00.003-05:00

things here are good.
let's see - this past weekend was a good (and rainy) one.
friday we hung out with friends...dinner over at beth and jasons. griffin really likes his bud, jimmy. he's been talking about him all week. their new baby george is getting big!
on saturday dina, jessica (m), griffin and myself went downtown for the james page blubber run
. a 5k with the main emphasis on wearing costumes, having fun and drinking beer! sweet...my kind of race.
it started raining right before the race started and i zipped up the rain cover protector on the jogger stroller. griffin hated it. he screamed his head off to let him out. i'm running along and people are staring and pointing and saying, "oh, poor kid...he doesn't want to be here". so...i sent jessica and dina along there way, thinking i wasn't going to finish (and miss my free beer along the way? gasp!)
anyway...after a few minutes of consoling g, it stopped raining and we continued on with no more trouble. (and the rain cover OFF!) i wanted to walk at a couple of points, but griffin would yell at me to "go faster mama! keep running!" ok...i guess. quicker to get to the beer.
anyway, it was a good time and a fun way to get some training under my belt.

while we were running, dan had to be at the doctors office getting some moles removed. he has 15 moles they will be removing and biopsying over the course of the next few weeks. keep good thoughts that they wont be deemed "suspicious" and he won't have to have more cutting done!

saturday afternoon g got a haircut. it looks great (photos to come one of these days). this was his VERY FIRST professional haircut. In the past we've chased him around the house with scissors, or dan and dave used the beard trimmer to buzz it last time. i think we finally realized its time to leave it to the professionals. we always did a hack job and even though he still looked cute...it was pretty bad.

saturday night we went to "funny pants" lyle and dina's house to celebrate lyle's birthday. good times as always catching up with friends. and fantastic food! who doesn't love a taco bar?

sunday dina, jes and i attempted to bike the 1st loop for the iron girl duathalon, but it was pouring down rain. instead we drove the route...ummm...it's quite hilly. shit.

so in other updates, the iron girl is this sunday. i'm nervous..but it'll be fun. we ran around nokomis last night and even though i was dying...i made it. so, i'm fairly sure i'll be able to do the running portion without stopping.

tonight i have my exciting root canal. i can't wait.
tomorrow dan and i have a date night and are going to see neko case at first ave. looking forward to it. g will hang out with pete, kim and burke.
this coming weekend will be pretty low key...we may do the bike loop friday night after work, and then saturday will be my day of rest.

so last but certainly the most exciting...i think i can say with full confidence that GRIFFIN IS POTTY TRAINED!! he's been so great at this and hasn't had any accidents for a few weeks now. we started this journey on august 4 and he seems to have the hang of it down solid now. he still needs some help not making a huge mess, but it's worth it to not buy pampers anymore. this week his new trick is standing up to pee. oh, the fun that will come with this. wall scrubbing and lots of clothes changing...but the extra bubbles that one makes when they stand...that in g's mind...is totally worth it.
we have 5 more pull-ups for nightime, and as soon as those are done...he'll be not wearing them at night anymore. i hope that transition goes just as smooth.

the landfills can now thank us for not contributing anymore dipes. i think if we had another kiddo i would consider looking into cloth. when you think about how many diapers one child uses...it's INSANE.

fitness weekend

2008-09-10T16:08:00.002-05:00

lots of activity this last weekend!

dan took griffin for a bike ride while i met my co-workers and rollerbladed 28 miles. 28 miles! my feet were not happy with me. but i did it and i'm still alive to tell about it.
the gateway trail is great. relatively flat, with the exception of a couple bridges. we parked by lake phalen and bladed out to stillwater i believe.

we did a little grilling out that night and then sunday i took a 20 mile bike ride.

i have been ramping up the exercise these past few months, but so far i dont feel/notice a difference. maybe i need to quit eating ice cream and a pound of pasta every day. haha.

anyway, it was a good weekend and so far, a good week.

last night we took griffin for a walk in his wagon, and the little next door neighbor girl, riley, came along with us. they are about the same age. anyway, this was the first time i've seen griffin really interacting with another kid and he was actually being a bit of a showboat! he's normally the reserved, shy one that just watches what the other chitlens are doing, but last night he was telling riley all kinds of stuff and he was playing a game with her where he would tickle her belly and then want his tickled.
(thats how it starts...next thing you know.....)

anyway, it was super cute to see him so talkative, and having fun with another little kid.

today when i was dropping his off at school he said to me, "momma, why you go to work?"
how do you answer that one?
• i could have said, "cuz we need to be able to pay the bills", but he doesn't get that yet.
• i could have said, "you know all trains and fun toys you have downstairs? i don't see YOU working too hard to pay for them"
• i could have said, "you know how we like to take trips, go to concerts and do fun things? well - we need to be able to pay for that". but again...that is money related. not relevant.
• i could have said, "i know baby. it sucks. i wish i could stay home with you every day and watch you grow and be the one that gets to teach you all these new things. miss yvonne can shove it up her ass. how come SHE gets to be the one that sees you do the new things, learn your letters, eat new food, say new funny things and teach you how to move your head all ghetto like and say, while pursing your lips and then saying, "oh no you di-int"
i ended up telling him "because someone needs to make the cereal that you eat everyday!" (umm...like i'm really making cereal, but hey, he can probably at least understand that one!)

so why DOES momma go to work? i'd like to say it is all about the money. we need it to pay the bills. we need it to afford the great new house we live in, the trips we want to take, the things we want to buy griffin, the college fund we started for him, and to just plain get by.
yes, that is part of it. but...we didn't HAVE to move to our new house. if we stayed at the old one, we could probably afford for me to not work.

but in reality, i think i want to work. at least part time. yes, i do want to see all the things griffin does, be a bigger part of his life and of him learning new things and basically taking the time now to spend with him that i will never get back. but, i think deep down i know that i like and want to work. maybe not 40 hours per week...25 would be ideal, but not possible right now. maybe down the road.

i think for us...it's about quality of time...not quantity. i imagine that if i were home all day, i would probably plop him in front of the TV quite a bit, just to be able to get things done. i would be crabbier to dan, because i would expect him to take over when he got home. i guess for US...i feel like we parent better this way, and we are better partners because of it.
for US..this works. i am SUPER happy for my friends and family members that can stay home...that works for THEM.

i am sad now and then, and when other friends/family are able to stay home, i do feel a twinge of guilt/sadness for myself and wish i could be in their shoes, but overall...we are happy. i FINALLY like my job, it's fairly flexible (as well as dan's) and the time we spend in the mornings, evenings and weekends...i think we do a pretty good job of fitting it all in and making griffin realize that the amount of time spent isn't the most important.

random facts/thoughts

2008-09-05T15:07:00.004-05:00

some things that i'm thinking about these days:

• i have to get a f**king root canal. what the hell? i thought old people were the only ones who got those.

• i really want to take a trip...but flights are insanely expensive.

• we got a new roof on our house...beats the shloppy looking roof that we had! and insurance covers most of it! even better. the company was kinda a hassle to work with, but in the end, it's done.

• i wish insurance would cover all the other projects we have to do. it'd be great to not have tarp on our sunporch windows this winter, but i'm sure we will...can't afford those windows yet.

• i have less than 4 months to meet my fitness goals i set for myself this year. i better get to it.

• griffin will not watch anything except diego and dora these days. bleh! super annoying. although the "rescue pack" diego song has been in my head nonstop and it's kinda catchy.

• do we throw away all the skid-stained undies or wash them? (griffins, not dans)

• how do we get g to eat more fruits and veggies? and how is this boy so picky??

• 26 miles on blades tomorrow a.m. seems like not that much fun anymore...i love how i commit to things like this.

• 2 weeks until duathalon...crap. this will be interesting.

• the 90210 revival was a bit weak. joe e tata looked foxy though.

• i remember when we made up the joe e tata lyrics to hukuna matada. those were in some of our classier days...

• speaking of those days..we need to go bowling at elsies again. that was good stuff.

• i wish all weeks were 4-day work weeks.

• i wish i knew some single guys.

• not for me...for dan. i mean for friends. i know a lot of cute and cool single girls, but not that many single dudes.

• are there way more girls than boys in this world? my mom is teaching a class with 13 girls and 6 boys. (or something skewed like that) and another friend has a kid in kindergarten with 14 girls and 4 boys.

• fun shows coming up in the next few months...mason jennings, liz phair, neko case, hold steady/drive by truckers.

• my first concert (that wasn't with my parents) was heart. ooooh, baracuda! i think my first concert with my parents was beach boys or eagles or somethin like that.

grandmas visit - labor day

2008-09-04T07:25:00.011-05:00

we had a great labor day weekend.
dans bro dave came into town friday night for a wedding, so he and dan were able to catch up and go have some drinks together. he left early saturday a.m.
dan's mom also arrived to spend the long weekend with us.

saturday we took a 15 mile bike ride. g loves his little bike cart.

we rode to the chain of lakes and had a nice picnic at calhoun

next stop was going to the trolley. g loves this thing. he wanted to wait and watch it go by a few times.

this guy really likes his job. very intense about the history of the street cars.

saturday night was spent having dinner out, bookstore and stopping at some other stores.

sunday we got up early and went to the state fair. griffin really loved going on the rides.
he did the ferris wheel with grandma...

he rode the swings and really loved that. (big difference from last year where he cried the entire time until the guy stopped it)

here dan and griffin are standing on the seating structure dan helped build during grad school.

we rode the sky ride thing..

and dan and lynne both went down the "giant slide" with g.

griffin is super excited and amazed while going up the space needle tower

view of the city from the top..

the man posing in front of his favorite ride...

griffin was NOT a fan of the farm.

but he was a fan of the sweet marthas cookies.

a great time at the fair had by all. we saw a pig being born, we ate tator tots on sticks, we met up with some friends and had fun people watching. my only regret at the fair this year is i didn't get to see the butter faces. oh well...next year.

sunday night we went to friends phil and jes' house for a bbq and drinks. g and grandma lynne came for awhile, then headed home for more fun things, like watching diego and using the potty.
dan and i stayed and hung with friends, grilled out, drank beer and got a cab ride home by a cabbie that was drinking. gee - i thought calling a cab was the responsible thing to do..apparently not.

monday we were sad to see grandma go. we bid her farewell, then ran errands, cleaned, played and congratulated griffin for his great work on the potty all weekend.
he is now peeing on the toilet each time and hasn't had an accident. as soon as he figures out the numeral dos, we will be high livin.

20th post...

2008-08-29T14:08:00.002-05:00

this is my 20th post on this blog. in honor of that, i'm going to list the 20 cutest things griffin currently says.
i wish i could be writing about the 20 first words he said, but i can't recall!!! I wish we did a better job of writing all that down. i do know his first word was dada, followed by mama shortly after.

anyway, some of the most funny, enduring, sweet things he says these days:

1. hold you (when he wants to be held or cuddled) - this is my all-time favorite.
2. mmm, mmm, mmm, delicious! (he will say this when he really likes dinner)
3. i fart (gee, where did he get this)
4. pee's coming! (now that he is a big boy, yo!)
5. hi pants!
6. ooooohh man!
7. funny pants lyle (after he saw our buddy in hip waders)
8. it's ok mama, shhhh. there you go. (when he thinks i'm sad or faking being sad if he doesn't want me to "hold you")
9. excuse me please
10. thank you mama (dada)
11. i'm sad
12. no miss yvonne's house today mama!
13. no singing mama, stop it! (pffft...whatever!)
14. i'll be right back, right now! (he's usually yelling this at us)
15. ow, that hurta my butt! (joking as we go over speed bumps)
16. mama, go to yogurt? (mama, going to yoga?)
17. remember daddy? remember this?
18. come on mama(dada), come play with me, please?
19. get up momma (dada), get up, dance with me! (either to ring a round the rosy, or the mambo)
20. mista dobalina, mr bob dobalina (lyrics to the del tha funky homosapien tune)

pee and treats

2008-08-26T16:37:00.002-05:00

well, day 1 of the underwear wearing was successful!
g peed a couple of times in his undies at miss y's, but also went on the toilet too.

then, for our proud parent moment (well, dan's...because i wasn't home to witness)...he has finally peed on the toilet for us! he did it twice last night! and seemed to be excited about it and told dan when he had to go!

dan called me and told me and griffin said in his sweetest little voice, "went pee on toilet and got treats!"

indeed he did. 2 m&m's for each pee.
red and blue for the first go around. and blue and orange for the 2nd time.

our little man is growing up. it's the cutest thing to see him running around in his little undies! he seems like such a big man...with a cute little butt! (ok, if he reads this when he's older, he'll be mad at me for talking about his cute bootie)

way to go my sweet little man. i remember when we brought you home and you were wearing the good-smelling newborn sized pampers...and they were still a little big and we'd have to pull the sides real tight to stay on.
i remember how when you moved into a size 1 pamper, we were amazed at how quickly you were growing.
now your running around in size 2T UNDERWEAR!!! Where has the time gone, my sweet little precious baby? i love you so much, and when i think of all of the things you've done and learned since then, i am so overcome with pride and happiness and feel incredibly lucky to have such a healthy, happy, smart and sweet little bird.

weekend adventures

2008-08-25T14:09:00.004-05:00

things have been busy with us, but good.
we had a great weekend. hung out with friends, babysat for some other good friends, went to dinner at a fantastic pizza joint and managed to get in some exercise, shopping for griffin undies and grilling out at home.

Went out to the iron girl course and did the run. I still have some work to do.
Went on a 16 mile bike ride and it was great not pulling that burly!! That thing must add on another 35 lbs..I think griffin is about 26 lbs and the thing itself has to weigh 10 lbs or more!
it felt good and i'm not too worried about the bike portion, although i've been told it's kinda hilly.

this past week dan and i went out on a date. whoa. we are trying to do a monthly babysitting swap with pete and kim, and we decided to go out to dinner. it was nice. dan and i definitely need to do things like this more often. it was almost like a first date in the beginning...we weren't sure what to even talk about! we are always talking about griffin, or daily tasks/events, so it took a minute to get in the groove of us as a couple. i think (probably like most parents) we have let our interests, and identities slip a bit, so we just want to do a better job of getting back in touch with ourselves as individuals, as well as a couple!
anyway, it was a much needed night out and great for the soul!

griffin has been great lately. potty training is clipping along at a slow pace. he does better at daycare than with us. i don't think we are as strict with it as miss yvonne is.
we put him in underwear today...i think he needs to see what it feels like to be wet. we'll see how it all goes.

he kinda got spoiled this weekend with a lot of movie watching. we had a few social events that it just seems easier to let him sit there and watch a movie..but now of course we have a little habit to try and break.

tonight we may hit the state fair...there is some music on the free stage i want to check out (brandi carlile)...and of course all the food. i need to try and resist some of the temptations...i've been good with exercise lately, so i don't want to send it all to hell with some bad state fair choices!

another busy week again and then a long weekend. sad that it also means summer is coming to an end!! where did it go?

I compiled a list of the summer activities i wanted to do this year....let's see where we are at:

1. swim at the beach (besides some floating at pie's cabin, we haven't done this!)
2. go to richfield pool - DONE
3. go to edina pool
4. go to state fair
5. go to a drive-in movie
6. hit the farmers market (just gone to the one down on nicollet mall at lunch..need to go to the others!)
7. do a lot of bike riding - DONE
8. have a picnic
9. have lots of summer bbq's - DONE
10. eat outside more - DONE (although typically we eat in our screened porch, as outside has NO shade and it's far too sunny)
11. rent a canoe/paddle boat and go around the chain of lakes
12. hit a summer beer tent or two - DONE
13. take a summer family trip - DONE
14. sleep in a tent
15. go to a saints baseball game - DONE
16. go to outdoor concerts at harriet or other local parks (we DID see our wedding band trailer trash, so i guess that counts...still need to go to harriet)
17. go to the outdoor movies in the park
18. rollerblade more often -DONE - have been going at least once per week
19. go to some art fairs
20. enjoy ice cream!! - DONE (of course!)

looks like we need to get a lot of activities done in the next few weeks!!! and it also looks like i've done most of my eating/drinking activities. go figure.

catching up with friends

2008-08-18T15:15:00.002-05:00

we had a lovely weekend. melissa, martin, along with kids chloe and nicollette were in town for a wedding.
we went to como during the day on friday, then had a bbq with some of our friends that night. fun times and always fun to hang out and catch up with melissa.
we kept the party going pretty late and i think i impressed some neighbors with my joke telling....uhhh..yeah.

saturday i went to my friend nuala's memorial service. it was sad, but it was also a great tribute to a wonderful woman. many people spoke on how involved she was in her community, her heritage, her jobs, her friendships and her family. she was truly a leader, organizer and a collector of friends. she had a fiesty spirit and when she wanted to see something happen...she did it. i think we can all learn from her example and carry on the great things she did. i hope i can be inspired to be a better person and reach out to people in need more than I do.

saturday evening melissa and martin had a wedding, so dan and i babysat the kiddos. they were well-behaved and we got along just fine. they are super cute. nickels is one of the most mellow and happy babies i've seen. chloe is quite the character, and can wear a person out...she is smart beyond her age and is the master of getting her way. but she's so damn cute that it just seems to work out and you aren't really sure what just happened, but she is really sweet, cute and funny.

sunday was spent cleaning, running errands, grilling out and hanging out at home.

back to work today. i have a huge presentation that i have to give tomorrow in front of about 25-30 people. i'm DREADING this. as much as i appear to love the spotlight, things like this make me nervous. i should be fine tuning my power-point presentation right now, but i don't want to think about it.

maybe if i just grab a microphone and belt it out in song, i'll feel right at home?
i mean...i do ROCK at alanis morrisette's "all i really want". maybe i can put my speech to the tune of that song and just really win the crowd over?

cursing the c word (and for clarification - not the one that rhymes with punt)

2008-08-13T15:43:00.005-05:00

so a wonderful woman that i had the humble pleasure of knowing passed away this morning after fighting a 3-year battle with ovarian cancer.
i'm sad for her family, sad for all of the friends, collegues and people that had the wonderful pleasure of knowing such a warm, caring, humble, chatty, witty, smart and beautiful woman.

it's got me thinking a lot about cancer. what the hell is going on!? it seems like when i was little, you rarely heard of someone with cancer. sure, it was out there, but maybe your uncle's neighbors cousin or something. then, as the years went on...more and more people are being diagnosed.

i was just trying to count all the people i personally know who have battled cancer (or lost the battle), or are friends or family with someone who is. I lost count after about 75 people. seriously.

the list ranges from some of my best friends parents, to children i know, to co-workers, to close friends, to relatives, to our own parents, and even in my own little family of 3, we have dealt with skin cancer and tumors.

so, what is up? was it just not diagnosed back in the day? did we not have the medical technology to detect it, and people just died of "natural causes"?
i have to think its more than that. is it the food we eat, the environment we live in, the chemicals we use, the water we drink? what?

regardless, it sucks, no matter how you break it down. the world is losing some wonderful people and today my heart hurts for the most recent victim to this stupid disease.

nuala - you will always be in my heart. i strive to be a better person because of you. your positivity, determination, non-judgemental attitude and your humble grace are all things i look up to you for. peace out my friend

weekend sans daddy

2008-08-12T14:43:00.005-05:00

g and i had a good weekend. friday we babysat for burke and that was just fine.

saturday we met up with dina and biked about 16 miles or so. we made a pit stop at lake harriet to look at the street car trolley. we didn't have any money, so we couldn't ride it, but i told griffin that if he was good, after his nap we could go back and ride it. (he's 2...he doesn't remember this kind of thing, right?)
well, after said nap...the FIRST thing he says is "after nap, go back and ride train". crap! i guess we are going back.
so, we go back, ride the trolley and then he demanded that we sit and watch it go by about 2 more times. he's obsessed i tell you!

that night we had a quiet evening at home. the little man fell asleep laying on my chest, and i let him stay that way for a long time. i don't get moments like that with him all that often anymore, since he's getting so big. so i kept him there for quite awhile (well, until "keeping up with the kardashians" just got too interesting that i had to sit up and ditch him in the crib)

that show is horrible. i feel stupid for just watching it. somehow i got sucked into a marathon. i couldn't pull away! finally around 2 a.m. i realized i was going to be tired and crabby in the morning and i wouldn't even have a good drinking tale to blame it on.

sunday was spent walking around lake nokomis, cleaning and then going to phil and jes' for a deck party. good times.
griffin was shy in the beginning, but quickly warmed up, thanks in part to the large cookie i gave him, and the freezie pop that filly gave him.

we had to leave early due to griffins 2nd blowout of the night. i guess i need to come to parties with more than 1 pamper. we left behind a nice waft of poo as we exited. i'm sure the partygoers were breathing sighs of relief when we hit the road.

dan unfortunately didn't get home until after midnight. they got a later start, he had a 9-hour drive ahead of him, and then wound up in traffic. he hit hudson right as they closed 94 in both directions due to a chemical spill....so that added a long time onto his drive, which led him through stillwater.

we had a great weekend, but griffin definitely missed his dad. he got sick of me by sunday. he told me (after about the 10th time i told him i loved him in the the course of the morning)...ok mommy! (in a very stern voice)
woops. i better stop smothering. that never ends up well.

trains and mama, dada

2008-08-07T22:26:00.004-05:00

first of all - came across this blog "blog of the unnecessary quotation marks". - hilarious!!

tonight griffin and i went for a bike ride...about 12 miles I think? we met up with dina and jes, and of course had to stop at dq, since it was miracle day...it's for the children, yo.

speaking of which....when i'm walking around downtown, i get numerous requests daily to stop and listen to someones speech, or sign a petition or donate money. they've gotten a bit more pushy and have started saying, "do you have a minute to save the children?"
ummm...no. i don't.
when i tell them no, they'll say, "god bless, the children thank you".

today someone asked me if i had a moment "for the gays".

anyway, dan left this a.m. for fishing up in da UP. he was going to pick up his dad, then head to michigan for an evening with extended family. he's looking forward to spending a weekend with his pops.
griffin and i will definitely miss him, but we will keep busy. tomorrow night we are babysitting for friends pete and kim (well, their son, burke anyway)
saturday we may do another long bike ride, then probably hanging at home that night.
sunday is a deck party at phil and jes's place. they just built a new deck and patio.

so each night when griffin goes to bed, we ask him what he is going to dream about. his answer is always, "trains and mama & daddy"
each morning we ask what he ended up dreaming about, and he says the same thing.
it's 10:45 p.m. i just heard him stirring in his sleep through the monitor (while i'm busy watching chelsea lately, of course). he was saying, "trains and mama dada" awww. he's thinking about me when he sleeps. then there was a loud rustle and he yelled out, "mama makes mickey mouse pancakes, i dream about that"

i did make him pancakes for dinner...shaped like the mouse. awwww...he is going to dream about that. can he be any sweeter?

wouldn't it be rad if you could decide what you wanted to dream about? (and i wouldn't be choosing a mouse with a super feminine voice....maybe donald duck...he doesn't wear any pants....)

so it begins...

2008-08-04T14:23:00.003-05:00

so, potty training started today. we have no idea what we are doing. apparently griffin peed through his pull-up on the way to school...in the 20 minutes he was wearing it. i thought these things were like a pamper, only easy for a kid to pull on and off themselves? if this is the case and they just leak pee right through, what is the point of them?
anyway, we spent about $100 last night at Target equipping ourselves with what we thought were the things we needed. a cars potty seat, $50 in pull-ups, a book that tells griffin how he is a big boy if he uses the potty (and that makes a totally annoying flushing sound), and of course a big bag of m&m's and marshmallows (treats he'll get if he uses the pot). he doesn't care about stickers, so not sure if that would work.

i can just see griffin in 15 years from now, having a craving for marshmallows right after he goes to the can.
maybe bribing your kid with sweets isn't the way to go...but hey, we're new at this.

anyway, he enjoyed sitting on the toilet, but nothing happened. he just wanted to get on and off and flush the toilet over and over again. we'll see what kind of luck miss yvonne has today.

we had a great weekend. friday was low-key. a nice night at home.

saturday was a busy day full of fun stuff. we packed up and headed out to lakeville for "a day with thomas"

griffin about lost his load when he saw thomas. all the kids there did. it was cute to see. we took about a 20-minute train ride (which for the adults was fairly boring), and then griffin got to meet the creepy sir topham hat.

there were other activities for kids to do, but g was a tad too little for some of them. overall, he really liked it and we'd probably go back if he's still into trains this much next year.

we then headed out to our friends shannon and laurences house for their slip&slide party. laurences good friend chris was in town from england visiting. dan and i have become quite fond of chris and it was so great to see him and catch up. the party was great. the make-shift slip&slide was the highlight. dan's got a bum knee from it, but it was good stuff. griffin even went down by himself a couple of times.

we put g to bed over there and continued to hang out catching up with friends. went home too late, only to get up too early.

sunday was my rollerblade 1/2 marathon. the first couple of miles were tough...i was still sleeping basically. but, i found my groove and it was actually great. there is the part where you head up the hill to finish the 1/2, or you'd go straight to do the full. even though i'd only signed up for the 1/2, i was very tempted to keep going and just do the full, because i was feeling good. but then i came to my senses and the thought of the nap i was going to take shortly made me decide to just finish.
when i was finishing there were super loud cheers and everyone saying, "good job..you look great out there!" gee...thanks! after the 4 beers last night and the 4 hours of sleep i got, that's quite sweet of you. then i look behind me and there is about an 80-year old man in overalls just finishing. he looked like he was about to die. maybe i didn't do THAT well if i came in the same time he did. oh well. i did it.

pampers - all done

2008-07-31T12:52:00.002-05:00

well, beginning monday griffin is going to start the old potty-training thing. i'm not sure how this will go.
he seems ready is some ways, but not in others.
the last couple days i've been telling him that he's going to be a big boy and going to go on the potty, and he'll say, "pampers all done?" but, when i tried to sit him on said potty...he freaks. then he'll say, "no toilet mama, put pamper on!"
(miss yvonne calls all diapers pampers, and it kinda stuck with us....so its always referred to as pampers...even though he wears huggies)

anyway, miss yvonne thinks he's ready and is wanting to start him, so we're going to see how it goes. dan and i have done no research whatsoever...i guess we just will figure it out as we go along and probably have a lot of headaches, accidents and cleanups along the way. we don't want to pressure him into this, so we'll see.

things have been good but busy. dan has been working quite a bit of long days on a big project at work. i have had a busy couple of weeks with working my freelance stuff for my old job. of course managing to get some socializing in as well.

g and i hooked up with baby mal, laura and her sis and family at a local splash park for a picnic and playing.
my good friend sarah madrid was in town so we went to dinner and caught up. so, so good to see her.

yoga last night with a drink afterwards (way to counter-effect the good of yoga) with pie and jes.

tonight i'm going to the duffy concert with some co-workers. tomorrow night i think we are having a quiet evening at home, and saturday we are going to a bbq/party to see some more good friends, and a friend from england that is in town visiting.

sunday is the st. paul inline marathon...which means i will have to make saturday a pretty tame night. i'm only doing the 1/2...not the full marathon, so not too worried.

my road rash is much better and doesn't look so awful. i haven't been on the blades since last monday when i had my fall, so i'm nervous about sunday.

griffin has been a great little guy. he's expressing himself more every day and saying funny things. he will tell us that food is "really tasty", or he'll tell us that he "was kinda scared sleeping in a different bed". he also told me the other night, (while he was crying about the toilet), "mom, i'm crying here!"

he's been saying "why" all the time now though. not sure if this is going to last the next 5 years or what. i'm sure all kids do it.

miss yvonne told me this a.m. that when she tells him to do something, he'll say "why" over and over. she'll tell him "i'm not going to tell you again".
anyway, yesterday they were out swimming and he told her that he didn't want to go in the pool. she asked him, "why?" and he told her, "i'm NOT going to tell you again. NO"

that's right...put miss yvonne in her place. sometimes she deserves it.

mama ok?

2008-07-23T10:16:00.003-05:00

so, i had a little accident. rollerblading accident to be specific.
after months of my co-workers asking me to go blading with them each monday (of course this is after i talk up the fact that i rollerblade and how much i just love it..)...they were probably tired of my excuses, so they said they were coming to my house and we'd go from there. uhhh..crap. guess i can't get out of this. (unless i am going to drop $600 on another last minute trip to boise to get out of yet another sporting event that i don't want to do..)

anyway, we head out. i'm feeling good. we go around lake nokomis a few times. no sweat. we are going to attempt to head down to harriet via the parkway. rather than get onto the path the normal way, i lead them through neighborhoods and finally to a path that leads down to the parkway. very steep, very windy and lots of debris on the path. great. just what i'm so good at...hills, braking and avoiding debris. (all my enemies)

i proceed down with caution...got the brake on. wind up hitting some of the debris in the path, my brake comes up, i start going way too fast and i can't brake in time. i hit some bark/sticks and fall.

trying to put the embarrassment aside, i brush off and say.."i'm good. let's keep going"(hell, i'm pert near down the hill at this point...mission accomplished).
my co-workers take a look at me (shaking, quivering and dirty wounds) and say we better head back. "no, no...really, i'm ok!" uh..we head back. we had already gone about 9 miles so no one felt the need to continue.

this hurts like a total MF. i scraped up my elbow and my shin area pretty bad. total road rash. it looks awful and stings really bad. i'm not able to sleep that well because the sheets iritate it and unless i take a bunch of advil, its quite sore.

now, of course the first thing that crosses my mind after falling: "sweet, now i have an excuse to get out of the rollerblade race i'm doing next sunday!"
but i suppose i just need to get right back up and on them. i could make excuses forever on why i don't want to exercise...but after just getting on the scale...i need to keep this exercise thing going.

the sweet relief in all of this...griffin is such a doll. each time he sees my gross puss-ridden wounds, he says in a sweet little voice, "mama ok?" then he comes over, gives me a hug and says, "there you go mama, there you go". (just like he does when he's putting his penguin "pengy", bunny and bear "maca" to bed.).
he makes the pain a bit more bearable.

weekend updates

2008-07-21T15:26:00.007-05:00

haven't posted in a couple weeks. lots of catching up at work and at home from having been gone for 8 days, so haven't had a lot of time.

2 weeks ago. (july 11-13)
friday i went to crosby, stills and nash concert through work. yes, i know...they are still around and alive? i wondered that too. got comp tickets through a vendor and i like my co-workers, so thought it would be fun.
it was! went for drinks and apps before the show at some fancy pants place and then went to the show. for being about 100 years old, they still were pretty decent! we were about the only people in the audience that didn't have an oxygen tank or walker, but hey...live music is still good.

saturday we hung out, then that night, we headed over to gregg and dawns to celebrate jakes birthday. we gave him his present

then after grilling out, we went to the park for some live music.
trailer trash was playing at an outdoor ampitheater. trailer trash played at our wedding 5 years ago.

it was great fun to see them. they put on a great show. friends dina and lyle were also there, along with lyle's sister and her family.
griffin enjoyed it..

and griffin, jake and sammy wanted to go up front to dance and watch them up close.
jake was totally cute. he told the lead singer that 5 years ago, he danced with his aunt on her wedding day. indeed he did.

sunday i went for a run with dina, and then followed that up with heading to friends beth and jasons to see their new baby, george. a real cutie!
a great weekend, full of live music. what is better than that?

this past weekend (july 18-20):,
i ended up booking a last minute flight to boise. it was my cousin chris' wedding. i didn't think i could make it, due to us having to afford a new roof and flights being so expensive, but i found a last minute deal, and a visit from the insurance adjuster, who told us we were getting a new roof due to some storm damage, allowed me to feel ok paying for the trip.

i left thursday late, after we went to a saints game with dan's work.

had a lovely time. pictures to come (i didn't bring my camera, so have to rely on my brother to upload some for me).
spent friday with my parents and gregg, bumming around bodo (thats boise downtown...not to be mistaken with hobo..which is historic boise). we had a good time exploring around. there are about a million places to eat downtown and not much for shops, but it was fun nonetheless.
we picked up my aunt susan, who is in a memory care unit in boise to take her out for her birthday. met up with my grandma and other uncle david for dinner.
a great evening spending time with my family. my grandma seems to be doing well. she has some leg pain, but she looks great and seems to be in good spirits.

saturday we headed over to my grandmas retirement center for lunch. (options at the home were either turkey divan or veal bird.) WTF is veal bird we all asked! (apparently it's a rolled up piece of veal with stuffing.) i went with the turkey, clearly.
after spending some time talking and catching up, we headed out to a few wineries. had a great time taste testing!
got ready for the evening wedding.

the wedding itself was in a rose garden. it was hotter than hell. but it was nice. the reception was in the hotel that gregg and my parents were staying in.
we had a good time people watching and catching up with our family. great to see my 2 cousins and other aunt/uncle as well.
drank free budweiser and enjoyed watching all the dancing going on. the guy that married chris was his buddy, and was ordained online.
we referred to him as the "hip hop minister". after the ceremony was over...he turned his baseball cap sideways, put his chain on his wallet and the fun began. my goal was to get my picture taken with HHM...and by the end of the night, i succeeded (as well as about 10 cameos when i would go behind him, while he was in the middle of an awesome dance move, or spanking a girls booty while grinding with her). apparently this guys name was "cappy". not sure his real name, but who cares. he ruled.

the other crowd favorite of the evening was "hippy". again, not sure his real name, but this guy was awesome. you weren't entirely sure if it was a girl or guy from a distance, what with his crazy long dreadlocks and funky eyes. but it was a dude and he was sweet to watch. kept us all entertained for the evening.

flew home yesterday getting in around noon. dan and griffin had a great "guys weekend". they took a long bike ride to choo choo bobs, had lunch out, shopped at target and watched movies.
griffin seemed annoyed that i was home. immediately upon picking me up at the airport, he turned super crabby and started crying and saying "stop it momma, stop it"

we went to friend adams daughters birthday party. aelish turned 2 and they had a party at a park. had some pizza and cake, then went home to put mr. crabby pants to bed.
after he woke up, he seemed to like me better.

we rounded out the evening by meeting friends, beth, jason, jimmy and new baby george at the new park by minneahaha falls. quite a lovely evening. they have a splash pad over there that griffin liked. we finished the night with a little dq.
can't get better than that.

family vacation

2008-07-10T21:57:00.023-05:00

we had a great trip. we spent 3 days in waunakee with my parents.
dan and i went to my hometown beer tent (the good ol' dane fest) shortly upon arriving. we saw the love monkeys play. They are a band i used to LOVE when I was in my 20's...and at the beginning of the night, dan and i were both thinking they sucked. "why did I used to love this band?", i wondered.
many pitchers of bud light later...and they were our favorite band! we were front row and center and singing along to all the classics.
it was a fun night seeing a bunch of good friends that i don't get to see that often.
griffin was snuggled tightly in bed and grandma and grandpas.

The next day, we took griffin to the dane parade. (ulterior motive is that we had to pickup the jeep that we left the night before. (see above: too many bud lights)
the parade consisted of about 100 different firetrucks, and kids pelting candy at the crowd.
caught up with some more old friends.

monday we hit the madison zoo with my mom, dan's mom and friends julie, thea and kenn, with all their cute kids. we got a great treat and were able to meet up with auntie wendy and cousins addison and andrew. they were in town while griffins other cousin, alexandra, went to camp. bummer we didn't get to see alex, but griffin loved spending time with his cousins and aunt!
we spent most of the day at the zoo, then headed over to the memorial union to sit by the water and have ice cream.

we saw a few other friends this night, had dinner with my parents and spent the night just hanging out with my folks.

the next day (tuesday) we spent the day with my mom before having to say goodbye, to start the next leg of our trip.
griffin loved his time in waunakee and we were sad to say goodbye!

tuesday we arrived to milwaukee, checked into the downtown hilton and got ourselves ready to walk over to summerfest.
we had a nice 2-3 mile walk, saw the cool art museum and then made our way to summerfest.

we had a great time just walking around, eating, seeing a couple bands and griffin enjoying the playground.
there was NO one good playing the day we were there...but we found a stage that had some good jam bands and just hung out.

wednesday we spent the rainy day inside the hotel, where we had a waterpark. g liked that. we all had a great afternoon nap, then walked around downtown milwaukee again, and found a great brewery for dinner.

thursday we hit the milwaukee zoo. (we certainly got our fill of zoos on this trip).
g loved it. his favorite part was the train that took you around the zoo. he was obsessed with that thing!

we arrived to our 3rd destination of our trip (chicago to see dans brother dave, cindy and cousins aidan and reese) in the late afternoon.
griffin had a great time catching up with his cousins. it was super cute to see him play and interact with them.

we went to the park ridge fireworks this evening and g loved it! he was ooing and ahhing and was fascinated by all the colors and booms.

the next day (friday the 4th) we hit the local waterpark. it was great fun to see aidan and reesie playing around.

g on the other hand, had other plans in mind. he immediately zonked out on daddy for a nap. i think the trip had caught up to him!

we spent the evening grilling out, enjoying hanging with the family. g loved spending time with everyone.

saturday the girls went to get pedicures (aidan and reese got fingernails painted).

we met up with the boys at a choo choo restaurant where g about lost his shit. it was a restaurant where they carried the food from the back kitchen to the counter via electric train. griffin was mezmorized by this and just watched them go around and around.
when we all met up, i was QUITE taken aback. our little boy who had just looked like this:

now looked like this:

dan had given him a buzz cut with the beard trimmer. nothing like a good summer cut. we all called him "patchy" for the first few days, but it's kinda grown in a bit now and looks better.

saturday night grandma lawrence watched all the kids while dave, cindy, dan and i went out to celebrate dave's birthday. it was a great night, full of silliness, friendship and family catching up.

sunday we had to leave. we wished sweet little aidan a happy 5th birthday before we hit the road.
what a great trip...just what we all needed.
we got to meet dan's dad, bruce and wife lucy in the dells for lunch on the way back through, so that really completed our week of family fun.

we made it back to minne to awesome yellow grass, ants and that shitty looking roof that we have to replace. reality i suppose. but, it didn't keep us from feeling great about our weeklong family vacation, full of fun memories, funny moments with our little man, and the realization that our family of 3 rocks.

weekend whirlwind

2008-06-26T15:55:00.007-05:00

so yes. i was on the dance floor doing the electric slide. and yep, they played i knew the bride when she used to rock and roll, and i think i managed to get out there and shake it a little bit with lisa.
but i dont think any of the others on my list were played! dan and i did cut the rug big time. we spent most of the evening out of the dance floor. it was good time.

the wedding was good, and the reception even better. we dined with a table of blue-hairs and it was awesome. this one woman told dan he was dressed so professional. and it was cool to see these couples that have been married 50 years and still in love (and drinking a lot of straight-up booze). one woman told us the key to happiness was having "happy hour" each night with your spouse. i'm in.

the newlyweds looked happy, the groom got roasted over and over during the speeches, and it was a good evening.
except for the fact that i couldn't track any cheese pizza down afterwards. i bugged the bartender till he threw me a bag of chips to shut me up.

the g-man did beautifully with grandma lynne. the spent a bit of time in the water park at great wolf lodge, then walked around the outdoor mall and griffin enjoyed every ride they had there.

the next day we spent the morning at the waterpark.
My parents came up too to join us for a bit, then we had lunch.

We bid our farewells and made our way to somerset, wi, where we were headed to see mason jennings and jack johnson at the rivers edge ampitheater.
the concert was awesome. i have always been more of a mason fan, but jack was incredible. the sound there was incredible and griffin was incredible. he was so cute. he would sing along to songs and clap around and shake his booty (and of course point at butts and say poop)

oh, that reminds me...when we were in church for the wedding...griffin points at my boobs and kept saying, "mama, whats that? whats that? he got the whole row behind us chuckling. uhh. yeah.

anyway, the concert. it ruled. there were a lot of stoned dudes that would talk to us about the fact that we had a kid at the concert. one guy asked us "so, like, what will you do if you have to change his diaper"? ummm...we respond, "we'll change his diaper". his response..."fucking awesome man. do what you gotta do. he's at his first "jack" show..thats all that matters".
indeed.

another guy came up and said," dude likes him some jack, huh" then we stood awkwardly around in silence for about 2 minutes until he needed a beer or another joint.

anyway, it was awesome. we were worried griffin would be crabby just from all the whirlwind traveling we had done over the weekend, but he loved it.
he drank:

hung with his buddies:

rested between sets:

smiled at the drunkies:

and was just a cute and cool kid.

we have had a crazy week trying to get things done to get ready for our week-long vacation to wisconsin and chicago. we are leaving saturday and will return the following sunday, the 6th.
we are going to spend a couple of days with my parents, go to milwaukee for a couple of days (summerfest, zoo, art museum), and wind up in chicago to celebrate aidan, reese and dave's birthdays. griffin will get to see lots of family...we are all looking forward to that.

and it will be nice not looking at cereal for a week. as much as i'm liking my job...i need a break.
today i'm working on a package of "pirates treasures".

dells bound

2008-06-20T10:52:00.004-05:00

we are heading out tomorrow bright and early to a wedding in wisconsin dells.
my friend (and former roomate) lisa walsh is getting married. (she's the 2nd from the right)
should be a good time. we are staying at the good ol' great wolf lodge
dan's mom will watch the little man while we go to the dinner and reception.

we prepped griffin last night for his weekend swimming adventure by taking him to a little kiddie pool. he enjoyed climbing in and out of the pool...over and over, and over.
i was lookin hot in my swimsuit (thus why there will be no pictures of this excursion).

this morning griffin got up entirely WAY too early. it seems he was having a little stomach ache, since he kept crying out "mommy, poopy, stuck, hurts" poor kid.
in addition to griffin waking up and crying, we also have about 5 different bird nests in various locations in our roof vents and other areas, and as pleasant as birds chirping can be...at 5 a.m....it's pretty damn annoying. we need to do something about the state of the roof (and the tropical rain forest that it's become)
so, this morning started off a bit rocky. I DID however manage to get myself over to Julie's and we ran around Lake Hiawatha. it's wasn't as great of a run as it was tuesday evening, but it's getting easier and i'm feeling better about completing this 5k and possibly running the entire thing.

we are looking forward to the weekend. As much as these whirlwind trips can be tiring, it'll be fun. we haven't had a wedding for quite awhile, and we always enjoy some good fun. i just hope they don't play "paradise by the dashboard light".
that song is always played at weddings and its lame. in typical wisconsin fashion, how it usually goes is: all the girls line up on one side of the dance floor, and the dudes on the other. the girls yell over "will you love me forever?" and the guys yell back, "let me sleep on it, blah, blah".
now i'm SURE i have partaken in this at some point, and probably did all the hand gestures and acted all pissy and serious about loving me forever. but, i couldn't have been sober.

the other funny songs that are usually played are:
• mony mony (and of course people add in the "get laid, get fucked part" - it seems to me they actually even add "twice" to the end of the lyrics...cause you really do want to get fucked more than once during that song.

• electric slide (and yes...i'm usually out there with all of the 8 year olds doing this and really getting into it.) i think this is an adult only wedding...so maybe it'll just be ME doing it?

• shout (and people all dance down low to the ground when they are doing the "little bit softer now" part.) I KNOW that i've done this...and once i can't go any lower, i'll drop to my knees and kinda shimmy my shoulders all the way back to the ground. I'm sure people are thanking jesus when "a little bit louder now" comes on, because they don't have to watch me shake my stuff any lower.

• piano man (and everyone stands around in a big circle trying to outdo the next guy by proving they know all the lyrics. I certainly have gawhoffed at the person next to me that said that john was the real estate novelist that never had time for a wife. umm..its paul, dummy. john is the bartender. listen to ME sing and you'd get it right.

its funny how i diss, but yet im probably joining in on all of these antics. probably even yelling out to the dj "hey, when you gonna play i knew the bride when she used to rock and roll?" cause you KNOW I need to show everyone how I can still do the splits during my 10 seconds when i get to dance with the bride solo in the middle of the circle, while everyone stands around in amazement.

weddings. good stuff. maybe it's me that needs to class it up, and not our little g-man.

class it up

2008-06-17T10:41:00.003-05:00

so, i don't think its any secret that dan and i share the same dirty humor.
we find talking about boobs, poop, burps and farts quite humorous. we all laugh when dan lets out a big burp. we point out the good cleavage shot at the woman pushing the stroller during baby einsteins "on the go", we all make a big "stink" when griffin farts. (of course I don't do any of these things....hehe)

i think its time we may have to start classing it up. griffin is turning into us.

he will proudly exclaim: "i burped", or "i fart" "that's nasty"
we all laugh and high five him.
we have been teaching him to at LEAST say "excuse me" so...don't banish us to the trailer court just yet!

he points at butts and says "poop". we all laugh. our friends have encouraged this and so have we. he now will point at his stuffed animals back side and say "poop", and falls to the floor and laughs. he will point at the butt area of some old woman bent over and say "poop".
he has now started saying "boobs" and pointing to none other than boobs. mine, people on TV, stuffed animals, woman in my "women's health" magazines, etc. i'm sure next up is random folks. (or god forbid...miss yvonne's)

i guess i finally realize why gregg and dawn were so annoyed with us when jake was around 2-3 and we would sub in the word "poop" for everything. jake was fascinated with this word then too. and we just egged him on.
"hey jake, do you want to go the poopground and go down the slides?" (giggles from all of us..glares from gregg/dawn.)
"hey jake, should we make some poopcorn to eat while watching this movie?" (me being quite impressed with myself for my latest poop drop, gregg/dawn escorting us out of the house)
Our favorite one....jake was really into saying aerodynamic to describe airplanes. of COURSE we changed that right away to "aerodypoopie" (dan, jake and i dying of laughter on this one..., gregg and dawn taking away our godparent rights)

anyway....now what do we do! we started this...and i guess we have to end this. while i will always think its funny...it's high time we class it up and teach our kid some manners.

dan and i have a lot of things we say we are going to really start doing when it comes to parenting.
we are going to make healthier meals and snacks for griffin
we are going to start cutting out his evening milk
we are going to start working on the potty training
we are going to start letting griffin play on his own a bit more...let him take more chances and us stop being too overprotective
we are going to start thinking about transitioning him out of his crib

all of these things are really important and we have talked about our strategy on how to start these things.
but what about teaching him manners? why are we still letting him slurp his milk right out of the cereal bowl? why do we let him gurgle his water (at the table no less)? why do i load up a squirt gun with milk and squirt it into his mouth as his lunch-time beverage? and why do we keep saying "poop" and pointing to butts?

ok, now that i got that all off my chest (err..boobs), i feel better (and slightly embarrassed).

5 years

2008-06-15T21:24:00.007-05:00

a great weekend.
started friday with friends chad and haugen coming over to grill out. the kids played and we caught up.
chad took a look at our roof which is in dire shape. he recommends us getting a new one. we had an estimate earlier in the day. the low, low price of 6K. cause we have that kind of money laying around waiting for us to get a roof. one more thing to add to the never-ending home project money sucking list. this one is probably a bit more of a priority though...so we'll see. few more estimates before we decide.
anyway, saturday i hit the gym in the a.m. while the boys ran errands. then we all met up and played outside and enjoyed the great weather. g man took an earlier nap and when he woke up...we packed up and headed over to gregg and dawns. griffin was having a sleep-over with his auntie, uncle and cousins.
dan and i were off to stillwater to celebrate 5 years. it was a hot, sunny day...just like it was 5 years ago. and it fell on a saturday too...just like 5 years ago.

we had a wonderful time. the b&b was everything we remembered it to be. we had a great deck with lounge chairs. we brought our fancy wine that we got in sonoma and we really relaxed, talked about our past, future and all that we are thankful for in our marriage.
we went to a good restaurant and sat outside. we left right when the band started playing "love potion number 9". it took us about 15 minutes to walk back to our b&b and when we were walking up the final hill, they were still playing "love potion number 9".
we were lulled to sleep by the thunderstorms and awoke to coffee, tea and the newspaper. we of course woke up at our usual time (6:30), and missed our little bird, but we reveled in the fact that we could lounge around, reading the paper, talking and not watching baby einstein immediately upon awaking.
the breakfast served was amazing. the gardens and decor were amazing and it was a nice little get-away.

we picked up griffin around 11:30 and gregg informed us that griffin was great. he was very mellow, had a good time with his cousins and he even made us some wonderful art projects. i'm so glad he did well and i'm glad he loves his auntie, uncle and cousins so much.

we arrived home and dan found his anniversary gift from me.
since the traditional 5-year gift was wood, i had bought a tree for our yard. pi and dina planted it for me (they rock) and when we got home it was planted and looking great. dan was super suprised and really liked it.

we spent the day outside. more great weather. griffin had fun with his friends and we had a great time looking at our tree and getting some sun.

a great weekend, a great anniversary celebration and a happy fathers day. I talked to my parents and i'm glad my dad had a good day. I am excited to see him in a couple of weeks and i'll have to do something nice to thank him for being a great dad.

dan got a few fathers day gifts from us. most importantly i want him to know that he is the best daddy. the love he has for griffin is amazing. he is an extremely active dad and he is a huge part of shaping griffin into the funny, caring, loving little guy he is.

we are really lucky to have such a great guy in our lives.
these past 5 years have been nothing short of amazing, i couldn't be more in love with dan and each day it gets better and better. and as much as we loved having a night to ourselves, being back together today as our complete family is the best gift there is.

random ramblings

2008-06-10T11:18:00.010-05:00

Another great weekend. Filled with relaxation, great weather, grilling, friends, parks and G being great.
He's really developing his little personality and is so much fun to be around. He still has his days...the clingyness and all that...but overall he seems to be coming more relaxed.

Wisconsin Dells got some REALLY bad weather over the weekend. So bad that it completely drained Lake Delton! This is a big tourist attraction, so it's super sad that the whole thing just washed away! Dave, Cindy and the kids were there just a couple days before watching the Tommy Bartlett show. Now this is all that is left:

Pretty sad.

Dan and I are trying to decide if we should go to my cousins wedding in July. The whole family will be there (minus Dawn and the kids, and Michael). We would really like to be there, but money and vacation time is a factor. We are taking a week off at the end of June to do a Madison/Milwaukee/Chicago road trip. So, not sure about taking more time off.
In addition...I have signed up for a 5K run that falls on this weekend.
I am REALLY trying to set some goals, and train (so I can possibly run the entire 5K, rather than walk any). I would be bummed to miss it, as Dina, Jes and Pi are all doing it too..so great motivation.
I guess if we end up going I'll just sign up for one the following weekend...

We are going to Stillwater this Saturday, June 14 for our 5 year anniversary. G will sleep over at his cousins - Jake and Sam's house.

We are REALLY looking forward to the evening. We are staying at the elephant walk:
www.elephantwalkbb.com in the Cadiz Garden Suite. We stayed there when we first started dating. It's great.
We're hoping G does fine...i'm sure he will. Gregg will be on his own with the kids for awhile, as Dawn is working some during the weekend.
I think Dan and i will go to dinner, talk about life, goals, our wonderful 5 years together and all that we have left to look forward to.
i can't believe 5 years of marriage has gone by....it's flown. We've managed to get through Dan's graduate school (although if you ask him he is still bitter...), various jobs, 3 houses, loss of family, additions to our family, our most awesome little guy, various health scares for our family as well as some friends, some great trips and just wonderful memories that we will continue to build.

As much as we love our little guy and will miss him like crazy...having a little bit of time to ourselves is going to be great and much needed. We'll be better parents for it when we get to see him Sunday (fathers day!)

And I'm sure we'll spoil him that day!

weekend fun with Gramps

2008-06-02T16:28:00.016-05:00

We had a great weekend. Dans dad was visiting from Thursday night until this morning, so it was a good time with gramps. Griffin liked saying "grampa" and he was pretty comfortable with him.

Dan spent the day with his dad, hanging out, walking around Minnehaha Falls and just catching up.

Friday night was Pi's birthday BBQ at Dina/Lyle's house (or just "dial" as we lovingly refer to them). I went once Griffin was hitting the hay. Good times as always and fun to catch up with friends.

Saturday we went to the park in the morning.

then went to the Riverview Theater for their monthly "choo-choo bobs" train movies. G liked eating the popcorn probably most out of the whole thing. After the movie we took Bruce by the 35W bridge area...he had wanted to see the site and see the new bridge construction. Interesting how quickly it seems to be going up!
Dan and his dad went to the Twins game this night and enjoyed all 11 innings of the game.

G and I hung out at home, and witnessed the hailstorm that we got! No damage to the house or car, but it sounds like my brother got car and house damage out in the "park".

Sunday I did the Grand Old Day 8K rollerblade. Hi. I'm out of shape. I just checked results today and I was 75th out of 76 people. Pretty sweet stats. I think I beat out a small child and thats it. WTF!? I guess I'm a bit more out of shape! If I'm even considering doing the inline marathon in August, I need to get to work. it was fun though and made me feel like I earned eating a giant sandwich and fries afterwards!
We watched the parade with Dan's dad and friends Beth, Jason and their son Jimmy. G liked getting all the candy thrown to him.
Jimmy

Eating Candy!

I LOVE the bookmobile!

this thing RULES! A bar you can pedal!

We grilled out at home this night and spent a great evening hanging outside with all the neighbor kids. Griffin is still pretty shy and timid around people, but we just keep getting him out there and he seems to be a bit more comfortable with other people more and more.
Next door neighbor Dawson

Back at work today. Normally that is kind of a bummer feeling on Mondays, but today I was very relieved to come to work...we seem to have a little carpenter ant problem. it's rather nasty to wake up to the disgusting things crawling across your body. good stuff. We are going to try to home remedy it the next few days and if we don't have any luck...i got a great recommendation for a dude called" Antrax". I wonder if he looks anything like Joey Belladonna? Or wait...didn't anthrax find some random as a replacement? It COULD be this guy....

Denver trip recap

2008-05-30T10:50:00.014-05:00

We had a great time in Denver/Aspen over Memorial Day weekend. We went to visit Melissa, Martin, Chloe and Nicollette (baby Nickels as Griffin likes to call her).
We spent a day/evening at their place in Denver and sat outside with some drinks and catching up, as well as hitting a park for a bit of playing. After the chitlens went to bed, we decided we needed to prepare ourselves for our big trip to Aspen, so we watched Dumb and Dumber. That is real cinema!

The next morning we rented a mini-van and packed us all up and headed to the mountains. The drive was pretty, the kids were mostly behaved and we got to our rental around lunch.

We checked ourselves in and then walked around town. Had some margaritas and mexican food at a great local place and then the kids played around at a park, while Melissa and I shopped around a bit. All kinds of fancy pants stores that we couldn't afford anything. After strolling around awhile, we checked back at the park to get the kiddies.

We headed back to our condo and took the kids swimming. Dan and Martin picked up some beverages at the liquor store. The water was GREAT! it was super warm water and the scenery was fantastic. We were right at the base of the mountains and it was definitely a highlight to the trip. Griffin was loving the water...jumping, splashing and blowing bubbles. We hung out in the pool and hot tub for a couple of hours before heading back to the condo.
After G, Chloe and Nickels went to bed, we hung out, had some drinks and Dan and I both wondered why we live so far away from the Krugers.

The night was great, although we had some restless sleep as G was sleeping with us and that kid hogs the bed! We had a king sized bed and at one point Dan had a tiny sliver on the bed and i was at the foot of the bed, while Griffin was spread out horizontally across the bed. He sure rules the roost.

The next day we had an AMAZING breakfast at a place called Poppycocks, packed up and drove around the rich homes up in the mountains. Some crazy-huge houses. We headed up to a park and the kids climbed a bit while we took some photos and walked around a bit.

We finally decided to start making our way back. We had a fun drive back, stopping along the way at some hot springs (didn't go in...too crowded), and a brewery.

We finally made it back (kids were a bit restless in the car) and stopped for some ice cream. We drove around Denver, saw Melissa and Martin's new townhome they will be moving into in a few weeks and finally made it back to their place.

We were sad it was our last night, as we had such a great time with everyone and we felt like we didn't have enough time to do everything. But overall, we had a great trip and it really felt like vacation!
Of course the juvenile humor we all share...we had to take pictures of all the 'hot spots' such as "Glory Hole Park" and "Hymen Blvd". Good stuff.

Griffin was pretty good...a bit shy at first and a little out of sorts here and there, due to all the traveling, car riding and nap-missing. But, he definitely had fun. He enjoyed the "choo-choo" and airplane traveling and he's still been talking about being up in the clouds and going through tunnels.
He has been saying "martin, missa, and baby nickels" since we've been home. (apparently he doesn't miss Chloe??).
Once we made it home, he was missing his little buddies! So were we.

getting with the times

2008-05-29T17:08:00.001-05:00

so, i'm taking the jump into the cyberworld, starting a blog. i'm only doing this because I want to document Griffins journey. I don't have anything that important to say about myself, but I want our kid to look back and have some documentation of his life! We are horrible picture takers, horrible "baby book" writers, and the random chance that we take a picture...we don't do anything with it from there. So...this will be my attempt at creating a digital archive of our life.

it'll take me awhile to figure out all this blog shit. i am not very savvy when it comes to technology. i rocked out to tapes years after they became obsolete. we were the lamos that had beta, and i can't really figure out how to use a digital camera. But, let's see how this all goes...