Thanksgiving Break!

We had a great Thanksgiving Break and we hope you did too! Thursday we spent the day with Eric's family and my mom in Farmington. Larry (Eric's Dad) made a terrific meal and it was nice to relax and spend time with everyone. Friday morning I was up early with my mom and Mandie to take advantage of the Black Friday shopping deals. We finished around 10:30 and I'm happy to say that I finished my shopping and got lots of great deals! The rest of the break was spent hanging out with my boys, napping (all 3 of us at different points), setting up Christmas decorations and our tree, and wrapping the Christmas gifts. So it was a very productive break and I look forward to the weeks to come and celbrating Robert's 2nd Christmas. Here are some pictures from the long weekend. Hope everyone is well and behaving so that you make Santa's Nice List!!

My Boys playing while waiting for Thanksgiving Dinner!

Cousin Laughter & Love

Grandma & Robert

Unloading the Christmas Tree

Tree's up and someone is very curious!!

The one thing we realized is that Christmas decorations will be minimal this year. A certain lil' boy wants to get his hands on everything so unfortunately our house won't be as festive but luckily that also means less work for me!

First Haircut!

I took most of the day off on Wednesday and decided that it was time for Robert's first haircut. The top of his head wasn't so bad but as you can see from the first picture below the back and sides were starting to get out of hand. So off we went to Kid Hair in Maple Grove for our first cut. When we walked in there was a little girl who was just a little older than Robert getting her haircut. She was the only other one there and she was NOT happy. Robert, being the perfect child that he is, sat through the entire cut without lots of moving or crying. He did need to check every so often that I was there but no fussing!

Before Haircut

In the chair waiting for the next step!

What is going on???

A little buzzing around the trim!

All finished but after sitting still for the cut he refused to remain still for a picture opp!

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Linda Troester

This time of year my side, mostly my Aunt and Uncles, have a tradition of going to the Minnesota/Iowa game every year. This was started because there are relatives in both states, but I think mostly because of one person that had a deep sense of family, my aunt Linda. A year ago this week she passed away. If you heard the countless stories about her you would have heard the countless lives she touched and how she never judged anyone no matter what.

It seems the ones that touch the most lives are the first ones to leave and I’ve always wondered why this is. I could only come up with one answer that made sense to me…it was time for someone else to pick up where this person left off. It could be something small or something big or even something that isn’t real obvious or even something that may occur much later, but this is the only answer that made sense to me.

I am thankful I had an opportunity to get to know Linda, but also to be influenced in some way by her husband Tom. You don’t only become the person you want to be from your immediate family, but also your extended family. Influence works both ways.

“Celebrate Life, Live with Hope”

Happy Birthday Uncle Paul & Baby Brother

Today is my Uncle Paul's birthday and my baby brother also celebrates his by turning 26! We wish them a great day and hope it is filled with lots of fun and celebration and not the normal Monday blues. We're looking forward to celebrating with Nick tomorrow night for dinner even if he is only looking forward to time with Robert and his gift.

Happy Birthday Uncle Paul!

Happy Birthday Baby Bro!

Giggles & A Clean House!

This week Robert has been extra giggly. Not sure what brought on the change or if he just knew it was hard on dad to be cranky while mom was at work. Below is a video of him playing hide & seek with Eric with some great full belly laughs. I swear there isn't a better sound than hearing your child giggle!

My foot is also finally getting better. Today was my first day out of the boot and it felt okay. I finally got our house cleaned back to my standard while Eric tackled what Mother Nature left for him in the yard. 10+ bags of leaves and a little fire for the branches and our yard is ready for snow..even if we aren't!

Small bonfire to finish yard clean-up

Lately Robert has wanted to be on the couch and loves to crash on it. Since he can't get up onto the couch by himself and he doesn't seem to realize there is a drop to the floor we decided to get him a bean bag chair for him to crash on at a safe distance. He is so far loving it and is even acting like mom and dad by sitting (well kneeling but we're sure sitting will come soon!) and playing on the computer.

Hide & Seek with Daddy

Also a great way to tire him out for bed!!

Halloween!

This wasn't Robert's first Halloween but this was the first one he didn't sleep through...well actually he barely slept at all this Halloween but more about that in a bit! Because Halloween fell on a Saturday we decided to go to Red Wing for the holiday plus we don't know that many people in Robbinsdale for Robert to visit and my mom had a long list of places she wanted to go.

So Saturday morning Eric dropped me off at St. Kate's and then kept on driving to Red Wing with Robert and the dogs. I headed down to Northfield with my team for our relay meet and my mom joined me there to watch the team swim and then drive me home. The meet went great but I've realized the biggest trigger for my foot pain is standing on it for long periods of time. I was wearing a boot, per doctor's orders after being diagnosed with a stress fracture, which helped but I think I probably should have sat down between races...I'll try this at our meet next week!

Once we got into town we made dinner and then headed out to visit family friends. We didn't get to as many places as we'd have liked but we did enjoy the stops we got to. Once we returned home we thought Robert was tired and ready for bed...boy were we wrong. He had a lot of energy and sleep wasn't what he wanted and no he didn't have any candy well maybe a little snickers bar that he chewed his way through the package. He normally goes to bed by 8:00 but he wasn't ready for bed until after 10:30 at first we weren't too concerned since it was daylight savings but then it got to be a little too late. Part of the reason he wasn't going to sleep was because we determined that he was scared of being left alone in a new place. It wasn't really a new place since he has slept in the same room at my mom's house since January but he didn't remember this and is at the fun stage of needing to be with mom/dad at all times. So at 10:30 we gave up on alternating between listening to him cry and run around the house and he came into bed with us. Of course the bed that we sleep in at my mom's is a full size bed which meant Eric and I were up most of the night due to a tossing & turning little boy. We thought since he went to bed late he'd at least sleep in a little bit but nope was up at 4:30am (would have been 5:30 if we didn't change the clocks but this is still over an hour earlier than normal). So needless to say Eric and I are exhausted today but couldn't nap because Robert didn't go down for his nap until right before the Packer/Viking game and we couldn't miss that...well I could have but decided to use this time to update our blog instead of sleep! We hope that tonight he'll be back on his normal schedule since he'll be in his own bed and that daylight savings won't throw him totally off his routine.

We hope everyone else had a safe and fun Halloween!

Halloween Dinner - Pumpkin shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's

Robert gets a visitor from an old lady during dinner (my mom in costume!)

Getting ready!

Our little Dinosaur/Dragon!

The view from the back was the best!

Taste-testing his claws while riding in the car

Visiting Sue Milbright's pumpkin named Ollie

Robert in awe over the 204lb pumpkin!

Time to go home I got all the candy I need!