Category Archives: Peter

And Her Daddy Was Proud

Posted on by
2

If you know anything about my relationship with Peter, you’ll understand when I say that Peter once confessed that when we first started dating, my inability to be anywhere on time made him wonder whether we really ought to be together.

Peter is perfectly punctual.  He hates being late.  So it drives him crazy that I am almost never where I need to be when I need to be there.

I try… really I do… but there seems to be no way to leave the house totally one hundred percent prepared for the day.  You know, make-up on, water bottle in hand, house spotless so that I don’t have to return to a mess…  It just doesn’t happen, but I’m always trying up to (a.k.a. past) the last possible minute to get as close as possible to that elusive ideal.

Yesterday was one of those days.  I was trying to get the girls and myself out the door to run errands.  I had them both dressed and told Alethea, “We’re leaving in two minutes.  In two minutes we will need to get in the car.” Then I went to brush my teeth.

When I came out of the bathroom, there was Alethea, standing at the top of the steps.  She had put on her pink shoes and slung a purse over her shoulder.  I laughed and said, “Well, it looks like you’re ready to go, huh?”

She gave me a very serious look and then replied, “We’re late.”  And with that she turned and started down the steps.

Of course, when I told Peter about the incident last night, his response was, “That’s my girl!”

Sigh….

On the bright side though, maybe now that it’s two against one, they’ll be able to reform me of my chronic lateness.  You never know, it might be possible.

But, please, don’t hold your breath.

February Photos

Posted on by
2

Yesterday when I was writing Alethea’s update, I realized that I didn’t get the camera out nearly often enough this past month, so I pulled it out and snapped a few more photos for my ‘February 2011’ file.

Alethea still won’t hold still for the camera, but at least she smiled:

She still won't hold still for the camera, but at least she smiled

Lydia smiles a lot now when she’s awake:

Daddy and Alethea did ‘cheers!’ and as you can see, it was really cute.  Unfortunately the camera didn’t flash, so it’s also a bit grainy:

Microfiber couch + dry winter air = static electricity in the hair:

It must be nice to be a baby.  It’s the only time in your life when you can have milk crusted to your face and still look completely adorable:

That’s it for this month.  Maybe in March we’ll get some outdoor photos without snow in them… winter can’t last forever!

Inside and Out

Posted on by
6

Here’s a riddle for you.

What do you do when you get a foot of snow at the end of February?

The answer:

Work on your Easter centerpiece!

I know it’s a little incongruent, but it sure makes me feel better to have some spring flowers around, even if they aren’t real.

This is my dollar store bird, isn’t he cheerful?

I’m really pleased with how the faux Pottery Barn robin’s eggs I made last year mixed in with the potted daisies, my new addition for this year.

Now I just have to hold on and keep believing that spring really is going to come on the outside of our house too!

An Update from the Hospital

Posted on by
6

Elise here.  Lydia Grace is sleeping right now and amazingly there aren’t any nurses in my room, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a post about our newest family member and her arrival into the world.

First off, I’d like to say thanks for all the prayers and words of encouragement.  It was fun to read your comments on the blog while we were waiting for labor to progress yesterday.  Speaking of labor, can I just say how much easier it was the second time around?!!?!  I thought maybe I would try to do this one without drugs, but then after experiencing real contractions without an epidural for the first time, I decided that it was better for everyone involved if I just got the epidural after all.  It did slow things down, which I was afraid it might, but then with a little pitocin things got moving again.  At 1:08 they told me I could start pushing.  They said they thought she’d come quickly.  I said, “The last one took me three hours to push out.  I’ll believe it when I see it.”  At 1:15 our baby girl arrived in the world.  Amazing!

For how much I was dreading labor, I have to say, it really wasn’t that bad the second time.  And now I feel great!  I’m actually more comfortable and mobile than I was at the end of my pregnancy!  If it weren’t for the room service and free night time babysitting, I think I’d just check out of the hospital now.

But I know none of you stopped by today to hear about the delicious (or not) hospital food.  You want to see baby pictures.  Here’s one I took this morning:

Lydia has been a real champ.  She’s feeding like a pro and sleeping great too.  Our night did start out a little rough because she kept spitting up amniotic fluid and then choking.  I was so afraid to fall asleep because I knew that after having been up for 40 hours straight, I was going to really be out once I did.  After the fourth or fifth time getting up to help Lydia spit out the fluid, I sent her to the nursery so that she would be safe and I could get some rest.  The nurses brought her back in the middle of the night so I could wake her up to feed her (which I didn’t do).  Then we both slept until 5:30am when I did finally decide to wake her up so that I could to get some food into her stomach.

We had a relaxing morning together and then Peter and Alethea came by so we could spend some time as a family getting to know each other.  Alethea likes ‘the baby’ and only seemed to get jealous of her when I was feeding Lydia.  However, even wanting to be near her little sister hasn’t cured Alethea of her dislike of getting her picture taken:

Well, my lunch is here, so I’m going to eat, but I’ll write again (and post more pictures!) when I get a chance.  If Lydia keeps sleeping so well, it might even be tonight!

The Butterfly Effect

Posted on by
3

It all started when Alethea noticed that her Duplo boy was wearing a hat:

Then she looked over and noticed that Daddy was wearing a hat too…

Alethea looked at Mommy, pointed at her own head and said, “Hat. Wear!”

Then Alethea, Daddy and the Duplo Boy were all wearing hats:

But why stop there?

Alethea was very insistent that Baby needed a hat too.

A cap was found in the nursery of approximately the correct size and promptly Baby’s head was covered:

Poor Baby can’t breathe and in the end, it’s really all because of the Duplo Boy’s green hat:

A Trip to the Mall

Posted on by
3

Tonight Peter and I took the plunge and made our one and only trip to a shopping mall during the month of December.  Given the nature of our errands, not just any mall would do, we needed one with stores no other mall has.  Thus, after dropping Alethea off with Grandma and Grandpa, we headed to the Mall of America.

Neither one of us had been inside the MOA for years, so we were pleasantly surprised to be able to get a parking spot right near one of Bloomingdale’s front doors and find that the inside of the mall wasn’t too crowded.

After a trip to the LEGO store, we hit up a few other shops and then headed to the American Girl Store:

We walked in…

My reaction: “Oh wow, I would have loved this when I was a kid!  They have everything here!  It’s so different to see this stuff in person rather than just in the well-worn pages of the American girl catalogs we used to have at our house.  I’d spend hours drooling over all the doll accessories!”

Peter’s reaction: “Every surface in here is pink.”

Fortunately Peter was able to hold the bright yellow bag with the big LEGO logo in front of himself like a shield to ward off all of the estrogen and we made it out of the store with only our intended purchase, a Bitty Baby doll for Alethea’s Christmas present:

Someday I’ll have to go back with Alethea.  It’d be nice to spend a little time browsing through the displays with someone who has a little appreciation for the magic of it all!

Taking Baby Steps

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve got 19 days until Christmas, 20 something days until the baby comes and I’m not ready for either one.  We did get Alethea’s curtains hung in her big girl room on Saturday.  And then on Sunday we went on a Christmas tree hunt.  No, the tree isn’t decorated yet and neither Alethea’s room or the nursery is totally ready, but we’re taking baby steps.

Speaking of baby steps… when we were packing up for the tree hunt we remembered that Alethea hates to walk in the snow, so we made sure to bring the sled.  Turns out though that she didn’t like that either, even with Mommy holding her hand:

And then Mommy let go:

Peter ended up carrying her until we found the perfect tree.  Thankfully it didn’t take long to locate it:

I held Alethea while Peter cut down the tree.  When it tipped over Alethea’s only comment was “Uh oh!”  But then I asked her if we should take the tree home, she said, “Yeah.”

So while Peter dragged the tree to the car, I carried Alethea.  But I couldn’t make it the whole way.  Something about being 9 months pregnant.  She had to walk.  At first she protested, but then it was okay so long as I was holding her hand:

However, by the time we got the tree loaded and ready to go, she had let go of my hand and was tooling around all by herself.

It’s a good thing.  She’d have a long 18 years growing up in Minnesota if she was forever unwilling to walk through snow.

Kinda Tired

Posted on by
Reply

Peter and I stayed up late Tuesday night to watch Election results.  Turns out we shouldn’t have bothered.  With the MN governor’s race headed for recount, we won’t know for weeks what’s going to happen.  Besides, as Peter put it, “I’m just too old to stay up ’till 2am anymore.”  Sad, but true.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Early this morning we were treated to a very enthusiastic rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star coming from Alethea’s room at 2:30am, and 3:30am AND 4:30am.  While mildly impressed that my child can carry a recognizable tune, I think I must have a discussion with her about appropriate concert times.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

I’ve skipped my afternoon nap and stayed up late into the evening a few days this week to try and get the stenciling done in Alethea’s big girl room.  I’m almost there (just some touch-ups left), but I didn’t make my original goal, which was to have Alethea moved into her room by the end of October, nor am I going to make my second goal which was to have her moved in by today, which is two months until Baby Bob’s due date.  New plan: finish painting/clean up today and move her crib into the room tomorrow.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Oh, and I AM going to take a nap this afternoon.

Happy Anniversary!

Posted on by
5

Peter –

It’s hard to believe it’s already been four years since our wedding day:

Four years since I got to wear the most fabulous thing I’ve ever worn:

Four years since we nearly froze to death taking pictures:

Four years since our ‘First Dance’:

And four years since your friends nearly burned down the reception hall with fists full of sparklers:

I know getting married didn’t magically make us see eye to eye on the best way to do things:

But I’d say “I Do” all over again, without a second’s hesitation:

I love you so much!

Elise

A Little Bit of Everything

Posted on by
4

Maybe Alethea doesn’t know Sesame Street as well as I thought she did.  Today she was looking at the Sponge Bob towel that was laying on the floor with clothes drying on it.  She pointed at Patrick (the starfish) and said “Emo!”  I tried telling her that it was Patrick, but she was very insistent that it was Elmo.  Oh well.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I went to Sherwin Williams and bought paint for Alethea’s big girl room.  Instead of going with any of the pre-mixed options, I took my multitude of paint samples and whipped up my own color.  It only took me 8 or so tries and several hours to finally get the “perfect” gray.  Not too light, not too dark, not too blue, not too tan.  I think it’s all for the best, but the rule follower in me feels weird using an “unofficial” color.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The baby has been moving around a lot more lately.  It seems to me that her movements are a bit less forceful than Alethea’s were at about the same age, but maybe that’s just me hoping not to have two very assertive children who are only 20 months apart.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I know everyone says Alethea looks like Peter, and she does.  But the other day my sister-in-law Julie over at TheAnticsoftheThree22nds posted pictures of her youngest three at around 5-6 months.  I still think that the person Alethea looks most like is her cousin Roman.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

I’m super excited about our Labor Day Block Party this weekend.  We are hosting it at our house.  I told Peter that I was going to do red, white and blue for the paper goods and decorations.  He said that Labor Day isn’t a red, white and blue kind of holiday.  What color is it then?

___________________________________________________________________________________________

I’m trying to score a cheap dresser and nightstand off craigslist for Alethea’s room.  Only problem is I think I need a really narrow dresser.  The wall seemed long enough for bunk beds and a dresser, but when I actually measured it out I ended up with about 27 inches for the dresser.  I really want to keep my room arrangement how I have it planned out though, so I think I’ll keep hunting for a narrow-but-tall dresser.

______________________________________________________________________________________________