Kasper Williams Reality

Superbowl Sunday!

2012-02-05T20:36:00.000-06:00

I tell you what - that Kasper Williams is changing SO MUCH every day. It's been so fun to figure out the new thing he's figured out that day.

That includes faces:

He's started doing this silly gummy smile lately. I don't know if it's cute but it's pretty funny.

Any bets on when a third tooth will pop through? It's been a couple months since Señor Kasper cut a tooth.

Friday was Jersey Day at daycare! Luckily we scored this jersey at Target for $5 a couple weeks ago!

Kasper and Rob had swimming lessons yesterday morning. I stayed home and made these scones from the Pioneer Woman. I suggest you drop what you're doing and make these they are so good. Rob has made it his personal mission this weekend to eat almost all of them. I don't get much time anymore to bake anything involved so that was fun for me.

After K's nap we headed out to Ikea. Along with everyone else ever. We were on a mission to get some nightstands. We found some and some other things we didn't even know we needed. We treated ourselves to ice cream after the shopping trip.

Scenes from today:

Haha.

After Kasper decided he wasn't into his second nap but was clearly tired, we bundled him up in layers and layers of clothes and Rob took him for an 8 mile run. If he's going to be a Minnesotan, we're going to have to work on his acclimation to Minnesota winters (even though I would say we went from fall to Spring).

It was something like 35 degrees and they were out for over an hour. I guess Kasper never moved a muscle and ended up sleeping for 45 minutes. He was nice and toasty warm when I took his snow gear off so I'd say it was a success!

I made some chili and we watched the Superbowl tonight. It was a nice weekend. And week. We don't have any large projects going right now. We finished our latest. Want to see?

We put board and batten up in our room! We love it - it gives the rooms some character. We re-painted a less severe blueish gray before putting up the b&b. One goal is to replace the trim in a lot of the house so that took some extra time (you can see it along the carpet and around the window and sliding door. We also had to put up 1/8" panelboard behind the battens because our walls are so uneven and rough looking - part of the reason we chose b&b in the first place. I still have to hang curtains and put more stuff on the shelves. What do you think? The to-do list in this room is pretty long but this is a start.

Here was the room in it's most recent state. (Look at how little K is. Those clothes are probably still there.)

Here's to the end of another weekend.

Stay

2012-02-03T11:38:00.000-06:00

I read a blog post today that has clung strongly to me all morning. I read it after an unusually bad night which had Kasper up and crying a couple times. Sometimes I lose my patience with him late at night when I just want to go to bed but last night I had the same feeling as Allison. Stay. Soon he won't call out to me for comfort, won't need me in this way. I'll miss that.

"It hurts, almost, to know I will miss this even before it is over. But this is the risky proposition of motherhood, to allow oneself to experience the greatest joys and sweetest moments knowing that they will not stay."

13 months

2012-02-01T22:00:00.000-06:00

Kasper -

Well today snuck up on me! It wasn't until this afternoon that I realized it's the 1st which means you are another month older! At least I don't have to do those pictures with the monkey anymore. That was pure torture in the end. Sorry buddy.

I was NOT expecting this but after your first birthday you turned into a totally different baby. Toddler, actually. It was sudden, not gradual and really threw us for a loop though not in a bad way!

You started walking a week after your birthday and haven't looked back. You LOVE walking and will make laps around the house just to have somewhere to walk. Another favorite past time- walking and doing things. Drinking, carrying stuff, whatever.

You have added some words to your vocabulary and can now say agua, Elmo, leche, uh-oh, what's that?, arf arf and what sounds like doggie. You can sign milk and more. You know what a doggie says and you may know a sheep says "baa." I think you say Mama but you haven't ever really looked at me while you say it so I can't be sure.

You have been eating well although you don't always like what we're having for dinner so you'll just have yogurt. You are drinking half breast milk and half whole milk until the frozen milk is gone. You don't seem to mind the addition of whole milk to your cups so that's good! We introduced peanut butter and honey after you turned 1. You're so-so on both but warming up to peanut butter. I think you don't like how the bread sticks to your finger! You were also tested for fruit allergies at your 1 year appointment and they all came back negative so we're going to re-introduce mangoes and start strawberries, kiwis, pineapple, melons. I guess it was just a fluke that you had a reaction to mangoes all those months ago.

You nurse in the mornings and before bed. I know you would prefer to nurse more because on the weekends when we're around each other more, you actually walk over to me and unzip my sweatshirt. I always said I would stop nursing when my child could ask for it but here we are. You are showing no signs of stopping so I'm still in a holding pattern. It's not right to make the decision to stop for both of us.

You've been sleeping ok lately. You wake up around midnight but go right back to sleep. I think you have a little cold because your nose gets so stuffy. You've been waking up at 4 or 5 but I nurse you and you'll sleep until 6:30. You put yourself to sleep at night but not for naps. If you're not sleeping when we put you down for a nap you'll pop up and start playing. You take 2 naps and haven't indicated that you'll drop one soon.

You enjoy stacking toys as well as putting toys in baskets or bags. You'll get frustrated if you can't get them stacked correctly but you keep trying! You also enjoy toys that make noise.

You give kisses! You kiss books like crazy and will even humor us once in awhile if we ask. Your "kisses" are just placing your wide open mouth somewhere but I love them and ask for them often.

You throw some nice tantrums. You had a couple weeks this month where you spent your evenings so unhappy but you're much better now. I think you were processing some new developments.

You love to point out body parts! You focus mostly on faces and like us to repeat nose, cheek, eye, etc. Sometimes we ask where something is on you and you'll point to it. It must be a coincidence at this point.

You are becoming a silly, inquisitive, independent little person and I love it. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Love you, Kas Kas!

Mama

Lazy weekend

2012-01-29T21:19:00.000-06:00

Sunday night, time for our weekly re-cap! I didn't know how I was going to continue these posts but I think I'll still do the Sunday thing. I enjoy sitting down and looking back at the week. Just an FYI. :)

Monday was pajama day at daycare. They also spiked his hair with Vaseline after they lubed up his face.

Kasper's hair is getting pretty long, no? It no doubt helped to elicit some "she" pronouns this weekend. I guess that necklace can't be helping either. We're just NOT ready to cut it yet!

A fun new game Kasper came up with this week was diving headfirst into a basket.

And getting stuck.

Holding a pen.

We finally got a little snow! I think after the weekend there's maybe enough to go snowshoeing? It'll probably all melt by next weekend. We'll have to wait to use our new snowshoes and sleds until next winter.

Kasper was in a great mood this week. He didn't spend his evenings crying! I'm inclined to believe it was a developmental thing last week because he seemed like a new baby this week. He was making new sounds that sounded very similar to words. He started to be able to stack and organize his toys. He knows his shoes go on his feet - he'll pick up a shoe and place it on his foot. He's starting to point out body parts. Mostly on other people - he'll point to a nose, eye, cheek, leg, foot, mouth, etc. In the tub he'll take a handful of soap and rub it all over his belly. So smart!

Rob and Kasper went to swimming lessons Saturday morning. Rob put K's hood on while his hair was still damp so it dried as quite the rat's nest.

During lunch yesterday, Kasper was demonstrating a wide variety of current Kasper faces, so I captured them.

Another new thing - carrying things over his shoulder. I don't know where he gets these ideas but he really enjoyed slinging whatever over his shoulder and making laps around the house at a determined pace. You almost hated to interrupt him. He looks like a hobo with his bedroll.

My parents stopped by after hitting up the Winter Carnival and we ended up all going out to dinner. We don't really go out to restaurants with Kasper. No real reason, I think it just doesn't come up. It may have something to do with his 7pm bedtime. Anyway, he did great and only went to bed about an hour late. We should go out more often.

We had a leisurely breakfast this morning with coffee and waffles. Kasper "Evel Kneivel" W climbed onto a chair using his step stool. I snapped a couple pictures before running over there to save him from diving off onto the floor. This boy has no fear. Or sense.

Rob went off to a cycling class when K went down for his morning nap. It was a 2 hour class and Rob ended up getting home before Kasper woke up! It was nice to have those 2 hours this morning. I did lots of cooking and after I was done making what I needed to I was even able to whip up a loaf of banana bread. I miss baking.

After K woke up and before Rob had a chance to shower and change, Kasper had some books he wanted to read to his Papa. They didn't know I was taking these. Swoon.

Silly ~~girl~~ boy.

Carryin' stuff pictures.

As he was walking away from me I said "Bye!" He stopped, turned around and waved. He cracks me up.

We had to go out and run some errands this afternoon so Rob took Lois downstairs to go outside and then into her kennel. I had my camera from taking the above pictures and I'm SO glad I did. I just love these. To narrate, dog goes downstairs and out the door, boy cries and misses dog, dog comes back in and runs up the stairs in an effort to not go in to her kennel, boy is so glad and desperately clings on to the dog. Eventually the dog goes back down to her kennel and the boy runs errands. They were reunited upon our return.

We got home a little later than we hoped and Kasper decided he did not want to take an afternoon nap. I relented when it was time for me to make dinner. When it was clear that Kasper actually needed the nap, I threw him on my back with the hopes that the motion would calm him. These pictures are so representative of my life right now. My 2 shadows.

Btw, it worked and Kasper slept while I made dinner and uploaded some pictures. I really loved having him so close to me for that hour or so. I also really loved providing him the snuggles he required when he woke up.

Oh! One last thing... A little teaser of our latest project. We're finishing up the lion's share of it tonight but I won't be able to take pictures of it until next weekend, probably. I'm not home while it's light out!

Up!

2012-01-24T08:52:00.000-06:00

Kasper loves being carried around in this basket. He stays nice and still and enjoys the view. Rob added one of his balloons to the basket and made it a hot air balloon! (Those balloons were given to K on his birthday - almost a month ago! They last forever and Kasper loves them! Maybe helium baloons wouldn't be a bad investment once a month.)

Anyway, here's K on his hot air balloon ride.

Love that boy.

We survived!

2012-01-22T21:47:00.000-06:00

Kasper has been in a MOOD lately. It's not technically a Wonder Week and he doesn't seem to be teething so I'm at a loss as to what it is. Lots of crying, throwing fits, getting angry, etc. It's hard being a baby, I feel bad for the dude.

Although it seems like he spends from 5-7 pm in various forms of a tantrum (note: he has wonderful days at daycare. It's just when he gets home that he melts down) we do have some fun times around hereI Kasper walks 99.9% of the time now. I did see him crawl once or twice this past week but it barely ever happens anymore.

I thought I was going to be such a fun Mom and I bought K some crayons and a big pad of paper at Target. He seems to be interested in drawing with a pen when he can get his mitts on one so I thought he'd love to color. Wrong! He liked to nibble on each crayon then put them in my shoe.

I on the other hand had a great time drawing smiley faces in all the colors.

So, Kasper and I survived the weekend with Rob gone for most of it. Since Kasper has been quite a pill lately, I was dreading having no back up. Lucky for me my sister was up for the challenge and hung out with us yesterday. She even took K to swimming lessons! I had decided to skip it because I don't have an appropriate swimsuit but she offered so off they went! It was crazy how much I got done in that hour and a half. We had fun playing before they left. He's just so cute. I love when he gets into some independent playing. He's been hanging off my legs for days so I haven't been able to watch him play.

There are a couple unconventional toys in these photos - like the Wii-mote. I didn't spend much time thinking about the type of parent I would be but I'm pretty sure I thought I was going to have my kids play with safe baby toys. Now that I have an actual toddler, I let him play with anything that will entertain him for a second that won't kill him. Oh well.

We had a request for a walking video.

While I had a helper, I changed the mantle for Valentine's Day. I don't usually get into V-Day but I've never had a mantle before. I saw the heart garland on Pinterest and wanted to make my own. I had my friend Lindsay make me the banner letter on her Cricut. I think I need to get me a Cricut.

Post-bath baby.

Rob was back today and Kasper was a happy baby this evening.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Family Fun

2012-01-18T08:31:00.000-06:00

Many moons ago (actually it was just back in October) we had some family pictures taken by the lovely and talented Gina Zeidler. I wanted to have pictures for our Christmas cards and Gina was offering a day of mini sessions so I snagged a time slot. We really love working with her - she's so fun and doesn't make you feel weird about having your picture taken. I have been meaning to share them for awhile but had lots of other stuff to share as well. You've seen some of these if you got our Christmas cards or watch Kasper's First Year video.

The cutest baby eva

So cute, right? I'm proud of myself for making the effort to have our family captured in pictures by some talented photographers. They are truly a treasure to have.

Interesting tidbit... these photos were taken 363 days apart by Gina...

Swimming, owies, butts, oh my!

2012-01-15T20:46:00.000-06:00

So I'm a little unsure of how to continue blogging if I'm not doing a weekly update. Maybe I'll still do a recap of our weeks? Or I'll blog when there's something to blog about? A couple short posts a week? One long one? Any requests? I've said it before but I sometimes feel the need to excuse my posts because I write them for myself, Rob and Kasper as a way to remember our lives right now. Maybe I should stop doing that.

Anyway...

Yesterday was Kasper's second Saturday swimming lesson! I went last week, took some pictures and smiled like a crazy person. This week I let Rob and Kasper go so I could get some things done around the house. I figure it can be a dudes thing. Here are some pictures from last Saturday at swimming...

Wiped out on the way home

So cute! We are going to the Eden Prairie Community Center which is just down the road about a mile or so. It's right next to EP High School where Kasper will most likely go!

Kasper spent the week with a nice big cut on his eye. Too much clowning. It did look pretty sore!

I wonder if I'll ever get used to seeing Kasper grow and change. It still takes me by surprise when I see those 2 little teeth - I can't even picture him with a whole set. It also still seems weird that he can stand and walk. It's what he does now. I would say he prefers walking to crawling and can stand up all on his own though he gets frustrated if it takes him a couple tries to get upright.

This is a cute video of Rob and Kasper. He loves to have you run around with him and when you stop he grunts to go again.

Oh! I promised butts, too.

It doesn't get much cuter than a baby butt, does it? Especially when he scrunches it all up to reach higher. Yes, that does mean he can open doors now.

One last video of Kasper having an especially refreshing cup of milk.

Kasper went to the Dr. Friday. His stats are as follows:

Weight: 19.8 lbs - 9%
Height: 30.25" - 60%
Head 17.5" - 8%

At least he's consistent now! These are the growth curves he's been on the last couple visits and I think it's where he'll stay. To be honest, I'm not at all worried about his size anymore. Once he leveled off and kept growing I've let it go. He's going to be long and lean with a tiny head - just look at his Dad, exhibit R.

If you have a 3 day weekend, enjoy it! Rob and I are hard at work on another project. Exciting!

Playing catch-up

2012-01-11T20:27:00.000-06:00

Ack! I had so many other things to post about and Kasper decided to grow leaps and bounds and now I feel behind. I have such a horrible memory (except for things that don't matter in the slightest) that I don't want to forget a thing about K at this age. He's learning to walk, talk and just becoming a little toddler.

Here are some of the things he's been up to lately...

-If he sees or hears a dog or sees a picture of a dog he will almost always say "arf arf!" Which doesn't actually sound like that and is more like 2 grunts but we know what he means.

-When he sees a bottle of water or anything in a bottle or cup that looks like a clear liquid or sees or hears running water he says "Aaaaaaaaaaagua" in a super cute baby voice.

-He can greet you when you walk in his room or whenever he sees you by giving a big "Hi!" We find ourselves using exaggerated Hi's to each other.

(Just to recap his vocabulary, he says: arf, arf, leche, agua, hi and can sign "milk" and "more". Conspicuously missing: Mama and Dada. Not even close.)

-He's into making a bunch of new sounds with his tongue and mouth.

This video shows some of the new tongue moves as well as our attempts to get him to say hi. Annoying, right? (Oh, there was a cuter video but it had too much penis in it.)

-He's been into closing doors then reaching up on his tip-toes to open them using the handle. Sigh.

-He's also been into putting things back where he found them. He'll open my drawer of bath and body products, take them all out (saying "aaaaaaaagua" to each body spray) then put them all back in the drawer. Cleaning up after himself! Gotta love that.

A couple pics from the first week of 2012.

Breakfast for the newly one year old : Papa's birthday : Getting dressed for sledding : Sledding! : A lukewarm reaction : "Playing" : Balloon Boy : Bathtime fun : Cute hat

Can time slow down, please? Kthanksbye.

Solitary Man

2012-01-10T09:05:00.000-06:00

Alternatively titled - "Where is my breakfast, dang it?!"

Kasper's First Birthday - The Party

2012-01-08T21:24:00.000-06:00

The theme of Kasper's first birthday was sort of a given. He was born 1.1.11 so I considered this to be his super, duper Golden birthday. I also added in some rainbow colors to keep things interesting. I didn't go crazy when planning this party (except for making a video montage a day before) even though I had a million ideas. Thank you Pinterest.

Settle in...

We prepped Kasper during breakfast by asking how old he was.

He thinks he's one but looks unsure.

Inside the front door, I strung up all of Kasper's monthly pictures.

Stephanie gave K a thumbprint tree guest book for his party which also sat inside the door. I had green monkey assist.

I found this super cute Happy Birthday banner on Etsy. So cute, right???

Here is the same space with all the gifts. Kasper is a well-loved little guy for sure.

I just hung a colorful paper bunting in the sunroom.

I didn't get a picture of the food table in all of it's glory (meaning I forgot once the guests started to arrive.)

We pushed our dining room table against the window to free up more space. I found some rainbow colored fabric that my Mom made a runner out of. Stephanie made a couple tissue poms. I had wanted to make a bunch but they were hard! I pulled photos and things from around the house to have at the back of the table to honor the birthday boy. I kept it easy on myself and just served some snacky foods like veggies and dip, chex mix, taco dip, cake pops and cupcakes! I made rainbow cupcakes and they turned out SO cute!

I made a cupcake tower out of some cake stands I had and I put Kasper's special gold cupcake at the top with a little flag bunting.

Soon it was party time! Kasper experimented with some new looks to impress his guests.

He also got to open his gift from us. The ubiquitous Pottery Barn Kids chair!

It was such a fun party! We had about 30 local friends and family over. It was quite a difference to be able to entertain so many people so comfortably! I didn't get many photos of the guests. We had 2 other kids there besides K. They were older and I had a fun time looking into the future a bit.

Kasper had fun playing with Lily.

The other cute kiddo was Amelia who was pretty sure her cake pop was a sucker.

The party went from 3-5 so around 4 we called everyone in to the sunroom to watch the video we made. Yes, I made everyone watch all 11 and a half minutes. Kasper clapped as he watched. He thought the baby was cute.

After the video, it was cupcake time! He didn't love being sung to but eventually warmed up quickly to the dessert. He didn't know what to think at first!

Then after taking a couple bites of cupcake, he just smeared it all over his tray.

Too soon the party was over.

Completed and framed fingerprint tree.

Playing with all of his new toys!

This cow is called the Howdy cow and was from Emily and Devin. He's still a little small for it but is always up for a quick ride.

I also have to include a pic of Kasper from daycare on the Tuesday after his birthday. They made him a little paper crown, a homemade birthday card with all the kid's handprints and a Sandra Boynton book! Have I mentioned how much we love his daycare?

Whew! Only a week late!

The Walkin' Dude

2012-01-07T21:00:00.000-06:00

Breaking news! Kasper started walking today! The video pretty much speaks for itself. We're so proud of our little bi-ped.

Oh, he also did this tonight just to keep himself grounded and to not get a big head about his new found mobility...

...but he quickly redeemed himself with the first question he's ever answered.

Big day!

The Inbetween Week

2012-01-06T06:55:00.000-06:00

As this is my method of record keeping, I would be remiss if I didn't share the week between Christmas and New Years!

We headed back home Monday after Christmas because our new appliances were in (more on that later).

I had Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday but Rob had to go back to work on Tuesday. Since we had a plumber coming over, we decided to send Kasper to daycare for the day to keep him out of the house - but not before we visited Papa at work!

I went in to work on Wednesday then decided to take Thursday and Friday off to prepare for the birthday party. Turns out I really needed a lot of time while the baby was off at daycare!

Here's what else we were up to last week...

We threw lots of laying on the floor tantrums.

We tried to get into the habit of brushing our 2 front teeth.

We did lots and lots of standing (but no walking).

We had a visit from Uncle Mooney!

We snuck a bunch of snacks under a chair and hid there while we gobbled them up.

We tried our first Oreo, compliments of Papa. Loved it!

We accompanied Papa downstairs on the tambourine while staying out of the way of whirling Mama upstairs.

We managed to provide unquestionable proof that we don't only take adorable photos (note that I've labeled this picture "K tuna eye").

It was a fun week but I had a little trouble enjoying it with the big party on the horizon. I also decided to make that video montage I shared on Friday night. Like at 10 pm. 2 days before the party. I take on way too much. Luckily Rob edited it and made it awesome. Good thing we have nothing on the current horizon. Time to finally take a breather and enjoy our one year old!

Happy Birthday, Papa!

2012-01-05T08:27:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to Robert (aka Papa). We love you!

P.S. Told you there was a lot to blog about! More to come...

12 months

2012-01-04T14:29:00.000-06:00

Kasper -

You are now 12 months old. One year. Here it is, a grid of your monthly photos, the summary I've been envisioning.

One year ago, your Papa and I were in the hospital wondering just what we had gotten ourselves into! You were a wonderful baby then and you are a wonderful little boy now. In preparation for your birthday, we've done a lot of looking back and it's remarkable how much you've grown this past year (check out those teeth!).

Milestones: According to your teachers at daycare, you are able to take 2-3 steps. We haven't seen it at home yet, so you being able to walk is still unofficial. You are able to stand on your own for awhile but don't seem to trust yourself to take a step. Last month you refused to stand so maybe you're close to walking?

You are starting to communicate with us! You've been signing "milk" for awhile and usually in the correct context. Sometimes when you are hungry you sign milk when you actually just want some food. If you hear someone say "milk" or "leche" you will sign like crazy so you clearly know the word. You inconsistently sign "more". Most of the time you point at what you want and grunt and scream instead of politely asking for more. It's very cute when you remember your manners. Also according to your teachers, you can say the words leche and agua. I don't know if you can actually say them of if it's just a variation of "Es dat" which you say all.the.time. A very inquisitive child. Your favorite things to point at and ask about are the lights and the thermostat.

You know the dog says "arf arf" and will imitate her when she barks at something. It's pretty awesome to watch you figure these things out.

Food: Same old, same old. Some days you're willing to eat everything and anything some days you just want crackers and milk. I have been feeding you more and more of what we're eating instead of giving you your own little meals. It's hard because I don't know if something is going to be too spicy. I have also started to give you a little diluted juice but you much prefer milk. Now that you're 1, I have to start figuring out how to introduce cow's milk.

You nurse only twice a day now - when you wake up and before bed - and before naps on the weekends. In between you drink from a cup. It's been my choice because I know you would love to nurse all the time. An example of how much you love nursing - Papa lets you use a pacifier after your bath while you are getting lotioned up and dressed in your jammies since you're ready for bed at that point. He brings you out to the kitchen where I'm busy getting milk ready for the next day. I take you back into your room and as I sit down in the rocker you rip the paci out of your mouth and throw it away in anticipation of nursing. You still get about 14 ounces of milk at daycare.

Sleep: This is a good time to write about your sleep because you've been sleeping through the night with nary a peep for the last week or 2. You even slept in until 8ish on the days we had off! If you do wake up during the night it's almost always because you have a stuffy nose and need some saline drops. I don't nurse overnight anymore since you don't seem to need it.

You put yourself to sleep at night but have a harder time with naps. You take 2 naps and could still use a 3rd. Your naps are 1.5 hours each.

Other: Waving is back! You wave hello and goodbye to people. You imitate us when we say "Hi!" You still point but it's not as obsessive as before.

You have your bottom 2 teeth. At least you weren't toothless at your first birthday like I feared!

You LOVE books. You don't like being read to very much but you love to flip through books and point at the pictures. Sometimes when you see a dog in a book you'll bark. Also sometimes when you see a baby in your book you'll lean down and give it a kiss.

You love to crawl over, under, through, etc. Why take the easy way when you can climb over the table legs and under the chair? You also love to open all the cabinets and take everything out. It's a lot of fun for us when you do that.

You can drink through a straw! I don't know why I think that's a big deal but you just look like such a big boy sucking away on a straw.

You have started to enjoy taking objects out of where they are then attempting to put them back. It's a development I hadn't thought much about but it's definitely new and it is a nice peek at your little brain figuring things out. Your Grandma Sandra gave you a CD player and you love trying to put the CD in the slot. Such a smart boy.

You throw tantrums now! They're not terrible yet but if you are frustrated you throw yourself down on the ground and cry. Time to start a tantrum-diffusion technique.

We don't have a huge number of nicknames for you but you're called all of these at various times: Kassy, Kassy peanut, Nut, Ickle Pick.

Welcome to toddlerhood, buddy. I can't wait to see what your second year has in store. I love you so much.

Mama

P.S. Be sure to check back soon, I have a lot to blog about the holidays and K's party!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KASPER!

2012-01-01T19:14:00.000-06:00

The day is finally here. The day. Kasper's first birthday. Party details to follow - it was wonderful.

Kasper's first year in 11 and a half minutes...

Untitled from Jessica Williams on Vimeo.

51 weeks and Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T21:19:00.000-06:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did! Snuggle in, this is a long one.

A couple recaps from the week first - Kasper is growing by leaps and bounds lately!

I think I mentioned on here that he had started to refuse to attempt standing on his own lately. He would walk with our help but if we started to take our hands away he would drop to the floor. Well this week he finally started to stand on his own. It helps if he's holding something but he can now stand for short amounts of time before sitting down.

I also caught a couple silly faces at dinner one night. I'm glad the camera was sitting on the table. I had never seen this face before and haven't since. It kind of freaks me out.

More standing with bonus butt.

Kasper's daycare was closed on Friday so Steph babysat while we were at work and it sounded like they had a fun day! We decided to do our little family Christmas Friday night before heading up to St. Cloud on Saturday.

Rob gave me the coolest necklace - I'll have to get a picture of it to share.

Saturday morning we ran out into the living room to see if Santa had answered my request to pop by the house a day early.

We had waffles and coffee for breakfast. Kasper also had some banana. I don't know if he ate any banana or smeared it all in his hair.

After breakfast we headed up to St. Cloud. When we got there, Kasper found a little rocking horse my Mom found somewhere.

It didn't even matter that it was pink.

My Grandma Meier spent Christmas with us which was fun. She and Kasper got to spend some nice time together.

We had delicious lasagna and salad for dinner followed by a nice bath before opening presents. Side note - isn't it funny how there are "Christmas Eve" people and "Christmas Day" people? We were always a Christmas Eve family.

Kasper got a rocking chair from his Grandma and Grandpa. So fun!

He started off sitting and rocking nicely before putting on a tool belt and standing in the chair.

Saturday morning we headed over to Sandra's to celebrate with her. They were a Christmas Day family. We had a yummy breakfast of caramel rolls, eggs and turkey bacon. Kasper ended up going down for a nap in the middle of breakfast because he was sleepy. He woke up right in time to open presents. Somehow the only photo I took of Christmas morning was of the poor dog we dressed up in cat clothes.

Christmas day was super low key - it was perfect. There were puzzles, chex mix, cookies, Elf, chili, rice pudding, more cookies, football, no shortage of playmates for the baby. Wonderful!

Today we leisurely packed up and headed back home. Kasper spent some time with his new band in a box.

I thought this was funny - I went downstairs to check on K after a super long nap. Turns out he was just playing quietly in there. He had thrown all the blankets and pacis over the sides as well as his socks.

I can't believe Christmas is over! That means a first birthday is next. Ack.

Views from around here

2011-12-21T15:11:00.000-06:00

Just a couple snapshots of the holiday decorating I did. I had big plans to go all out decorating, but who has time for big plans so I focused on a few small things. We got the tree up and I changed the mantle. I'll call it a success.

Strangely enough, the mantle isn't lit in any way! When we have an electircian come over and move the dining room light (on my big plans list) I think we'll have him put some can lights above the mantle. I love finally having one, why not spotlight it a bit!

I hinted at this many moons ago but our second big woodworking project was a new dining room table and bench! I just got it cleared off enought to take some photos. We love it! I initially found the plans on Ana White's blog then we tweaked it a bit using plans from another blog. I liked the look of this table a little more and also liked that he adds extensions on to the ends of the table. He did include plans but we made our table custom to our space. We kept the table the same width but made it 81" long.

We bought 5 chairs to go around. Even though there are only 2 there now, there are 5 total. We liked the look of a Parsons chair but not the price tag. We ended up going to IKEA and getting the cheapest chair we could find - the Henriksdal. I didn't like the light wood but I knew that the legs were solid wood - a rare find at IKEA. We sanded all the legs through the finish and down to the bare wood. This was quite the undertaking as there was a thick topcoat on those babies. We then restained the legs the same Minwax Dark Walnut as the table.

Looks pretty custom, no?

One last view from around here that I somehow forgot to mention...

Kasper popped his second tooth last week! I totally forgot to mention it but it was such a non-issue. He wasn't gnawing on his fingers or anything thing. One day the tooth was just there.

A couple odds and ends I wanted to share. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

50 weeks

2011-12-18T20:20:00.000-06:00

50 weeks! Noooo! There's no way I have an 11.5 month old. This past week was slightly reminiscent of the week Kasper was sick which is something I was hoping was behind us. I don't want it to seem like K is always sick and it's always stressful, but since this is my personal time capsule I want to write down what's going on so I can look back and remember. Kasper finished his antibiotics on Sunday and by Monday his runny nose was back. It made playing a little messy!

For the most part, we had a nice relaxing week where we did lots of playing and reading books by the Christmas tree. I can't WAIT for Kasper to get a little older and really get into Christmas like we were.

As the week went on, little symptoms reappeared which made Rob and I think bronchiolitis/pneumonia/whatever he had. By Thursday, he was off. I don't know if I ever wrote about it on here but while he was on antibiotics last time he was in the BEST mood! He slept well, he ate super well, he had fun playing. He had notes on his daycare report every day about how happy he was.

Stuck under the chair Thursday morning. He really likes to climb through and over things.

On Thursday at daycare they were visited by Dora, Diego and Elmo!

I think it's funny Kasper had his paci in. He's not normally allowed to have it when he's not sleeping unless he really "needs" it. I wonder if they freaked him out.

Thursday night when we got home from work, Kasper just laid on the floor and cried. Very unlike him.

Eventually he let me pick him up and rock him and he fell to sleep and slept for 45 minutes. He had long naps at daycare, so he shouldn't have been overtired. He woke up in time to refuse to eat dinner and went right to bed.

I took him to the Dr Friday morning. A Kasper funny - he can undo his hat now but sometimes he can't figure out how to get it off his head. Hat over his face when we got to the Dr. Hat over his face when we stopped at Caribou so Mama could get some coffee (and K could get a little plastic cup). Hat over his face when we pulled up to daycare. Also, he's asleep in all of these.

His Dr. is thinking that the first round of antibiotics (amoxicillin) didn't kill the bacteria just slowed their growth which ramped up when the antibiotic course was finished. We started on a broad spectrum antibiotic Friday and we're hoping that does the trick!

We didn't have any crazy plans for the weekend - just finishing up some last minute Christmas shopping and going to see Santa!

We went to Ikea and the Mall of America yesterday and Kasper was such a great shopper! We weren't gone long and we sweetened the deal by getting breakfast at Ikea. $0.99 for a big breakfast of eggs, potatoes and bacon - can't beat that!

I thought Kasper would sleep in his stroller while we shopped but he did not. He took a nice long 2-hour nap when we got home.

Grumpy kid

This morning we woke up and had a delicious waffle breakfast. Kasper even ate some bites of waffle! We played around a bit before eating with some of our Ikea purchases from yesterday.

When we sat down to eat, the sun was shining right in Kasper's eyes. Instead of moving him, I grabbed the camera in an attempt to capture his eye color. I still don't know the best way to describe them. I say grey but maybe they're also a little hazel? They're neither blur nor brown so I can rule those out. One thing's for sure, he still has the little brown spot in the exact same place as me. What do you think?

I don't think this looks like K. I've never seen this face before!

Quit now, Mama.

I think K is feeling a little better. Nothing like the turnaround last time but his runny nose is better, the cough is better, there is no fever. He's still not hungry and is much whinier than normal but I'm so glad we're on antibiotics again. I would feel horrible if I waited it out and he ended up getting real sick again. He'll get a repeat chest x-ray at his 1 year appointment to make sure everything is all cleared up.

The only thing we had on our to-do list today was to head to the mall and get our picture taken with Santa. We stood in line for a half hour and barely moved up in the line that was about 100 people long. So we left. I promised Kasper we would see him next year. We even got all dressed up!

Besides heading to the mall for a quick trip, we've all been laying pretty low. Rob went to bed at 6 not feeling well. I'm about to lay down myself. I said November could go away and now I think it can take December with it. Hopefully we're all feeling 100% in a week when Santa comes and also in 2 weeks when Kasper turns 1!

Side note - it really doesn't feel like Christmas is in a week. They say a little over 25% of Christmases are brown but that seems like a lot! Kasper's first Christmas is a brown Christmas. What luck!

Splish Splash

2011-12-14T06:52:00.000-06:00

Photos from a recent bath.

I don't normally bring my camera into the bathroom when it's bathtime, but Kasper was just mugging for me and I had to capture the moment.

I mean seriously.

Those grey eyes slay me.

Also slaying me? The baby hair growing over the boy's ears that I can't bring myself to cut. Maybe when he goes off to college.

49 weeks

2011-12-11T21:22:00.000-06:00

What a difference a week makes! We had a week vastly different from the week before. I do have a couple cute pictures from the sick week that I have to share. These were from Friday when the antibiotics were starting to kick in.

Friday morning, things are looking up and we finally get some smiles!

By Friday, Kasper was feeling better while Rob and I were feeling pretty rough. In fact, we're only just recently feeling better! I even had laryngitis for a few days.

By Friday night Kasper was feeling almost 100%. He had a cough that lingered through some of this week but that we could handle. He started to make this funny face where he sucks his top lip in. It's hilarious!

We went out last Saturday and got ourselves a Christmas tree! (We left the sick kiddo home with my Mom and sister) As we were looking through the trees it started to snow. It was wonderfully cliche. It snowed all night and when we woke up last Sunday everything was white! Rob got to take our new snowblower out for a spin. We hadn't had a snowblower before - what a difference!

Kasper and Lois sat at the front door and watched him for about 20 minutes.

Done! Now time to watch the Vikings (lose)!

We had a great low key week. We decorated the Christmas tree.

(Kasper's ornament is from Etsy seller thisfineday. LOVE it.)

My Mom has this little walker that Kasper loves so I went to Once Upon a Child in SLP and found the exact same one! For $8 it has provided lots of entertainment. K loves to make laps through the kitchen although he hasn't gotten the steering down yet. He's not wearing pants - we were on our way to the bath.

I bought a bunch of Christmas books to read to Kasper as a loose Advent calendar. (I got the idea on Pinterest) We read one of the books each night before bed by the Christmas tree. Sigh.

Side note, Kasper slept through the night ALL week. Like we didn't hear him until we had to wake him up. That hasn't happened in SO long. Here's to hoping it lasts!

We went to Rob's work's Christmas party after work on Friday so Steph picked up Kasper, brought him home, cared for him and put him in bed. I really missed him! The Christmas party was at DiGidio's - in the very same room we had our rehearsal dinner the night before our wedding.

Yesterday morning, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast where I was able to capture many current Kasper faces.

Notice all the pointing? He points at EVERYTHING. ALL the time. It'd be super annoying if it wasn't so cute. "Es at?" 100 million times a day. Sometimes I even think he's paying attention as we name everything.

So now we start another week as we barrel towards Christmas and New Years and someone's first birthday. I'll leave you with a dreamy picture of the boy and a peek and his one little tooth. When will it get a friend!?

Hope everyone has a great week!

Encore

2011-12-06T06:54:00.000-06:00

Due to the overwhelming response, here's an encore of Rob's 'stache grown in honor of Movember.

Enjoy!

11 months

2011-12-04T12:12:00.000-06:00

Kasper -

You are now 11 months old. How did that happen?? Your next month's birthday is also your first birthday. Sigh.

Let's take a look back at your 11th month, shall we?

Milestones: You are a super fast crawler but haven't shown any real signs of taking your first steps. You cruise around furniture but have become all but unwilling to even try standing on your own. You'll attempt standing in the tub and sometimes in your pack and play but if you're holding on to our hands and sense that we're going to let go you'll drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes. We did get you a little push walker toy that you are obsessed with and can scream around the house like a pro. You just have to get comfortable with doing it on your own and I guess we're not in a big hurry to have a walker.

Food: Nothing much has changed here. You are not the most consistent eater but the more I hear and read, this is totally normal behavior for your age. One night you'll eat a full meal of veggies, meat, fruit, milk and the next night all you'll touch are puffs. We just keep trying lots of different tastes and textures. I think that's all we can do. You now get more and more of what we're eating and I think that somehow knowing we're all eating the same thing makes you eat more. After sliiiiiding down the growth curve for months, you seem to have settled on the 7% curve. Trying to insure you're getting enough food has been a constant worry for me so just try to pick a line and stay on it. We suffered a setback with your illness but we're getting back on track now.

You still nurse 3-5 times a day along with 3 bottles at daycare. You LOVE milk and I'm not sure what we're going to do after you turn 1 since you still nurse all the time. At this point, I still see it as a relationship between you and me and if you want to nurse then on my end I have to continue doing what I can to provide milk for you. If you chose to end nursing then on my end I have to be ok with it. It's something I don't really know how to address at this point so I'm not addressing it. You enjoy it, you get some extra calories and some extra immunity from me. Anyway, a topic for another time.

Sleep: Your sleep has been pretty good. You wake up at least once about 95% of the time. The nights I don't hear from you by 6 am I run into your room to check on you. You nurse when you wake up and since you actually seem starving and drink a ton I have to assume you're actually hungry. I've been thinking about night weaning but how can I tell you you have to be hungry all night?

Your sleep suffered a bit with your illness but not as much as I was dreading! You surprised us each night while you were sick by only waking up 2ish times a night. I think it's helped you get back on track now that you're on the mend. The last few days I've noticed that you stay awake when I rock you so now I try to only rock you a couple minutes then lie you down and let you sort yourself to sleep. It's been working well so far. One afternoon I laid you down but you started crying and sat up. You cried for a couple minutes then quieted down. I peeked in your room to make sure you were sleeping and not just standing in your crib. You had fallen asleep sitting up! It was the funniest thing! Eventually you toppled over and finished your nap.

You still go down at 7:30 and usually wake around 2 am. If left to sleep you'll sleep until 7:30 but during the week I usually have to wake you up at 7 to head to daycare. You take a morning nap and an afternoon nap and a late afternoon nap if you can sneak it in. I think eventually you'll drop a couple of those but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Other: You love to clap and point these days. Waving has been a rarity and has been replaced by pointing. You point at anything and everything all day long. I swear you say "Dat" when you point and once we tell you what it is you sometimes say "Oooooh".

You had your first "real" illness this month when you came down with bronchiolitis and eventually pneumonia. It was so hard on all of us and it was such a relief when the antibiotics kicked in and you perked up.

Big news this month - a TOOTH! You have ONE little tooth in your mouth with a second nowhere to be found.

You celebrated your first Thanksgiving and were a very gracious host. You were a great, happy baby and loved playing with your family. You also "gobbled" up your first Thanksgiving meal. Yum!

One of your favorite games to play is Hat. You will play Hat with most anything.

You are such a wonderful baby. November was not kind to us Williamses and our health but we can rally like the best of them. We are SO excited to experience your first Christmas with you so bring it on December. It's doing a fine job so far - we got a nice snow yesterday! I don't think it'll be a brown Christmas this year!

I love you, peanut.

Mama

11 months - The Prologue

2011-12-01T21:53:00.000-06:00

Oh folks. If you're looking for Kasper's 11 month post, you won't find it here tonight. I'm hoping I can find the time and energy this weekend to put it together with all the photos. In the meantime, I thought I'd update everyone on Kasper's roller coaster of a week so far.

I mentioned last weekend that K had been sick with the wheezing, worsening cough and temp. I took him in Monday morning and the Dr thought he probably had bronchiolitis - a lower respiratory infection most commonly caused by the virus RSV. We tried a nebulizer treatment in the clinic but his wheeze didn't get better and he had another coughing episode on the ride home so the Dr decided not to prescribe a nebulizer treatment and we were just going to wait out the virus. Kasper was still acting like himself - just a crummier version. We played a bit when we got home.

Lens cap Hat!

Here he is clowning. It's not an awesome picture but I noticed that you can see his ONE tooth!

Look at that poor nose and those big grey eyes.

After playing, he went down for a nice nap. Once he woke up from this nap, the wheels really fell off. He was even more miserable than before, burning up and basically a wet noodle. He clung to me like it was his job. He wouldn't eat anything, would only nurse a little and just wanted to be held. I thought he would enjoy being in the shower to clear his nose so I brought him in there. I don't know if I can pin point my favorite moment as a mother so far, but standing in the shower with my sick baby is pretty close. He just laid his head on my shoulder and let the warm water hit his back and we stood there for a long, long time. I loved that I could help him feel better if just for 10 minutes. Rob tried it again before bed to help him relax.

I stayed home again Tuesday because Kasper was still running and fever and I was actually coming down with something. Tuesday was a difficult day. Add to that Kasper not wanting to take a morning nap and me just wanting to be able to lie down and it was very difficult. In place of his morning nap, K and I laid in the bathtub for a nice long while. He was a little rag doll. He didn't play, he didn't really do anything but lay on me. SO unlike him - if you've met him it's hard to imagine him not wiggling. Rob actually ended up having to come home to take care of everyone. K still refused to eat and was only nursing sparingly. He was still having wet diapers so I wasn't worried about dehydration.

I went to work Wednesday and Grandma Sandra came down to watch the boy. He just wasn't getting any better but I was assuming that we were still waiting for the virus to pass. The Dr called in the afternoon to give me the results from the whooping cough test she sent in on Monday - negative. She asked if Kasper was turning a corner and when I said that he wasn't and seemed to be getting worse, only drinking 2 ounces of milk all afternoon, she wanted us to come in that afternoon for a chest x-ray. Cue the panic and guilt that I've just been letting my baby get sicker when it turns out he should have been feeling much better. I ran home to pick him and Sandra up and we headed to the clinic. Rob met us there.
Getting the x-ray. I thought it was going to be heartbreaking to have him in that contraption but he didn't shed a tear so it became more a photo op.

Kasper's temp was 102 in the armpit (equals about 103) in the clinic and he was the wet noodle he'd been for days. A wetter noodle, if possible. He had lost more than a half pound from not eating for days (after all the hard work I'd been doing to get him to gain weight).

The Dr pulled up his x-rays and read the radiologist's report saying he now had pneumonia. Sigh. That would explain why he's not getting better, huh? They gave him some ibuprofen and a prescription for amoxicillin. As we waited for the prescription to be filled, the ibuprofen kicked in we could see that sweet boy trying to break through. We got home and Kasper even ate a couple bites of toast for dinner!

Ibuprofen Hat!

Look Ma no hands!

We gave K his first dose of amoxicillin around 7 and it went down ok. After his bath and nighttime routine, I nursed him and was rocking him when he started to have this terrible, terrible coughing fit. Worst I've heard so far. This coughing fit ended up causing him to vomit and up came his dinner, milk and antibiotic. Gross but after both of us changed, I rocked him again and he fell asleep. We all collapsed into exhausted heaps from the emotional afternoon. Around 9 I was unwrapping some delicious chocolate cake when K started coughing. And coughing. That same horrible cough from before. He wasn't stopping so I went in to pick him up. He just could not stop the coughing and gagging so Rob took him so I could call the nurse line. Vomit on Rob's sweatshirt. I get a hold of a nurse, say he's coughing uncontrollably and vomiting and she basically cuts me off and tells me to call 911 immediately. I ask for clarification and she tells me to hang up and call 911. Rob said I turned white as a sheet. I can't even remember what I was thinking but I called 911 and an ambulance showed up about 2 minutes later. It was sort of embarrassing to have the ambulance a the house with the lights on in the driveway. The EMTs were awesome and said that Kasper (who had stopped coughing) didn't appear to be in distress but for our peace of mind we should take him to the ER. They left, we hopped in the car and headed to Methodist hospital. Haven't been there for 333 days! We got in right away and were shown back to our room.

We were in the ER for 2 hours. They actually did a test for RSV which was negative but after looking at everything, the ER doctor still believes Kasper had bronchiolitis which progressed to pneumonia.

(He got a nose bleed from the RSV swab. It added to his patheticness.)
I don't know if they can tell whether the pneumonia is bacterial or viral but I think they erred on the side of caution and gave antibiotics anyway. Since K had vomited up his amoxicillin, he got a shot of a different antibiotic in his thigh which was some high dosage. They had him hooked up monitoring his blood oxygen level and even when he would have a coughing fit, he was oxygenating perfectly well. Color us relieved. So we went home with the same diagnosis but with a little more information and our first ER experience. K got to bed around 12:30 am and somehow, miraculously slept until 7:30. He hadn't slept longer than 4 hours in weeks and here he was sleeping 7 hours after that kind of evening. He must have been very worn out.

I would say that finally, today Kasper has turned the corner. We had a follow-up Dr appt this afternoon and she agreed that he looks tons better. He still doesn't have his appetite and won't touch pedialyte with a 10 foot pole so I stayed home with him to keep him hydrated. The Dr doesn't want him to go back to daycare until next week because his immune system took a beating and I totally agree. It's not worth sending him to daycare for a day to come home with some other illness.

So that's been our week. Since basically after Thanksgiving we've been battling this infection. Thanksgiving feels like some distant memory. I understand that there are many babies fighting much worse infections but this has consumed our week and taken a lot out of us. I also wanted to get this all down for myself since this is my own little time capsule.

I'll get on that 11 month post... maybe tomorrow.

47 weeks

2011-11-27T21:34:00.000-06:00

Hoo boy. I'm going to have to make this as short as I can tonight. We're riding out Kasper's worst illness to date and I can only hope we get through the night with our sanity intact to make it to the Dr in the morning.

We started the week coming off a great weekend. While Rob and I scrambled to get things ready for Thanksgiving, Kasper enjoyed playing in our trail.

My Mom came down Wednesday night to help with Thanksgiving dinner. She and K got to share a moment before everyone showed up.

I wouldn't have been able to pull off Thanksgiving without my Mom's help. No way. She brought a (thawed) turkey and everything but her kitchen sink. She took care of roasting the turkey as well as coordinating all the dishes in the oven. We basically provided the space, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Speaking of the space...

We had my family, Rob's Mom, my Grandma and Grandpa, 2 of my aunts and uncles and 2 cousins over for lunch. It was SO awesome to spend the time together. We were never able to entertain at our old house because of the size but now we have more than enough room. We had 14 people (and a high chair) around the table with room to spare.

Kasper got to spend some time with his Great Grandma and Grandpa.

(Grandma took this pinecone away when it went in his mouth. Major tears. We are barreling towards real tantrums over here.)

We had such a great time with our family. It was also wonderful to be able to host! After we ate, most of us went for a nice walk along the trail across the road. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and it felt great to be able to get out for some exercise.

We headed up to St. Cloud on Friday so I could do some shopping with my Mom and sister. We never go out in the early morning but there are still good deals to be had in the afternoon. Things started to fall apart for the boy Friday. He has had a cough for weeks but it has been a productive cough and hasn't been a big bother. Friday, the cough changed to a dry, violent cough where he would have these episodes of coughing where he would be almost gagging. Ugh. I hate it and I hate seeing him when he's coughing like that. It looks painful. Friday night was rough and Rob and I were up most of the night rocking, walking, anything to get Kasper to rest and not scream and cry. I'm not ashamed to admit that at 6 am, I walked him up to my parents room and gave him to my Mom so we could get a couple hours of sleep.

We headed over to Grandma Sandra's for breakfast Saturday. Kasper was sleepy from not sleeping at night so he ended up taking an almost 3 hour nap! Not the best houseguest that one. I met up with my good friend Jess for coffee and a chat after lunch. When I got home, Kasper was up and walking with a new toy my Mom found. He looked like a real boy!

Oh how he loves that toy. We had to put a weight on it so he didn't get going too fast. He gets behind it and just goes without steering or looking forward. He prefers you not help him. The toy provided quite a bit of frustration for him as well. He often threw himself down in a fit if something wasn't right.

Here you'll notice that he walked into a chair and couldn't move. Wah.

Saturday night was more of the same. Crying, coughing, restlessness. This morning, he had a wicked sore nose to add to the mix. It's seriously cracked and bleeding. The black, raised bit is unrelated to the nose sore. It's a blueberry.

We headed home after K's morning (2 hour) nap and got back in time for him to take another 2 hour nap. He is just feeling SO crummy and I feel so bad for him.

I called the nurse line and they want him to come in because of the change in coughs and wheezing. He also had a temp of 102 before bed. Sigh. The little guy does try his best to be his normal, happy self. Tough kid.

Ok - off to bed with us. We're exhausted. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know we did! Here's to hoping for a turn around for the lad.

46 weeks

2011-11-20T21:51:00.000-06:00

We have some big news over here at Chez Williams - Kasper's first tooth has finally broken through!! Hallelujah! After that little white spot appeared and disappeared last Friday, I thought maybe it wasn't going to happen soon but Kasper chewed on his hands like it was his job all week and by this past Friday, his little gums were whitish and there was a hole opening on the lower left side. We could feel a little edge yesterday and by tonight we could see the top of the tooth! I didn't realize teething was such hard work, I feel bad for the dude. Only 19 to go! For some reason I thought the bottom 2 teeth came through at the same time but I don't see anything on the right side.

We started the week with good news from the Dr. appointment. I really feel so good about it knowing that this is just Kasper's size and he's not going hungry or something horrible. We also started the week with a new car seat! Kasper can stay in his infant car seat for another 2 inches or 14 pounds but I was ready for him to make the switch.

I'm not sure if he finds it as comfortable as his infant seat but he is still able to catch a couple winks on the way to daycare.

Monday night was the Vikings/Packer "game". Obviously it didn't go well since the Vikings suck but the boys looked cute!

The rest of the week flew by as the weeks have a habit of doing. Rob and I are hosting a Thanksgiving meal for 14 (!!!!) so we've been scrambling to finish up some projects and get the house ready for so many people. I can't wait, it's going to be so fun.

Luckily the tooth broke through Saturday morning because it gave us a happy baby for the rest of the weekend! He was such a wonderful baby and we all had a lot of fun together after many days of whining. P.S. the necklace Kasper is wearing is actually an amber teething necklace. I don't know if it works or not but he hasn't been very drooly.

Rob got outside bright and early Saturday morning to rake. Again. Inexplicably, our yard was full of leaves.

Kasper went out to visit and hold on to the swing.

Making lunch - trying pickles. Does not like.

Now if you don't like seeing pictures of babies eating lunch with food all over their face, look away. But you'll miss out on some classic Kasper faces.

Sigh. He was just such a pleasure to be around this whole weekend. He and I even ran a bunch of errands all over town between naps on Saturday and he didn't make a peep. He was just so good.

We finally got some SNOW yesterday afternoon! I've been waiting for this! Unfortunately it won't stick because it's supposed to be in the 50's this week. I guess I can wait another couple weeks. I just loved waking up to snow this morning, though.

It makes you want to hunker down and stay warm. I made some baked pumpkin oatmeal, some french press coffee and we all enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and the newspaper. I wait all summer for mornings like this. Ok, not really but I do love them.

Peek-a-boo!

We spent the day continuing to get ready for Thanksgiving and I went to a baby shower for my good friend Anna in the afternoon. After the shower, I ran to the grocery store. Who knew Brussels sprouts and corn muffin mix were so popular?

Back to work tomorrow but luckily it's a short week. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Dr. update

2011-11-16T13:50:00.000-06:00

I thought I would do a quick update on Kasper's Dr. appointment Monday. He was weighed and his length and head size were measured. Good news - he's following exactly along the growth curves from his 9 month appointment! He went from the 50% to the 51% for length and is now 29" long. Funny that Kasper is 2'5". His head size is holding steady at ~6% at 17.24" - getting close to being able to wear a bike helmet! The best news... he gained a pound this past month! He is now 18 lbs 6 oz and has gone from 6.6% to 7%. I'll take it! All that avocado, yogurt and cheese must be doing the trick. I guess this is his "normal." He's going to be long and skinny. Not that I'm surprised, I should put some photos of Rob from high school on here. Skinny much? The Dr. said she was going to put in his chart "Slow weight gain - resolved" which means she's not going to worry about it either. She also said she had been doing a lot of reading about growth of infants and apparently it's completely normal to cross many growth curves as babies and most times doesn't indicate a health concern. They used to worry when that happened and would run a bunch of tests on the kids only to find nothing wrong and they were completely healthy. Whew. I have to say again that I love our pediatrician. She's so calm and reassuring.

We stopped at Panera after the appointment for a quick breakfast. We were able to play a round of Hat - Panera coffee cup lid style.

Now I can worry less about K's weight gain. What should I obsess about next??

45 weeks

2011-11-13T21:43:00.000-06:00

This was a rough week and I'm glad it's over. Looking back to last Sunday/Monday, I didn't have food poisoning at all. First clue - my Mom (who I saw Sunday when I was starting to feel bad) came down with the same thing on Tuesday. Second clue - I ended up with pink eye on Wednesday. PINK EYE. I haven't had pink eye in 20 years. It was most likely norovirus I had Sunday and it has a habit of ending up in your eye. Awesome. Luckily it's almost all gone now and never evolved into the goopy bacterial infection. So that's why my week sucked.

Kasper had a fine week. He's still battling his cough/runny nose. He has this terrible cough and often ends up having a coughing fit during the night. The good news is that it doesn't wake him up. I don't know why it's not getting better. I thought we were going to have good news about a new TOOTH but we still don't. I look every morning since he is obviously teething. Friday morning there was an unmistakable white spot on his gums. Rob even saw it. I was sure it would start working it's way through during the day but when I picked him up there was no white spot and I haven't seen it since. Maybe this week?

K is getting more and more fun and interactive. He loves to mimic sounds we make and things we do. He plays peek-a-boo all the time which is pretty much the cutest. Especially with the clear shower curtain where I can see him the whole time. One of our current favorite games is "Hat". We put things on our heads, say "hat!" then give the thing to Kasper. He then puts it on his head, we say "hat!" again and squeal like weirdos. Favorite toy for Hat - a sippy cup!

Playing Hat with milk can be messy.

A little blurry, but he totally nailed it with this round.

Kasper had a nice low-key weekend with at least one of his parents. Saturday it was with me as Rob was out running errands.

Sometimes sitting in the exersaucer is for babies. But maybe the toys are still fun.

Reading books

Kasper is constantly taking his socks off.

I thought I would document how many socks I found laying around at any one time.

(The answer is 4 pairs. There are 2 in the pack and play.)(Maybe I should pick them up.)

Saturday night my sister put the baby to bed while Rob and I got out for a date night! We went out for sushi and it was so.good. We tried our darnedest to eat our weight in fish. It was also nice to get away just the 2 of us. With the teething and the growing, Kasper is grumpy and whiny a lot of the time. Of course he was a perfect gentleman for Steph. In fact, she called to ask if she was in danger of over-feeding Kasper dinner. Wha??? He eats about 2 bites for me but apparently ate everything in the fridge! I guess he wanted us to get away as well.

Today, Steph and I went to a decorating event at Pottery Barn in the morning and ran around to a couple more stores so the dudes got to hang out. We got home as Kasper was in the middle of his afternoon nap. I think he had a great day.

(Those socks are now on the kitchen floor)

We are hosting some of my family for Thanksgiving this year. Since it is my first time with a mantle, I wanted to do some decorating. It's nothing crazy, but I think it's cute!

Kasper goes in for a weight check tomorrow and I hope it's a good start to a better week. Eating tons of yogurt, avocado, cheese and milk has to be doing something.

Washington - the Memorial

2011-11-10T09:00:00.000-06:00

Ok! Time to wrap up the recap of our trip to WA. Only took me a month and a half. Not bad!

Saturday was our last full day in Washington and it was also the memorial service for Rob's Grandma - Bea. It was Kasper's first occasion to dress up and he wanted to go all out, bow-tie and all.

The memorial service was wonderful. It was really a celebration of Bea's life and it was fun to hear stories about her when she was younger. Like how she traveled out to Washington from West Virginia with friends and ended up meeting her husband, Cal. Or how she and Cal had the only new car - a Buick - in town for awhile. I got to listen to the first half of the service then I had to go sit in back with my squirrely babe.

After the service, there was a lunch for all the guests. Apparently Kasper was over having his picture taken at this point. Yikes.

He did manage to catch some shut eye while the rest of us ate lunch.

After lunch we got the whole family together for some group pictures. This called for a blazer.

Kasper looks so beautiful in this picture (Rob not so much). I could stare at it for hours. He looks like a perfect doll.

Sleepy, sweaty kiddo.

We headed back to the hotel after the service where Kasper managed to take something like a 3 hour nap, if I remember correctly. A nice nap was desperately needed at this stage of the trip. After K woke up, we met everyone at a restaurant for dinner.

This was where Kasper took his first real crawling steps. And we got it on film!

After we got home from dinner, we packed up our things for the early flight in the morning. Kasper helped.

We had a 7 am flight out of Portland so we left Longview at some ungodly hour, I can't remember anymore. Kasper did just as well on the way home as he did on the way out and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we landed on the ground in Minneapolis. All in all a successful trip. And it's true when they say about kids that it's always changing - if things are going well, it'll change and if things are rough, it'll change. We were going through a rough patch a month ago and I was worried it was our new normal. It wasn't. When I think about our time in WA, I remember how exhausted I was and upset K wasn't sleeping or eating. I'm glad things have turned around but I'm fully aware they can swing back to super frustrating.

We had a GREAT time out west and can't wait to go back. Hopefully Kasper will look forward to these trips out to Washington.

44 weeks

2011-11-07T11:13:00.000-06:00

** Sorry I'm late with the post this week. As I was writing it I was also coming down with food poisoning from lunch. Not fun! I'm feeling at least well enough to sit up, so I might as well post it.**

What a fun week we had! We started off the week with Kasper's first Halloween. He got to wear his costume to daycare and also brought in his painted pumpkin for the pumpkin contest. He lost to a Elmo carved 'kin but had a fine showing. All the kids and teachers wore costumes and it was so fun to see everyone. As luck would have it, Kasper had the same costume as one of his friends, but they didn't seem to mind.

Rob got home early to take Kasper trick-or-treating to a couple houses in the neighborhood.

Checking out his loot

We decided we'd keep our light on and hand out candy until Kasper went to bed around 8. When we finally turned out our light, we had a grand total of TWO trick-or-treaters! 2!! I guess there aren't many kids in the neighborhood.

The rest of the week just flew by! We had friends over for dinner Wednesday, which was fun as always.

Kasper often sleeps on the way in to daycare. He used to sleep on the way home but doesn't do that so often anymore. I think it's because he takes a long nap in the afternoon. Anyway, I had to get a photo of Kasper before daycare one day this week.

I want to remember how he looked most mornings when we pull up to Jardin.

Rob picked K up for daycare on Thursday before heading off to play disc golf. I met them at a park by daycare since they couldn't go far - I had the car seat in my car. They had a great time playing and K was being silly walking on his hands and feet.

Little family

K continued his silly crawl when we got home and let the dog out.

Kasper likes to clap if we say "Yay!" He was clapping like crazy until I turned the video camera on him. I finally got him giving me a couple claps.

I also have to mention the fun bath Kasper had this week. Usually Rob gives baths, but when he was gone I was up. K did some standing and letting go of the side, splashing into the tub, over and over again. He also started to hand me things, which he hadn't really done before. Then if that wasn't enough, he played peek-a-boo with me using the shower curtain without me doing it first! It was just so fun for me!

Kasper has had a runny nose for a long time and a wet, rattly cough all week. We had plans to lay low and rest and we did pretty well!

Kasper continued to feel crummy today. I don't know exactly what's wrong, but he's pretty whiny and we had to use disposable diapers today. Maybe teeth finally?? It was a pj day for sure.

Shakespeare hand

Peek-a-boo!

And finally, a teaser for our latest project.

10 months

2011-11-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

Kasper -

You are 10 months old today. 10 months! Double digits! That means you turn 1 in 2 months! Slow down!!

What have you been up to this month?

Milestones: You are now a full time hands and knees crawler. I haven't seen you skid along on your belly for weeks! You're getting pretty speedy, too. You pull up to stand on everything and can occasionally stand on your own if you're preoccupied enough.

Food: You continue your shaky relationship with food. Sometimes you clean your plate, sometime you eat 2 bites and refuse to eat more. I hear you are a great eater at daycare and eat all of your lunch everyday along with about 15 ounces of milk. I have been sending some avocado along for you to eat with your lunch to plump you up a bit. You eat a nice variety of foods that include meat, cheese, yogurt, veggies and fruit. I try to get you to at least eat some protein before you have fruits or vegetables but sometimes that ruins your meals. Instead of water, you get milk in a cup for meals for the calories. Speaking of milk, even at 10 months old, you LOVE to nurse. You actually sit still and nurse at any time of the day. I love those moments when you are quiet and we can cuddle a bit.

Sleep: We had a rough August and September in the sleep department but almost as soon as we got home from Washington you started sleeping again and it's been pretty quiet around here at night. You have been waking up once at most and I would say half of the time we don't hear from you until 7 am. I'm fully aware that this too shall pass so I try to get some sleep while the gettin's good.

Bedtime is around 7:30 still after a nice bath with Papa. We nurse before bed and then I rock you awhile. You can go to bed awake so sometimes the rocking is just for me.

You still take 2 naps - one around 9:30/10:30 and one around 1:30/2 for about an hour each. During the week, you catch a couple 30 minute naps on our drives to and from daycare. I don't know when you'll drop your morning nap. As of now, you still really need it to be happy during the day!

Other: You clap and wave for us without us doing it first. If we say "Hi birds" or "Hi Sissy" You will wave at whatever we are talking about. You wave at your bird mobile every morning when you wake up. You also clap if we say "Yay!"

You love daycare and your teachers. I think you like playing with the other kids and I now find you amongst the big kids. You got your first bite this month but it didn't slow you down any!

You are still TOOTHLESS! At 10 months old we don't even see the hint of a tooth. I was 10.5 months old before I got my first tooth and Papa was 13 months so I guess you were doomed.

Just tonight was the first time you pooped on the floor! We set you down to play as we ran your bath. I joked to you that you'd better not pee on my shoes (which you were playing with). You showed me by leaving 2 gifts on the floor and slamming a shoe into one of them.

You are such a special kid and we can't get enough of you. Love you, peanut.

Mama

Some outtakes this month. Don't mind the color on these. I'm thankful I only have 2 more months to get these shots - it's stressful to me!

He can't be contained!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T09:44:00.000-05:00

From Señor Monito and his Nanner.

Lois has been a banana the last couple years, so we thought it would be cute to have Kasper be a monkey! We were right!

Hahahahahaha!

I know traditionally monkeys don't ride bananas but these 2 don't always play by the rules.

If you were still in doubt as to whether Lois is a good sport or not:

She sure loves her monkey.

P.S. We've called Lois Nannerpuss for awhile now. It was from that weird Denny's commercial. Remember this?

43 weeks

2011-10-30T20:55:00.000-05:00

The end of October already! I can't believe it. We had another quiet week over here. Well, we started it off with a bang (and a bite) but we coasted through the rest of the week. I also took approximately 1 million photos. It's going to be a long post.

Kasper continues to grow and change. He started clapping with purpose this week! If we say "Yay!" and clap, he'll clap with us! It's SO fun to be able to interact with him like this. He also tries to play peek-a-boo by holding things over his eyes but he's not always accurate.

Also new this week - standing! He still can't let go when he's standing and remain standing, but sometimes if I set him on his feet, he'll stay there for awhile! He stands at least long enough for me to get my camera and take a picture!

Note: He seems to stand better if he's holding onto something.

We were able to relax after work and throw our toys around.

Such a boy.

Another thing Kasper started is "sharing" whatever he is holding with us. Including his breakfast!

Hi!

His silly smile lately.

Yesterday we had some family pictures taken. On the drive, I had fun looking at Kasper in his mirror.

And here's the dude in his cute little sweater vest with a new toy.

We woke up this morning with nothing to do! It's rare these days to have everyone home on the weekends especially in the morning. We made coffee in our new french press (awesome!), read the paper and had cinnamon rolls from Ikea. It was so relaxing!

Since tomorrow is Halloween, Kasper gets to wear his costume to school and he also gets to bring in a decorated pumpkin. After seeing these guys involve their little one in pumpkin decorating, I knew I wanted to try it! I wrote Kasper's name on some painters tape I stuck on the pumpkin then cut around it with an exacto knife. Once I peeled off the excess tape, I squirted some paint on the 'kin and let the boy have at it. He LOVED the finger painting! I didn't even have to help him!

We got a little overzealous so the pumpkin is basically painted brown but we had a fun time!

(It's weird to see him hanging out with a paci. Normally we only allow them for sleeping but I didn't want him to put paint in his mouth.)

Here the boy is waking up from a nap so excited to see his pumpkin.

Here it is! We peeled the tape off and were left with a totally awesome pumpkin to bring to school tomorrow!

Rob wanted to pretend his hand was "ghoulish".

This afternoon, the place where I took my New Mama course was having a party where you could bring your kids in in their costumes and sing songs and have your picture taken! A couple of us from the group met and chatted for awhile. It has been months since we all got together and the kids are just getting so BIG. I think last time we were all together, the milestone we were all working on was sitting! It was fun to see everyone and it was fun to have the babies "play". Want a sneak peek at the costume?

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Face Painting Day!

2011-10-24T22:11:00.000-05:00

Last Friday was Face Painting Day at daycare. We knew the kids were getting their faces painted and I was looking forward to seeing Kasper all day. When I picked him up at the end of the day, I was sad to see that they had washed all of the face paint off! Well, they sent me a couple pictures from Face Painting Day and I came close to perishing.

Hahahahahaha! I think the kids are supposed to be cats and you'll have to take my word for it but it looks like a group of scary clowns up there. And I love the picture of Kasper playing in the tunnel. That's where the big kids are usually playing and it's where I've been finding K most times. Playing with the big kids. Also funny - that's not the outfit Kasper went to daycare in. He hasn't come home in different clothes since his first day.

I'll tell the story later but we came home with an accident report today. Another kid bit Kasper on the hand! The teachers were so sorry, I felt worse for them than I did my baby! It's ok, they're kids. I'm sure one day Kasper will be the biter. But check out this chomp:

Ouch!

Feel free to scroll back up to laugh at Kasper with his group. Those eyebrows!

42 weeks

2011-10-23T20:32:00.000-05:00

Geez! I had to look back at last week's post to refresh myself on what we did last weekend. I seem to have blocked out all those leaves. I'm happy to say that we are not re-covered in leaves.

Kasper faced the week with a nasty, crusty nose and a yawn. I think he has a severe case of the Mondays.

We have been battling that runny nose all week and the poor boy's nose is chapped.

Mondays are "Pajama Day" at daycare so K wore his finest terry sleeper. He boldly paired the sleeper with a raccoon hat. *I DIE*

I bought this hat at Target last weekend and we have been swooning over it all week. Babies in animal hats = the best.

We played outside after work almost every day. It was nice out and Kasper didn't sleep in the car on the way home so he was awake!

Kasper has been taking a greater interest in the dog lately. He likes to climb on her and screech in her ear. She's a great sport and lets him do what he wants until she gets sick of him and walks away. So while he's usually bothersome, he's also going to be a great playmate for Lois soon.

(He was in a box because I was pushing him around the house in it. Fun!)

We keep the pack and play set up in the upper level so we can put him in there while we make dinner or otherwise need to focus on something. He doesn't mind being in there if he can see us and we don't have to be always saving him from pinching his fingers in the drawers. He gets into EVERYTHING. But wait, it looks like it's not Kasper in there after all but a wayward raccoon looking for some garbage to eat!

I love this video for many, many reasons. First, it shows how silly he can be about sucking on things. He loves to suck on zippers. And basically everything else. Second, we see what a good crawler he has become. He's even faster now. Then we see him eating a mum mum with authority followed by falling over. It's a very nice snapshot of Kasper at this age.

We stopped at a coffee shop on Friday morning for breakfast before dropping K off at daycare. The coffee shop had a little kid-sized rocking chair. I put him in just for fun and he LOVED it! This video is from my phone and it was a little dark in there, but you can see that he is just rocking away! All by himself! It was so cute and I wouldn't have guessed that he could do it.

Rob headed over to Eau Claire for a frisbee tournament this weekend so I packed up the baby and the dog and headed up to St. Cloud. We had a nice relaxing weekend up there as usual. Kasper decided this week that he likes to point and make "ooo" sounds with his little mouth shaped like an O. He also looks for Lois when we ask where Sissy is and can maybe mimic us saying Sissy. He clapped a couple times this week but I don't know if it was an accident of if he really meant it. Also, when he is stood up and let go of, he can stand for a couple seconds and is even able to balance himself while standing. Could it be we'll have a walking baby soon?? Now I wonder when those teeth are going to pop through...

What a big boy! I should also note that his birthday is now less than 10 weeks away. Wha??? Impossible.

Washington - right near da beach, Boyee!

2011-10-19T14:59:00.000-05:00

Actually, the beach is technically Oregon. Details...

So where were we? We've taken K to the mountain, we've met, played with and tormented some cousins. What else did we do?

We started our Friday morning off right with a trip to Stuffy's II. We had actually seen this place on the Food Network a couple months before and knew we had to stop. Their claim to fame is an ENORMOUS cinnamon roll. This thing is seriously large.

(Do you see Kasper getting frustrated in the corner?)

We "shared" the cinnamon roll and also got real breakfast food. We ate about 1/20th of the roll and took the rest to-go. It was delicious and a super fun place to eat at. Rob spent tons of time out in Longview growing up but I guess for some reason they never went to Stuffys! It's going to be a place we visit each time for sure.

We had the whole day ahead of us so we decided to head west towards the Pacific. Of course Kasper was an awesome car companion and we barely heard a peep out of him. It's a landscape unlike anything we have in the Midwest so it was fun to have a look around. We knew we wanted to make it as far as Astoria and once we were there, we went the extra 20-some miles to Seaside, OR.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day. The last couple times I've been there it was cold and/or overcast. On this day, the weather was just about perfect. The town was buzzing, the sun was warm, the water was beautiful. In short, it was a perfect day to introduce Kasper to the ocean.

First time putting his toes in the sand! Loved it!

Into the Pacific they go!

We already know he's a water baby so he was right at home. Not scared of the waves or cold in the water.

A perfect day. Sigh.

(That blue swatch of fabric is the baby desperately trying to get back down to the surf and sand. Amen kiddo.)

I'll be back later to wrap up our Washington trip!

41 weeks

2011-10-16T20:44:00.000-05:00

How is it Sunday night again already?? I think we need longer weekends. Or we need to just slow down. I know I'm in the minority here but I can't wait for winter. Where you have nothing better to do than huddle up inside and watch movies. Maybe that's why Minnesota has leaves - when you're done raking them all up, you just wish for snow so you don't have to do yard work anymore. We spent our weekend raking. I'm looking into having our trees cut down. Kidding. Not.

This week flew by with nothing notable going on around these parts. I did capture another Papa/Kasper moment.

Kasper has become a lean, mean hands and knees crawling machine. He also started to have a snack when we get home from work. In an effort to get him to gain weight, he gets a quarter of an avocado for lunch and some string cheese and milk for an afternoon snack when we get home. He still eats a nice dinner where I try to give him some kind of protein. He's not crazy about the texture of meat or fish but if I give small enough pieces, he can usually get them down.

Yesterday, my sister and parents came over to help us out. My sister tended to the lad and dog...

while my Mom, Dad, Rob and I tackled the leaves. Before we started working, we spent some time waving at each other.

So the 4 of us worked hard for about 4 hours and the yard went from this:

To this:

Can you appreciate how many leaves this is?

As of tonight, this is the only little pile left

We have SO.MANY.LEAVES. So many. Rob and I originally planned on having my sister come over for a bit on Saturday so we could quick get the leaves raked up. Isn't that just the cutest? We grossly underestimated the amount of work we had in front of us. My Mom even cut down all of our plants and raked out all of the beds.

Check out this haul:

We have so many leaves we can't park in the garage! We have something like 46 bags of MULCHED leaves. That is in addition to the 11 bags we put out this week. Can you believe it??

We treated ourselves to a leisurely morning of coffee, waffles, the newspaper, big boy toys.

I realized that Kasper's toys weren't holding his attention very long. In a "Duh" moment, I surmised that they were toys for babies, not 9.5 month olds. Steph and I ran out to the store and remedied that.

After K's morning nap, he wiggled away before I could get a diaper on him. Instead of chasing him down, I grabbed my camera.

Seriously?

Kasper has been showing more interest in books this week. At least he'll sit still slightly longer to go through a short one with me.

There you have it. To summarize - LEAVES!

Washington - Cousins!

2011-10-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

We got into Longview a day before everyone else but by Wednesday night and Thursday, the rest of the family started arriving. That could only mean one thing... COUSINS! (Poor Kap will be lacking in the "official" cousin department as he has only 1 aunt so we count our cousins and their kids as cousins as well.)

There are 3 male cousins in the family and all 3 had babies in 2011. Well, the wives did if we're being a stickler about it. Kasper was first on January 1, Jack Calvin was next on May 10 followed by Quinlin Emilie on June 6. We didn't meet Jack until the day of the memorial service but we got to see lots of Quin! Kasper was not kind to poor Quinlin. He preferred to act rough with her and hit and pull hair and make her cry. Color me embarrassed.

Isn't she adorable? I can't believe Kasper was ever that little and I know that her parents can't imagine her as big as K.

Quinlin with her Mama Terra

Rob's cousin Debbie and her daughters Sela and Faith were K's best friends while we were there! While he could be grumpy and fussy with us, he just played and played with the girls. One afternoon I was especially frazzled so Debbie and Faith took Kasper for a walk around the block while Rob and I went and got a cup of coffee. It was great and he had a wonderful time on the walk looking around and twirling his ankles.

Faith could keep him entertained for hours! Baby in a box:

Could he be having more fun?

Kasper and BFF Faith

Glasses! Always a hit.

This was the safest way for K to play with Quinlin - just out of reach.

All the babies and Grandmas together!

While it looks (to us at least) like Kasper is so much older and bigger than Quinlin and Jack, it's fun to rememeber that they will be in the same grade and will graduate together in 2029! Who feels old now??

A way belated cousins shout out, but a huge shout out nonetheless. It was such a treat to get the babies together and also for Kasper to meet all the older cousins. He had a really great time. And so did we!

40 weeks

2011-10-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

What a wonderful week! Can you believe we've been having these sunny 80 degree days in OCTOBER? Love it!

We had a quiet week at home this week. Kasper has been sleeping (yay!) so we've all been in pretty good spirits. Kasper also seems to be out of whatever grumpy phase he has been in for the last few weeks. Yes, I know this can change at any moment.

Rob requested that I show more "real" photos on the blog. I guess to show that K isn't a cute smiling boy all the time. Here is a "real" mealtime.

Food on the face, in the hair, smeared all over the high chair.

Bites that are clearly too big

We started chicken this week! On to meats! I'm trying to get some nice high protein/fatty foods into Kasper's diet - he needs the calories! I sent 1/4 of an avocado to daycare with him everyday and he eats it in addition to his lunch. 1/4 of an avocado!

One evening this week, Kasper was on a mission to torment the dog.

She thinks about getting out of Dodge.

Doesn't get too far.

For the most part, these 2 just co-exist in the house. Kasper doesn't bother Lois and Lois doesn't bother Kasper. There are times where Kasper wants badly to bother Lois and there are times when Lois wants badly to bother Kasper. Luckily everyone is a good sport about it. He did give her ear a good tug there.

After buzzing around the sunroom, we went into Kasper's room so I could fold and put away diapers. Kasper was actually sitting quietly looking through a book when he toppled over and hit his eye on his bookshelf. For all the roughhousing this kid does, he gets his first goose egg reading??

Luckily it didn't look bad in the morning.

Another "real" moment. Rob does bathtime most nights to spend some time with the boy. They have invented loads of fun stuff to do in there.

One not so awesome thing that happened this week (besides the Dr. appt. Sad face.) was that basically all the leaves in Hennepin County fell in our yard.

Saturday morning, Kasper was in an awesome mood. We had a nice, leisurely breakfast with no screaming. (Does it get any cuter than a baby in fleece pjs?)

Saturday afternoon, Rob and I left K with my Mom and headed down to Southeastern Minnesota for Jake and Emily's wedding. Jake and Rob went to college together and a bunch of that group made it down for the wedding. The ceremony was beautiful - it was outside and I don't think anyone would have guessed they would have a sunny, clear, 85 degree day for their wedding on October 8. The reception was in La Crosse at this very cool ballroom. Even though it was our first night away from the baby and we missed him like crazy, we managed to have ourselves a great time! We closed down the reception (haven't stayed up that late on purpose for a long time!) and we all had the honor of hearing the debut of the latest DJ Tortfeazor track. It was off the chain, baby! A group of us had breakfast before heading back this morning and I have to say that La Crosse is a pretty cute little town.

We got home this afternoon, gave the little one tons of kisses and when he went down for his afternoon nap, we tackled the leaves. How do we know when it's naptime?

(Keeping it "real")

We didn't get far - there are so.many.leaves in the yard. We made a dent, though. Luckily there were more than enough leaves to rake into a pile and toss the baby into it. This is take 2. We threw him in the first time and he totally disappeared to the bottom of the pile. After we frantically dug him out and stopped laughing hysterically, we grabbed the camera and tossed him in again. Gently this time.

Another weekend gone. Bummer. Hopefully this week I'll get another Washington post done. I've got so much more to share about it!

9 months - the stats

2011-10-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

We brought Kasper to the doctor this morning for his 9 month checkup. I know people enjoy seeing the stats, so I thought I'd share them.

Weight: 17.4 pounds - 8%
Height: 28.25" - 50%
Head: 17" - 5%

Sigh. We're basically peering over the edge of the growth charts for weight and head size. Our pediatrician is the coolest, though. She's not overly worried about it since he is still growing. She said she sees growth slow down when babies start crawling and becoming more active. Kasper is VERY active so he's probably not getting enough calories to support his activity level. Since he is meeting or exceeding his developmental milestones and his body appears to be in working order, there's nothing obvious going on. I'm a little upset about it but all I can do is be in the "wait and see" camp.

Does this look like a baby who is falling off the growth charts?? I don't get it.

(These were taken in our hotel room in Longview)

Anyone else have babies slide down the growth chart but then catch up? Any advice?

9 months (or 39 weeks)

2011-10-01T22:11:00.000-05:00

Kasper -

You are 9 months old today. 9 months! You are barreling towards 1 year without giving much thought to how your Mama feels about it! As of tonight at 10:07 pm, you have been "outside" longer than you were "inside". So in the same amount of time it took to make you, you are a real live standing, crawling, getting into everything baby. Yikes!

Time for your monthly re-cap!

Milestones: You really excelled at your gross motor skills this month. I actually hadn't realized how many new things you are doing until I went back and read your 8 month post! Wow! You still army crawl most of the time but you are also able to get up on your hands and knees and take a few wobbly steps. I think you are happy with your ability to get where you want to go on your belly so the hands and knees crawling is just for fun. You now go from crawling to sitting very smoothly and then from sitting to standing in a blink. You like to stand anywhere at any time. You barely cruise around furniture but can walk along the couch if my cell phone is at the other end. Sometimes you get brave and let go to stand on your own for a second or 2. Most of the time you have an assortment of bruises on your forehead from bumping into things or falling down. Like I said before, you are 100% boy so I'm not surprised one bit. At 8 months, you were just starting to stand in your crib. We now regularly find you standing in there when you wake up. Either that or sitting quietly in your crib with a paci. This morning, for example, we woke up at 8:30 for the first time in 9 months. I peeked in your room and you were just sitting in your crib. I can't be sure how long you had been awake. It's very cute.

Food: You still have a hot and cold relationship with food. Sometimes you eat well, sometimes you are not interested. I ruined squash for you on our trip but I'll try it again later. You eat a bunch of different fruits and vegetables but aren't crazy about yogurt (it turns out you aren't intolerant to dairy, but you don't like it). We started egg yolk this week and you don't hate them. So far, the only food you've really disliked has been broccoli. You get a sippy cup of water at meals and are now able to hold it correctly to take drinks by yourself. This month I witnessed something I never thought I'd see - you fell asleep at the dinner table! It was pretty cute.

At daycare, you eat breakfast and lunch as well as drink 14 ounces of milk. We're going to increase your milk because you seem to be starving when I pick you up. Or maybe you are just so eager to nurse. You are still an avid nurser and will never turn it down. You nurse at least 3 times a day including in the morning, after work and before bed. I still nurse and rock you to sleep most nights. I'll miss these days when you're too big to rock to sleep. I'm already starting to reflect as I stare at you as you drift off to sleep with your long legs hanging off my lap.

Sleep: We've been struggling in the sleep department for the last couple of months. We cycle through no wake ups, 1 wake up per night, 2 wake ups per night and no sleep at all. This month you had a terrible spell where you didn't sleep at night and would cry and cry. That was tough on your Mom and Dad but as suddenly as it came on, you were sleeping all night again. You didn't sleep well on our trip but have been doing better since we've been home. Also since we've been home, we can put you down drowsy and you'll put yourself to sleep. I won't get too comfortable, though, I know how things can change!

Your bedtime has been the same for a long time and I don't see you pushing that bedtime back anytime soon. You take 2 naps at daycare and lately they've been almost an hour each!

Other: You took your first airplane trip this month! We flew to Washington for Great-Grandma Quinlin's funeral. It was a sad reason to make the trip, but you had so much fun meeting everyone! You were a great traveler! You were a little off your schedule and sleeping in a strange bed, but you managed to keep a smile on your face. On this first trip, you got to see Mt. St. Helens as well as stick your toes in the Pacific for the first time.

You are developing a little separation anxiety, unfortunately. It's not too bad as far as going to other people, but you don't like when I walk away from you and usually crumble to the floor in tears. Interestingly enough, you don't cry when I drop you of at daycare. I think it's because you love it there so much.

You've said what I'm calling your first word - "Uh oh". I don't know if it really counts as a word, but you for sure use it correctly. When you drop something you're playing with, you quite clearly say "uh oh". Then you drop the toy a bunch more so you can keep saying it.

You wave now! If waved at, you'll often wave back. You look very pleased with yourself as you do it. We're working on clapping but at least you have waving down. As a side note, we got some forms from the doctors office that we're supposed to fill out before your appointment next week. It asks us to say if you do a variety of things in a variety of categories. You killed the gross motor section but are surprisingly behind in fine motor and social sections. I thought you had more fine motor skills. To your credit, the form goes from 9 mo 0 days through 9 mo 30 days so at 9 mo 0 days, you're doing fine.

You are really becoming a fine boy. A rough and tumble, curious, silly boy. I can't wait to see what this month brings. Hopefully it's more arms for me so I can keep up with you! Papa and I love you so much, peanut!

Love, Mama

Of course the outtakes this month included some standing. At least he wasn't sliding off the chair this time!

Washington - The Mountain

2011-09-28T11:31:00.000-05:00

Ok - back again with another Washington post! I ended the post abruptly Sunday night after I got the tired stretchies and had to stop. After I said I was going to talk about Kasper's trip, I totally failed to mention the awesome things he did! I was so exhausted I guess I only wanted to talk about how we didn't sleep for 5 nights. So while K was in Washington, he learned how to wave and high five and also started crawling on his hands and knees! Those are some milestones there! The waving was so cute. He still has to be in just the right mood to wave back but when he does it's adorbs. Besides maturing a bit, he also saw his first big mountains and stuck his toes into the ocean for the first time. I haven't given the little dude the credit he deserves for travelling as well as he did for being a squirrely 9 month old.

So where were we? We got into town Tuesday afternoon and hung out at Phyllis and Gill's where I spent a lot of time making the squash Kasper would get totally sick of after 1 meal.

For most of the time we were out there, it was just the 3 of us tooling around. Sandra and her sisters had estate things to sort out and we had our own car and car seat which gave us quite a bit of independence. We had a nice balance of our family time and extended family time.

We headed out Wednesday morning to see Mt. St. Helens. I'll also mention right now that the minute Kasper got into the car he slept. We never went more than 2 hours away from Longview but he was such a great little car passenger. If he did wake up, he would chat quietly to himself in the back seat until we got to where we were going. I was thankful for his easy-going attitude on our daytrips. So we headed to Mt. St. Helens, which I had never seen before thanks to fog.

What luck - I'm looking at the mountain at one of the rest stops and all of a sudden there's a parrot to hold! Totally random.

There she is!

Kasper peeping his very first mountain

It was such a beautiful, clear day we could even see Mt. Adams in the distance! (It's over there towards the left)

We went up to Johnston's Ridge to get a "closer" look at the mountain. The crazy thing is that we were still 5 miles from it. 5 miles!! I can't imagine what the mountain looked like before half of it blew off. It must have been beautiful.

There was a lake at the base of the mountain - Spirit Lake - that was a popular camping spot. In fact, it was once Rob's Dad Steve's most favorite place in the world. The lake is mostly gone now, covered with pieces of the mountain and ash. Even after 30 years there isn't much growing around here.

We stopped for lunch at a place we had visited before. It's downstream on the Toutle River from Mt. St. Helens. When the volcano erupted it sent ash and debris down this river. This was the view from their deck - you can see the ash along the banks.

This was a common sight. A screechy baby and an exasperated Mama.

Love my boy

There you have it - Kasper sees Mt St Helens for the first time. Actually, I saw it for the first time as well! Lots more to come. I'm going to have to stretch out the Washington posts - lots to talk about from there as well as other things to post about. I have to pace myself!

3 years

2011-09-27T08:30:00.000-05:00

Oh, wouldn't it be fun to go back 3 years ago today.

To the day we got married.

What a wonderful day that was!

We were surrounded by family and friends.

Once we got through the ceremony...

We were free to party the night away.

What an amazing day - and it really was that fun! The only thing I would change would be to have Kasper there. He would've had such a great time.

Happy Anniversary, Babe. I'm so glad we're in this together. I love you.

Jess

38 weeks

2011-09-25T21:14:00.000-05:00

We made it back home! What a trip! I think I'm going to have to split it into a couple posts - I don't think I have it in me to do it all tonight.

Remember how I said I wanted to send K back to MN? Here he is on the plane, unaccompanied, headed back!

Just kidding.

So I think tonight I'll keep it about the boy and how the trip was for him. He handled the plane flights like a champ. I was nervous about how I'd keep a 9 month old busy for 3 hours but it turned out to be not so bad! Rob, Sandra and I didn't have seats together either way before we left but we were able to get a whole row for both flights. We sat in the very last row which was just fine by us - fewer people to annoy! Kasper spent part of each flight sleeping, clowning, eating, looking out the window, jumping. You know, the usual.

The view coming in to Portland is awesome! You just see these great peaks dotted around the landscape.

Made it to Portland! First stop - Rogue airport pub!

We headed straight to Longview from the airport. We stayed with Rob's Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Gill. Here's a view from their deck. So neat, right?

Kasper made himself right at home.

The hardest part about traveling with the baby was trying to keep him on any type of schedule. We failed at this just about every day. He didn't get reliable naps - most of the time they were in his car seat. He didn't get meals on time. I made acorn and butternut squash along with sweet potatoes for him to eat while we were there. Needless to say, homeboy was OVER these foods by about the second day. He didn't eat much more than a handful of puffs or a couple mum mums for a meal. We didn't always have a high chair, so we sometimes just tied him to a regular chair.

After the first night, we moved over to a hotel. We figured it might be easier to keep the baby on a schedule if we had somewhere to go when we needed a nap or something. If you read the above paragraph, not even staying in a hotel helped us keep the poor child on track. We did get a couple naps at crucial times, but it wasn't always good enough. We got a pack and play from the hotel but K barely ever slept in it.

He usually went down ok but was up in a couple hours and always came in to bed with us instead of crying in his crib. With the exception of one night, we were all up about every 1-2 hours all night long and were up for the day at 5 am.

The complete lack of sleep and the stress over the baby surviving on cereal puffs were totally worth it to spend time with Rob's family. Totally worth it!

Ok, more to come. Teaser: Mount St. Helens! The Beach! Fun with Cousins! Outrageous Food!! Stay tuned.

Washington

2011-09-22T16:49:00.000-05:00

Well we made it to Washington! The plane ride wasn't as bad as I was expecting but Kasper's lack of schedule is as horrible as I imagined. He hasn't been sleeping well at night, no naps, little to no eating. It sucks and I'm wondering if we can send him back to MN on the plane as an unaccompanied minor. Kidding (or am I?)

We spent yesterday driving up to Mt. St. Helens. We had tried a couple years before but the fog was so bad we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. We had a beautiful day yesterday and got to see the blast zone, the mountain itself and even Mt. Adams in the distance!

If anyone isn't aware, the area around Mt. St. Helens is also Sasquatch country. We didn't see any Squatches but took care to look up in the trees for any signs.

Ok, back to coaxing Kasper to take a nap today (it's 3 and we're still working on it.)

37 weeks

2011-09-18T16:39:00.000-05:00

Lucky for us, this latest Wonder Week is coming to an end. This was (is) a rough one. It should let up by the middle of the week. Good thing because we are traveling this week! We are headed to Washington for the memorial service for Rob's Grandma. I have major anxiety about traveling with a baby, I must admit.

Anyway... One word can sum up this week: STANDING! Kasper has spent every waking hour pulling to stand on anything he can get his messy little hands on. It really took off on Wednesday. We got home from work and school and were sitting in his room so I could fold his diapers and laundry. All of a sudden he was standing! He was pretty good at it already!

He liked to go over to his bookcase, stand up and pull all the books off.

We then went out into the sunroom where he stood up at his little table. It's crazy how they just "get" things. I don't know if he practiced all day at daycare or what. He eventually got tired of doing what he was doing and got mad. When Kasper gets mad, he balls up his little fists and screams.

And I got it on video. Notice how he stops when he sees the camera. This kid loves the camera.

His technique includes using his mouth to help get himself up.

Some battle wounds. He is 100% boy. No doubt.

We started out the weekend with a trip to the Room and Board Outlet to find some sunroom furniture. We scored BIG! We had gone last weekend but didn't find anything we liked. This weekend we ended up finding a super long couch and a large chair - exactly what we were looking for! We even got them for less than similar things we were looking at at Ikea. Yeah, we're just a little jazzed about the new stuff. If it's ever sunny again I'll take a photo. My sister went with us to Room and Board as an extra butt and my parents came down in the afternoon with their truck to bring the new furniture home. It really is just perfect - you can see glimpses of the couch here.

So - when I was a kid I sucked my middle fingers upside down like this. Maybe it's common, I don't know, but I think it's funny that Kasper does the same thing.

Today has involved cleaning the house, doing laundry, getting the baby down for some nice naps, getting haircuts, packing for the trip and watching the Vikings. It's dreary and rainy here so it's the perfect day for all of those things.

This means "I'm all done!"

This says "I'm done sleeping and want to get my Vikes game on!"

As we were packing, Kasper tried to eat the bookcase. Then somehow hurt himself so I comforted him a bit. What really made him perk up? The camera on him, of course. You can just see him perk up. What a ham.

So far, we have one room in the house "done" - the nursery. I realized I haven't shown really any "after" pictures of the house so here are a couple! One note - in the old house, the nursery had the most wonderful light. It was my favorite place to take pictures of the baby. In this house, the nursery has the absolute worst light. In fact, I have to turn on the light even on a bright summer day. It makes me very sad. Anyway, I adjusted the color a bit on these to make them more true to life.

Back to it! I hope we all make it to Washington and home without puke on our clothes. Lois is spending the week with my parents and then my sister so I hope she has a great week of being an only child again. She's already up in St. Cloud and we sure do miss her!

Hope everyone had a great week!

36 weeks

2011-09-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

First things first - Kasper is once again sleeping through the night. To recap, he was waking 2-3 times for about 2 weeks then DIDN'T sleep for about a week including over our wonderful, long Labor Day weekend. Tuesday and Wednesday were very difficult for me at work. I felt like I couldn't focus on what I was doing, I was forgetful (more than usual) and just felt out of sorts. Right about when I thought I was going to die - Wednesday night - Kasper SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. He went down at 7:30 and we didn't hear a peep until 5:30 when our alarm went off. Just like that! He's slept every night since then. Still no teeth, never had a fever. He did master a couple developmental things but I wouldn't think that would keep him up at night for a whole week. Who knows. I'm going to try not to analyze it too much.

Here are a couple photos from our Labor Day. It was pretty low key as we were still deep into the sleep strike and exhausted. The best part on Monday was that we got out for a run! We threw K in his BOB and hit the running trail right by our house. It was a beautiful day and it felt great to get out there. I hadn't run for about 2 years with the exception of running 8 blocks once in May. I managed to run a little over a mile without stopping. We did a little walking and ran most of the way home. Over 3 miles and I could walk the next day. It was great. I was hoping maybe Kasper would sleep in his stroller but he did not. He did sit quietly which I guess was just as nice.

We have been trying to teach K how to wave and clap. Note Rob's rested face. Not.

These are for my Mom. Apparently this is how I sucked my fingers when I was young.

K likes to touch faces. I get a thorough dental exam every time he nurses.

It was very weird. Right after he started sleeping, it was like he was this big boy. Rob and I think he looks noticeably older all of a sudden. Don't you agree?

My new favorite picture. It should be illegal to have skin so nice.

Kasper has been a crazy crawler for awhile now but has started climbing over large obstacles (like my sitting lap) like it's no big deal.

He can also now go from his tummy to sitting.

This development has been integral to the next one. Standing.

I put the boy down for a nap this weekend and assumed he was sleeping since I didn't hear any noise coming from his room. We headed out to the woodshop so I turned on the monitor to bring it out. Not sleeping. Kneeling in his crib.

We got out to the shed when I heard crying on the monitor. Look who couldn't get down.

He was so sleepy. His legs were tired. He was just hanging on to the crib and sobbing. As soon as I picked him up and rocked him for 30 seconds he was asleep. It was pretty cute.

Today we took advantage of the BEAUTIFUL day and headed over to Steph's to go swimming. I think tomorrow is going to be the last real warm, "summery" day until next year. It was so wonderful and warm. Kasper LOVED being in the water again. He's for sure a water baby. I swam with him around the pool a bit and he also enjoyed sitting on the top step and splashing around.

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for. The bed is DONE! And it's awesome.

Yes, the room is super blue. We have many things to finish in there so don't be alarmed.

What a weekend! It's nice to be well rested and out enjoying the wonderful weather. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Robot Papa

2011-09-08T21:08:00.000-05:00

So, Kasper is quite the squirrely baby when it comes time to getting his pjs on. We try various tricks to get him to lay still while we put on his diaper and jammies. I usually do it on the floor so he can roll around and not fall off the changing table. Rob takes a different approach with silly voices and sound effects. I think his works better. And it's freaking hilarious.

Observe what I captured on spy-cam unbeknownst to Rob or Kasper.

I die.

35 weeks

2011-09-05T20:10:00.000-05:00

Ugh. What day is it? Am I still alive? I think Rob and I have asked ourselves these questions often this weekend. Why? Kasper has not slept. I wish I was over exaggerating. He's been waking up at least 2 times a night for the last 2 weeks. For the past 2 nights he's been waking up every 1-2 hours. All night. He's taken a couple longer naps in the afternoons but he's generally been a grumpier version of himself this whole weekend. It sucks. No teeth that we can see. Possible stuffy nose. I'm hoping it's just Wonder Week related and will go away. Soon.

A couple pics from last weekend I had to include -

Matching Papa and baby

Kasper after pulling up in his crib! (And before letting go and hitting his head on the back.)

This week flew by! Even without any sleep.

I had to work at the State Fair on Thursday afternoon. Steph, Kasper and I met Rob a little before my shift to walk around a bit and get some food! I love State Fair food and I think I got all of my favorites! My absolute favorite food is the zeppoles. There are 6 in the bag and it takes all my willpower not to eat all 6 in one sitting. Kasper enjoyed his new umbrella stroller. We're going to need one to head out to Washington in a couple weeks and wanted to try it out.

My department has a little setup at the Fair every year where we have posters of our work and some fun activities for people. We make slime for kids and take cheek cell swabs. It's pretty fun but since it was almost 100 degrees Thursday there were almost no people. I'm getting K started early in science. He looks like a natural but he has to stop trying to eat the microscope.

I have a thing for K in cardigans. I love them.

We had no real plans this weekend and it was GREAT! K wasn't sleeping and was almost constantly grumpy so it was a good thing we didn't have anywhere to be.

Saturday we played with the dog.

Played catch

(K can "trap a ball rolled to him" which is apparently a 12 month skill! Go K!)

Eating chairs

Saturday also involved a trip to Ikea. We got 8 items for $24. Cheapest trip to Ikea I've ever had!

Sunday saw us in mismatched clothes reading books

Practicing standing. We don't really have good places for him to practice his standing because we don't have any coffee tables or anything. I put this box over the vent cover he is always taking off and dropping down the vent. He got a little air here.

Escaping from under a sweatshirt

I worked on varnishing the bed pieces all weekend. I had to wait 2 hours between coats so it took awhile. All the pieces are up upstairs in the bedroom now but we haven't attached the siderails to the head and foot boards. Maybe someday we'll get it done. We also did some furniture arranging in the sunroom which makes the space look HUGE!

Sunday night was by far the worst night of all in terms of sleep for everyone. Finally around 6 am this morning, Kasper and I went out to the sunroom to sit quietly and watch a movie. I eventually got him to close his eyes and rest for 45 minutes. It was actually kind of nice to be in the sunroom as the sun came up cuddling with my crabby baby. It was 48 (!!!) degrees overnight so the house was cold and we were able to snuggle under blankets and wear slippers. I die over K's.

Can you handle it?? They're a little big still so he'll grow into them.

I have a bunch more to share about today - Labor Day - the unofficial end of summer - but it's 8 pm, DARK ALREADY and I haven't slept so I'm going to go with what I have here.

Hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend! Wish us luck on the sleep front. We need it.

8 months

2011-09-01T08:11:00.000-05:00

Kasper, Kasper, Kasper. Another month older. Another month wiser. I think it goes without saying that every month you are becoming less of a baby and more of a big boy. But there I said it anyway. Also, you need a haircut.

(I'm still trying to find the nice light in this house but there doesn't seem to be the always perfect lighting like I used to have in the old nursery.)

I think I'll do this month's update in category form starting with:

Milestones: You are army crawling all over the place these days. It's silly that I still set you down on the floor in a sitting position. In 0.1 seconds you're on your belly and halfway across the room. Every once in awhile you will stop to get up on all fours and rock back and forth but then you'll drop back down on your belly and scoot away.

You pull to standing in your crib if you are already sitting but you can't go from laying to sitting yet, so we don't find you standing in there in the morning. That's a good thing because you don't know exactly what to do once you are standing. It's usually letting go of the railing and hitting your head on the back of the crib.

Food: You have ebbs and flows when it comes to your eating habits. You will never refuse a nursing session but sometimes you can't be bothered with solids. I was worried at the beginning of the month because you almost flat out refused solids. You would take 1-2 bites and no more. I figured it was because you wanted to feed yourself so meals were small bites of various foods. After a couple weeks of that you are now back on eating from a spoon. You can pick up puffs from your tray and get them into your mouth with little problems these days. Other foods are more of a challenge because they seem to stick tightly to the tray. You eat a variety of fruits and vegetables right now. Maybe in a month or 2 we'll try dairy again and some meats.

You nurse in the morning when you wake up for good (sometimes you nurse once of twice overnight if you're growing or going through some developmental stage), when we get home from daycare and before bed. You are drinking 14 ounces during the day at daycare along with breakfast and lunch.

We started you on a sippy cup this month. At first, I was giving you one without handles and you couldn't quite figure out how to get your little fingers around it! We got new ones with handles which is a lot easier. Now you have to get it up to your mouth correctly and get the water out. Usually you hold it up by one handle as you suck air out of the cup while your free hand is balled up uselessly by your ear.

Your daycare teachers comment often on the new folds emerging on your legs. All this good eating is helping you get back on your growth curve and I no longer worry that you aren't getting enough to eat.

Sleep: Ah sleep. You had been sleeping through the night without waking at all for many weeks until your latest Wonder Week hit. For the last week you've been waking up twice at night at 12 am and 4 am or 1 am and 5 am to eat. Always those times. You go right back to sleep after eating. I'm hoping it's just a phase.

You eat dinner around 6 and start getting sleepy around 6:45 but I hold you off until 7 so you're nice and tired. First stop is the bathtub. You love the bathtub. We wash your hair and body first and then the time is all yours. You roll around in the water grabbing and playing will all your toys. You prefer to be on your belly even in the bathtub and have only inhaled water once, surprisingly! After the bath, we put on a diaper and your pjs while you roll around on the floor. The changing table has become a hazard at this point. Then it's to the chair to nurse and rock and in the crib! Sometimes I put you in bed asleep and sometimes I put you to bed awake.

You usually take only a couple 45 minute naps at daycare. Sometimes you stay asleep for an hour and I think your record was an hour and 20 minutes. You need to take longer naps - you fall asleep as soon as we get on the road to head home.

Other: You love daycare and they love you. You light up as soon as you see your favorite teacher, Margarita. She returns the love by calling you many cute pet names. I can't wait until you start talking to see if you are picking up some of the Spanish you hear all day long. According to your teachers, you don't cry, you love watching the other kids, you listen attentively during story time, you love to dance and you love going outside. This daycare is for sure a perfect fit for you.

Luckily you are still very social. I don't know if you got the "stranger danger" but maybe it's still coming. You cry when we walk up to a group of people and they all look at you but after they've ignored you for a minute or 2, you're fine and will go to anyone.

You still mostly wear 3-6 month clothes but 9 month sleepers. You are just a little peanut. It actually hasn't been a bad thing you're still wearing the same clothes because you had almost nothing past 6 mos! Small oversight.

For your 8 month birthday, we're taking you to the fair! You've requested you wear your cut-offs.

We love you so much and have enjoyed seeing your little personality emerge. Bring on month 9 - we have a baby gate now.

Love Mama

The photoshoot this month was a disaster! Kasper wouldn't sit nicely with the monkey - all he wanted to do was arch his back and slide off the chair, I couldn't find good light and I never got one where I could see the number 8. Oh well.

34 weeks

2011-08-28T10:42:00.001-05:00

Oh boy. This week was a bit of a challenge. Not terrible but noticeably difficult. Thank you to our old friend the Wonder Week. We have entered the beginning of the 37 week wonder week period. I still think it's amazing how Kasper follows along perfectly with these leaps. He started waking up at night and being generally grumpy which was a tip-off that he was going through some things. This is the Leap of Categories. It's when K learns that "a large dog is not a horse or a checkered cat is not a cow." I think that's funny because I don't think he's ever seen a horse, checkered cat or a cow before to confuse them. Some signs of this leap are: jealousy, nightmares, behaving more babyish, crying more, sleeping less, mood swings and clingyness. Check - we have all of those over here. The fun part is that after this leap the changes in behavior are dramatic and your baby is less baby and more child.

I think he's already looking less babyish these days.

He's trying so hard to pull himself up but he's not so good at it yet. Good thing because we just lowered the crib mattress!

This week flew by and in no time we were back to the weekend. We love weekends around here. Even though we've been in the house a month and a half, we haven't had much down time. Saturday morning was all ours. We got to lounge around the sunroom, eat breakfast out on the deck, just relax. It was wonderful.

Rocking our new SpaceX gear. Thanks Aunt Cathy and Uncle Larry!

Breakfast on the deck. Someone can now drink from his sippy cup all by himself! Most of the water ends up in his bib, but he can bring it up to his mouth!

After morning nap, we loaded ourselves and the baby in the car and headed down to beautiful Elysian! One of Rob's co-workers has a cabin down there. How wonderful it was to be out on a lake again. I miss it. When we were younger, we used to spend tons of time on the lake with our high school friends. We played some yard games then hopped on the pontoon to cruise around the lake. Kasper was SUCH a good baby the whole day. He cried right when we got there and everyone looked at him but he warmed up quickly and went from person to person with little complaint. He allowed us to put him in a life jacket and tolerated it while we were moving. (Side note - those are baby cut-offs! Rob made himself a pair of cut-offs so we cut a pair of baby jeans that were too small. Love.)

We anchored out in the lake and did some swimming and jet skiing. I use "we" loosely - I laid in the back of the boat while holding a sleeping baby. Next time maybe we'll get in the water but the nap was more important. It was a beautiful, beautiful night and it was such a treat to be out on the water. It makes me smile just to think about it.

Today is a day with nothing we have to do. I'm thinking coffee, naps, playing on the floor. Perfect.

Someone Great

2011-08-25T21:51:00.000-05:00

Today we said Goodbye to Rob's Grandma, Bea Quinlin. She was the last Quinlin of Rob's branch of the family but Rob and his cousins have carried on the name in their own children.

She will be missed.

A very important message

2011-08-24T07:13:00.000-05:00

And since he can't just leave it at that

33 weeks

2011-08-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

Alternatively titled "The 100th Post." 100 posts already! I didn't even think this thing would ever get off the ground.

A day late again. We are not running on all cylinders yet - it's painfully obvious.

In Kasper news, it appears we can add a dairy to the growing list of food intolerances. I tried yogurt Thursday evening and we were woken up a few times that night to change crib sheets that had been vomited all over. I don't know for sure if it was the yogurt as I've been scared to serve it to him again. I got the fancy baby yogurt today if I chose to try again. Hopefully these are things that he grows out of.

We also tried some mum mums. He loves them and is so cute eating them like a big boy.

Besides that little hiccup, K had a great week! He doesn't really like to eat at home anymore, but he eats all his food and drinks all his milk at daycare so I'm not going to worry much about it at this point. He's also getting more and more attached to his teachers at daycare. While I love that he loves it there and they love him back, it still stings a little when he reaches for his teacher in the morning and clings to her in the afternoon. Nature of the beast, I guess.

We spent almost all of our time in the evenings out in the woodshed working on our bed. I think we could've had it done long ago if we could spend more than an hour on it at a time.

Here's a preview of the footboard

We even bought a nail gun for the task

And the headboard

With Lois thrown in for scale

Isn't that woodshed the bomb? It has been SO great to have a separate place to work on these projects. We don't have to worry about noise or the mess. It even has 4 screened windows we can throw open when we're staining and don't want to let the bugs in. It's awesome.

Here's Kasper just being Kasper. We actually sent him to school in this outfit even though it's clearly too small and has been for awhile.

With Kasper not feeling well overnight on Thursday, we had to go get him early from daycare. We headed right up to St. Cloud where we had plans to celebrate my sister's birthday. My Mom had a little travel high chair that she hooked on the table so the boy could join us for meals. So cute, right?

We enjoyed our time in St. Cloud like we usually do. Rob got to play some disc golf. I got to hang out with my family and finish my book (The Passage by Justin Cronin - so good I couldn't put it down for the last couple hundred pages.) Kasper took some mad naps but kept us on our toes by not sleeping in his crib Saturday night. We had lunch with Grandma Sandra and heard all about her trip to North Carolina. A relaxing weekend just like we needed.

Just like last Monday - Back to the grind today and now off to the woodshop with me.

32 weeks

2011-08-15T20:47:00.000-05:00

A day late this week. My apologies to the 5 of you that read this. (Hi Mom!) We are busy working on a woodworking project.

Our last couple weeks have started with a rash. Kasper went to daycare Monday since his fever broke on Sunday. When I picked him up Monday, he had a rash on his forehead and down his hairline. I thought maybe it was some dry skin because they had given him a mohawk with water. (Side note - I LOVE when I pick him up and he has a mohawk. So cute.) Tuesday morning the rash wasn't gone and had spread down his neck. By the time I picked him up Tuesday, the rash was all over his front and back. It didn't seem to bother him too much. I even got some growls on tape. He loves growling.

You can see some rash here.

Bath baby

I wasn't super concerned since it didn't bother him but Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning he woke up SCREAMING at 2:30 and would not settle down. It was so unlike him. He didn't want to be rocked or held or laid down or nurse or take a bottle or... It was so heartbreaking to hear him scream like that. The nurse line suggested saline drops in his nose but those didn't work at first so I made an appointment. Diagnosis: roseola. I had never heard of it, but it's a very common virus in babies under 2 years old. It starts with a fever then when the fever breaks a rash.

I took the day off Wednesday to take care of the sick boy. After screaming all the early morning hours he ended up taking a 5 hour nap Wednesday afternoon. He needed his crib that day for sure. How else did we spend our sick day?

We played with (read: annoyed) the dog

We fell asleep in the sunroom after playing with the dog. This is the first time Kasper fell asleep somewhere other than his bed and I pert near died from the cuteness.

We played with Mama

We enjoyed our day and Kasper caught up on his sleep. It was wonderful.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. K got back on his awesome sleeping schedule and even ended up learning to army crawl! When he got home Friday, he drug his little body all over the house. He must have practiced all day!

We lounged around the house Saturday morning while it rained outside then packed up and headed to the zoo! We wanted to see the new African penguin exhibit. Needless to say, it was quite underwhelming seeing a couple in a small exhibit after you've seen them in their natural home.

No pictures of animals at the zoo. Kasper was not at all interested in the animals. If anything, he was most interested in watching the other kids looking at the animals.

Check out K's awesome onesie!

Patient Lois

Rob's new toy compliments of my Grandpa Keller. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! We really needed a riding mower!

A couple teasers from our woodworking project

We're back to the grind today but I think we could use a couple more days! And about starting this week with a rash - Kasper is allergic to mangoes! Bummer! It was pretty mild so we'll try again in a couple months. I have to admit that food allergies freak me out.

Ok! Back to the woodshop with us!

6 month photos

2011-08-10T08:33:00.000-05:00

So these were taken a month ago but I only just got the desktop set up and got the CD out of the laptop. Lots going on over here.

Awhile back, I mentioned that we met up with my good friend Jess to take Kasper's 6 month photos. Finally, I can share them! A little about the day... if you remember this past July in Minnesota you'll remember it was uncharacteristically hot and humid. Add to that the worst mosquito problem I can remember and this shoot was short and sweet. I was so sweaty and itchy and my photogenicity suffered which is not good when you're not very photogenic in the first place. But I digress...

I love that K has his tongue out in a lot of these. That was the hot new trick a month ago.

So cute, right? Thanks for taking our pictures, Jess! You captured Kasper perfectly at 6 months.

31 weeks

2011-08-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

Another week gone already, huh?

Kasper hit the 7 month mark on Monday which is still pretty crazy to me. The rest of the week was pretty busy and we didn't even slow down for the weekend.

Rob took this pic of Kasper and me before bed on Monday.

I love it. Kasper grows so fast and I feel like I blink and he's a month older! Now I can't remember when he was a tiny baby only 7 short months ago and 7 months ago I remember wondering what it would be like when Kasper was long enough to lay across my body when I nursed him. I sometimes rock and nurse him to sleep and sometimes he wants to just put himself to sleep. I love when he lets me rock him because then I can stare at him. My boy.

Tuesday my parents came down to paint our bedroom while we were at work. (Aren't we so lucky to have so much help with out move??) I'll post pictures some day. Tuesday night was National Night Out. I didn't feel like going so Rob brought Kasper over to our block party. I had an hour to myself which hasn't happened for a long time. I went out in the backyard and made a big bouquet of wildflowers to bring in the house. Loved it.

Here are the boys coming home from the block party.

The lady that wrote K's nametag actually asked if his name was with a "K"! No one has ever guessed that before. She said she had a figure skating coach from Austria named Kasper.

Thursday morning we were up and ready for work super early. We decided to eat breakfast at an awesome coffee shop a couple blocks from K's daycare. They make the BEST mochas. We got coffee and oatmeal. Kasper sat quietly on Rob's lap for the whole meal. He was so cute. (That's a foot, not his right hand)

When I picked Kasper up from daycare Friday, he seemed a little out of sorts and felt warm. Another fever. Ugh. You know when K is feeling crummy because he snuggles! Here we are before a nice cool bath. Don't mind the chins.

He slept ok Friday night and seemed to feel a little better Saturday morning even though he still had a small fever.

My Mom came down around 10 and Rob and I sneaked away to see the new Harry Potter. Finally! We saw it in 3-D which I actually liked. What a great movie! It's bittersweet because I'll miss having more books and movies to look forward to. After the movie, we headed home just in time to catch Mom and K in a rousing game of peek-a-boo with a cold cloth on his head.

Rob left for Duluth where he had a triathlon this morning. K steadily got worse as Saturday wore on. His temp rose and he got more and more clingy and whiny. He was feeling so crummy. Poor kid - he just had a couple days with a fever 6 weeks ago.

With the small amounts of time we had while K napped yesterday, Mom and I got to work unpacking the boxes we had stacked throughout the house. When he went down for the night, we basically unpacked and set up the whole basement! It's pretty crazy how much you can get done with some motivation.

Saturday night, K slept from 8-midnight then he came into bed with me. He slept well the rest of the night but I sure didn't! I woke up with every little grunt and reposition. At around 6 am I fed, diapered the baby and brought him down to my Mom so I could get a little sleep.

Sunday morning while I took the dog out, took a shower and got some muffins made, my Mom and Kasper sat out on our swing and practiced animal noises! It was so cute. I know K loves being outside. By Sunday morning, his fever had broken which was a relief. I don't think it was an ear infection this time, probably just a virus.

(There's a little view of the backyard. Hopefully they finish building the fence this week!)

I had to include this - lately Kasper seems to get momentarily frustrated about something and clenches his fists real tight and growls. Here he is having a moment.

Today, Kasper blessed us with a 3 hour morning nap. During the nap, Mom and I organized the whole garage. We haven't been able to park in there yet because it was still full from moving in. Now everything is put away and it looks great. Not only that, but there are 2 cars safely tucked away in there tonight! I haven't parked in a garage EVER. What a treat!

Nap's over!

I don't know if it was because he wasn't feeling well but Kasper had no interest in solid food today. It started with breakfast then he didn't want any lunch or dinner. We got him to eat a couple puffs and a bite of 2 of food but he didn't want anything. Luckily he was very interested in nursing so at least he got most of his nourishment. He did manage to get a bite of avocado near his mouth at lunch. So close, right?

Now we're staring into another week. The weekends go by too fast. Kasper is no longer running a fever so he can head to daycare tomorrow and has saved us a trip to the Dr. Have a good week!

7 Months

2011-08-01T10:19:00.000-05:00

Kasper -

You are 7 months old today. Every month you become less and less baby and more and more little boy. I love it but sometimes find it hard to remember what it was like when you were so little. It's also getting harder to get these monthly pictures of you. You wanted to rock on the chair instead of sit nice and still so I could get a picture of you.

Haven't you changed so much?

You are now living in the second home of your short life and are in your second daycare. You had a lot to adjust to this month and I'm happy to say that you handled it like a champ.

You have completely mastered sitting this month and I think you really enjoy being able to sit and play with your toys instead of laying down to play with them. That said, you have no problem laying on the floor for extended periods of time. You roll back and forth and can cover quite a large range. You are thisclose to crawling. It won't be long until you're able to cover some ground on your hands and knees.

You are currently in a great sleeping phase. You sleep from about 7:30 - 6 without waking at night. I understand that this could change at any moment, but for now you sleep. You get laid down awake and are able to make yourself comfortable before nodding off.

You are a hearty eater both of solids and nursing. You eat everything you are served at daycare and you eat well at home. You get 3 solid meals a day and plenty of milk. You gained a pound this past month putting you at 16 lbs 12 oz which shows just how much you like eating these days!

I need to list some of the nicknames you have. Most of these come from your Papa. You are called: Kas, Kap, Kassy, Kassy Wassy Waffle Face, Screech Weasel, Splash Lobster, Sweet Tater, Peanut, Grumpsper.

You are still very social. You have flashes of stranger danger and separation anxiety but it's not terrible yet. Hopefully you'll continue to love everyone. You are known as the "smiley baby" at daycare.

You didn't dig the photoshoot this month. You wanted to rock the rocking chair and would fuss when we held you still. You love to be in constant motion. (I obviously have to find the new perfect place to take these pictures. The light in K's room is now the worst in the house.)

You are such a happy, sweet, content baby and are a true joy to have around. Papa and I love you so much.

Love, Mama