51 weeks and Merry Christmas!

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

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!