34 weeks

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

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

And since he can't just leave it at that

33 weeks

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

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!