Strider Bike

Well this video should make up for the lack of posting....here is Blake on his strider bike--a new hobby! We can barely pull him off his bike each night! Enjoy!

Cabin and Baptism....they both involve water!

If you were missing the video of the haricut from our last post, it's there now. Sorry, I must have had some technical difficulties. Our July started out with trip to the cabin. For those of you who don't know, it's my dad's family cabin, built by his dad and now owned by my uncle. We usually try to get up there at least a couple times a year...well I do. Once it's with the family, and once with my girlfriends. [Those pictures won't be in the blog! :)] Anyway, this was a nice vacation for our family along with my parents. Although if you ask my dad, it wasn't really a vacation as much as a entertain Blake week. But we all had a great time. Due to the state being shut down we couldn't "legally" go into Itasca State park which is just miles from our cabin. That is one tradition I was very sad about, I've never gone to the cabin and not gone over to the park. I was really hoping we could go, as I know Blake would have had a good time trying to scale the rocks. But I guess we'll just have to spend extra time there next year. Oh well. Amidst the dear flies and 'squeeters we did a couple meals by the fire and just had a relaxing time. Blake took his first Heart Lake boat ride, which consists of a troller motor on a fishing boat. So not very fast...just his speed. He wasn't too sure about the boat, but loved his life jacket--so I guess we're all right. We went over to see Paul Bunyan in Bemidji, another tradition that we used to do as kids. It's changed quite a bit since I was younger...it used to seem so big!
After the statue, we went to Paul Bunyan Animalland which is basically a wild life refuge in Bemidji. Interesting to say the least, but Blake had a blast feeding all the animals. He even took time to say by to them as we moved  on. He is a very considerate little boy, gotta love him! Here are some pictures and videos from the week.

A new tradition hopefully we can do each year as it was such an enjoyable time. But if you thought our summer was just winding down...think again. We finally got Blake baptized at the end of July. We had delayed this ceremony for a couple reasons, one is that we didn't have a church family, and secondly we didn't want to just get him baptized anywhere. So we joined Immanuel Lutheran Church in January, and decided this is where he should be baptized. The ironic part of the whole thing is that my Grandma Soholt [mom's mom] was very adamant about us finding a good church home and getting Blake baptized. She was elated this spring when we told her that we joined a church and July 31st was the B day! Sadly, we lost Grandma Soholt, just days before the baptism. She was 94. Although it was an emotional Sunday I knew secretly that she was looking down upon us with a smile on her face knowing that her wish had come true. Blake was her shining light, and he always made her smile-so it was very fitting.

Below is the video of the baptism. It's a little long, but feel free to fast forward to 4:48, needless to say Blake was totally fine watching the other girl get baptized, but when it was his turn...NO WAY. The full arm brace and "daddy" came out, which led to a needed comic releif to such an emotional event.

Until next time...

THE Haircut

So I figured in lieu of the HOT day we're having I would post Blake's latest haircut. I figured we needed to cut it so he wouldn't be so sweaty...no one wants a sweaty toddler!
We're off to the cabin next week, so I'm sure I'll have some fun pictures when we get back!

Our Summer is here...

I know many people are wondering where summer is with the crazy weather we've had lately, but in Blake's eyes-summer is here. Every day we get home from daycare and he just wants to run outside and play with the "motorcycles" [aka kids on their bikes]. It's a battle trying to get him to come in each night...Brian was out last weekend for three hours with him--for that reason alone. So while we're getting ramped up for a long summer, I thought I would post this cute video from this weekend [I got a new Flip camera, so more videos to come!] Enjoy!

Mother's Day Surprise

So as I'm typing this, we are watching Monster's Inc. for about the 100th time, and I'm probably pretty accurate on that estimate. Blake latched on to this movie about three weeks ago and ever since then....we've actually gotten things done! I've never been one to plop someone in front of the TV to babysit, but if it means we can fold laundry and do some other things, I will! His attention span is at about 35 minutes....that's just enough time to fold laundry, start dinner and still have time to cuddle up with him and watch a few minutes. [That's about all I can handle]
This last week was Blake's 2nd birthday [of course I was in Florida for work!] Luckily I had a skype date with him...so I saw his smiling little face. I can't believe he's already 2, it really seems like yesterday we were just settling into having a new baby and now that little baby is running, screaming and terrorizing my house! Lucky for him he's pretty darn cute, so we let him get away with more than he should.
So now that he's getting older and growing into his personality he is becoming more and more funny! He repeats about everything you say, and then also imitates all that you do. Which basically means Husker gets yelled at twice these days! Ha. She is slowly getting used to it. We just laugh at all his faces and sounds, it truly is hard to get mad at him when he drops out that pouty lip and bats his lashes at you.
As a huge surprise today when I picked him up from daycare, there was a CD of pictures. We have never gotten your standard milestone pictures, but luckily our daycare provider Rebecca loves taking pictures and has always captured these moments for us. Sometime in the last few weeks she had a "secret photo shoot" with Blake during the day, and these are the pictures I got for a early Mother's Day surprise! Enjoy

Back to blogging..

Seeing as I attempted to start my "New Year's resolution" early, and commit to updating my blog more frequently, it looks like I've failed. So much has happened since I wrote last. Obviously Christmas came and went. We were so lucky to be able to celebrate Christmas with every part of our family! This year we changed it up slightly and celebrated Christmas Eve Eve [Dec 23] with my Grandma at her apartment building. She is 93 and not real crazy about traveling all over the place for holidays, so we joined her and had her favorite--pizza! Blake enjoyed running around everywhere and looking at the birds down in the community room. It was a great time!

After cuddling up at home, we were off to my Aunt Barbs house for Christmas Eve. This is the first time I/we haven't had Christmas at my parents house in 30 years! So it was fun to be somewhere new. Blake loves running around with their dog Sadie, and even enjoyed playing the organ. We had a wonderful meal and then off to open gifts, Blake didn't really catch the concept that he had more than one! Which I guess is a blessing in disguise, but after a little prodding he finally opened up all his gifts. We had such a long day that it we couldn't even make it to church! My parents came to our house to spend the night. This would be the first year that Blake would open Santa gifts, so there was an extra stocking from grandma and grandpa as well.

 After a great morning of opening gifts and carmel rolls, we were onto Christmas #3. We went over to Erin and Marty's to spend Christmas afternoon with them. There were great plans for sledding, but seeing as there were 18 inches of snow and a very steep incline, Marty and I were only doing 3 rides for each kiddo. They seemed to have a great time though. Another fun filled day of great food, and Macie and Blake playing with each others toys. No matter what--whatever we get the other kid, our own kid has more fun playing with it. They are both very much into Handy Manny, so there was plenty of playing with the tool box. The house went from immaculately clean to a disaster area after 6 hours with 2 toddlers! [Guess Erin and Marty have to prepare for that any way!]

Needless to say after a full afternoon, Blake was sleeping before we got to the Minnesota border! After a very busy weekend, it was back to work for both of us. This is the one of the first year's that Brian wasn't AS busy at work as he has been in the past. So that is a nice break for us. Usually this time of year brings in a lot of inventory work, but in his new posistion the "busy season" is a little more spread out. So a week after our Christmas extravaganza we were onto Christmas #4/New Years Eve down in Blue Earth. A few years ago we realized that New Years was a time during the holidays that we could ALL get together. So it's kind of become a tradition. We headed out to Jeff and Sharon's first. A full car with Husker and all. Erin, Marty and Macie were down as well. So we celebrated with the Vriesen family and Bob, Carrie and Gavin. The three kids had a good time chasing the dogs, chasing each other and chasing Grandpa Jeff!

  Before leaving Blue Earth we made a stop down in Iowa to visit Brian's grandparents. Both the kids got showered with gifts, and of course need to play on the organ. [Luckily Blake had gotten all that practice at Barbs] Thankfully Marty was the constant pedal pusher, and kept them going for a least an hour. It was so bitterly cold and windy down there and we had a long drive back so we all were glad they got all worked up at Great Grandma's house.

Whew...and that was just the last week in December. January has already flown by, and we're off into February. After the delay in this post, I can already see the difference in Blake. I've been trying to video him talking but he always lunges for the camera. So that will hopefully be my next post!

January did bring a little brush with fame for me though...the second week in January I had to fill in unexpectedly for a co-worker and spent a week in Nashville with a client. The whole time we were there I said "I think I'll see someone famous before I leave" and sure enough on the last night I saw the group that won NBC's show The Sing Off--it was Committed! I have to admit I was slightly starstruck, but I composed myself enough to get a picture and video. It was pretty cool.

Until next time....which won't be that long I hope!

Christmas was a blessing...

So much of a blessing that I haven't had a chance to upload pictures. It's on my to-do list for tomorrow...so new post this week!