Christmas Fun

This year we celebrated Christmas at my sister's lake cabin. It was a lot of fun to get away for the weekend and all be together celebrating Christmas. Thanks again Heather for having us! :) We started a new tradition and had fondue on Christmas Eve. It was really fun!
Christmas Day, Charlie gave us his gift and slept in until 8am! Yay!

On New Year's weekend we had a quiet weekend at home. It was so nice and relaxing. Brent and I had cheese fondue (again!), lobster, and dessert was chocolate fondue. We watched a movie and stayed awake just long enough to ring in the 2011 by watching the ball drop. Charlie was very kind to us again and this time slept in until 9am! We have been very spoiled over the holidays. I know the sleeping in will end soon so we are enjoying it.

Christmas weekend we took the babies outside to play in the snow. We put them both in a tube and plowed through the snow. It was pretty cute to see them snuggled in together.

Enjoy the pictures!

These are from the Bauman Christmas in Kerkhoven this year. Charlie with Great Grandma Bauman and Great Grandpa in the background.


My grandparents gave Charlie a story book that has their voices recorded reading the book. I think it's the new Hallmark recordable books. It is very special and soo cute!


Peek-a-boo!


Christmas at the Totman's Lake:

Morfar with the grandkids


Cutie pie Bethany




Presents!


Charlie's first Christmas sloooowly ripping the paper


Playing in the snow!


Bella had a fun Christmas too


Cuddly cousins


Charlie and Bella are becoming buddies


Family picture :)


The Totmans


Sisters and babies


Fun with Morfar!


Grandma Gilchrist gave Charlie these CUTE pj's


Oooh pretty tree


Sleepy snuggles with mommy




Charlie found a new seat on the kitchen sink


Ok, realized that I added a ton of photos! Enjoy because I probably won't post for awhile :) haha, jk!

The story of the surgery that didn't happen

Charlie was scheduled to have surgery for a circumcision a few days ago on Tuesday. We had everything planned and set. Brent and I were up at 4:30am, left the house by 5:15 so we could be at the hospital by 6am. (we were actually early...can you believe it?!?!) Charlie was so confused why we were waking up so early to get in the car. Well long story short, they thought Charlie had pink eye and cancelled the surgery for that day. It was pretty frustrating to have everything set up, to have Charlie not be able to eat/drink anything, and to have to try to reschedule everything to be done before the New Year. I definately understand why they had to cancel, but as a mom I was just thinking, "it's just pink eye, so what if they get it, their eye would just be red and goopy!" :) Very nice of me...glad I didn't say it outloud :)

Well, we got home and his eyes were perfectly clear. Frustrating. At the hospital they were red, dripping, green goop, and at home they were clear??

So we spent the day with Mormor (my mom :) Swedish for mother's mother). The next day Charlie was pretty sick, he had a lot of chest congestion, stuffy nose, and slept ALL day long. He was probably awake for 30 min total from 7am-4pm. That is very unlike any baby to sleep that long. You could tell he felt so miserable. But each day he is getting better, I think he'll be completely healthy by the end of the weekend.

I think the potential pink eye was God's way of letting the surgery be cancelled because his cold symptoms didn't show til the next day. He may have gotten even sicker or had respiratory complications if he would have gone under general anesthesia. It just is a reminder to me that God is in control and He knows WAY more than I do :)

We rescheduled the surgery for this coming Tuesday at 3:15pm. I'm bummed that it is the last case of the day because I know that it will probably be delayed just from all the other cases and stuff that always comes up in the hospital. It will be fun to keep Charlie happy when he can't eat all day! If anyone has any great ideas, let me know! I am very happy that we can do it this year though, so no more complaining coming from me. If you could please pray that all goes well on Tuesday, that he has no complications from the anesthesia, and that he stays HEALTHY until then. Thank you!

Here are some cute pictures of Charlie in the little scrubs from Children's Hospital.









And this picture was just too cute to not post :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Even though it's freezing outside and I am wondering why I live here, Charlie is all smiles when he looks at the pretty snowflakes. He doesn't love when the wind blows in his face, or having to be bundled up in all his snow gear and hats, or when the snow melts in his hands and "disappears". But he loves to look at it and pound on the windows in excitement.

We've had a busy and sick start of the winter at our house. Brent has been gone hunting a lot this fall/early winter (not nearly as much hunting as he would like to do!) and we've been doing lots of playing at our house. We all got the "crud" that everyone has been getting, lots of colds, everyone got the stomach flu -including my in-laws who came for a few days...what a nice gift to give them... :( and Charlie had pink eye once and I got it twice (who knew you should throw your mascara away when you have pink eye...now I know! ha! ). The cold/flu season is definately upon us.

We have had major internet/computer issues. Right now I still can't get all the pictures from our old computer onto our new one AND I just found out I can't put my memory card from my camera into our new computer...uugh! So hopefully we can get it figured out soon!

But here are some pictures that I was able to salvage:

These pictures are from the first big snowstorm that we had several weeks ago. Brent was out of town hunting. Within a few hours of it snowing we lost power at our house for over 7 hours. It got pretty chilly in our house so we went to visit the Moorlags and Charlie and Logan had a play date :)









We went to the Macy's 8th floor while my In-Laws were here a couple weekends ago. It was so much fun! Charlie was mesmorized by all the lights and scenes. It was a lot of fun...no holidazzle parade for us. Too cold outside for the little guy this year :)

Christmas Card 2010

Well it is time to think about our Christmas card for 2010. I've been putting it off because I can't decide which picture to use. We have some cute pictures from this summer when Charlie was 6 months old but there are too many cute ones!! Or maybe we should just do one cute picture of Charlie by himself...hmmm...decisions, decisions :)

I've been thinking about it for awhile and this year we are using Shutterfly for our Christmas cards. I just love Shutterfly. They have so many cute and fun card designs to choose from. I am just trying to decide which one I want to use!!

I have used shutterfly to store my favorite photos for a place friends and family can view them. I have made a few photo books that I've given as gifts for birthdays and mother's day. I think I may even make a few for Christmas this year. It's way better than scrapbooking and it looks even better in my opinion! :)

My family has made calendars in the past that are a fun way to personalize each month (Charlie's birthday in February, a picture of us at the parade for July, etc): http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/desk-calendars

I'm going to use shutterfly to make Charlie's 1st birthday party cards from this site, check out this link: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/birthday-cards-stationery


Christmas cards from here: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards


Upcoming....a lot of new pictures! We can only start our computer in safe mode which means our pictures are locked on our computer but I think I can use Brent's work one soon :)

New Favorite Recipe

So I've been trying to find new meal ideas/recipes to try out. (If anyone has any good ones...please pass them my way!) Tonight we made this recipe and I think it's my new favorite! It's not a fancy meal or date night worthy, but I know I will be adding it to my frequent meals that I make. And the best part is that it's a healthy version of yummy chicken fingers.

Here's the recipe:
Crunchy Buttermilk-Coconut Chicken Fingers

Ingredients
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 1/2 cups fat-free buttermilk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (about 2 1/4 ounces)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
3/4 cup crushed cornflakes
3/4 cup flaked sweetened coconut, chopped
1 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
Cooking spray


1. Cut chicken into 20 (1/4-inch-thick) strips. Combine chicken and buttermilk in a shallow dish; cover and chill 1 hour. Drain chicken, discarding liquid. Combine chicken and flour in a medium bowl, tossing to coat.

2. Preheat oven to 475°. Place baking sheet in oven.

3. Combine egg and egg white in a small bowl. Combine crushed cornflakes and next 5 ingredients (through ground red pepper) in a shallow dish. (**I doubled the cornflake mixture**)

4. Working with 1 chicken strip at a time, dip into egg mixture; dredge in cornflake mixture. Repeat procedure with remaining chicken, egg mixture, and cornflake mixture. Arrange chicken in a single layer on preheated baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Lightly coat chicken with cooking spray. Bake at 475° for 6 minutes or until done. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Trick or Treat!

This year Charlie and Bethany were white tigers for Halloween. The cousins looked like twins in their cute costumes. It was a little tricky to get some pictures of them this afternoon. They kept us on our toes trying to get them sitting together for a second to snap the picture :)




This is the best one we have!


They are on the move!


Still moving






My cute little tiger

On the Move

He's on the move! Charlie's been crawling for a few weeks now but I finally have a good video of it. This is mainly for the grandparents :) :)



The crawling started as army crawling and quickly progressed to full fledged crawling and he is FAST now! Bella better watch out. Charlie loves going after Bella's toy bin, her water bowl, and pounding on the door while Bella is sitting outside. About a week after the crawling began, Charlie began pulling himself up to standing. I found him standing in his crib one morning even :)

We've been enjoying this gorgeous weather lately. Brent's been golfing and hunting most weekends and we've spent time outside playing on the swingset and took a trip to Como Zoo this last weekend.

Here are some pictures:

Bella looks thrilled that Charlie is taunting her :)


My little scarecrow


Charlie loves our Target trips!

Where did my brain go??

I feel like I have been so scatterbrained lately. Actually not lately, it's been ever since last year when I was first preggo with Charlie. I thought once I got out of the new mommy fog of sleepless nights and frequent feedings and diaper changes that I would get my brain back. I must say I have never been a detail oriented type of person, but honestly have I always been this bad??? Does anyone else ever feel like this?

Well over this past weekend we went up to Lutsen, MN again. It was a beautiful weekend! Brent and Bella went hunting while Charlie and I spent lots of quality time together playing outside. Saturday evening we went to check out the beach at Lutsen Resort. Well while I was strapping Charlie into his carseat I put the camera on top of the car. I would NEVER leave it on top of the car and drive off, right? No, wrong. I kept saying on Sunday...where is my camera? We got home and realized what probably happened. Luckily a very nice person turned my camera in and it is currently being shipped to my house. We have so many CUTE pictures from the weekend captured on it, so I am very excited to get it and post some of them.

On a different note..... Guess who is mobile at our house??? Charlie started scooting/crawling last week! It's so cute, he will army crawl most of the time and if he's really excited then he'll get on his hands and knees and crawl for a few feet. He has already chewed on our broom, gotten into the dog's water bowl, and fallen/crawled off our bed (no bumps or bruises yet...luckily he landed on a fluffy blanket- phew!) Let the baby proofing begin! He doesn't want to be held/cuddled very often anymore. He wants to be on the go all the time. It's been pretty fun to watch this new milestone :)

Well I am going to bed to rest my tired brain.. :)

MIA

Our laptop has died.

It is currently being worked on so in a week or so we will know the damage to it, if it is salvageable or if we need a new one. In the meantime...I don't have access to a computer very often. This is why it has been since Sept 1 since the last update! I would love to put up all my very cute pictures I've taken lately, but I can't until we get our computer back. First because Brent's work computer won't read our camera card and second because ALL of our pictures are on our computer. I didn't save our pictures anywhere else so I am praying that we can get our pictures off of our computer...I would be devastated!

We just got back from a very fun weekend in Lutsen, MN. It was a gorgeous weekend!! We spent the weekend with my parents at a cabin that overlooked Lake Superior. It was like being in a tree house. The cabin was on a cliff and seemed like we were hanging over the water. It was beautiful to wake up that view. Charlie and I got to watch the sunrise a few mornings, trying to be quiet while everyone else sleeps in. We made yummy food, did some sightseeing in grand marais, hiked at Temperence Falls, the guys went golfing, and hung out by the fire at night. It was great!

Charlie just turned 8 months! He's becoming a very active little guy. He is on the verge of crawling. He will get on his hands/knees and rock and rock. He's taken a few "steps" (if you can call crawling that) and is ready to start moving forward to get where he wants to be. He must be going through a growth spurt and is eating 3 containers of baby food per meal and chugging down his bottles. He is so observant and seems to notice every little detail, from a drop of food on his high chair tray to lamp cords to a mosquito. It's very fun to see him grow and continue to develop his personality.

Here's a picture from this weekend! Enjoy this beautiful week! I'll post pictures when we get our computer back...hopefully it'll be soon!!

Cousin fun!

This past weekend we were able to go to my sister's lake house and RELAX. It was just what I needed. I think my favorite part of the weekend was taking a long nap in the hammock with Charlie. I don't always get those snuggle times when he naps anymore...it was perfect. Charlie and I took a couple tube rides, going extremely slow of course :) We swam, ate lots of good food, and the cousins enjoyed playing with each other. They are getting to the point where they really seem to be interested in what the other one is doing and want to share toys (or take toys!) :) This weekend they wanted to share their watermelon. We gave them our rinds and they gnawed on them forever. When we would take one of the watermelons away then one baby would take one from the other baby and they ended up passing the watermelon back and forth a few times...it was too cute!

Another thing that happened this weekend...a SECOND TOOTH! It's always a relief to see the cause behind poor sleeping/fussiness. I hope that this is it for right now, we need a break from teething!

I can't find the battery charger so I have no camera to use lately, but I got some pictures from Heather and Mom. If anyone knows where my charger is please let me know! :)

Yumm...this watermelon is good!


Hmm...maybe I want to try yours


Auntie Amber with Bethany


Happy baby




Lots of hammock time


Pretty Bethany posing in the flowers