Birthday Weekend

On Saturday I celebrated my 34th birthday. I am officially closer to 50 than I am to being a senior in high school. **sigh** When I think about it like that, it makes me realize how time can fly. It only feels like a few years ago when I packed my stuff up and headed off to college. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Meredith gave me a card on my birthday. She's such a smart girl - can you see what she wrote on the envelope in the upper right corner???? Greg told her what letters to write but she drew them all on her own.

April is a busy birthday month. On April 10, we all got together at Rudy's Redeye Grill in Lakeville to celebrate Chris's birthday. Meredith insisted on ordering soup and salad. She had to have the beer cheese soup (not the chicken noodle). I have mentioned this before but she loves salad so here is some proof of that.

But here is her reaction to the beer cheese soup. Grandpa had to finish it for her.

Then, on April 18, we headed down to the farm again to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. Mer helped him open up his gifts.

And since you never see me and Greg, here is a random snapshot from when we got together on Chris's birthday.

Me and Mer

Here is the whole Schwake family (minus Judy). You don't get pictures with all of us too often.

You'd have to see it to believe it

Yesterday I had the day off of work so my mom (Juana Talkie) and my sister (Auntie) went up to the Mall of America to take Mer on a few rides at Nickelodeon Universe. She had a blast. We stopped at Auntie's house on the way home and saw a birdie, fishies, and her cat Lucky.

You could tell Mer was losing some steam on the way home because she was dragging her feet and moving really slow which is to be expected since she had a big day with no nap.

After we got home, she was sitting at the table doing some of those paint with water pictures while I was on the couch reading a book. I heard her say something about going potty but she never asked me for help (she can pretty much do it on her own) so I didn't get up. A couple minutes later it got really quiet and I could hear heavy breathing. I assumed she had fallen asleep on the floor but as I rounded the corner, I had the pleasure of witnessing this!

I did all I could to not burst into laughter right then and there. And of course my camera was in the basement. I proceeded to tiptoe past her and ran down to get my camera and was able to snap these two pictures before she opened her eyes.

And boy or boy was she a beast that night. After I took those two pictures, I picked her up and pulled her pants up and let her lay with me on the couch until Greg got home. I couldn't even get her up for dinner so we took her upstairs to change her into her jammies and all she would do is cry. Right as we were about to leave the room, she said to me "I want dinner. I want talad (salad), Mommy".

We took her downstairs and she had her salad. Have I mentioned before that she loves salad? That's worthy of a separate blog entry someday. Juana has some great salad pictures...I'll have to try to get those from her to share.

Cutest kid at the zoo today

I am convinced that **hands down** I had the cutest kid at the zoo today and I'm not wearing mommy goggles. Really, does it get much cuter than this? Both were taken today but we had to change outfits after she got chalk all over everything.

Oh, and one more funny thing. On Friday, she was walking up the stairs to get changed into her PJs. She farted and said "I blow bubbles with my butt, Daddy!". That made me snort out loud. Apparently she has learned a thing or two in the bathtub.

LOL, my kid is the best. Seriously. And she gives the best long, unsolicited hugs right now. I love her :-)

Easter 2010

The Easter Bunny made his first appearance at the Carlson household this year.

It was eagerly anticipated by this little one here:
Just look at that joy of seeing all the neat things that wonderful Easter Bunny brought her.
Easter wouldn't be complete without Peeps.
She went through each and every plastic egg.
We spent the day at Juana and Papa Talkie's farm.
Ben sure is trying to make a fashion statement here. Don't be jealous of the hat.
We are a really fun bunch as you can see.
Mer got a little wild with her Uncle Chris.
She played some piano.
And even got to go out and see the buffies.




She played with the doggies.

And, wouldn't you know it? The Easter Bunny stopped at Juana and Papa's house and Aunt Angie/Uncle Ben's house!!!! What a great day for a toddler!!!!

Comparison

Here are pictures of both me and Meredith. We are approximately the same age - I think Meredith might be a few months older than I was in my picture. Do you think there's a resemblance? I think so. But she looks like her daddy too.

Home for a while

I am officially home for six weeks now. Then I head off to Anaheim in mid-May and then it's time for vacation in Paris!! Over the last eight weeks I have been to Houston, Nashville, Kansas City, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Denver. Phew...that's a lot of traveling. Can someone tell my company that I need a raise?

Meredith says on a daily basis "Mommy go in airplane". She thinks I'm in an airplane all the time.

Last weekend I decided her hair was a bit too long and stringy so we got a couple inches chopped off and got this cute bowl-cut bob. It's SO cute :-)

Grown-up vacation

I really don't have too much to write about so my apologies that it's been a while. I've been traveling a lot. I'm heading out to Las Vegas tomorrow so I thought I'd do a quick update before I'm gone for the next week.

Mer is pretty much potty trained and doesn't have accidents. We're still working though some struggles with pooping but she is doing great! She seems to be in a much better mood after getting her tubes put in last month and her appetite has gotten better it seems.

Some days we struggle with her but hey - she's 2.5. Some days she whines and dawdles and insists on doing everything her way. But other days she's the sweetest little thing I've ever seen. She really is a joy to be around. The other night she sat on my lap during book reading before bed and then after we turned the lights out, she just wanted to lay on me and cuddle. I really love this age. I'm going to miss her a lot next week.

As stated earlier, there really isn't too much going on at the Carlson household. Some of you know this but we are officially taking a vacation in May - without the child! I had enough frequent flyer miles for two free tickets to Europe so Paris it is! I was able to get a non-stop flight and we will be spending five whole days in Paris. I've been spending hours researching where we want to stay and what we want to do. I think I've finally found a place to stay that's reasonable (and let me tell you - Paris is EXPENSIVE). I've found that it's not uncommon to see hotels charging $300-$500/night. Oy. After I return from Las Vegas, I will be planning out our itinerary - I can't wait!

Here are a couple pictures of Meredith. Greg took these and of course she is happy to whip out her cheesy smile for him. She never does that for me.

Potty Training Update

It has been a full week since we potty trained Meredith. I would have to say she has done a great job and has come a long way in this last week. We finished off the potty training on Monday with NO accidents! 100% success including a poop.

I was nervous to take her to daycare on Tuesday but she did surprisingly well. She had 1 accident. Then on Wednesday she didn't do as well. She had 2.5 accidents but had a lot of successes too. On Thursday, she had couple accidents again. But on Friday she had no accidents!

Today we ventured out to the mall for our first outing since potty training (besides daycare). She did great! We must have been there for at least 4 hours and no accidents! They have a nice family bathroom down in the food court that has a little toddler toilet and she had two successful pees. We were in there 4 times though...two times she wasn't able to go and let me tell you, she sits and sits and sits and sits and sits. I have to force her off kicking and screaming. She really wants those M&M's.

This whole potty training thing has been a bit stressful on her I think. I've noticed that she is a lot more cranky (for lack of a better word) and testy this past week. Or maybe she's finally entered into her terrible twos. I don't know but I would love my easy going little girl back. But I'm very proud of my potty trained prissy princess.

This picture is from Monday - I promised her a My Little Pony if she did a good job at daycare.

Potty Training

I've been feeling slightly pressured to potty train lately. All the kids Meredith's age at daycare are potty trained so I've been feeling like I need to as well. I have a feeling that if we didn't initiate, Meredith never would have so I decided to give it a try this weekend since it's a holiday weekend. I decided to try the 3-day method by Lora Jensen.

Here is a quick recap on how things are going now that we're about 1/2 way done.

Saturday:

Pee accident on the floor

Pee accident on the floor

Pee accident on the carpet

Success - pee in the potty chair

Then we had to break for about 2.5 hours to go to a birthday party. Not ideal, but we put a pull up on her. We had to change the pull up two times despite asking her to tell us if she had to go potty and making her sit on the potty at the party.

Success - pee in the potty chair

Mild success - a few drops in the potty chair

Mild success - a few drops in the potty chair

Bedtime - we put a pull up on her (despite that the method says put them in underwear at night) and she had an accident in her pull up before bed.

Saturday:

Success - pee on the potty

Success - pee on the potty

Success - pee on the potty

Mild success - a few drops in the potty

Success - pee on the potty

**Update**

Accident - a few drops on the booster seat

Accident - just couldn't make it in time - she tried though - we were inches away from the potty.

Success - poop in the potty!!!

As you can see, we are having a successful day so far! I'm so glad today is going good though - I am still nervous to bring her to daycare in underwear on Tuesday.

Here's a picture from the third successful pee-on-the-potty today!

Surgery

Meredith had her first surgery this past Friday. I am SO proud of her.

Greg and I made the decision to get tubes put in her ears since she has been battling constant infections and fluid filled ears for the past few months. She went through a period like this last year too. My poor girl's hearing test came back saying her hearing is at only 60-70%. I know what it's like to have a plugged ear all the time (I have a tube myself) and it's awful.

Surgery day was a long day. From the time we left home to the time we arrived back home, it was six hours. We had it done at Children's West and the staff was so good there. One of counselors said that she wins the award for cutest hair of the day :-) Meredith sat real still and let the nurses do whatever they needed to. We got to sit with her in our laps as they were giving her gas. She sat so still and just breathed it in. She didn't fuss once. After she fell asleep, we left the room so the doctor could work on her. They were going to check her adenoids too and remove them if they ended up being big because she has some breathing issues and nose issues.

The ear procedure took about 15 minutes but we could tell they opted to take the adenoids out because we didn't see the doctor until about 35-40 minutes later. He said they were "humongous".

The hardest part was in the recovery room. When we arrived one of the nurses was holding her. As soon as she saw me, she just clung her arms and legs around me so tight and just sat that way for at least a half hour. No crying or fussing though. She did so good!

By the time we arrived home, she was back to normal playing around and having a good time. Grandma and Auntie Jennifer stopped by with Elmo and Cookie Monster balloons which she LOVES!

She is turning into such a big girl - I just lover her so much! She's bossy. She's particular about things - obsessive compulsive sometimes. She is very tidy. She says really long sentences now. She jokes around. She picks up our bad language habits. Lately she says "Jesus Mama" or "Jesus Daddy" along with some speed talking that I can't understand sometimes when she gets frustrated. It's hard not to laugh becuase it's kind of cute but yet you don't want her to make it a habit of saying that.

As you can see in this picture, she was eager to get back into the swing of things!

Tickle Hands Elmo

I got Greg a pocket video recorder for Christmas. Here is the first video we have taken with it. It's not terribly exciting but it's Meredith trying to do the Tickle Hands Elmo dance.

Sesame Street Live: 123 Imagine with Elmo and Friends

I'm a little behind on updating the blog. I was traveling to Nashville (we had some warm weather and I got to see the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman!!!!). A couple days before I left, we took Meredith to see Sesame Street Live. We bought these tickets at the end of October so we were waiting a long time for this. For those of you that don't know, Meredith has a love affair with Elmo. We got her all excited to go see Elmo. I don't know what she was thinking it would be like but when we actually got there, she started throwing a fit when she saw all the people. As we were waiting in line to get our tickets scanned at the gate, she started screaming at everyone "PEOPLE GO AWAY". "GO AWAY PEOPLE". She even pointed her finger at a little girl who appeared to be about 2 and screamed "GO AWAY". Meanwhile, Greg and I were trying to get her to calm down. Eeeeeeyaaaay.

Once we were in, she calmed down a little and we found our seats. She rocked this event like any true Elmo lover would do.

She loved this. It actually held her attention until shortly before the intermission.

During the intermission, we made our way up to the concourse for some mini doughnuts. After the intermission, they started an Elmo's World skit which of course grabbed her attention. Mr Noodle even made an appearance.

We ended up leaving a few minutes early. She lost her attention span and just couldn't stay seated until the end.

The difference a year makes

The first picture was taken at this time last year. I was so excited to put itty bitty pigtails in her hair. The second picture was taken today. My how she's grown (and her hair)!

Before and after

Before I get into my bedroom makeover pictures, I just want to share something funny Meredith does all the time now. She puts us on time outs. Today Greg took our vacuum clean upstairs to clean up a mess. Meredith saw him taking it up the stairs and had a fit (she's a tidy little thing and likes to clean). She started screaming in a high pitched voice and screaming real fast saying "No Daddy, vacuum cleaner stay down. Down stairs. Daddy on a time out". Sometimes I can't help but laugh at her little fits.

Oh, and you will be happy to know this blog update got interrupted by a certain someone who was having quiet time in her crib (didn't take a nap today) and decided to take her pants and POOPY diaper off.

Anyway, we are done with our bedroom finally. We got a new bed a couple weeks back so we figured that if we have a nice new bed, we should spruce up our room a little bit. It was pretty bad as you can see from these before pictures.

This is before (obviously). As you can see, we don't even have a bedframe and sleep with sheets and blankets that don't match. Our walls are bare and white.

AFTER

I absolutely love this bed (as I should considering how much we spent on it). It's handcrafted by local Amish folk and was made-to-order.

I have a cord cover that will go over that white cord...don't you worry.

This is a beautiful cedar chest that my grandpa gave my grandma as a wedding gift back in 1942. It looks beautiful with the bed.

And just for fun, here is the inscription inside and original documents that came with the chest.

This one is just another angle.

These are our new thermal curtains that actually fit our window.
Another angle.
This is the best part of the bed and what sold us on spending so much money on it. There is another drawer like this on the other side.
And finally, the ghettoness of our room still. We are waiting to get the matching dressers so we are using our dressers of old for now. The good thing about this bed is that is was handcrafted so we don't have to worry about not being able to get coordinating pieces.

And for those of you who insist on seeing pictures of Meredith, this is what I arrived home to one evening this week. Looks like Grandma had a little fun playing with M's hair. Oh, and remember how I said she was tidy? That's her broom in her hand.