Easter 2011

This is the first year we attempted to dye eggs. Both Greg and I despise hard boiled eggs but I made them anyway for the sake of being a good mom. And Meredith was really excited about it.

Decked out in her oh-so-holiday-appropriate santa jammies.
She finished them off with some stickers.
Because Greg and I don't like hard boiled eggs, Meredith has never tried one. She was so excited about having one for breakfast the next day. I really think she thought they were candy because as soon as Greg cracked open the shell and gave it to her, she was scared of it and didn't touch it. So, we gave the rest of the eggs to Juana.

Easter morning, she woke up to a basket full of candy and goodies. And of course Peeps. She loves her Peeps.
And how did the Easter Bunny know that Meredith wanted seven Disney princess dolls with removable crowns and shoes?????

We headed down to Peter and Phyllis' house for Easter lunch.
My cousin Nate, his wife Jen, and their two boys Sam and Matthew were visiting from Chicago. Mer and Sam seemed to get along great.
Then we headed outside for an Easter Egg hunt since the weather was nice. Both Meredith and Sam got to look for eggs. This weirdo was told to look for bumpy brown eggs over by where the dog was chained up. Hmmmm...wonder why.
Mer was looking for purple eggs.
She had a blast.
Sam had a great time too.
She played some ball with daddy and her uncle Chris.
The ladies gossiped.
And we ended the day by blowing some bubbles!

Why I love girls.

Okay, there's lots of reasons but one of them is that I get to buy stuff like this :-) It makes me happy.

Soccer

We've been trying to get Meredith involved in a few activities this winter and spring. As you know, she took ice skating all winter and is currently taking swimming lessons. She seems to love both. We also signed her up for a 3-year-old soccer league at the YMCA. That has been a big, fat, fail. She seems to have no interest in it. She spends most of the time there asking when she will be done, wandering around, asking for snacks, sitting on the parents' chairs, etc. It's quite comical really. But she isn't too far off from some of the other 3-year-olds though. It seems that each team is comprised of this:

1 kid who is exceptionally good and can run and kick really well. (Drew)

1 kid who is pretty good that helps out the exceptionally good kid. (Josiah)

1 kid who sometimes plays, sometimes doesn't and will just stand around by the net most of the time (Kai)

1 kid who sometimes plays, sometimes cries, but spends most of the time sitting on the parents' chairs. (Kaitlyn)

1 kid who wanders around aimlessly, asks to go home, and spends the remainder of her time on the parents' chairs. (Meredith)

Today was the last day of soccer. I think we'll wait until next year to see if her interest in soccer has heightened at all. In the meantime, we'll continue with swimming lessons.

Anything to distract this kid from actually participating...

So, what else is going on at the Carlson household? Not too much. Greg got a new grill for his birthday which he recently assembled for use.
And we've been trying to sort though some stuff in the baby room. I got out all of Meredith's newborn clothes to wash and put in the baby dresser. Mer loved it and spread each piece of clothes neatly on the floor in the kitchen and living room.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is the baby belly at 24 weeks.

Strawberry Applesauce

I can't believe I forgot to write about something that happened last month on Greg's birthday. I don't have any pictures to post right now (wait, I do have some soccer pics - I'll try to get those up this weekend) but I was just thinking of this incident and it was so funny. We were out at dinner at Green Mill in Lakeville for Greg's birthday and Meredith ordered spaghetti off the kids menu. When she was done eating, I told her it was supposed to come with strawberry applesauce as I reread the menu to her. When the waitreses came to refill our drinks, I asked her if she could bring out the applesauce. The waitress informed us that they don't serve applesauce anymore and they were just using the old menus until they were gone before they put the new menus out. Thinking to myself "this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of", I told Meredith that they were out of applesauce and she got very angry and started yelling and screaming in her really high pitched tantrum voice. "I WANT STRAWBERRY APPLEAUCE" She took the kids menu and pointed to it. "IT SAYS RIGHT HERE THAT YOU GET STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE". GET ME SOME STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE". " I AM SUPPOSED TO GET STRAWBERRY APPLESAUCE". "LOOK (pointing to the menu again)". It was both horrifying and gratifying at the same time. It was horrifying because it's not appropriate to yell at the poor waitress like that and it wasn't her fault (although she could have told us in advance that applesauce wasn't included). It was gratifying because little Meredith said exactly what I was thinking. I almost thought she was going to throw a full on trantrum but she didn't. The waitress vrought out a plate of fresh fruit instead which Mer nibbled on for a bit and thankfully she let the applesauce thing go. Thank goodness. I bet the waitress didn't expect that kind of reaction about applesauce. Maybe they will learn now to not be cheap by using old menus. I can't be the first person who has asked about the applesauce, right? Sheesh.

Big Sister!

Most of you already know this, and if you don't now you do! Meredith is going to be a big sister sometime around July 28, 2011. We found out last week that we are expecting another girl!

I have not taken any pictures of the big sister in ages so I don't have much to share. I thought instead, I'd share some pictures of the little sister!

And, since I'm officially 20 weeks along now, I'm half done. Here's my 20 week belly.

Tantrums

We have hit the tantrum stage. Actually it has been going on for a while now but we have had some doozies lately. Greg and I can't wait until spring because most of the tantrums have something to do with jackets, hats, mittens, or boots. We rarely leave the house without having to deal with some kind of fit. A couple of weeks ago, she had a tantrum in the car on the way to her swimming lesson ovr her mittens. We even got to the YMCA and she refused to settle down. She plays this "I want to", "I don't want to" game all the time when she's mad so she refused to go into the YMCA. I don't play games so I put her right back in the car and we skipped the lesson and headed home. She proceeded to get even more upset because she couldn't go to her swimming lesson, even though she refused to go in. I think the hysterical screaming lasted about 90 minutes or so. Uggghhh.

Wonder what our tantrums look like? I took this picture after a tantrum one day. Keep in mind that she was fully clothed and was wearing regular underwear prior to the tantrum.

Christmas Part II

Since it's almost Valentine's Day, I thought it would be nice if I finished uploading the rest of my Christmas pictures. I'm in a picture taking rut. I honestly have very few pictures to share since Christmas. This time of the year is so dark, cold, and depressing that I don't get the camera out much. Our weekends consist of skating lessons and swimming lessons but we haven't done too much lately since it's been so cold. I can't wait for some warmer weather!

Sooo....as I mentioned in the last post, we hosted Christmas Eve. We followed in Ben and Angie's footsteps and did an appetizer dinner and it was awesome! This is seriously better than regular dinner! Check out this display of food!

We spent a lot of time chatting.

Mer got a truck and track set from Grandma and Grandpa Schwake. The wheels on the trucks have since spun out of control and got tangled all over in our cat Tabitha's 3 inch fur. It was not pleasant.

Since Meredith is a skater now, this is a fitting ornament.

Peace out!

This is actually from Christmas morning. She is checking out all her loot from Santa. She did get the one thing she really, really wanted...a Hello Kitty clock.

And this is the artwork she made in preschool. I love it!

Christmas Part I

Well folks, it's January 27 and I am just now updating the blog with Christmas pictures. We have been busy. Meredith is taking skating lessons for the second session of the year. She is also in swimming lessons. She loves both! She moved up to the next level in skating but she is the youngest kid in that class. Most of them appear to be in the 4-5 year age category so she lags behind a little bit but she is doing great!

I know I posted pictures from Disney World, but I thought I'd update with some of the pictures from our trip to FL before Christmas. We visited Greg's parents and brother. Meredith was so excited to go an an airplane and get to visit everyone!

She looked at 'baby daddy' in photo albums with Scott.

She hung out with Daddy.
She loved opening presents. She opened up EVERYONE'S presents.
See? She's helping Grandma.
Did you know she loves Hello Kitty? That's probably my fault.

Disney World

I know it's been AGES since I've put anything on the blog. I'm sorry! It has been incredibly busy for me lately. I have been traveling almost every other week up through mid-December. I've had airport headaches galore. I've lost luggage, I've lost carry-ons, I've had cancelled flights, I've tried to make it home through blizzards, I've had misconnects, and heck, I've even been stuck overnight in Detroit due to a misconnect. On a positive note, I'm now an elite status traveler! A low on the totem pole, lowest level elite there is, but I'm elite nonetheless! I've managed to make it to flying first class about 40-50% of the time!

Anyway, we finished up the year with a week down in Florida visiting Rich, Mary, and Scott. I guess we were incredibly lucky with the weather as it was in the 30s and 40s the week prior to going. We had lovely weather with temps in the 60s and 70s for the most part. And then I heard the temps dropped back down to the 50s the week after we went home!

We spent most of our time hanging out but we did spend one day at Disney World. I don't think the place has changed at all in the 20 years since I have been there. It was so crowded, and I don't do well with crowds. I honestly kind of wish we took her to Sea World or Animal Kingdom instead. But we had fun!

The 'classic' Disney World photo everyone has.

The first ride we went on was the carousel.

She loved the Mad Hatters Tea Cups

This is an action shot - making it spin around.

Her favorite ride was the roller coaster in Toon Town.

She got her hair done like Cinderella at the Bibbidi Bobbodi Boutique in Cinderella's Castle.

It was so, so cute!

Ack, my little princess!

This picture does no justice, but the castle was beautiful at night when it was lit up.

In case you're wondering, this is what her hair looked like the next morning!

New Washer and Dryer

I don't know if anyone else's house is like this but I feel like everything is broken in our house. And it's only seven years old. Our carpet is gross, our dishwasher leaks, our refrigerator has broken twice - most recently last month, our bathtubs have holes and leak through the ceiling and are patched with some sort of high grade something or other, our toilets constantly run and it's connected to our faucets somehow, our washer just broke, our dryer almost burned down our house in the spring. Seriously, it's just ridiculous.

Sunday was the day our washer broke so we went out to check out new high efficiency models. It was at that point that we realized that our washer and dryer were the $275 models you see placed out at the very end of the store displays. Can we say ghetto??? How have we been using such awful appliances for the past seven years? It didn't even pay to try to get it fixed. We said "screw it" and decided to just get a new washer and dryer set.

Our laundry closet doesn't accomodate front loading machines so that helped with figuring out which one to get. We settled on a LG set with a high efficiency washer and a steam dryer. And Greg was even able to cash in on the cash for appliances deal they opened up again a few days ago and we will be getting $200 in exchange for purchasing a high efficiency washer.

Be jealous. Very jealous.

Look at this nice big wash basin WITH NO AGITATOR!

And check out this huge dryer drum!