Mobility

Anna is getting around these days. She's not quite crawling just yet but I don't think it will be too long before she's rocking on all fours. Both my kids are late crawlers. I think Meredith crawled at 9.5 months. Anna is 8 months old now so I think she's going to be moving in the very near future. Her latest trick is reaching for everything. She almost gets herself onto all fours when she does this but isn't quite there yet. But she rolls around on the floor everywhere! I'm dreading getting out the gates. I'm glad she is a late mover.

She seems to be following in Meredith's footsteps with a lot of things developmentally so I'm predicting she will pop a tooth in the next couple of weeks. I swear I can see them under her gum (in the rare opportunity she will let me look). Mer got her first tooth at 8.5 months.

PLOP!

More about spring

Yes, more about Spring. I am ridiculously excited to see my two goldfinch friends show up again this year!!!!! I wish I had more of a yard and trees to put more bird feeders.

My latest attempt to attract birds is this hummingbird feeder that I placed out front. It may even be too early but these temperatures make me think it's June. I really hope I can get one or two. But I can't plant flowers so I'm not sure if this alone will lure them. I may have to put a pot of flowers in the rock bed.

And yes, I have ghetto blinds. The cat did that.

Another feeding update

After almost two long months of trying to get Anna to eat baby food, I've decided I'm giving up. It's just not worth it anymore. We're going to skip baby food and go right to table food. She just refuses to eat anything I give her on a spoon - including stuff like pudding. But she seems to like to explore and pick up and eat finger foods like puffs, rice rusks, pasta, toast, etc. I'm going to get out the mesh feeders and the food grinder. I might try some of those squeeze packets of baby food though and see if she likes that. I'm actually kind of thrilled at the thought of not having to do baby food. But I'm not thrilled at the thought of coming up with baby friendly ideas of foods to eat.

Now, I have to go to Target and bring back about 20 containers of baby food that I had bought on sale. Ugh. I'm going to feel like a moron brining back a heaping bag of baby food.

Here she is eating spaghetti. She likes it:-)

Spring!

This is one of my favorite times of the year - when it starts to feel warmer out and Spring arrives. I can't believe this weather though. This has been the best winter ever. It's not often you can say it's 79 degrees when it's still winter. And this is the tree across the street. It has leaves popping out on St. Patricks Day.

This time of year also means home improvements. Sometimes I hate owning a house. Our windows are going bad (along with everyone else's in the neighborhood). Not sure what we're going to do about that but it makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. The builder just used cheap, shoddy, windows. Our neighbor has it much worse but it's probably only a matter of time before we're there too.

One a simpler note, we put in a new kitchen faucet. Our house came with the cheapest of the cheap (and ugliest of the ugly) faucets. This is the last faucet to be replaced and what was supposed to be simple turned into a two day project for Greg. First, the faucet was on so tight that Greg had to saw it off to get some leverage. Then, our plumbing under the sink was done so cheaply that the old hoses underneath did not even screw into the new faucet (they clamped I think) so we had to get some special adapters. But we finally got it done.

Here's Greg in action:

And here's the new faucet.

Our next project is hardware for the kitchen cabinets. I thought it was time for that after 9 years. I'm very excited about it and I'll put up pictures of it whenever Greg decides to tackle that project.

This weekend was the Just Between Friends consignment sale that I participated in. From what I understand, they had the best sale to date. They had over 100 more consigners this spring than they had this fall. And traffic at the sale was outstanding.

I brought in 112 items to sell and I only brought home 18 items! I sold almost all my maternity clothes too. I'm so happy. See in the picture below? That's all I had to bring home! I do think this great weather inspired people to buy for spring/summer so that was good. I grossed about $415 so after they take their cut, I'll be getting about $300 or so.

Sick Baby

I was hoping that I would make it through this winter season without a sick baby (beyond a cold) but it happened sooner rather than later. Anna was sick last week with a cold. After a couple days, she developed croup so we brought her in to the doctor. Her left ear was infected so she started on amoxicillin. Antibiotics are always dreadful in infants because they typically cause diarrhea and quite frankly, it's miserable changing all those diapers and seeing a red, rashy bum. Not to mention that this is what I think is the dreaded start of ongoing ear infections. I think back to Meredith who had infection after infection that wouldn't go away until she got tubes.

Anyhow, the antibiotics have given her colitis. Poor girl is having the worst time with poops and has had all sorts of bloody diarrhea so we went back to the doctor today. Her left ear was not infected anymore but now her right ear is. We have to stop the antibiotics because they are making her sick. We can't try another kind like augmentin because it is even worse on your body so now she has to battle this other ear infection on her own so her intestines can get better.

Poor girl - she is just a train wreck right now. And she is so congested on top of things. Her nose will not stop running. I just hope she gets better soon. If she is not improving by Monday, we have to start doing stool samples. Blech.

Happy Birthday Greg!

Yesterday was Greg's 36th birthday and words can not express how excited Meredith was to celebrate Daddy's birthday. Jabberjaws wouldn't shut her trap all day about it. And don't expect a 4-year-old to keep a secret. I took her birthday shopping a few weeks earlier just to get ideas and she blabbed about everything we looked at, even though I told her to keep it a secret. "But we didn't buy Daddy anything, Mom". She even blabbed about how he was getting a cake with balloons on it (I don't recall talking to her about cakes, but maybe I did?). Then she blabbed about how we picked out a musical card for him. ::shakes head::

I ended up ordering him a fancy Spyder sweater jacket. I think he's secretly jealous of my awesome metallic purple winter Spyder jacket.

Anyhow, back to the cake thing. I had purchased a Groupon from Woullet a few months back to get $30 for $15 so I ordered him a Lady Baltimore cake with lemon filling and vanilla buttercream icing so this cake cost me only $15 or so. Yummy!!!!!

I hope you had a great day, Greg!

She sits!

Anna's been working on sitting for a long time now. Since sometime in December I'd say. She has progressively been getting better at controlling her back. As of the last few weeks, she has been able to sit just fine supported by the boppy or a pillow but has needed a little help with being able to balance herself (think of a Weeble). Today I put her down and she was able to sit by herself for quite a long time before toppling over. That makes her a little over a week shy of 7 months. Meredith was sitting on her own at 6.5 month so they are following the same pace with each other so far. Now, if this kid would take to eating like Meredith did.

She has been rolling from back to belly for a couple months now and she loves to sleep on her tummy. And I think she sleeps better now that she can roll over onto her tummy.

She still can't roll from her belly to her back but I think that is coming fairly soon. She is really working on it. I can't wait until she is able to do that because I'm tired of having to roll her back when she gets frustrated because she can't do it on her own.

Feeding Update

We started Anna on solid food about two weeks ago. If you read my post about it, you know it didn't go very well. I'm sad to update that things have not been going well when it comes to eating solids. I have been giving it my best but she just doesn't want to do it or lacks interest in doing it. Don't get me wrong, it is better than the first day. But on most days, I'm lucky to get 5 bites in her mouth before she clamps it shut and starts spitting out with her tongue so it splatters everywhere. It's just a wee bit frustrating. I knew going into this I didn't want to start solids but I guess I have to at some point.

See that heap of stuff above? I'm working on getting all my baby and maternity stuff that has been outgrown or no longer used ready for a consignment sale next month. I am done having babies so this stuff has to go. It feels so good to get it out of my house and hopefully I can make a little cash. It's a work in progress and a lot of work it has been.

**Nerd alert here** A lot of the clothes I'm selling are so cute and I have so many fond memories of my girls in them. It makes me really sad to part with it all, but I can't keep it and it doesn't make sense to keep it. After I had all my clothes prepped and hanging on hangers for the sale, I decided to take pictures of everything individually. I'm putting it all in an album so I have photos of everything they wore.

January Days

The months of December, January, and February are hard on me. Actually December isn't that bad because it goes by fast because of the holidays, but January and February just linger on and on and on. I mainly don't like them because of the extremely short days and the cold. I really dislike having to close my blinds at 4 p.m. and not having any daylight until after 8 a.m. And to have bitter cold just makes it so much worse.

I have really enjoyed this winter! We have made it through both December AND January with all but about two bitterly cold days and no more than 4" of snowfall in any one given day. These 30-40 degree days are spoiling me. Earlier in the month when it reached a balmy 52 degrees, we went outside to play. We played with sidewalk chalk and blew bubbles! I would have never imagined doing that in January.

Now we're into February and it looks like this weather is going to continue. Once we hit March, I consider that the light at the end of the tunnel so as far as I'm concerned, we just need to get through three more weeks of winter and then we will enter the tunnel! I'm so excited for spring - especially now that I'm not working.

In your wildest dreams, would you have ever thought it was possible to see a hornet flying around on January 10 which happens to be the deepest, darkest days of the winter? Ironically, I was just telling Meredith that we didn't have to worry about bugs when we play outside in January. And then this thing decided to interrupt our play time. I bet he wishes he never came out of hibernation.

6 months!

Anna is officially 6 months old now. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. Half a summer, all of fall, and half of winter has gone and passed. The good thing about aging babies is that they just get cuter and cuter every days that passes.

We went in for Anna's 6 month check-up yesterday and she is doing great. She weighed 15 lbs., 14.5 oz. (50th percentile) and was 26.5" long (75th percentile). She got a her flu shot as well so they postponed another one of her shots so she wouldn't have to get more than 4 shots at once. We will have to go back in another month to get her second flu shot and the one she missed (I can't remember which one it is right now - I'd have to look at her chart).

We've been holding off starting on solid food simply because I'm lazy and I just don't want to change the routine we have going. Anna is on a great nap routine and she is sleeping GREAT all though the night.

Her doctor said no hurry to start solids - they prefer that you wait until at least 6 months (although some people start after 4 months) and can start anytime from now up until 9 months. She is very interested in watching us eat so I figured I'd give it a whirl. And Meredith was sooooo excited to have her eat 'big girl' food.

This was right before we tried rice cereal. She was just as happy as can be.

She wasn't sure what to think of all that odd stuff in her mouth.

Just about ready to gag in this picture.

Ummmm.....yeah. It was an epic fail. We'll keep at it to see if she will get used to it. If not, we'll wait a few weeks and try again. I remember Meredith took to it right away and it was a very easy transition so I'm hoping today wasn't a sign of difficult times to come.

And just a pic of the big sister (and helper). I can't leave her out.

Blog Exclusive

Because I have been slacking, here is a blog-exclusive photo. It's cute.

Santa

Meredith asked Santa for two things. An Easy Bake Oven and a dolly. Santa brought her both. Much to Mommy's delight, both require me to buy 'maintenance' things. The Easy Bake Oven requires special mixes that must be purchased at the store. And they aren't exactly cheap for a mix that makes the equivalent to 1 regular cookie. But she loves it so I digress.

Santa also brought Meredith a Baby Alive doll which pees and poops. This also requires special diapers and food mixes. But she loves this too. **sigh**

See the poo?

One other gift Meredith got for Christmas from Mom and Dad was this set of pop beads. I contemplated whether it was worth the price when I first got it but it has been a huge hit. I'm so glad I didn't take it back to the store. She spends hours playing with them making necklaces, bracelets and rings. She tells me every day how much she loves it.

On a totally random note, my Christmas Cactus is finally blooming! This plant rarely blooms for me and I've had it for over 10 years. It must have 15-20 blooms on it this year but what's weird is that all the blooms are on one specific side of this huge plant. They formed on the side facing the wall. I have turned the blooms to face the kitchen now.

Bug Sucker

On Christmas Day, we spent the morning with Lois Andersen (one of Greg's relatives) and they we Skyped with the Florida Carlsons as we opened gifts. After that, we headed up to Robin and Irene's house in Amery, WI. It was a great day but the highlight of the day came when Chris ate a sucker. Not just any sucker... a bug sucker.

Janis had asked me if she could give Meredith a sucker she got at the Science Museum that had a cricket in the middle of it. I told her to go ahead and that Mer probably wouldn't want anything to do with it. A few minutes later, Meredith comes running up to me all excited and asking me if she could eat her sucker. She didn't realize there was a bug in it. I asked her if she really wanted to eat a sucker with a bug in it and her smile went away and was replaced by a look of disgust. Then she was so upset she began crying.

To try to cheer her up, we told her to go give it to her uncle Chris to see if he would eat it. He started off sucking on it but nobody thought it would go as far as it did.

She was excited to see him sucking on it.

The faces she made. LOL.

Here is the video for you enjoyment. The things that an uncle will do to impress his niece. The good part is about 1:30 in.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at the Schwake house. We enjoyed ham, appetizers, cookies, and candy galore. A certain little blondie was super excited all day about opening presents and she took every opportunity to hand out gifts and help open them. That works out great for us adults because no one likes to get up out of their seat to go pick out a present to hand out.

This picture was taken before we headed down to the farm. Dad and all his girls.

And just because she's so darn cute in her reindeer jammies.

Did I mention how excited someone was to open presents?

She didn't miss an opportunity.

Someone got tired before the end of the night. Cheeks anyone?

What we're up to these days

Now that we're almost through the holidays, I thought I'd update everyone on what's going on in the Carlson household. I will be putting Christmas pictures up but as you probably know by now, I'm always a week or two late with getting pictures up.

Meredith is getting ready to start up skating and swim lessons again in January. She is getting so good at skating and she asks to go skating now. Greg took her to open skating yesterday because she knew it was Wednesday and open skating is on Wednesday. I can't wait to start her in Mites in the fall!

She is going to preschool 2 days/week now. Since I am unemployed, we decreased her time there. I'm looking into traditional preschools with programs for 5-year-olds since I don't expect to be employed and she isn't going to start Kindergarten in the fall since she misses the cutoff by one day. She is so smart though, she could easily go to kindergarten now though. I just hope she doesn't get bored. She loves to learn and ask questions about things. The other day she was taking a bath and I was upstairs doing chores. I walked into the bathroom and she had written words all over the bathtub wall. Now, I know she doesn't know how to spell Pantene and she got that off my shampoo bottle, but look at all the other words she spelled on her own! Yellow, purple, white, Meredith, mommy, daddy, Anna, Addison, etc.

This is a picture of the tag on my Christmas gift this year. She's just getting so big and growing up so fast. Could she be any cuter?

And then there's Anna. Sweet little Anna:-)

She is growing so fast too. I fear the day when she's not a baby anymore. We're in a good place with her right now. She is sleeping well and we've go a good routine established for the most part. In another month or so (when she is six months old), we'll be starting her on solid food which I'm not really looking forward to. I guess I'm just lazy and don't want to switch up the routine so I told her doctor that I was waiting as long as possible to start solids.

She continues to be a very happy and easy baby. She giggles a lot and is playing with her toys now. She does a good job at lifting her head and she's working on sitting up right now. I suspect in the next month or so, she will be sitting.

The cheeks this girl has!

Pottery Barn Kids update

I finally called in to customer service in a final attempt to see if I can get this whole debacle figured out. I talked to a woman who actually found a retail store that had the stocking I wanted still in stock since it was sold out on-line. She called the store and had them ship the stocking to me. Since they had refunded me for the original order, all I had to pay for was the stocking and it was on sale at this point so it cost me less. The only thing is that it isn't embroidered. I'll have to take it somewhere to get her name embroidered on it.

And they sent me a $25 gift card for all the troubles.

I'm happy with that.

In the meantime, my wonderful mother-in-law, Mary Carlson heard about the whole debacle and got this beautiful PBK stocking from Ebay. That design is actually one of the ones I was debating on getting. Thank you so much Mary.

Now we have two beautiful stockings. This works out well though because we need stockings for Mom and Dad so I'll probably just order another one next year and then we'll be all set for the whole family :-)

Hitlist: Pottery Barn Kids

I think I'm almost ready to sever ties with Pottery Barn Kids. Meredith has this pretty stocking we got there a few years back with a little blonde skater girl on it. I ordered Anna a stocking that looks exactly the same only it has a blonde angel on it. I placed the order on October 28 to ensure I would have the stocking I wanted for her. I received my order approximately a week later (the first week in November) and this is what I got. The embroidery is extremely crooked. I was not happy with the way it looked so I called them and asked them to send a replacement. Meanwhile, they sent UPS over to pick up the bad stocking.

It took a few weeks for the replacement to arrive and this is what I got the week before Thanksgiving. As you can see, the embroidery is horribly off center. I called them the day after Thanksgiving to ask for another replacement. Again, they sent UPS to pick up the bad stocking.

After seeing these pictures, was I being to picky by sending them back? I actually find it unbelievable that they would send them to me like that in the first place.

I waited three weeks before I sent them an e-mail asking about my order. I basically go a response that said "we're sorry for the inconvenience but your item is out of stock. We have refunded your credit card".

I'm so ticked at this whole situation. I'm ticked that they would even send these horribly embroidered stockings to me in the first place. I'm ticked that I ordered this two months in advance and now I have no stocking. I'm ticked that I have nothing for Anna this Christmas. I'm ticked that I am done with them and now I won't have a stocking that matches Meredith's. I'm ticked at their lack of customer service. I'm ticked at how long they took both times to rectify this. I'm ticked that they never even bothered to tell me that the stocking ran out of stock. I'm ticked that none of this was my fault.

I have been going back and forth with them about how upset I am about this and then they offered to let me take the item 'as is' with a discount of $20 or pick a replacement stocking. First of all, I don't even have the stockings anymore so option 1 isn't even an option. And option two is not an option because when we're one week out from Christmas, they have no good stockings to choose from anymore. Plus I don't want another stocking design anyway. I want the darn angel stocking.

I just don't know what to do anymore but never shop there again.

Now we have to write Santa a letter to tell him that Anna doesn't have a stocking yet and that he should just leave her stuff on the floor by the fireplace.

I refuse to go out and spend money on a cheap stocking because I want a nice one that I love. I guess I'll have to start all over again next year (maybe at Land of Nod next time).

Mommy, why does Santa have claws?

That's what Meredith asked me in the car on the way to visit Santa. It's been a lot of fun so far this year to watch how excited she is about Christmas. She couldn't wait to get out the tree and decorate it. And she's been watching all the Christmas specials on TV that I used to watch as a kid. She also sings Christmas music. We listen to the LITE FM quite a bit and her favorite songs are Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock.

Last night we wrapped gifts and she was just giddy about all the presents under the tree. She's super excited to not only get to open her presents but help Anna open her gifts as well.

I'm quite pleased with the picture we got of them on Santa's lap (minus the box of tissues underneath his chair).

Thanksgiving

I know I'm WAAAAAY late with this. I realize we're almost to Christmas. Forgive me. I suck at blogging.

I thought I'd share a few pictures from Thanksgiving this year at Peter & Phyllis' house. I really need to take more pictures of other people than just my kids. I'm a little sad I don't have more pictures of everyone.

We had a great day. In true Maercklein style, it was very loud but that just means we're all having a good time. Anna did great. It seems that the more going on around her, the more content she is.

Meredith was showing off her musical side.

Nate testing the waters with a little girl.

Some of the boys. I'm not related to them at all.

Here are the 5 members of the next generation of our family. Wow.