Randomness.

In going through some old photos, here are a couple of my random thoughts.

1) Piglet is an icon.  Mia got her stuffed Piglet when she was only 4 months old, and now she's almost 3 and a half and he's still her best friend!  Luckily, we had the foresight to pick up another identical Piglet, so she technically has 2 of them - but one is always Piglet and the other one is referred to as "Clean Piglet."  Normally we can switch them out pretty easily, but we're going through a tough spell of her refusing to let us wash her current Piglet. With the new baby, we didn't want to push it, but now it's getting to be borderline ridiculous - he is almost grey with dirt. We're hoping we can convince her to let us wash him pre-wedding - otherwise we're going to have to steal him, throw him in the washer, and deal with the fall out.
 

This latest one was taken 2 months ago...and he still hasn't been washed! Poor Pig!

2) Fynn looks like cousin Huck! I noticed this earlier, but when Missy and Niko came to visit, they saw it, too! Mia looked like her cousin, Huck, when they were babies (they actually share the same birthday!), so I guess it's not all that surprising that Fynn looks similar, too.

 Huck and Mia (June 2010)

Fynn (May 2013)

He also reminds me of the Helvig males - in particular, my grandpa's older brother, Robert, which is crazy considering he's just a baby - how does that resemblance show through already?

3) Spring is finally here - thank the Lord! My tulips are up, and the lilacs in our front yard just started to bloom! I even planted a new hydrangea bush and some perennials in my back garden (to replace another shrub that didn't survive our awful winter, plus an area that the dog insists on sleeping on...fencing is up to discourage him from destroying the new plants). I am planning out my veggie/herb/pumpkin spaces, and hoping to start buying plants and seeds soon so that we can start the planting before the wedding - my baby brother gets married in less than 3 weeks!!! We're headed home for the next two weekends to help get things in order, so finding time to plant will be challenging!

4) David and I survived the bachelor and bachelorette parties (for baby brother's wedding) this weekend.  We weren't sure of our capacity to do so, considering we are old and have two kids and rarely sleep, let alone socialize for long periods of time and well into the night anymore! Fun was had by all, we managed to get home and in bed by 2am, David managed to get up and to work by 6am, and I managed the two kids by myself for most of the day (David's folks were around to help until almost noon), and then we promptly went to bed after getting Mia to bed...at 8:30pm. Guess we are old after all.

 

Siblings.

Can you tell they're brother and sister??

Fynn is really starting to look like his big sis, but I didn't realize how much so until I was snapping some shots of them together this morning! 

 

If you can't tell from the photos, Fynn is a big boy! He weighed in at 13 lbs, 10 oz (90th %-ile) and was 24.5 inches (98th %-ile) long last week at his 2 month checkup!  Mia wasn't that big until she was almost 4 months old (she was 13 lbs, 14 oz and 25" by then)! This kid is going to be huge. Unfortunately for him, the were out of the combo vaccine that they usually give the babies at 2 months, so he got FIVE shots and one oral. Poor boy. Mama cried, too.

Last weekend we had a bunch of friends and family over to a BBQ on Mother's Day. It was fantastic to see everyone, but we forgot to get many pictures! Here are a few of Laura and Gabe, who flew in from Chicago and got to meet Fynn for the first time.

Meanwhile, I managed to capture this sweet photo of me and my baby boy before the craziness of our Mother's Day festivities ensued!

 

So happy to be this little guy's mama.

So true.

Thankfully, my cousins Missy and Niko came up from WI to meet Mr. Fynn last weekend and ended up saving my sanity through another LONG weekend of David working! I think everyone got along just fine...

 Niko bought Mia this awesome hat and goofy leopard print tights, which of course she wanted to immediately put on and wear around the house (sans a skirt to cover up the spot where there is obviously supposed to be something) for the remainder of the day!

 Mia wasn't too happy when it was time for the girls to go!

This weekend the hubby is finally OFF (for the most part), and we're looking forward to spending time outdoors doing yard work, cleaning the garage, and most importantly, entertaining a bunch of our friends for a Sunday lunch BBQ! This mama will just be happy to watch the kiddos play together, drink some margaritas, and spend some time catching up with old friends!

Fynn is 2 months old!

Baby boy is two months old already! He is such as happy, sweet, smiley baby! He is so alert - he loves to watch everyone, and gets mad if he can't readily see us. He is starting to respond to other people smiling at him and cooing to him with smiles, which is pretty great. He remains pretty mellow, even through another cold (or a revival of the original cold he had last month) which has left him stuffy, booger-y, eye gooky. He seems to finally be kicking it (again), so we're hoping he gets to stay healthy and breathe easy for a long time!

This past week was his first time at Lori's for daycare. He was fine, except he wasn't eating for her! We had given him bottles ahead of time to prep him for that, but he didn't want to take anything from her, so I was picking him up after lunch every day to make sure he'd be able to eat. She said that he never actually got fussy about not eating, but she was obviously still worried that he wouldn't eat. Luckily, we tried a different bottle on Friday, and that seemed to work just fine. This week we'll shoot to leave him there for longer days, to see how things go and get him transitioned to being there full-time. I think Mia enjoys having him around, too - she likes to show him off to her friends.

The kids are continuing to bond. She loves trying to make him laugh, and has made it her "job" to get him his pacifier when he starts to fuss. He reacts whenever she is near - either watching her intently or moving his head/eyes around if he can hear her talking nearby. She still doesn't understand why she can't just wake him up when he's sleeping, so we're constantly having to remind her to leave him alone. As I am writing this, she just woke up from her nap and crawled up on the couch between Fynn and I - meanwhile I am trying to get her to realize that he's still trying to sleep!

Mia is getting so big! She's gone through another growth spurt and all of a sudden her 3T pants are too short - good thing it's going to be shorts weather soon! She has lost all of her toddler look and just an all out little girl now. She loves to pretend (driving in a car or airplane, being a princess, building stuff), sing and play her guitar (she's really into making up random non-sense songs with made-up words and singing short sing-song tunes about what she's doing), do puzzles, color, pretend Piglet is her baby Fynn, and most especially, play outside with all of her summer toys! She seems to be learning something new everyday - the other night, David came downstairs and said that she had just counted to 35 all by herself - we don't even know where she learned that! She's also made big strides to being totally pull-up free these past couple of weeks. She started staying dry during nap time at daycare, so we decided to push staying dry at nighttime, too, by limiting fluid intake right before and during bedtime. So far, she's been almost completely dry every night this past week! We weren't concerned about pushing this final potty training until after Fynn was here and we had adjusted, so we're really hoping this could be an END to potty training!

These two kiddos have made us up-to-our-eyeballs busy, but so incredibly happy! They are amazing!

Happy baby!

Full smiles these days - what a joy! Everyone in the house makes it their personal goal to get this little guy going! What a sweetheart!

At the live burn with daddy

We got to swing by the live burn training event (systemically burn down a house for fire training) last Saturday. David runs the entire thing, so it's always a little insane in the days/weeks leading up to one. It's always fun to see the fire department in action (although this year, since I had both kids and Mia wasn't very cooperative, we didn't stick around long). One team on the department goes through and starts small burns throughout a house, then sends another team in to put the fire out - until they've used up all of the space within the house and they eventually get out and burn the whole thing down. This year's house was right next to the current station, but it and the station will be replaced with low-income apartments once the department moves into its fancy new station this fall. The public is always invited to come out and watch, and it's a great opportunity to get a close up look at the action!

Other Happenings

  

Skol Vikings! Big draft for the Vikes this weekend! The whole family was outfitted in Vikings gear to watch round one on Thursday!
 
So...despite the fact that we have a brand new baby, life still manages to go on around us - crazy, huh?  :)

Friday was my last day of maternity leave - this week I head back for partial days to get Fynn (and I) acclimated to day care, then I'll be back to my normal schedule the week after. I can't believe how fast this time has gone - with paper revisions (two came out while I was on leave: in the Journal of Neuroimmunology  and in PLOS ONE), job interview prep and the actual interview (haven't heard back yet!), baptism, and lots of work on David's end of things.

Grandpa Leonard (David's grandpa Anderson, who Fynn Anders was named after) was transferred to Mayo in Rochester for the past week, and is now (I believe) back in Fairmont recovering! He was diagnosed with atypical encephalitis, and after the outlook appeared to be extremely bad, they appear to finally have things under control. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers, please!

The weekend after Fynn's baptism, Mia, Fynn, and I traveled back down to Martin County for Kendra's bridal shower at Waverly. It was a lot of fun to see all of the Waverly women, other neighbors, and friends and family, and Dan and Kendra got a bunch of great stuff! Plus, I got to finally introduce Fynn to a lot of people! Here are some photos from the event:

 The Garbers girls were there and very excited to meet Fynn for the first time!

 Dan's godmother, Lynn, stole him for the remainder of the shower - she even asked who was taking care of him during the wedding, but I warned her that my cousins were already in charge (she even guessed that it was Missy & Niko!).

While back home, we were finally able to see some progress on my parents' lake house that they are renovating. They purchased the house almost 2 years ago, but the home was gutted due to a small fire, so they are completely rebuilding the entire inside. Last fall they had an addition built, and this winter they had the entire place spray foamed for insulation, electrical and plumbing done, in-floor heat added to the main floor, and everything sheet-rocked (which is what we saw when we were last there over Christmas). In the meantime, they have painted the entire house, installed a wood ceiling in the living room, installed old barn beams as a structural support in the kitchen, installed a stacked wall to separate the office area from the kitchen, and installed wood flooring throughout the main level (and a ton of other stuff that I can't begin to list).  I just wanted to share some photos of their progress because I think it's amazing and I think you will, too!

 Stacked wood wall, dividing the office (left) from the kitchen (right).

 Stairway going down to the basement. They built the stairs, too!

 View of the stacked wall from the kitchen. Note the hardwood flooring, too (which is now stained and varnished).

 Stamping on the ends of the wood boards.

 These wood rafters and pillars were salvaged from an old barn on the farm!

 Living room - real wood panels on ceiling and back wall.

 Windows looking out to lake, fireplace will be to the right of the windows.

 Paint stenciled wall in the master bedroom, which is also on the main level.

 Hallway in basement - the red wood is old barn wood, also salvaged from the farm! It's gorgeous!!

 Cool, huh?