Spring Break

Austin only had a 2 day spring break this year. It was this past Thursday and Friday. I had planned to head up north to see my friend Becky and her little baby Emma again. I realized Tony had those 2 days off as well, so we all 3 went up, stayed in a hotel and spent some quality time with Becky and Emma! I was able to get a few photos captured of Charlie and Tony first meeting Emma. She's now 3 1/2 weeks old!

Tony got to hold her for a few minutes before I stole her away!

I can't believe we're both moms now! Wow...

Charlie's checking her out. He kept purring at Emma like she was a cat. 

Now he wants to touch her! 

We had a very fun time, and I can't wait to see miss Emma and Becky again soon!

Saturday Fun

I stole this photo from Laur. The two littlest great grandkids after our delicious KFC lunch!

Precious Baby Girl

Last night, after a much needed massage, I met up with Livia, and we headed to meet the newest edition to our "group", Emma Mae. We came loaded with gifts and food for the new family! I got to spend some amazing quality time with the absolutely wonderful baby girl until about 3:30 am when I finally put her in her bassinet. It was my hope that Becky and Spencer could catch up on their sleep without worrying about their little one. It sounds like they got 4 solid hours of sleep! I remember how important that was at that point in our life! This morning, I played around with my camera and took a few shots of the cutie! Here are a few of them!

Emma was so wide awake for most of the picture taking. She wasn't very fond of being naked, so we covered her up to keep her happy.

 The little family. Note the adorable pink ballerina bunny outfit. I bought that the day I had Charlie just in case I had a little girl. It's been sitting and waiting for a little girl to make use of it.

 You can tell Emma's mom teaches reading! (Charlie picked out his favorite books for Emma-The Very Hungry Caterpillar and On The Night You Were Born.

A little smile for us. 

 Charlie also picked out this cute pink elephant for his little friend.

 Just precious.

 Doesn't the new Mama look absolutely gorgeous? I sure think so!

Congratulations again Becky and Spencer! I can't wait to see you all in another couple of weeks!

Our Tough Little Monster

Ever since Charlie's Saturday birthday party he's had a bit of a "diaper problem". He has NEVER had diaper problems in the past, so this was all new territory to us.  Not to go into details, but it was bad enough last night that we called the Mayo Nurse Line. They said to either bring him in to the Emergency Room or get in right away in the morning. We decided to wait until morning because who knows how long we'd have to wait to be seen in the ED. I had to take the day off because Tony had a meeting he could not miss. Charlie and I went in and were out the door by 8. Treatment plan is lots of warm baths, no diaper time and prescription cream for 7-10 days. Luckily Charlie hasn't been bothered by it at all unless we are wiping him.

Last night we decided to go for a walk in the beautiful weather! When we told Charlie it was time to change his diaper first, he quickly crawled off to the stairs and proceeded to crawl all the way up to his room and wait at his changing table (this is something he just started doing when we say diaper time and bedtime!). I saw the perfect opportunity to photograph him and his little monster butt crawling up the stairs.

Charlie's Party: The Extras

There were little subtle Very Hungry Caterpillar items all around our house for Charlie's party. To start off, I had a Very Hungry Caterpillar book for everyone to write a note to Charlie in. We did this with a different book when Charlie was born and people came to visit him. I think it will be a neat keepsake for him some day.

I made that caterpillar to put on his high chair, but he just wanted to tear it off! He has a very hungry caterpillar plate that Adam and Emily gave him before he was even born!

These are the cupcakes for Saturday's party. Tony baked them, and I decorated them. I'm clearly not a cupcake artist! 

 

 Picture collage

 another one

 The cake my AWESOME cousin Hannah made for Sunday's party! It was SO cool and delicious!

 The smash cake she made

 and cupcakes!

Again, it was so much fun this weekend! We still have a little cake leftover...My students each enjoyed a cupcake this morning. I think that's why they were a little off the wall today: too much sugar!

Charlie's Party: Take 2

Sunday my family and friends gathered to help celebrate Charlie. (FYI: I'll do my next post with just the fun extras that helped enhance the Hungry Caterpillar theme).

We enjoyed a lasagna and salad buffet. Thanks to Aunt Amy and my mom for helping me prepare food! Here's the crowd in line for food.

 Charlie again was given such wonderful gifts. Here he has a train!

  And a new hat from Grandpa Buck! It's adorable!

 ABC bus from Jenna!

 These are my college friends that were able to make it for the party. It was so wonderful of them to drive so far to help us celebrate. Charlie was blowing kisses!

 and the cake!

 What a fun but tiring weekend. I'm still recovering....

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate!

Charlie's Party: Take 1!

Saturday we had a wonderful get together to celebrate Charlie with Tony's family. Everyone made it except Great Uncle Rand because he was sick and Uncle Brian because he was working. It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun was had!

After we had breakfast for lunch (Thanks to Laur, Jill, Cher and Mindy for contributing!): Egg bake, cheesy potatoes, fruit and monkey bread, we headed upstairs to open presents. Charlie enjoyed the awesome curly cues on the present from Aunt Mindy, Uncle Jon, Harvey and Natalie. Charlie opened some wonderful and thoughtful presents. He's a very lucky little boy!

This is one of the presents Charlie got from Adam, Emily, Josie and Sam. He loves it!  His cousins did a great job showing him how to work it.

 Then we moved on to the cake. At first Charlie didn't know what to do with a whole cupcake, but he figured it out and shoved the entire thing in his mouth!

The after shot! 

 We gathered the cousins on the stairs for a photo.  It was difficult to get them all looking in one direction and smiling at the same time! Here's one of the best I got on my camera.

 I think this is cute too. We said that we were done taking pictures, so Maya leaned down and kissed Charlie. You can see Harvey is still posing so sweetly!

 Grandma Cher was helping Charlie put on a birthday hat!

 Charlie was showing Grandpa Alan how his birthday cake toy works.

 After everyone left, this is how Tony unwinded. He stayed this way for quite a while.

 My college friend Kelly came all the way from Milwaukee to spend the weekend with us. She taught Charlie how to be "Road Kill". He was laying on the floor tonight and trying to do this to himself. What a goof!

It was such a fun day! Charlie is blessed with so many wonderful loving people on his Knutson side (and so are Tony and I).

Skiing with Daddy

Charlie and Tony went out for a ski a few weeks ago, and I found this picture when I was downloading birthday pics. Charlie loved it in the woods, but he was not excited about being out in the open field. Apparently the wind was a little too strong out there!

My little peanut's nose is pretty red there! Hindsight: probably should have wrapped a scarf or blanket around him. Poor kiddo! He snuggled up under a big blanket with me when he got home! After he thawed, he was ready for more playing!

O N E

Wow. Where did the time go? It feels like yesterday I was blogging about the birth of our precious baby boy, but now, here I am, blogging about his first birthday!

Charlie's day started off with a bang! His momma and daddy both came in to get him out of his crib while singing Happy Birthday. He looked at us like we were absolutely nuts!

For breakfast, I made Birthday Cake Pancakes! They were quite delicious AND very colorful! Charlie ate a big pancake all by himself.

This part of his day makes me feel like a mean momma; we went to Mayo for Charlie's 12 month appointment along with 3 vaccines... It wouldn't have been so bad if the nurse had made the appointment on time. I made it for 8:15. We were brought back to the patient care room right at 8:15, were told to strip down to a diaper, and then proceeded to wait until 9 o'clock to be seen! 45 minutes with a "naked" baby in a cold room when he was getting ready for nap time. I was less than enthused. I was even less enthused when the nurse came in and told me it would be a 45 minute appointment!! What?! She made me watch a power point on how to parent while my little 1 year old was squirming and shivering away! Stats from the appointment: 22 lbs 11 oz (74th percentile) and 2 ft 7 in (94th percentile)

Anyways, we eventually made it home for a short nap. After he woke up, we headed back to Rochester to pick up Aunt Amanda. We went to Monkey Junction at Resurrection Life Church. It was a blast! They have a ton of toys for kiddos to play with! Charlie was so enthralled with the other kiddos! After we played, we went to Applebee's for lunch. Yum yum!

After we had an afternoon nap, we went to Mr. Pizza with Grandma Becky and Grandpa Buck. The pizza was out of this world delicious! Great Aunt Marybeth joined us as well. She's staying with my parents tonight just in case the weather is bad in the morning.

When we got home from Mr. Pizza, Charlie was finally able to open his present from us. Here are some pictures! If you want to see some other pictures of Charlie's day, you'll have to check out Facebook/Instagram for that!

He wasn't super excited about opening the presents.

 But he warmed up to it!

It's a magnet/white board/felt board! He even got some cool new animal magnets! 

 He really enjoyed the animals! He could pick out the cow, sheep and kitty by name, and he said moo and baa for us!

 Here's a picture of the other side. I bought a ton of felt to cut out shapes and other things for him to play with on this side. We know it was a successful present because he did not want to stop playing with it even though we had his big bottle full of milk sitting there! He just wanted that giraffe!

Charlie got mail from all over today! He got a package from Los Angeles, CA from my Great Aunt Marsha. She sent an adorable teddy bear. He also got a card from Connie and Duane, Aunt Mindy's mom and dad! How sweet of them! And he got cards from Aunt Laur and Aunt Jill and Grandma Cher and Grandpa Alan! We even talked to Great Grandpa Arnie all the way down in Yuma! I'd say this is one lucky boy! We are excited to celebrate with family this weekend!

Emma Mae

I was the first out of our UWRF college friends to have a little one. Charlie almost made it a year being the only UWRF baby, but yesterday, Emma Mae joined the crew. She's absolutely beautiful and healthy, just like her mama!

Charlie helped me shop for the little beauty tonight. I didn't realize how much fun it is to have SO many options when looking at baby girl clothes vs. baby boy clothes. However, this has not convinced me to feel the need for a baby girl any time soon! 

Congratulations Becky and Spencer! I can't wait to meet the little princess in a little over a week!