Rainy Day

Charlie and I ventured up to the cities during the rain on Friday to visit my pal Jenna. We had a great day visiting and catching up. It was the first time I'd seen her newly built house, and it is just gorgeous! We're hoping to see her again soon!

We had to be back to Rochester by 4 so we could help Jill celebrate her retirement from Mayo. There was a very nice reception in the gazebo for her. I got all teared up when Jill's boss (I'm assuming that's who he was) told a story about how a patient's family was missing Jill. He was visiting with them, and they found out he was the boss and they said "so you're the guy who let Jill retire?!" She clearly touched a lot of lives during her time at Mayo! Congrats again!

Not the best picture, but its the only one I got of her.

Charlie enjoyed talking with his Great Grandpa Bob during the party.

My Day

Tony and I were eating at Wildwood tonight, and he told me I had to blog about my Candy Crush Saga experience...

I was stuck on level 70 for weeks. Note the plural of week. WEEKS! It doesn't help that I only attempt a few times a day being that my mom duties joyfully take up the majority of my days. I had been toying with the idea of quitting altogether. So, yesterday morning, I made a drastic promise: if I fail this level 1 more time I'm quitting and never looking back...

I PASSED! Clearly God wants me to play Candy Crush! Ha!

On a different note, today I was given the gift of time. Time to work on my final grad paper. Time that has not been there because of my adorable, lovable baby boy. Mindy, Natalie and Harvey took my Charlie for the day. They even drove here to pick him up so I could have more time studying! So from 9:30 until 5 I was diligently reading, highlighting and outlining journal article after journal article for my literature review. 

I still have a lot of hours to put in, but thanks to Mindy I have a nice chunk under my belt!

I wasn't the only one who missed Charlie. Luna and Sol were wandering around looking for him. I put Charlie by Luna for a bit when we got home so she knew he was ok. 

Cute

Now that the weather is finally warming up, I'm quite busy with finishing my masters degree. Poor timing! I should have been finishing when we had all that snow on the ground! Oh well! I found out last night that my big thesis paper is due in 2 weeks! Yikes! Luckily I have one of the best sister in laws around, and she offered to watch Charlie tomorrow so I can work away. (I actually have 3 of the best sister in laws around!!) 

Tony is taking a last minute role in the Rep's spring production of Man of LaMancha, so his Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights are now all booked up. 

I didn't have too much to blog about, but I did want to share this cute picture of Charlie in his new sun hat.

Starting young

If you've talked to Tony and I, you've probably noticed that we love to talk about the various birds we see at our feeders. Yes, we are bird lovers (sorry Mindy)! Yesterday there were over 20 gold finches feeding away in our backyard. Charlie figured he should have a look...

This morning Charlie has been enjoying his big boy Bumbo seat and warm weather clothes! We're heading out to look at flowers to add to our yard. Hope you're enjoying the weather like we are! 

Photobooth!

My first Mother's Day as a mother was jam packed full of activities. I woke up to a beautiful bouquet of flowers and some terra cotta planters with a note saying "some assembly required". Tony is going to make me a tilted planter. I won't explain, but I'll post the final product eventually.

We then went to breakfast at Fat Willy's with my parents, Auntie Elinor, and Will and Amanda.

We went to the later church service today since we went out for breakfast. It was strange to not know anyone! We're frequent 9 o'clockers.

Then we had a delicious lunch at G and g's new apartment complex. The whole crew minus the St. Pete K's were there. Jon (and the rest of the crew) watched Charlie so I could run to Kohl's and Target with Mindy. It was a nice little break for me.

When I got home, Charlie and I had some playtime. Then my parents stopped by. My dad rocked Charlie to sleep, so all I had to do was lay him in his crib. Bedtime went a lot smoother tonight!

The only pictures I captured from the whole day were on our iPad using the Photobooth app. Natalie and Harvey had a blast!

Sales Sales Sales

I decided that it was time I learned how to be a thrifty garage sale shopper this year. All the moms I know say they couldn't survive without the frequent garage sale purchases. Laur and Jill came along to help me during the first city wide garage sales I've ever attended. I'm SO glad they came along. It was a crazy busy day full of crazy busy people!

One house had a fair food cart at their sale. Jill and I were STOKED for mini donuts and cheese curds. Luckily Laur was ok with it too! I might've eaten an entire bag almost completely by myself. (FGM--Jake!) Laur tried out turtle mini donuts. They were drizzled with chocolate, caramel and pecans. YUMMY! At lunchtime we headed back for cheese curds. They weren't the normal batter fried kind, but they were still tasty.

We stopped only at sales that had kids things. I know we could've shopped for days because so many sales had kid stuff, but we only were out until noon. We had to get to Kasson for Natalie's program.

Here are some of my good finds:

I found this Baby Einstein jumperoo from our family friend Nikki's house. We had registered for this at Babies R Us, but it's a pretty expensive item brand new. I walked away with it for a small fraction of the price!

Here's the awesome stand/carrier I got for $3! What?! 

We also registered for one of these booster seats. I can take that off the registry! It's like new!

Here are the bags of clothes I bought. Charlie is set for winter next year. 

I think I have been converted to a garage saler. I had a blast, and it was even more fun when I looked online at what the prices were of the items I got. We saved a bunch!

Kindergarten Fun!

Yesterday Natalie's family was WELL represented at her Kindergarten program. All the Knutson aunts/uncles/cousins, Grandma Cher, Laur and Jill, Grandpa Bob and Grandma Jayne, Grandma Connie and Jon, Mindy and Harvey were there! YIKES, we were quite the crew.

It was a surprise to see Brian, Kate and Maya there. Maya sure is growing up fast. Every time we see her she is saying more and more words and coming up with more silly things like backing herself up to the cookie table to try and sneak just one more cookie. What a goof!

Anyways, back to the program. I will only share one of the pictures I took of Natalie, so Mindy can post more on her blog. I took pictures while Jon and Mindy videotaped the performance. Natalie had a speaking part where she got up in front of the whole audience and talked into a microphone. She was also the Cracker Jacks holder during "Take Me Out to the Ballgame!" The kindergartners did a great job especially with all the sign language they had to learn. Here is my favorite picture of Natalie from her program. Can you guess what sign she was about to make?

Charlie was able to snuggle up with his Aunt Kate during the first half of the program. The second half, Aunt Kate was on Maya duty! Miss Maya is a busy little girl. She was kept busy by buckling and unbuckling Charlie's car seat. Usually we keep Charlie contained in his seat during events such as this program, but Maya wanted him "out!" so she could kiss and touch him. What a sweet big cousin. Charlie's quite the lucky guy to have 3 cousins who love him so!

After the program, we went to have cookies and milk in the Kindergarten "pod". We also got to see Natalie's classroom and meet her teacher. Apparently Natalie is quite the chatterbox at school. Her teacher knew all about Charlie and the rest of her family. I'm so glad Tony, Charlie and I were able to make it to her kindergarten program! We're so proud of our almost first grade niece!