Friday, January 23, 2009

Addison...11 weeks and growing!

It's come to my attention that we haven't posted pictures of Addison on here since shortly after she was born. My apologies to our loyal readers...I guess I forget that not all of our readers are on sites like facebook. Without further ado, I introduce our 11 week old little doll, Addison:

Here she is spending some quality time with Grandma Jeannie. She gets lots of quality time with her grandparents these days!






Addison's favorite place in the house is the bathroom. She LOOOOVES baths and loves to look at herself in the mirror...with a face like that though who can blame her!






While her first love is mommy...she's started to develop eyes for her dad. I can't wait until she old enough to get excited when I come home from work!






Lastly this was our picture for our Christmas newsletter. I thought I would end with a cute picture of our little family.





Its so amazing to watch this little girl grow. The changes that have already happened have happened so quickly...she's grown from being a little newborn baby to having a personality already in such a short time. We've been able, most nights, to get her to be in bed between 9 and 10 which when compared to midnight is an amazing treat for her parents (who were getting a little worn out from the late nights). She sleeps through the night, usually 6-8 hours which is wonderful as well. We've found she shares her mom's love of sleeping in too which has been nice for her mommy.

Just 2 days ago we enjoyed Addison's first laugh which was one of the most gratifying moments of my life I think. You can't describe the joy you feel when you experience some of your own childs firsts in life. I am so thankful I was there to witness it! Tomorrow night is another first for Addison, her first night alone with dad. Meghan is going to my sister Melissa's wedding shower and leaving our little daughter in my capable hands for the night. It should be a nice night of bonding for the two of us...hopefully its one of her GOOD nights so I don't get overwhelmed!

I hope everyone stays warm this weekend and has a memorable weekend!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Finally a night on the town

We had a big achievement last night...our first night away from Addison for a nice date! I want to thank my little sis for the inspiration. After finding out she and Bill were heading our on a date night, Meghan was jealous but torn with the idea of leaving our baby girl alone for a whole night. I assured her if anyone can do a good job watching our little girl at night during her "cranky" time, its her parents who see her every night!

We decided to go for it and I called Saji Ya on Grand and set up our reservation for 2!

We fed Addison and got ready for our date. I grabbed the camera on our way out just in case there was anything fun to take a picture of...we always seemed to think there was back when we were dating! Luckily I did as it provided for some good memories...plus I know Beth hates it when we blog without pictures. ;-)

We arrived at the restaurant and were sat at an almost full table with a family of 5 and a couple on a date. Meg ordered a glass of wine which when you are breast-feeding, is a really nice treat! One of the cool thing about Teppanyaki tables is its more of a social atmosphere...we started talking to the couple next to us right away and really hit it off! David and Trish were a fun couple in their late 30's that had only been dating for about 2-3 months. They were high school friends that reconnected recently on facebook after each going through a divorce. It was fun to see the "young love" that they had building already! Trish and Meg really hit it off so they kept the conversation interesting!

The dinner was fabulous, and so was the preparation. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the cook making the food, I think was too busy eating it! We shared the Saji Ya which is steak, chicken, and lobster. Luckily my wife doesn't like lobster so I got it all to myself! After dinner the family on the other side of the table started to pull our presents and we realized it was someone's birthday! How exciting! The camera came back out...who doesn't want their picture taken when opening presents, right!?! :-) The first present for Liz (who's name we learned AFTER taking her picture) was a DeWalt power drill...you heard that right. The second gift was a HUGE set of drill bits...later we find out that Liz, who looks maybe 20 but is 25, is a welder! After taking their pictures, the family opened up a lot more and we had some fun times chatting with them too.

The night was still young so we headed over to Dixie's (next door) for a nightcap with David and Trish. After some more fun times, it was time to head home and "rescue" Doug and Jeannie and put our little angel to sleep for the night. We got home at about 9:30 to find her sleeping in Jeannie's arms and she was DONE for the night. I put her in her sleep sack and she was out until early this morning. It was a nice end to our night to have our daughter already sleeping and staying asleep (which is NOT something she always does). We hope to have more nights like this, it was nice to have a night to ourselves to just enjoy one another like it was before Addison came into our lives. Thanks Doug and Jeannie for allowing us to have this night!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Our first party BACK in Minnesota

Living at your parents (or in laws in my case) has some restrictions (though Doug and Jeannie are GREAT about giving us our own space)...one of which is that its kind of hard to have big groups of people over when you are sharing someone's house. When we found out they were going to the UK to visit Patrick & Susan, we jumped at the opportunity to have friends over for a little shindig. What better time is there than celebrating the New Year!?!

We both love entertaining so throwing a party was something we were both super excited to do! We told everyone we'd take care of the food ourselves and we decided to do one of our favorite things...FONDUE! If you go out for Fondue, its like $50 a person, but really its MUCH cheaper to do yourself though there is some prep work involved. We had a cheese fondue and a chocolate fondue with lots of dipping options. It worked out great with the grazing atmosphere we were going with at the party.

Our new WiiFit even got a little use as people tried it out to see what the rage was about. Since many of our friends now have young children, they came and left whenever they needed to but we managed to still have 8 people (including us) still there as the ball dropped! It was a really fun night, so thanks to everyone that came by and spent their New Years Eve with us! I don't have any pictures but if anyone who came does, feel free to send them and I'll post them!!