The Northwoods Blog

HaHa!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:10:00 +0000

In my last post I said I would try to do updates more often... and here it's been an entire month yet again! Well, I have a new addiction - this used to be my addiction ;) Anyone who talks to me knows that now my obsession is all about cloth diapering... sewing, fabrics, and all that goes with it. My mom and sisters have probably gotten earfuls about wicking and absorbing fabrics... Anyway, what I've been up to lately is trying to turn that obsession into some kind of profit that may feed or offset my addiction to fabric ;) So I started an online store here: Beat's Boutique. Of course named after Beatrice. I actually set up the online store when I was pregnant with her :) and loved the nickname Beat. I never got around to listing anything to sell, but always had it in the back of my mind. I was just trying to find the perfect things to sell. My focus is going to be modern cloth diapers and diaper covers with some crocheted and knitted items as well, and hopefully some of the patterns I have designed for knit and crochet.

So that's what I've been up to lately ;)

Now on to the more important updates on the kids :)

Dylan started walking a few weeks ago! My earliest walker. I swear, days after he started walking he started dancing while walking! He's a climber too!! Beatrice Jr. ;)

Not much has changed with Duncan and Beatrice, except they just keep growing and talking more ;) They've really been enjoying being able to play outside - when it hasn't been raining of course!

Maria is glad to be out of school, but anxiously awaiting summer camp! She went with Mike last week on a canoe trip on the Brule River, they had tons of fun :) and only tipped the canoe once :)

I was going to upload some pics, but it was bogging down the internet connection... and really, haven't taken so many pics in the last month... I will upload some to facebook soon - doesn't seem to take as long or bog down our connection as much to upload pics there...

Is it Summer Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:47:00 +0000

Last week it was below freezing and snowing! And it rained most of last week... horrible weather. But this week kicked off with 80-90 degree weather!! Thank goodness because the little ones have been chomping at the bit to get outside and play!!!

Various cute pics snapped over the last month or two:

Dylan takes his eating very seriously, and isn't afraid to get down and dirty! :)

What a ham :)

Dylan LOVES the swing!!

Beatrice with a few of her babies

More messy eating!

Playing with some Mr. Potato Head pieces :)

Series of funny Duncan faces...

Everyone is doing very well here these days. Of course the last couple of days all 3 little ones have been sick :( But were feeling good enough to get outside again today :)

Dylan will probably be walking very soon! He has been pretty brave and standing on his own a lot lately. He's already quite the climber! He will climb up and stand on the rails of his walker, or he'll push it from the outside walking around with it. He's pretty fast! He's great at crawl-chasing down Beatrice. He's going to give her some troubles once he starts walking! He has a great appetite and usually screams for what everyone else is eating!

Beatrice is just little miss attitude - quite the drama queen! She is talking so much these days! She's pretty silly :) If you tell her she's silly she'll say "No, I not silly, I just Beasris" then if you say "Oh, you're Beatrice?" she'll say "No, I just baby sisser." She's still in love with Dora - she's even counting to ten in Spanish! :)

Duncan is about the same as always ;) continually finding his "new" ways to do things ;) He has been surprising us by expanding his diet! The other night he actually ate an entire regular taco as well as the 3 or 4 taquitos I had made him since he won't usually eat tacos :)

Maria is (as usual) doing great in school! Her class had a trip to Copper Falls State Park today, she was really looking forward to it! She is doing great with the saxophone. She went and tried out for the state honors band last month. She didn't make it, but it was a great experience for her, and she enjoyed the trip to Eau Claire.

Mike is busy making plans for summer activities at work. He received his second MS this year from the U of I, as he couldn't continue with that PhD program. He was accepted to Colorado State University's online Community College Leadership PhD program! We are pretty excited about that :) Luckily most of his graduate credits are transferring. And the nice thing is that the college is about an hour away from Josh & Anne, so we are going to go along for Mike's residency requirement this fall to visit with them! :)

I've just been busy doing tons of crazy stuff as usual ;) Mostly trying to find time to sew diapers and covers :) I switched to cloth diapering a few months ago and have been using mostly prefolds and wool or fleece covers that I've made. I've made some diapers too, but need to get some more made :) I won't bore you with the pics here ;) but I do have a lot of pics on facebook here. I've been having fun going to garage sales for the past few weeks hunting wool sweaters to make recycled wool bum sweaters ;)

Well, I think that's most of what we've been up to lately! I'll try to post more often! :)

Major Festive Weekend!!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Maria's 13th birthday was Saturday and Easter today! :) So we've been doing much celebrating and much sugar consuming! ;)

Maria is now a teenager!! She's been counting the days since about Christmas! ;) She's very excited to finally be a teenager!

The Easter egg hunt this morning was fun! Little Beatrice turned out to be a pro egg finder! She actually found one first thing with all the lights out.

Now all the kids are on a complete and total sugar high. Including Dylan. I don't know why I continue with the cinnamon roll Easter breakfast ritual - it's too much!! :) Dylan had some of my cinnamon roll and then demolished a peep ;) He just gets so happy when he gets to eat stuff that everyone eats.

I know, I haven't updated this blog in forever!!! I had been busy on Facebook. But I've even slacked off on facebook lately. Incidentally, I'm going to try to upload some new photos there within the next day or two. It's too much work to upload them here and re-arrange them and all that... ;) and y'all know I'm pretty lazy ;)

Anyway, the kids are all doing great - it never ceases to amaze me how quickly they grow!! Dylan is already crawling and pulling himself up and cruising around the furniture! And he's moving up to cut up solid foods like bananas, mac & cheese and spaghetti o's ;)

Beatrice is talking like nobody's business! She's so funny too :) Last weekend Uncle Pat stopped over and when she saw him she said "what's up?" She knows she's funny too :)

Duncan, well he's about the same :) Learning and piecing things together every day. The other day at the dinner table he asked me if I was going to grow another person out of my tummy! Haha!!!

Maria - she's about the same too - but a year older ;) She's doing great in band, had a blast with basketball, and doing well in school (as always!). She's going to try-outs for state honors band the weekend of May 1st!

Mike is busy making plans and gathering wood for the tree house! :)

And I am busy being obsessed with things cloth diaper related - especially wool diaper covers ;) I won't go into much detail, so as not to bore you all to tears ;) I am also teaching a 3 week workshop for the next 3 Fridays on business writing :) Should be fun!

So there you have it :) Hopefully I will get pics posted on facebook within the next couple of days.

Goings Ons and such...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:37:00 +0000

Not much new here... just figured I would get around to posting some pictures sooner than later... Dylan just seems to be growing leaps and bounds by the day! As do all of the children! He's doing great with eating the solids, even some baby finger foods. He thinks he's so big ;) He's been sitting up by himself and loving all the attention from the others. They are constantly handing him toys and playing with him.

He loves checking Duncan's computer ;)

Duncan has been busy learning how to draw letters - here is his first and second attempt at writing his name :)

Beatrice is a little swiper ;) Always taking Duncan's drinks.

Duncan has been obsessed with checking his computers. He's finally able to play some of the learning games on them.

And who says you can have too many Dora dolls?

Mmmm. Loves eating!

Relaxing with Daddy

More checking of the computer

Baby brother is really into it too!

Awwww ;) too cute!

Happy Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:28:00 +0000

Oh my it has been too long yet again! The holidays are almost over, here it is New Year's Eve day! Time is just flying by so fast. And as usual the kids are keeping me pretty busy!
Sadly I just didn't have time to do my usual Christmas crochet :( Hopefully I will be able to start early for next year. I love doing it and missed it this year.
But otherwise Christmas was really good around here. Both Duncan and Beatrice were really excited about Santa coming! They helped decorate the Christmas tree :) Of course Beatrice was obsessed with touching it and swiping the candy canes off!
We didn't wrap most of the presents until the day of Christmas Eve, which I felt guilty about, but in reality it was probably the best because it just about drove poor Beatrice to the brink :) I can't imagine trying to keep her from the presents for a week or so...
Santa brought the kids lots of goodies :) They were all overjoyed with what Santa brought them and what they got from relatives.
I uploaded almost 100 pics to facebook, and since I'm horribly lazy and seem to be lacking in the time area, I will just post the link here and you should be able to go look at all of our holiday fun without having to sign up! ;) Click here to see them.

It was a busy year for us, and as it draws to a close... we are optimistic about what the new year will have in store.

Maria has had a great year at school. She really enjoys school and does really well. Her grades are always good. She is still playing the sax and loving it. She is also playing basketball this year! She's really excited about that. She got some nice basketball shoes for Christmas. She's been going out hunting with Mike and enjoy it; she enjoys just about anything outdoors.

Duncan has been completely potty trained since about October! Once he made up his mind, that was it. Pretty much since the school year started I've been doing pre-school worksheets with him. He enjoys it and can't seem to get enough! I will most likely homeschool the youngest 3. There is a charter school in Hayward that works with homeschooling families. He's grown into a little man: absorbing, learning, discovering, interacting and talking nonstop about everything :) His favorites are still "Cars," Spiderman and Batman. Pretty much in that order. He's an undying fan of Lightning McQueen!

Beatrice has just grown leaps this year! She's talking quite clearly. She can sing her ABCs and can count to 17 or 18. She loves Spongebob, Boog ("open season"), Dora, and the Backyardigans (especially the Volcano Sisters). She's still quite the adventurous climber! And she has quite the collection of Dora dolls - and they all have to be in bed with her :) She's a real sweetheart.

Baby Dylan is doing great. He's pretty much over the colic stage. He sprouted his two bottom teeth a few weeks ago (an early teether!) And he's been eating like crazy! We started him on solids at about 5mos. He loves his peas, bananas and pears. He's still up in the air about apples and does not like carrots. He will only eat rice cereal if it has something else in it ;) otherwise he spits it right out. We got him a walker for Christmas since he's so hot to get in on the action with Duncan and Beatrice! But he's got the DeMarr legs ;) he can't quite reach the floor yet. But he did figure out that if he leans over all the way to one side he can reach the ground with his toes and scoot it a little bit. So he's got some big DeMarr brains too ;)

Mike is doing well with his job change :) Same place, slightly better job. He's getting along pretty good there. He's been out hunting quite a bit this year and having fun with that.

And I've been up to pretty much the same stuff as always. Trying to stay sane amidst chaos ;) Can't say that it's a boring job. Most days present some new journey or adventure. I am just thankful that I'm able to stay at home with the kids.

Here's hoping that you all have something wonderful in store for the new year! Happy New Year!!

Happy Turkey Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:35:00 +0000

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a wonderfully relaxing one around here! Full of parades and Turkey and pie! And once again, having issues with the new post editor, and just have no time to really mess around with arranging pictures and stuff, one of these days I will figure it all out and be able to do a somewhat coherent post with pictures in the right places and all ;) Until then, forgive the out of order pics and text.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Mmmm.

Monkeys, Ghouls and Astronauts

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:51:00 +0000

The kids were really excited for Halloween this year! We let them pick out their own costumes. Duncan had originally picked out Captain America, which was really cute, but Mike got him a really cool flight suit from the Air and Space Museum on his trip to DC, so Duncan was anxious to be an Astronaut.

Beatrice loved her ghouly costume ;) though she didn't want to leave the mask on, and the gloves we ended up pinning to her shoes because she didn't want to leave those on either! Dylan was a monkey. Maria decided not to dress up at the last moment, she was going to be a vampire, but the fake blood tasted awful ;) They all had tons of fun trick-or-treating and then we all had fun eating a bunch of candy when we got home!!

Gettin' Ready for Halloween! :)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:57:00 +0000

I've been up to taking tons and tons of pictures again ;) Well, I guess I always have, but it just seems like the kids are always up to something cute these days. And I keep forgetting that uploading photos isn't as much of a hassle as it used to be.. so get ready for major cuteness! ;)

A super sweet hug ;)

Dylan's turn to get Beatrice

And back to her turn

These two have also been up to wearing out the "Time Out" bench!

Uh, yeah, we had our first snow of the season already. On October 10th!! Of course it melted pretty quickly. Then we've had a few more days of flurries and such... Grrr...

Sitting together watching TV :)

These days she loves hats, as long as I don't *want* her to wear one!

Sharing a little chair ;) And there's Maria in the background, reading one of the Twilight books for about the millionth time!! We're anxiously awaiting the next movie coming out next month!

Duncan fell asleep with his Lightning McQueen hat on

He's been having fun helping Dylan with tummy time

Look at that smile!! Flirt!

Beatrice also likes everyone else's shoes... won't leave her own on

In the process of making some festive wear for Dylan!

That Dora pillow is about as big as Beatrice! I've actually mistaken it for her in bed a few times!

Ah... the sling ;)

And I just made this one last night! It's a wrap, more hands free than the pouch type sling (above) and it holds him all close and snug :) He actually slept in it the whole way through the store today (which only took about 3 hours!)

I was really tempted to post pictures of Duncan and Beatrice in their Halloween costumes! But I'll wait until Halloween. We let them pick out their own costumes this year - they had a lot of fun picking them out and trying them on. And they are really looking forward to trick-or-treating! Maria decided to dress up this year - can you guess what she's going to be?

Fall Already?

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:49:00 +0000

Amazingly we've already had a couple of hard freezes here! Brrr!! And the leaves have been falling for at least a couple of weeks now. Seems hard to believe that it is that time of year again already.

Things have been busy and chaotic around here as usual. But I finally decided a baby sling was in order ;) And it's helped me to actually be able to do a few more things on a daily basis. Dylan is still colicky, but he's becoming more manageable. Especially if I carry him around all day in his sling!

We actually harvested some of our apples from the apple tree in the backyard this year! We were able to harvest enough to make 6 pies before the hard freeze! We plan on being more on top of it next year!

Beatrice is as rambunctious as ever these days :) She's talking more and more clearly by the day! I actually caught her counting to 14 under her breath the other day, thinking no one was listening to her! ;)

Maria is getting excited about her friend's annual Halloween party next weekend! But she is now "officially" too old to dress up ;)
Dylan has this little tuft of hair that will not stay down! We think it looks like Ed Grimley from SNL (80s?).
Duncan has been doing a great job with the potty training! And he's really looking forward to trick-or-treat this year!

Sweet :)

Getting to be so big!

All the kids are still pretty sweet on baby brother :)

Beatrice thought he might like to play with a couple of her Dora dolls!

And how about a funny one? Beatrice eating lunch ;)

The Life and Times of a 4-year old and Other Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:41:00 +0000

My first baby boy turned 4 years old last week!! (and I'm finally posting the pics!) It's hard to believe he's 4 already! It seems like just yesterday he was the baby of the house... ;)

Look at those dimples :)

Baby Sister LOVED the birthday cake, she's been asking for birthday cake every night since!

Eatin' a little cake and tellin' a little story...

It was a funny one ;)

Time for the presents!!
Woo Hoo it's the SpongeBob pole he's been after :)

Can you tell he likes Cars?

Maria got him to pose with some of his presents! ;) Cheesy smiles and all!

Lounging in his new Cars chair

Maria has been busy taking a lot of other pictures, and she's gotten some pretty good ones!

Just hanging around with my big sis :)

Beatrice sneaking a seat and brushing Dora's hair (sorry but it's just not going to help!)

We've been working on potty training with Duncan, he has good days and bad days. But as you can see he had a pretty good week! We started the chart on Monday, but after the first couple of days he just kind of started sticking them where he wanted - the stickers there are just from Monday through Thursday.

Beatrice decided to take a gander at the sale ads.

I think she's looking for a job ;)

Bye Bye Summer :(

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:34:00 +0000

We actually spent some time playing in the yard last week, as it will probably be one of the last weeks for it! We actually had a frost warning last night! :( and for the next couple of nights as well.

This is Maria's idea of playing in the yard ;)

He was actually pulling her around the yard for a bit, but of course as soon as I got the camera she was pretty much done.

Hanging out inside watching a movie :)

And now some new baby pictures ;)

Amazingly was able to catch some pics of him smiling! :) He's been doing that for a couple of weeks now and is actually laughing! :)

Now I'm off to go dig out some winter clothes for the kids :*( This summer went by way too fast!!

Two Amazing Months!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Well, it's been forever since I've updated this blog!! I have tons of pictures that I have been totally itching to post... some of them will have to wait, so you are only getting the 2 that I was able to upload a month ago and a bunch of pictures from the last couple of weeks - most of them taken by Maria :)

I finally figured out my uploading problem: my camera hates me. Seriously, it is something funky with my camera. I can get them onto the computer with no problems. When it comes to uploading to the blog or facebook, I can only get a picture to upload half the time - I have to try most of them 2 or 3 times, and only one at a time... which is why I've been so awful about posting pictures! It was taking all day! I finally discovered that my picture file sizes were monsterously huge, so I shrunk them down to a little over 300k (they had been almost 3meg each!). But I was met with the same issues. Maria had taken a bunch of pics of Beatrice's b-day, and I had taken a few with her camera (which is our old [not so nice] one!) and guess what, no photo issues whatsoever! I was able to upload them 5 at a time!!! And the real kicker? The file size for those pictures was a little over 1meg. 3 times the size of the 300k pics! So I'm perplexed, but downgrading back to our old camera, and letting Maria use the fancier one.

That being said: get ready for tons of pics! I was so excited about being able to upload pics that I forgot about doing them in reverse order, so bear with me this first time, it's a tedious task to rearrange all the pics once you have a bunch of them posted...

Anyway, Dylan is growing like crazy! He's probably getting close to 12lbs, and he's already smiling AND laughing!! He's a very happy and social baby when he's not colicky. And he just really loves listening to the other kids talk. His first smiles were for Beatrice and Maria.

We finally broke down and cut Duncan's hair! He wanted to grow it long like Dad's, but he's such a sweat-head and it was in his eyes all the time. You could just tell he was annoyed by it.

Look at how long it was :)

I told him to smile for me and I got a couple of funny smiles ;)His first shave! ;) He had some wicked sideburns!Look at that pile of hair!!Beatrice turned 2 a couple of weeks ago!! It's amazing how fast time flies. Not too long ago she was my little baby girl, and now she's starting to talk a lot more and speak really well!

And look at those curls!

The girl is completely obsessed with Dora! *and notice how nice the new Dora's hair looks...

Aw :)

She's already starting to comb the hair...And here is what Dora looked like the next day... *now her hair is exactly like all her other Doras, dread-locked! :)

And finally, the 2 pictures I was able to upload a month ago but never posted...

All the kids!!

And Dylan at just a few weeks old ;)

I'll have to post more of his first couple of months later when I can shrink them...

This summer went by way too fast! Maria and Emma had a great time at camp and want to go again next year. Even though the summer went too fast Maria has been looking forward to school starting next week. And in a month or so when Duncan is ready for pre-school he will be joining her.

Anyway, phew... I promise I won't wait so long before updating again! ;)

First Week and a Half :)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Things are going really well, and everyone is adjusting to our new little addition.

Amazingly, Duncan and Beatrice are really quite taken with Dylan. Baby sister is really sweet on him and likes to kiss his head and rub his hair. She calls him "baby mine." Duncan is super full of questions about what he can and can't do, and what he has and what he's doing. He also loves to count his fingers and toes :)

Dylan's first bath :) He wasn't too thrilled with the experience ;)

Beatrice making Dad hold her babies ;)Running off with her dolls ;)

Welcome Dylan James!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:08:00 +0000

Dylan James was born tonight at 6:36pm, weighing in at 6lbs 13oz (Mike totally called it ;) I think he guessed 6lbs 11oz or 6lbs 12ozs). The last ultrasound was estimating him weighing 7lbs 11oz (and I was pretty much thinking it was pretty close to accurate). He measured 19" long :)

We got to the hospital a little after 7am, the Dr was able to break my water at 8:45, but unfortuantely I just didn't progress much after walking around and such. So we started pitocin around 2pm and it was still a little slow going until 3:30-4pm or so.

At first we thought he looked just like Duncan, but then saw some features similar to Beatrice :) he looks like both of them :) He has some looks that look just like Duncan and some that look like Beatrice ;)

Both Dylan and I are doing well and looking forward to having the kids meet their new baby brother!

Updates (finally!)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:26:00 +0000

Once again, it's been an entire month since I've posted anything here!! Time just gets away from me ;) That and I was busy with teaching classes... Finals week was last week, so now I may have a little more time for blogging...

Updates on the kids:

Maria is doing great, getting good grades as usual :) She scored well on the Wisconsin tests, so she gets a day off of school, but as usual she decided to go that day anyway because there will be food and a party or something :) She's starting to get pretty excited about going to camp this summer!

Duncan is doing good too, potty training is going pretty well. And Maria and I have been working with him on his ABC's, counting, shapes and colors and he's getting pretty good! Here's a video clip of him singing his ABC's ;)

Here's another one where Beatrice joins in a little at the beginning. I was going to cut the video because then Duncan starts pretending like he doesn't know the alphabet song, but I'm not too skilled with the videos yet --- something to work on.

Every morning when Duncan gets up and says he has to go potty, Beatrice will jump out of bed and race him to the potty chair. We got her a potty chair of her own and she has been joining him in the mornings anyway. They may end up being potty trained around the same time!

It's just amazing how fast they grow! Beatrice started climbing up the slide on her own the other day, and she just loves it! She's starting to say a little more, but then she has her little interpreter, so she's been a little slower in talking.

And we only have about 5 weeks to go before my due date now! With the gestational diabetes I have to go in weekly for non-stress tests, ultrasounds and Dr appointments... 3 hour extravaganzas! We had our first one yesterday and everything is looking good! Baby weighs about 5lbs 11oz right now (completel average), so it looks like baby won't be huge ;) Probably somewhere around the high 7s or 8lbs?

The weather is finally turning here! Last Sat and Sun it frosted and it actually flurried Sunday morning!! But then it got up to almost 90 degrees a few days ago! Crazy weather! But it seems like the next week or so should be in the 70s! :)

Other than that, we are just looking forward to all the visitors that will be up here within the next couple/few weeks!

Easter and other things...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:16:00 +0000

Finally decided to sit down and take the time to upload some photos! Tons of them! ;)

These first couple are from Maria's birthday. Duncan joined in singing Happy Birthday :)

Sugar high from the birthday cake!

Duncan curled up on the couch napping with Sally.

Now here's an interesting sleeping position.

Mike and Maria got to go see some boiling of the sap - Maple sugaring time. This first picture shows an older method of boiling.

And this one is a newer method.

Mike and Duncan sitting in the tree.

Look at all those eggs!

And the Hunt is on!

Maria's Easter Basket had a saxophone playing bunny ;)

Easter candy sugar high coming on!

The kids have been really digging playing in the yard!

We spent Easter weekend and the whole following week outside! It got up to 74 degrees on Friday! Then of course went down to the low 60s on Sat, and Sunday this weekend?? Yep, it was below 30 and snowing!!! Crazy! But we're hoping that's the end of it! Looking for warmer weather to stick around from here on out. Until at least October ;)

The Latest Greatest ;)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:33:00 +0000

Has it really been that long since I posted??? Time is just absolutely flying by! Most of the reason I haven't posted anything in so long is because I am still having issues uploading photos, which got much worse after I upgraded to IE8... I think it has to do with our internet service provider, so one of these days when I have an hour or so to spare I will have to call and try to figure it out!

In the meantime...

Maria has been busy with school and Twilight and being bored (as per her usual myspace status updates, which usually say something about being bored!) :) She turned 12 at the beginning of this month! I tried really hard to upload photos the next day, but turned out to be a big disappointment... She had a very Twilight birthday, which she enjoyed. It seems like just yesterday she was turning 11!

Duncan is about ready for his summer hair-cut! Its amazing how fast his hair grows! We are working on potty training, and its going fairly decent. I think he's pretty ready. He's been just loving playing outside! Its the first thing he asks about every morning. And he never seems to want to come in.

Beatrice.. well she's still as full of attitude as ever ;) She's starting to talk a bit more. And harrass her big brother. She's getting some curl to what little hair she has :) And she has also been really digging the outside play! I always have to drag her kicking and screaming inside when its time to come in.

Mike is busy preparing stuff for his big research trip at the end of May. He did a guest lecture at Purdue a few weeks ago. Actually, we all went with and visited a family friend. It was a really good trip. And with the purchase of a portable DVD player, the kids did excellent on the trip!

Me? I'm just pretty much big and tired :) Already at that "hard to get comfy" stage of pregnancy. Its just hard to believe that I only have about 2 months to go! This pregnancy has just really flown by.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures soon! Until then, hope everyone is doing well!

Busy-ness ;)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:48:00 +0000

As usual, we've been really busy! ;) And amazingly I haven't taken too many pictures this month... I usually average somewhere around 250-300 pictures a month, this month its been more like 100.

This month has been all full up on appointments... It took 3 appointments to get our taxes done... then well child check ups and then ultrasound up in Duluth and my regular dr. apts... Beatrice's well child went great, she's gained about 6 lbs and grown 4 inches! She's in the 50th percentile for height and weight now :) Funny, beacuse she doesn't seem like she's grown that much to us.
And the ultrasound in Duluth went well, everything is looking good :) And for those that haven't heard the news yet, new baby DeMarr is a boy. And he is measuring right on with the due date: June 27th.

I will have to have Mike post some pics on his blog of the fieldwork he's been out doing. Maria's been going with him on Saturdays up to the forest to set up camera stations. They've had to snowshoe, and they've been having a blast.

Duncan is still holding tight to Christmas! :) He's been singing Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the "shiney" nose... but he's also been singing a lot of other songs lately, its too cute ;) He'll sing about just about anything! And even though we rarely watch it, he knows pretty much the whole Barney song! ;)

Anyway, here is a few pics I've taken lately:

Cheers!

Maria was picked as student of the month!! :) We're so proud of her. She got a nice certificate and a $10 gift certificate to the local convienience store. She was thrilled.

Practicing for the new baby. We're big on child labor around here ;)

We've been visited by a wolf a few times this winter. The first couple of times we only saw the tracks in the snow the next morning. Then one morning while we were making coffee we saw this huge black animal standing in the middle of the road. It was so big that we both first thought of a bear, but of course the bears are still hibernating... it was a wolf. And then we saw him again last night in the middle of our big snowstorm, he was running across the road just down from our house. One night we set up one of the motion activated cameras, that Mike is using for work, to see if we could catch him on camera - but of course he didn't show up that night.

So, that's what's been going on around here these days ;)

Loads of pics ;)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Just thought I would share some recent pictures... We've been pretty busy around here with classes starting up and such...

Mike was interviewed by someone at News from Indian Country, you can read the story and watch the interview here.

Looks like someone's plotting something...

Of course Beatrice will not leave a hat on if someone else puts it on her, but if she puts it on herself she thinks hat wearing is pretty cool

Maria reading one of the Twilight books :)

Look at that cheesy grin! :) He's posing.

Duncan trying on Daddy's socks ;) They're a little big.

Total blackmail picture for when he's a teenager ;) trying on baby sister's tights!

Double drinkers

If ya got an extra drawer hanging around, here's something fun you can do with it

Beatrice just loves the Mr. Weenie we got with Open Season 2, she's been carrying it around ever since. Of course she calls it Sally as it looks just like our little weenie dog Sally :)

Snow, Glorious Snow

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:43:00 +0000

I promised some pictures of the kids playing in the snow last time... and yes its taken me forever... but finally here they are! And now of course we have about twice as much snow... these were taken a few weeks ago before the temps plummeted to the -20 to -36 range... yes -36 is our low so far for this year. At least the schools were closed that day. I think they close when it gets below -24.

Other than being cold, we've been pretty busy lately with the semester starting back up at the community college. Mike is teaching an Environmental Science course as well as doing his research, which will take him back up to the forest in a week or so. And I am teaching two classes this semester, one an English Comp class and the other one is Intro to Higher Ed, which is study skills and such.

We hope everyone else is doing well! And staying warm!! :)

Maria showing Beatrice snow :)

Getting tired and wondering what to do next

Of course Duncan was all over the place having a ball!

Maria showing Beatrice how to make Snow Angels

Attempting to walk around

Remind anyone of "A Christmas Story"?

Learning the fine art of eating snow.

Just about done

Yep, totally done

Rice Lake Makes Headlines

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:36:00 +0000

Too funny. On Monday's Jay Leno show one of his "headlines" was from Rice Lake (about 40 miles from us - we go there for shopping once in a while) about a dog on the freeway that kept outrunning the police. They featured the story on the local news here on Wednesday, and you can read it here.

Other than that, things have been pretty calm and relaxing around here. Maria has been completely obsessed with reading the Twilight series of books. I hate to admit it, but she's got me interested in the series too. While the writing is a tad on the substandard side, the story is pretty engaging... if you like vampires that is ;)

One of these days I will get around to uploading more pictures... its just such a slow going process. I have some really cute ones of the kids playing in the snow, I will try to get them up within a few days here :)

Until then, I hope everyone is doing well and that you all have recovered from the holidays! :)

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:17:00 +0000

Me and Maria actually made it up till midnight :) and we celebrated with some bubbly juice and butterscotch sugar cookies ;)

Mike actually beat me to a New Year's post, or an End of Year Blog and he summed everything up beautifully. I just can't top it ;)

I hope everyone had an exciting New Year's Eve and here's to 2009! Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:24:00 +0000

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! And we wish you all a happy New Year!

Here are a few pictures we took on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...

Beatrice voluntarily wearing the antlers ;)

Duncan in his new Batman jammies "checking" his Lightning McQueen Computer

Beatrice giving her baby doll a kiss

Playing with her Little People Castle

The paper was just as fun as the presents :)

Christmas Card

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:08:00 +0000

Well, here is our anxiously awaited Christmas card! ;) If you are lucky enough to be on our list, I am mailing them out today! I'm so behind!! ;) So I hope you will get them at least on Christmas Eve ;) If not, here it is.

Believe it or not, this one was the best of the bunch. We had to take at least 20 pictures. This was only about the second one we took, they didn't get any better... ;)

noreply@blogger.com (Kristin) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:44:00 +0000

Maria playing the saxophone at her winter concert last night :) the band did an awesome job!
Somehow the video of the winter concert ended up at the bottom of this post...

My favorite picture over the last few weeks... Daddy's gettin all kinds of love :)

Beatrice all bundled up :)

View of the snow from the front porch

And from the back porch

Ah... sharing the chair so nicely

The kids have been watching Shrek The Halls quite a bit, so dragging around their Shrek dolls. Apparently the big one is Mommy Shrek and the small one is Daddy Shrek... probably because Duncan knows who wears the pants in the family! ;)

Simultaneous Shrek chewing.

Duncan's Spiderman Hat! :) (that he wore for maybe a day before he went back to his "hawiian" superhero hat).

And here are the eagerly anticipated videos of Maria's winter concert... The first one is her announcing the song! She was so excited to be able to do that :) and the next one is the first song they did - "winter wonderland," and then the last one is the ending of the song she announced - "Do you hear what I hear."