First week at home

We survived our first week at home! Pete went to day care for 4 days and stayed with me on Friday, it went really well and I am planning on keeping him with me next week on Thursday adn Friday which will be really fun! He is mimicking noises like crazy which is cute and fun- he can make sounds like "up", "ball", "dog", "mam" "dad" "ooo" "eeek" Oh, well he does that one on his own. He loves to also play with the shades in our rooms lifting them to see outside and then puts them down.

Work was hard to start- things weren't working on computers and I didn't know how to do things, but life is slowly getting sorted out and I am ready to start to spend time working on getting to know the students and explaining concepts to them. I am not ready yet to say if I like the job or not for now.

I am working tonight at the restaurant, Garrick is doing another ski race this weekend and my parents are hopefully going to visit as well- It's been a few weeks since they have seen the munch. Hope you all are staying warm and enjoying the snow!

Stuffed Animals

Pete is so into stuffed animals this week- I find him in his crib playing with the lovies in the morning, he loves to roll around with them on the floor and he and Finn were fighting over a stuffed Poodle tonight...

We tried to take a picture with the bear, but this was the best one I could get. Seriously.

He loves to play with his farm puzzle, flipping open the doors, finding the animals, he loves when you make the noises for him and then of course chewing on the pieces.

Reading books

Anyone who has spent time at our house knows about Peter and his relationship with this book. I've blogged about it and now you all can experience it. I only wish I had started the video when he first grabbed the book to start reading- He squeals when he sees it and brings it to whoever is around... What a little munch!

Pete and I have had such a nice weekend at home! Garrick was away racing so we just got to hang out, CLEAN, read books and play. I feel like we have gotten a lot accomplished so far and that we had some fun too!

 In other big news, I am starting a new job this week. I am going to be working from home, teaching online! It was a long and hard decision to leave Bluffview, but I think that I eventually made the right one. I know that I am going to miss the kids, their families and my co-workers a lot, but I will be able to spend so much more time with Pete... I think that it will come out to my advantage! So that means that Petey will still be doing some day care during the week, but not as much. We are going to keep it the same for now so that I can figure it out, but we will most likely be going to 2 or 3 days a week depending on our schedule. I am so lucky to have Susan and have her be SO flexible with our crazy lives!

SO- That has been the big deal for the week, I am going to be super busy this week tying things up and starting over, but I know that I'll be able to do it and am looking forward to what is to come even though it is going to be very different.

One more time

Back by popular demand- I mean Grandma Mooze's demand- we have another take of Petey walking. Tonight he decided that pizza was more desireable than dad and made a detour for that instead!

Slip sliding away.

We don't know how he learned to do this, but Petey now turns around and goes down teh slide on hus tummy- most of the time- Sometimes he goes down sideways or face first- he also knows how to go down stairs backwards- which I know he learned at Susan's house. What a big boy!

A journey...

(there are 2 posts for today!) 

This was our starting point in our kitchen. Cool old cabinets that had a really low counter top, stains and a awesome old sink that was impossible to keep clean and unrealistic. Walls had never been painted and had grease stains and was the darkest and smallest room in the house. From this point we painted, fixed the sink so that it wasn't draining into a bucket (instead it drained into the basement floor drain via a sump pump hose) and put brighter lights in. This was useable for quite a while. THEN...

The cabinets were pulled out and put into the living room as our entertainment center.

We gutted the entire room (and the room above).

And things started to get put back together- we got a new sink, a dishwasher that you had to hold onto when unloading/loading dishes so that it didn't tip over and had a few little tables to use as our counters. This worked really well. All of those nights that I was working at the Blackhorse waitressing and bartending Garrick was working in the basement (or was at Menards hopefully spending less than I made) building me a beautiful kitchen. He also took down a 3 story chimney and ripped out the wall between the dining room and kitchen to make one huge beautiful room and added french doors going out to our fenced in backyard and has refinished all of the floors! (See post: My husband, the stripper)

This is the final set of cabinets that were installed this week. They still need doors, but they are SO nice! We just need to add a backsplash, a half-million doors and a few shelves above the stove.

Here is the almost finished product- (mom I realize I should have cleaned up a little before I took this pic, but oh well! I'll clean and get fruit and flowers when we are featured in This Old House)

Pretty nice, HUH?

Also, this was made for my ease so that I am no longer climbing up on the counters...

How lucky am I that I have a husband who can do all of this?

These boots are made for walkin.

We'd like to share some exciting news! Peter can walk! We spent the day with grandma walking back and forth 2 feet and then 3 feet and now 4 or 5 feet at a time. He still definetly prefers to crawl, but he just looks SO proud of himself once he makes it a few feet. I'm excited to see what tomorrow will bring! (Sorry that the movie quality is pretty low- it was dark in the room and we were just using the picture camera.)

wheelie buggin'

We were able to extend our Christmas all of the way to New Year's Day! Greg and Linka came to visit, play games and ski. It was SO cold that day, so we didn't ski, but we did the rest- it was just a really fun visit and we had so much fun with them and Petey loved showing off his favorite things!

Christmas with the Holey's

Petey got a wheelie bug for Christmas from Grandpa and Grandma Holey. He loves it, we love it- Scout- not not much! As you can see, Pete can now steer and can get where ever he wants to be whenever he wants to! His old puch toy wasn't on casters so he'd get stuck and have to back up and try again. He likes to go for rides on it too, but just can't quite touch the floor yet.

My winter clothes line!

Last weekend, when it was so cold we went to LaCrosse and made a stop at this store  (I was in heaven! Cloth diapers, all natural baby toys and fun clothes! We will be going back once I think of something that we need... Seriously, I could spend so much time and money here.) They had bumGenius, bummis covers and prefolds, and some fitted dipes. I loved seeing the newborn dipes- they would fit so much trimmer on an teeny baby like Petey was than what we used in the beginning.(Maybe someday...) They had also toys out for the babies to play with and one was a wheelie bug- Pete's eyes lit up- he knew exactly what to do with it. You could tell they were totally cool with the kids running all over the store. I think they also have classes and music groups- I can't wait until the summer when Peter and I can go and chill with the cool kids in LaCrosse Okay- enough about Cutie Patootie- BUT it was so cool! :)

-Raring to go-

This is what he looked like at the store- he was running over other babies that were bigger than him!

Our last night with our tree.

 Before we took to down, we let him crawl in it and play with all of the lights, stick them in his mouth (for just a second!) and get full of sap.

Finn and Peter- 10 months

At the end of break, Finn came over to play. Peter was a great share-er and let Finn play with his ball, slide and bat. They spent time watching eachother and Pete showed Finn how to slide- Finn was into it by the end of the visit- these little boys are going to be trouBBBle- if one doesn't know how to make mischief the other is going to teach!

I took this after church on Sunday. He loves to lay on the floor (or stand) and play with all of the tubes and cords (pump, computer, printer) and he knows that he isn't supposed to be doing this, but he just grins at me and waits for me to come and grab him- what a stinker!

Me and my Munch

I just love this little boy so much- I have been thinking about the past year and how much has changed. Sometimes when I'm talking to friends who don't have kids, I think how easy it is to do whatever, whenever- and that their lives at more exciting than mine- {I mean really- a diaper store is THAT cool?} but I don't mind that now I have to run at the Y since it's dark when Petey is in bed (Garrick is out skiing in the dark right now so that Lindsay and I could ski this afternoon), that dinner is rushed sometimes because he is done eating, that I didn't get a full night's sleep for a while- BUT I was grateful when we started to do that too at an early age, or that a great night is playing peek-a-boo, reading the Lorax, snuggling Peter to sleep and then playing a game and getting a good redbox!  We are so excited for the years to come with our little family- I am so blessed to have all 3 of my boys in my life (Scooter too!)!

Stay tuned for more excitement this year-looking back we've done a lot!

You are all in our thoughts and prayers every day!

warm inside!

have a great week!