A Great Check-up

Earlier this week we had Brecken's NICU Follow-Up Appointment down at Children's, and we only heard great news! They did a thorough evaluation using the Bayley's scale of infant/toddler development, and Brecken came out almost at his actual age for all categories. In Language usage, he actually came out a tiny bit ahead of his age. They said, "He is just a gem!" and "He is the kind of kid that helps our hospital statistics!" (They keep stats on all the preemies and run reports of the different hospitals. Children's is one of the top hospitals in the NATION for survival rates of the tiniest preemies, and were surely blessed to have that hospital so close to us!) He will return to Children's for one final eval in another year to check his speech, but I don't really anticipate any problems ;)

Way to go, Brecken! Your Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you!

A Fun Weekend with Friends

This past weekend we went up to my parents' cabin with some friends of ours. My parents weren't around because my dad was Muskie fishing up on Lake of the Woods, so we thought it would be fun to have some friends join us at the lake. We invited another couple and their identical twin 2-year-old girls (who were also preemies) up to the lake. They have taken their daughters to Germany twice (to visit Esther's family), but they've otherwise never taken them on an overnight stay. Esther and I left Friday morning with all 3 kids, and the guys joined us after work on Friday night. The trip up went very well despite the fact that we essentially had THREE 2-year-olds in the back seat, plus I was pulling my dad's boat behind which I've never done before! We had lots of fun together even though the weather didn't cooperate with us on Saturday. We headed home on Saturday evening and all in all it was a great trip that we hope to repeat again sometime! Maybe it could be repeated without me getting vomited on though ;) You can read Esther's version of the weekend on her blog http://estherslittlewonders.blogspot.com/2011/08/weekend-at-lake-cabin.html I think the vomit incident honestly bothered them more than it did me! I was happy to help out and allow them to miss out on one of the MANY puking incidents they have in their house!

Here is a video of the kids running wild when we first arrived:

And here are some photos:

3 preemies, 3 miracles, now great friends!

Resorting to "Baby Genius" while it's pouring buckets outside

Fun Memories

A week ago, we spent the weekend up at my parents' cabin with almost all of my dad's side of the family. We do it one weekend every year, and it's always a GREAT time! We get pretty crazy at times, and sometimes I wonder what the in-laws are thinking (mainly D.J. and my cousin's wife, Amanda). They're probably thinking hmmmm...I don't think I realized how crazy this family is! Anyway, I just have to share this video from that weekend, but first I'll fill you in on the background...so about 2 weeks ago, I decided to teach/show Brecken how to roll down the hill in our backyard. Well he LOVED it, but what he loves MORE is getting Mommy to roll down the hill :) Now almost every time we go outside, he grabs my hand says, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" and points at the ground. Well the weekend at the cabin was no different. He got me to roll down the hill, then pretty soon he added Daddy. Guess who was next? "Bucka" (that's grandpa)! Brecken grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the hill. But what was even more funny was that he kept getting more and more people, but he didn't let the first people quit. We all had to roll down the hill every time! Here is the video of the final roll down the hill with all of the people that he slowly added one by one. You can see that I thought I was off the hook since I had already rolled down at least 3 times, but ohhhh no, he insisted that we ALL go down together.

Here are a few pictures from that weekend:

The Back-rub train

Happy 25th Anniversary, Kevin & Marcia!

Fishing with "Day" (Uncle David)

A Nice Weekend at Home

We do have fun on our weekend travels, but boy is it nice to just stay home once in awhile! Friday evening we went out to dinner with some other couples from church. On Saturday we spent much of the day doing a major cleaning/reorganizing of the garage.

BUT later in the afternoon we had lots of fun at the Sherburne County Fair. At the fair, we met up with our neighbors, the Bengstons, and some other friends, the Dixons. The kids all went on rides, and we spent some time at the petting zoo as well. Check out the pictures (I finally took a few extra minutes to explore this site and figured out how to add photos and videos. It was super easy, but I just never took the time to try it before.  I've also gone back and added pictures and a couple videos to previous posts if you scroll down.)

Brecken and our neighbor riding the boats

Today we went to the Twins game. It was definitely hot and sticky, but they won so all is well :)

Our 5th Anniversary!

Dinner at Grizzly's

Our 5 year anniversary was this past Friday. 5 years - Can you believe it?! I feel like a 5 year anniversary qualifies us as old marry folks now - haha, but it definitely means we're no longer newlyweds! We celebrated by having a mini-stay (2 nights) at Cragun's resort in Brainerd. Brecken spent the time at my parents cabin just north of Brainerd, as they spent the whole week of July 4th up there. He had a blast swimming and fishing, but he was sure happy to see us when we got to the cabin on Saturday! While we were at Cragun's, we got massages, laid on the beach, went canoeing, and had a nice dinner out on Friday. It was very relaxing and it was nice to have some time just the two of us.

Happy Anniversary, DJ. I would marry you again in a heartbeat! :)

Happy Independence Day!

I hope you all had a great weekend! We spent Friday night at the Twins game with the Hoelscher family. Brecken stayed home with a baby-sitter, and it was his first time with a "real" (non-relative) baby-sitter. I was pretty nervous about it since Brecken is very skeptical of "strangers" right now, but he did GREAT! The only bad part was that the tornado sirens went off and our patio table was shattered from the storm, so  it was quite an eventful night. The start of the Twins game was delayed about 2 hours due to the weather, so we were only able to stay for about 4 innings.

Then Saturday we headed up to Osakis to celebrate the 4th with the Hoelschers and their family friends, the Schorn  family. We went for pontoon rides, played bean bags, and Brecken had lots of fun in the kiddie pool with his friends Hank and Charlie. (He actually got to hang out with some boys instead of his many girlfriends ;)

Brecken and "Bucka" (Grandpa)

Brecken and his buddy, Charlie

Brecken and "Gamma"

We came home late Sunday night hoping that Brecken would sleep on the way home. Well of course he didn't fall asleep until about 30 minutes before we got home :( Luckily at least he stayed asleep when DJ transferred him to his crib, AND he slept in until 8:30 this morning :)

Today DJ mowed the lawn and we had some extra family time which included a trip out for ice cream :)

Ice Cream at Culver's (DQ was closed :(

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

We're going to head out on the deck to enjoy the fireworks of the neighborhood.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day (a little late) to all the dads out there! D.J. - you are an INCREDIBLE dad, and Brecken and I are so blessed to have you in our lives!

We had a little surprise to end our Father's Day (perhaps an extra Father's Day "gift" for D.J.?) So after our crazy weekend, we got home around 7:30 after the evening church service. Then we still had to do a quick bath and have D.J. open his gifts. Well apparently Brecken was so excited to be home that he wanted to play with the toys he missed instead of going to bed. Brecken has almost always been very easy to put down for bed. We read stories, then say our prayers, turn on the mobile and noise machine, and walk out without ever hearing another peep out of him. Last night?...not so much! We put Brecken down a little before 8:30 (about 30 min later than normal) We walked out of the room and about 30 seconds later he started screaming bloody-murder. We quickly went in to see what was the matter (I was thinking maybe he had gotten his leg stuck through the crib slats like he used to when he was younger), but he was perfectly fine and just screaming like I've never heard him scream before! We did what we almost never do and picked him up from his crib to try and calm him down. He calmed down, so we put him back in and walked out of the room. He started screaming again, but this time we figured we'd let him cry a few minutes before showing our face again. Well I got about to the kitchen, and all of a sudden that crying noise started getting closer and closer! Sure enough, Brecken had climbed out of his crib! We were absolutely SHOCKED to say the least because he never even stands up in his crib when he wakes up. He normally just talks to himself in his crib until we come and lift him up. We eventually got him calmed down again, but it took quite awhile since he is now scared of his crib because he fell out! DJ quickly lowered the crib one more notch to the lowest setting, but I think Brecken could still easily get out if he's ever that mad again! We had lowered the crib when he first started sitting and pulling to stand, but we've just left it one notch from the bottom because like I said before...we've never even seen him stand up in his crib until we get right next to the crib, let alone make any indication that he would attempt to climb out. He doesn't even have crib bumpers that he could prop up on, so I'm really not sure how he exactly got out of his crib!
He's had two naps today and both times he again started to look scared when I first put him in there, but I turned on an extra musical toy and he calmed right down. I'm definitely on high-alert now with any little sound he makes so I can get in there before he gets too mad and tries to get out himself again!

Gearing up for a CRAZY weekend!

Ok so most of our weekends are pretty busy, but this one is really going to be crazy! Both D.J. and I have relatives in town from out of state, so we will be splitting our weekend between two different places. We don't usually like to go to two places in one weekend especially now with a little one, but we're going to give it a shot. To make the trip a little easier, we're not leaving until tomorrow morning so that we don't have to unpack all of our stuff twice. We'll head up to Browerville to spend the day/evening there for the Hoelscher Barn Dance with many of DJ's relatives. Then around Brecken's bedtime, we'll head over to my parents' cabin near Brainerd (and hope and pray he sleeps on the way!) We'll spend Sunday with my family and get to see my relatives from California & Arizona. Plus, I'll be able to go waterskiing - YEA, that is definitely my favorite "hobby."

But before we head out of town, tonight we have a church picnic at a local park with lots of other young families. Speaking of that...I better go make my dish to share (and maybe start packing) while Brecken is asleep.

A few pictures from that crazy weekend -  Liana OR Amaya? (sorry!), Brecken, and Esther

Church picnic

The next few weekends will also be fun-filled, but busy. Next weekend is Browerville Days, and the following weekend we'll be celebrating the 4th of July with D.J.'s family at their lake place on Osakis. The weekend after that is our anniversary...but we haven't really thought that far ahead. Uff da, I'm exhausted just thinking about all the running, packing, and unpacking! So...off to work I go!

Awwww...summer vacation :-) ...and a double ear-infection :(

I love summer! This is my first week off from teaching, and it has been FABULOUS! I feel like I'm such a better wife and mom during the summer mainly because I have so much more time. I made a bag-lunch for D.J. for Monday (only lasted one day -oops!), made fruit/yogurt smoothies for a healthy snack, and I've been trying more new recipes for dinner each night (Check-out my link to Menu Plan Monday - it's great!). Plus I've been cleaning our house and catching up on all the other things that completely fell behind during all the end of the school-year chaos. Most importantly, I've spent lots of time hanging out with Brecken - we've played in the sandbox, played bat & ball, gone on walks, and have taken multiple trips to the neighborhood park. It's been so much fun! Next week, we're doing toddler story time at the library on Monday, going to a Puppet show Tuesday, having a play-date with twin girls one day, and then going to the Teddy Bear Band with some other teachers and their little ones on Thursday. I can't wait! (We'll see how well I stay on top of things with this crazy schedule!)

Another reason summer is great is because it's so much less chaotic to get Brecken to the doctor since I don't have to worry about work and preparing for a sub. I took Brecken in again today because my motherly-instincts told me he had another ear infection. He's had a temp of almost 100 the last couple nights, he's been scratching behind his ears, and he's been super short-tempered off and on. However, he has still been eating and sleeping perfectly fine, and they say a true fever is only over 101. When we got there and the nurse and doctor were asking me the usual questions, I started to 2nd-guess my instinct and I started to think it was probably nothing. BUT the doctor took one look in his ear, and all she said to Brecken was, "Your mommy is pretty smart!" I guess my motherly-instincts aren't so bad after all because he had an ear infection in both ears! Now we're on our 2nd round of Augmentin.

Back to house-work I go, while Brecken is napping...

NICU Reunion and More

We had another pretty busy weekend (but what's new?). Saturday morning we went down to the MN State Fairgrounds for the Children's NICU Reunion. There were tons of people there since the St. Paul Children's and Minneapolis Children's NICUs combined their reunions this year. We had a nice time visiting with some of the doctors and nurses that took care of Brecken when he was soooo tiny! We were also able to visit with the Dixon family who we got to know through our experience, and they've been pretty good friends of ours ever since. They had gone through a similar experience (with many more pregnancy complications) just a few months before us with their twin girls, so they came to visit me in the hospital when I was on bed rest even though we'd never even met them before in our life! They attend our church as well, so now we visit with them quite frequently. It was sooooo nice to have them to talk to and and ask questions throughout our journey!

Saturday afternoon DJ worked on some things in the yard, while Brecken and I hung out with our neighbors and played in the kiddie pool since it was BEAUTIFUL outside!

Today we went to church in the morning, and then we were off to St. Cloud for the rest of the day for a couple of graduations on the Hoelscher side. We got home just in time for Brecken's bed time, and now I just finished up a big portion of my report cards. I really should be doing more school work now since I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with this being the last week of school, BUT here I am procrastinating by updating the blog ;) I'm SUPER excited for summer to be here so I can have some quality time with Brecken, but I just have soooo much to do between now and then!

I hope you were all able to enjoy some of the gorgeous weather we had this weekend!

I suppose that's enough procrastinating for now!