What the kiddies are doing...

It's been a while since I have done a post on general kid updates, so I think I will tackle that now. Will is, of course, 1 now. He had a doctor appointment about 2 weeks ago and he has fallen to the 55th percentile for weight! "Oh no!" :)

Katie had a 4 year check up last week. She was in the 25th percentile for both height and weight. She is very proportional. :) They did a vision and hearing test which came back perfect too. She was just glad she didn't have to get a shot.

Will started standing up on his own last week. He'll be in the middle of the room and push up on his feet, and if he's not paying too much attention to himself - he'll stand there for 30 seconds or longer. Yesterday I did get him to take 2 teeny little steps before he fell over. So far no pictures yet of him standing, but they will come.

The kids and I walked to a couple neighbor's garage sales last week. Both were neighbors that had just moved in within the last month or so, and this gave me a good excuse to go meet them and rifle through their belongings. :) Katie found a Barbie Karaoke player with a couple microphones and tapes. Oh boy. That has taken up a lot of her time this weekend. :) If she's in the room alone - she really gets into it and it's very cute. Our little performer.


Will has preoccupied himself with cleaning out my cupboards then proceeding to try to climb INTO them. Our old house had a few bigger cupboards that were good for that - the new house...not so much. :)



When Katie isn't singing, she's been working on 'projects' to take to our county fair in two weeks. I think it's good that she knows fairs aren't all about rides....they are about winning. :) Just kidding. So far she has about 5 things that we will show at the fair. She'll sure get a kick out of seeing her things hanging up for everyone to see. Pictures coming of that!

Swimmingly Saturday

Yesterday we spent the afternoon and evening with some friends that John works with. There was plenty of sun, food and water...pool water. Katie spent, I think, a total of about 4 hours in the pool. (Minus any moments running to the bathroom.) Will had a good time in there too - but he was more excited to watch their dogs. :) It was just perfect weather and everyone had a great time.

Happy Birthday Jamie Mezera!

I would like to wish a Happy Birthday today to Jamie Lynn Mezera. Jamie is Janet and Jeff's daughter (my niece), and would have been 16 today. Jamie was stillborn, but is still an important part of our family. I think Katie and Sarah would have enjoyed another girl in the family!

Happy Birthday Shelley!!!

Happy Birthday today to our dear friend Shelley. She turns the big 3-0 today. (I can post her age because she posted it on her own page.) :) If she doesn't like it, then she'll have to come and get me. Have a great day Shelley - we love you! Welcome to the over 30 club!

Congratulations Laurel!

I would like to announce to everyone that our friends Laurel and Casey Hagensick have had their baby! Yesterday morning at 1:30 am, Cameron Casey Hagensick was born. He weighed in at 6 lbs, 14oz., and was 20 inches long. Sound like everyone is doing great. A BIG congratulations goes out to Karie, the new big sister! And just for the record, I predicted that she would have the baby over the past weekend....so I was only 3 days off. :)

Holy movie, Batman!

So yesterday John and I went to see The Dark Knight. John had gotten tickets a few weeks ago to see it in an IMAX theater. Wow. It was amazing; the acting, stunts, action sequences, story lines...a total package. Under the direction of Christopher Nolan, these last two Batman movies are NOTHING like the cartoony ones that came before. Most of the movie I spent clutching my hands to my chest...a few times I covered my mouth. It's a must see...and see again...and see again...
Of course Heath Ledger was a terrifying Joker. I knew that going in - but there was more. He was simply spectacular, very chilling. Not as much Bruce Wayne as in the first, but good quality Christian Bale when he WAS onscreen.
I don't know - I can't get into the comic book details like John can, but I enjoyed it none the less. We want to see it again. :)

While we were at the movie, Will and Katie went and played at Jamie, Joe and Noah's house. Noah had tubes put in his ears this week, (the little trooper!), but he was more than back to normal. I think he and Will played more than they had before. And, as we thought, Will has NO separation anxiety at all. I think it's mainly because Katie is still there. And boy did Will like their dog, Stanley. He would get SO excited when he pet him, and then Stanley would lick Will's feet and Will would squeal. It was very cute. Thanks again for watching the kids Jamie and Joe!

New Driveway, Fresh Veggies

This morning I had a surprising knock on our front door. One of our neighbors, whom we hadn't met yet was having his driveway sealed by a company he owned. They had some leftover 'stuff' in their truck and offered to seal our driveway for $75. After consulting with John (what the heck do I know about driveways) we went ahead and had them do it. It looks very nice, and should preserve the driveway for a few more years. I don't have a very good before picture because I was running around with Will on a hip, Katie following behind in PJ's and a cell phone attached to my ear. :)

Last night I got a chance to climb into the garden and take a good look around. John has been pulling stuff here and there out of the garden, but last night I picked a bowl full of green beans, peas, sugar snap peas, and strawberries. Next year I will plant just one kind of peas...if anyone can tell me a surefire way to tell the sugar snap peas and the regular peas apart I'm all ears. They look exactly the same. :) We also found a new little tomato plant growing in a corner of the garden...nice surprise.

More excitement

So after Will's birthday party I promised Katie that she could have a slumber party with her cousin Sarah. (Sarah is 15.) So at Grandma Lyla's house on Saturday night, the two got to have a slumber party. When I asked Katie what do you do at a slumber party? She said that you eat popcorn and watch a movie. GREAT! I can do that. So Sarah brought some movies, I burnt some popcorn and Katie ended up falling asleep by 10. That's a few hours after her normal bedtime, but she didn't say that she wanted to sleep on the air mattress that Sarah was going to sleep on - so I consider it a good night.

Note the matching t-shirts. :)

The next morning, Katie crawled into bed with Sarah and both girls were more chipper than I thought they would be.

And because Will always wants to do what Katie is doing...he woke up about 9:30 and put up such a fight to go back to sleep that I let him stay up for a bit.

Birthday Bash

Will had his birthday party on Saturday and I thought I would share a few pictures. We were able to get a FREE birthday cake from our local grocery store. All we had to do was bring in the birth certificate and they make up a little birthday cake for the first birthday. It took a little digging, but I found the certificate. I think that's important to do after a year. :)
Once Will was certain no one was going to tell him to stop digging into the cake, he was pretty excited about getting his hands on it. (And it was a yummy cake.) I don't know how much made it into his mouth, but his hands enjoyed the sugar.




Thank you to all the family that came to share Will's day. And thank you to everyone for the gifts for Katie and Will...we really are blessed to have such wonderful friends and family in our lives.

And the prize for the sweetest husband goes too...

A little while ago the doorbell rang and there stood a woman with a HUGE bouquet of flowers and balloons. John sent me flowers for Will's birthday. :) Mostly due to the fact that I have made it 1 year nursing Will - a feat that I never thought I would be able to do. It seemed like such a long time. Now, having no intention of discontinuing our nursing relationship any time soon, I'm excited to keep going. And yes, I am proud that I made it this long. Thank you to John for the support - I could not have gotten this far without it. I love you too.

Happy 1st Birthday Will!

Since I retold the story about Katie's birth, I spose it's only fitting that I tell the story of Will's. It was Wednesday, July 10th, 2007. I don't remember what we had for supper, but I do remember getting a phone call from my friend Jamie. Jamie and Joe are friends of ours that live relatively close by. They had agreed to watch Katie, day or night whenever I went into labor. I'm all for having children be a part of the birth process, but I KNEW that Katie's voice would drive me up the wall during a contraction.
I had been having pre-labor contractions every 8-10 minutes for the past 3 weeks or so. Boy, let me tell you...that's annoying. Especially when you have a 3 year old to take care of. :) I had been taken off moderate bedrest and was 37 weeks along.

Jamie called to see how I was doing - I said fine, could be any time - be ready! The next morning I woke up about 5 am with some unpleasant contractions. Of course I'd been having these for a few weeks now so I tried to roll over and go back to sleep. These pains were a little more intense. I remember whining and moaning a little bit thinking that would wake up John, but nope - he was fast asleep. :) I paced around for 15-20 minutes or so and then woke up John and said I needed to make a decision about going to the hospital. These contractions were getting more difficult very quickly. We knew this would be a fast labor - the goal was to make it to the hospital in time...without an ambulance call. I called Jamie and Joe - of course I think Joe, the early riser was already awake. He said Jamie and their son Noah would be right over. Then I called the midwives and said I was on my way.

The contractions began getting very painful so John and I left our sleeping Katie and headed for the hospital. We knew Jamie would be there any minute and Katie couldn't get into TOO much trouble asleep. We got to the hospital and AGAIN had to wait at the check in desk. Now I say - what's the use of pre-registering if you're still going to have to wait 10 minutes to go in?? I was waiting for someone to come from labor and delivery to wheel me upstairs. They wouldn't let John wheel me and they wouldn't walk. So John went and parked the car and I leaned on the check in desk moaning. People that walked by didn't say anything - it was pretty obvious why I was there. Another older lady that was in the back rushed up and asked if I needed help. "Just waiting for help!!" I yelled. Finally a young girl came down with a wheelchair and we were off. They took me to the monitoring area, but as soon as the midwife saw me she said there's no use staying here - we need a delivery room. We got to the delivery room, popped in my pre-made labor CD loaded with wonderful Pearl Jam songs and set in to have a baby.

I didn't ask for pain medication this time because I knew there was no time. The pushing was intense, and far more difficult than with Katie. Afterwards we found out that was because Will was 2 1/2 pounds BIGGER than their estimation. When we first arrived at the hospital I had a little blonde chippie of a nurse that was probably 19 and weighed all of 90 pounds. During each contraction she would utter "You got this...you go girl." Oh God. If that's all you have to offer - we're in trouble. Fate must have sensed my annoyance because another nurse came in to tell Blondie that her shift was over, but she could stay on through this delivery if she wanted to. Thank the LORD she decided to leave, and a WONDERFUL nurse took her place and offered just the right encouragement. A little under 1 1/2 hours after arriving at the hospital Will was born at 7:31 am. I could barely hear my music CD during labor, but the CD shut off just after they laid Will on my stomach. Which means Will was born to Yellow Ledbetter. :) This time around it was calmer and crazier at the same time, but one I would live again in a second. After Will was born, all I could muster to say over and over again was "no more babies...no more babies...no more babies..." Nurse Wonderful just said "Oh honey, there's no more in there, you don't have to have any more!"
We took all 8 1/2 pounds of Will home a day later and have been able to keep him alive for an entire year. :)


I got a cute children's CD at the library last week - the Johnny Cash Children's Album. There is a duet with June Carter called "I Got A Boy And His Name Is John." As most of you know, Will's full name is John William, Dad's name is John, and Grandpa Pladsen's name was John. Here are just a few lyrics...they are too cute.

I got a boy and his name is John
You ought to see little John tag along
Going where his Daddy goes
Learning what his Daddy knows.

He's got a friend and her name is Kay (Thought this said Katie the first time!!)
And Kay goes with him everyday
Gonna take Kay along
Gonna teach Kay this song.

Picture Post #2

Here are some more pictures....

Picture Post

Hey there - got my pictures scanned in tonight so I thought I would post what I have. I am getting more prints done, but I know some family members like to save them to their computer.

Wedding Weekend

We are back from Wisconsin. Julie, one of my roommates from Clarke College got married on Saturday. We got to the church in about 3 1/2 hours. Katie was scheduled to hand out programs at the ceremony so we got there about an hour early. She did a WONDERFUL job, and was very proud of herself. She even got a corsage and a couple presents from Julie for helping out.

(That's a smiley face tattoo on her arm. :))

After the wedding ceremony, we had a few hours to check into the hotel and rest. The kids had other ideas. We stayed at a Bestwestern hotel which had a pool - but not just any pool. The kiddie pool had a water slide, the bigger pool also had a slide, and they had a hot tub. Katie REALLY enjoyed the kiddie pool - it was just her size. Of course, I don't have a picture of her and Will in the pool - I kept forgetting my camera! But they had a good time. Will just attacked the water. He liked to splash around in the 3 inch area - and then he would just start crawling into the deeper water. He just kept going and going and going...we would have to pull him out of the water because it would be over his mouth. ;)

At the reception we sat at a table with a couple and their 3 children. Katie pretty much hung out the rest of the night with their 8 year old daughter. :) Katie and Will ate pretty well too - Will liked the potatoes and peas, Katie liked the bread and chicken. Once the dance started - we didn't really see Katie the rest of the night. :) I went out a few times to dance with her and was ordered off the dance floor. She told me to "Just go somewhere else! Mom, you are embarrassing!" I knew that time would come...I just didn't think it would come at age 4.





Will crashed around 10...just couldn't hold on. But he got some dancing in as well with some bridesmaids. :)

Congratulations Julie and Russ!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone! I hope you all have a safe one!

The 4 of us took in Chanhassen's festivities yesterday evening. The city had a kiddie parade which we walked in. Katie decorated her bike for it. There were A LOT of kids in it. Next time we'll know to bring candy to throw. :) The big parade is today and the weather looks like it will be a comfortable 80 degrees so we'll probably watch it.


After the kiddie parade we found some games that Katie played - all $.25 so she paid with her own money. :) She also went on a train ride, a car ride and got a little ladybug pained on her arm. I guess Willie got jipped because he didn't get to do anything besides eat pizza, a little funnel cake and ride in the stroller.

We are taking it easy today too...packing for our trip to Wisconsin tomorrow. We have a wedding for a college roommate of mine. (Congratulations Julie!) I am in the process of fighting a plugged duct. (Note: If you are not interested in breastfeeding trials...stop reading. :)) On Tuesday night Will decided to wake only once in night...great right? We had been on the go so much the last few days he hadn't nursed during the day on his normal schedule either. So Wednesday I was feeling like he needed to eat, and eat a lot. I had pumped earlier too. He ended up going to sleep and I started to feel sick. It hit me like a truck out of nowhere. My fever spiked to 101.3 and I was really nauseous. That lasted about 3 hours, then the fever broke but I was left with the remains of a plugged duct. Thanks to my months of La Leche meetings I think we almost have it cleared up. When they say those hurt...they aren't joking.

Can't eat right now, Mom. I'm too busy!