Weekend in St. Cloud

"Standing up-a big girl!" in the wagon. (I sat her back down after I snapped the pic.)


Trying to get them both to look at the camera was very difficult. :)Swinging with grandma. This is the swing that used to sit in front of great grandpa Roger's house before it was evicted to make room for grandma's ramp. Thanks for the swing, gramps! We loved it!
Playing with mommy's rocker. This rocking char was given to me when I was a baby.

I love outside!
Looking skeptical (mom, why are you holding that gray box in front of my face again?)

We went to St. Cloud for the weekend to celebrate Julia's first birthday with family. I couldn't find my camera during the birthday party (it was hiding behind the giant cake), so I will have to get the pictures from grandpa Dick to show you.
Todays pics are from Saturday when we were doing a combination of yard work, planting, playing, and cooking. We had a great day!

We heard the news!

Congratulations to Dave and Miriam!!! They had a baby boy on April 24th: Josiah David. We are just thrilled because Dave and Miriam are keeping up in the "a year after us" tradition. They were married exactly one year after we were....and their first baby was born on Julia's first birthday!!! Yay!

Jessi's Birthday Party

Family picture: notice we're all wearing green tops with jeans...weird coincidence....

Julia loves to party!

Here's the birthday girl with her dog, Tahoe, who wants to play ball in the living room

What in the world is this, do you ask? Well.....Daddy left with Julia at 9:30 to put her to bed while mommy stayed and played catch phrase. With the watchful eyes of daddy far away, I rekindled a love for an old hobby of mine: food art. Above is a parmesean cheese version of our red-headed birthday girl. Below is a J for Jessi. We ate almost all the Bruschetta I made, which is a feat because I tend to cook for no less than an army.

We went to Jessi and Dan's last night for another birthday party! We had a blast - Julia loves parties because everybody holds her and she can be a ham. She also loves to eat junk food with us. Her favorite: cheesy chips dipped in Top the Tater. mmmmmm.

Happy Birthday, Julia!!!

ia



Julia turned one today! What a year it's been. In her first year out of the uterus, Julia has lived in four different places, been to the ER and admitted to a hospital, and taught her parents a LOT about life. She has learned to walk, talk a bit, and fly down the stairs backwards. What a journey....

Today, we had her real birthday. Jessie and Dan, Annie, Annemieke, and Aaron came over to help us celebrate. We had dinner and cake, and the took Julia to the park to ride the swings some more. Annemieke made Julia her own cake which had three layers of chocolate with chocolate frosting. (The adults had white cupcakes...) The first thing she did was stick her hand in the flames of the candle. As far as the cake went, at first, Julia didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, she got the hang of it and dug her little hands into the layers. Daddy was turning green at the mess. I thought it was hilarious.

Anyways, happy birthday, little girl. We love you!

A trip to the park

Here's where we went today. Julia grew two daddy-sized legs!



Wheeeee!



Trying to crawl away from Daddy under the bars. Dadddy had to run to keep up with her! He was getting very dizzy by the end.
Look, Mom! I can jump from one bar to another without holding on!
This is a crazy face.


Mike and I finished with our obligations a little early tonight, so we decided to pull Julia in her wagon and walk to Chester Bowl, a big park about 1/2 mile from our house. We threw the baby in the Radio Flyer and off we went.

Julia adored the swings!!! (There was much objection when we finally took her out.) Then it was on to the slide, then the merry go round. She found it both necessary and fun to crawl as fast as she could around the merry go round. She was crawling the same direction as the spinning, so if you could imagine, it seemed like she was crawling at Mach III. Daddy had to run to keep up.

Taking a nap with daddy

This picture says it all. :)

Playing All Day Long

Julia came in to study with one of Daddy's friends, Jessi. What a nice study break!


Climbing around in the yard. Psymuhn always stays close by Julia when she plays. What a good guard dog!


Looking in the neighbors' flower bed. Last fall, Mommy secretly planted some crocus bulbs in there as a surprise!


We spent most of our gorgeous day outside playing. After a quick trip to Menard's for charcoal and lighter fluid, we planted a new rosebush (in a pot...after all, this IS Duluth and we don't plant things outside until after memorial day). Then, Daddy had some friends come over to study for a test, so Julia and Mommy went to play outside. I had no idea that Julia would be content playing in the yard for two hours! Don't worry, Grandma Beth...we put on plenty of sunscreen!

Stick em up!

Julia loves to play outside. I was raking the yard today and Julia was playing with a stick she found. I snapped a few pictures of her...this one looks like she's our "little gangsta."

Out for a ride!

Julia and I were watching squirrels have a fight in a nearby tree.


Julia's new thing is to point at everything. She is telling me she wants to go and explore the neighbor's trash cans.

Psymuhn gives a big yawn of excitement before we take off. He looks like he's laughing at me.


Julia and I went for a walk today. What a beautiful day it was! It was 66 degrees outside and we tried to make the most of it. Julia loves to go for rides in her wagon. She isn't strapped in like when she rides in the stroller. I think we will be taking most of our future walks with the wagon. She sees it and she tries to jump up and down.

Another thing: Try the link below if you are bored. We have been going to this website for some time now. Every time Julia is inconsolable or just hard to entertain, we log on to the internet and go to this website. You just click on the characters and they sing to you. Good thing they don't charge you by the minute.... :)

http://www.mypeople.com/sing/index.html

Another fun day

My Easter Cyclops from Annie


Julia is discovering her mom's love for purses.


Julia is getting smarter every day. Tonight, when our friends were leaving (at 10:30pm, mind you), Julia looked up at them, waved, and said, "bye bye." Clear as day! We didn't even prompt her to say that, she just saw that her buddies were leaving and bade them goodbye. She has picked up so many words lately that we have lost count. She seems to have a word for everything...daddy and I just haven't figured out how to translate the baby speak just yet.

Today, the three of us went to ShopKo for plastic rubbermaid containers. Julia has outgrown her entire stock of clothes again and we have to pack them away. We went over to DAn and Jessi's house for lunch, and then we went on a real date in the evening! Mike and I went to see "Meet the Robinson's", which was a really cute little movie. Very random, but very cute. I would recommend it if you want to see something clean and pretty funny. It doesn't have much of a story line, but at least there's nothing in it that makes you regret paying to see it.

Annie came over and babysat for us tonight. She and Julia went for a walk and listened to Raffi. When we came home from our movie, Dan, Jessi, Mike, Annie, and I played Trivial Pursuit and drank some wine. You can see in the photo above what happened to the chocolate bunny Annie gave me for an easter present...

Just like that....

Why the fireworks?

Well, today, I am HOME. For GOOD!!!!

As I walked out of the University hospital today, it sunk in. I am not only done with my current rotation, I am done with all of my rotations. As in DONE with MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!! All I have to do to graduate now is wait the three weeks until the ceremony and walk up and claim my diploma! I no longer have to walk up to patients and give them the disclaimer, "hi, I'm Sarah The Medical Student, and if need anything, I'll find someone who can get it for you." Suddenly, my signature will go from being worthless (not even pretty to look at) to worthy of signing hospital orders and prescriptions! Oh joy. That also means that I can no longer rip the phone jack out of the call room wall at 3am when there's another new admission. Soon, I will be Dr. Sarah. I can't decide which is better....the feeling that I am done with school or the feeling that I don't have to leave my little girl and husband for a week at a time anymore, kissing up to sub sub sub specialists at the U. Oh wow. And I get to sleep in MY bed tonight.

This is the best Friday the 13th I've ever had.

My bad.

Being a single parent (something that no one should have to do, in my opinion) doesn't leave much time for oneself. Which is why I haven't been doing my job updating this thing this week. If you're awake, you're either a) amusing/changing/feeding/chasing the child, or b) madly trying to do things around the house while she sleeps. If you're asleep, you're asleep. Sometimes not even then.

I just reread that last paragraph and it's a tad incoherent. Sorry; blame it on the numerous cold meds that I'm currently doped up on. Julia gave me the cold, too. Tricky little devil, that one.

On that note, please enjoy this week's batch of pictures accompanied by my attempts at witty captions.

Julia wearing what is known as her "bling" dress. It was supposed to be for Easter, but we put it on her last Sunday when we realized that, oops, it's too short for her already.

Bathtime on Tuesday. Her little curl of hair on top reminded me of Trixie Flagston, which is why I took this picture. (Older readers, or those who are fans of "Hi and Lois" will know what I'm talking about.)

Our very own Lil' Rebel. Great-grandma Dorothy made the pretty wall-hanging in the background.

The very same Lil' Rebel saying "fcshhh" (fish) while pointing to the Goose.

It's raining ice!

The lawn. Very slippery!!!

The side of the house

Our neighbor's birdhouse with its new crop of icicles

Ice on the barbury bush. No pointy thorns anymore!

Yesterday morning, I realized I'd left our taxes in the car. I opened the front door wearing pajamas and slippers and went to retrieve the dreaded documents. Before I knew what was happening, I was laying practicaly spread-eagle on the front steps. Ice! I reached up to grab the railing to go down the stairs and slipped again...IT was also covered with a new layer of the slippery stuff, which led to my slithering down the front steps like a snake. I knew enough to avoid the glare iced sidewalk, but I had no idea that the GRASS would also prove to be a harrowingly slippery experience. Eventually, I made it to the car...but not without bruises. I think my getting out to the car would have made for a very entertaining silent movie.

Everything outside icoated in ice! When the wind blows, you hear this eerie crakling sound and tiny bits of ice fall out of the sky. It's like transient hail storm, except the ice isn't in nice round balls...it's in little splinters.

One of the first things I ever remember learning in school was in Mrs. Figgie's preschool class. "March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb." So, the weather is crazy at the beginning of March and supposedly calm at the end. I guess that only works when you don't live in Duluth.