Easter Weekend

Another weekend has flown by way too fast. On Friday Troy and I made a trip out to the Mall of America for some much-needed clothes shopping for myself. We made a pretty good dent in that while Grandma Val watched Lucy.

On Saturday my dad and Mary stopped by to bring Lucy her Easter basket and in it were some Twinkies! And she now has a new favorite junk food! We then made a trip to my favorite (not) store Walmart Superstore for some grocery shopping as was everyone else in St. Croix County. Oh well, serves me right for shopping the day before a holiday! Got home and Lucy napped, so much so that we couldn't wake her up :)

Sunday almost ended before it began. Lucy started a meltdown well before we even left for church and was in such a snit that she fell on the coffee table, biting her tongue and blood all over. Good thing for TEC spot remover. Daddy removed the spot and we had a bottle and headed to church where we squirmed for the entire service. We did get to see a couple faces I haven't seen in church before (they could be C & E's), from our playgroup. Then it was home for a quick nap before heading out to Auntie Vicki's in Maple Grove for the afternoon.

We had a big lunch and the younger kids did an Easter Egg hunt. Here are some shots of Lucy with the other younger cousins. Got to visit and catch up with family and Lucy conked out on grandma's lap. All in all it was a great Easter day.

Now it's Monday and back to icky post-winter weather and work!

Top 'o the Mornin'

Going to the Zoo and Sunday School

Yesterday Kellie and I took the kids to the MN Zoo and it was a good time! We were there for almost 4 hours and the kids were great! Our first stop was Discovery Bay where you can see the dolphins underwater and Lucy smashed her face against the glass, as did every kid (surprisingly she has no illnesses today from licking all those germs yesterday!). We just took our time meandering thru the indoors of the zoo and then ended our day with a trip on the monorail! No camera with me but maybe Kellie can send some for me to post.

I have been battling this ugly head cold for a few days now with no relief so I was asleep by 8. Lately Lucy's been having some cranky nights where she just can't soothe herself so it was one of those nights last night too.

Today was my last Sunday School group. It was the 4th and 5th graders and I really tried to remember all their names (I am so horrible with names!) Each age group was different in their own. My first Sunday was with 2nd graders, a very chatty group with one trying to outtalk the other. I can only remember about half of their names and I think there were 8 kids. Then the second week I made it a point to remember the kids' names (lucky me, there were only 2!) of the 1st graders. When I read the story of Jesus' death for them, one would stop me every sentence to define a word I had just read, so I knew they were paying attention so that was good. The other would tell me random things as I read the story like "my mom likes pink!". ok... Then this group today. As they came in the room I asked their name, and then I would add it to the next person's name, hoping that by the time I got to the 8th person I'd have everyone down pat. (I'm home now and I remember 5 of them.) This group seemed the most "mature". After I read the story, I got more "in deep" questions like, why was Jesus punished? What crime did he commit? So that was fun, because I still ask those questions! Then we got to talking about Easter break and vacations and where we've been in the past. So a little more easy conversation/interaction with this age group. I hope I can teach Sunday School again, although next time it may be with another church!

The sign is up in our yard now. I do like the Century 21 signs, they aren't a bright eye sore as some realtor signs can be. Not sure if that's good or bad, but I think the neighbors have already noticed the sign. No bites yet though, I think this house selling is going to be a long road.

I wish we could have the 'perfect' circumstances in our lives right now - a new job opportunity for Troy in Wisconsin, that would allow me to stay home with Lucy and we could stay in Baldwin. But it didn't happen like that. So you weigh what's the most important to you and make the sacrifices. When I think of us moving to Rochester I feel like it's a temporary thing like in two years we'll be back and I know that's not the case. We'll move there and we'll have to get involved in church and community activities to start making it feel like home. I'm worried that I won't be able to go to the grocery store and see at least 3 people I know. I'm worried that the churches will be too big down there that we won't get to know people or be involved on a smaller level. I'm worried about feeling safe and letting my daughter play outside in a community we don't know or leaving the door unlocked or the garage open if I'm just making a quick trip to the store. I've lived in Baldwin three years now and it took the first two for it to start feeling like home. I love that I see the same people at church as I do in the bank as I do in the grocery store as I do on a walk.

Another huge concern is my flexible job not being flexible anymore. We are not doing this huge change in our lives so that I'll have to find full-time daycare for Lucy and commute an hour and a half to work every day. But management has their own ideas of how things should be and me working second shift from home isn't one of them. So a lot is on my mind and heart in what 'should' be an exciting time for us.

But it's a beautiful sunny day out today. Troy and Abby are doing spring poop cleanup in the yard and Lucy is napping. Have a great week!

11 months old

We forgot to take the usual pictures last night so did the usual pictures with the sheep this morning. As well as here are some pictures of her favorite things - climbing up stairs and eat spaghetti!

This morning we were playing and reading and we always pray before dinner with a big "Amen!" and this morning we were playing with her prayer dolly who does the "now i lay me down to sleep..." and Lucy looked and me and quietly mouthed "A men". Then we were playing with a music toy where you push a button and something pops up and then she closes it right away so I was saying "open" and "shut" and she looked at me and said "shut", so I think more words are coming shortly.

On Monday we registered her for her first multi-age playgroup at the Family Resource Center. Right now she's been in Baby n Me since she was one week old. Now she's the oldest and ready to move up, so she starts that the end of March on Wednesday mornings. It will be fun for her to be the youngest again and see her interact with the older kids and learn from them (only good things I hope!).

In non-Lucy news...we put our house on the market on Saturday with Century 21. I can't wait til the snow melts and we can take some "pretty" pictures of the house, it looks kind of blah right now. Sunday I had my second Sunday School class which was fun(ny) with two first graders. Boy are they inquisitive! I read the Easter story from the Bible and they stopped me about every sentence to define words, which was good since I knew they were paying attention! This weekend is Palm Sunday and my last Sunday School class. One thing I'm bummed about with the Lutheran church versus Catholic is there's no palms given out at service. When I went to Catholic church before moving out here that was a big deal.

But most importantly because it reminds me of my grandpa Fearing, who passed away during Holy Week 1997. When he had his last aneurysm and we took him off the ventilator it was Palm Sunday. I stayed in the room with him while the others went to the chapel at St. Joe's. My aunt, his sister, brought back some palms and taught me how to braid them. I think I ended up braiding everyone's palms over the course of the next couple days and I still have mine. Very therapeutic while he was in hospice for the next two days. I was braiding and everyone was visiting around his bed and sharing stories and lots of laughs. He passed away late on Holy Tuesday, March 25th, surrounded by lots of friends and family and it was the 'perfect' way to go! This year for Easter we are going to my aunt Vicki's (grandpa's little sister mentioned above) out in Maple Grove.

What else is new...I just read a fabulous book, Have You Found Her, which it took me like a day to read cuz I couldn't put it down. I haven't read a book in what seems like forever, I loved the mental break. I 'discovered' Janice thru, what else, the DIS (see link on my blog for the Disney Lovers). Speaking of which, I hope we can get there next Fall or Winter by some magical monetary miracle. It will be almost 3 years since my last visit, which is far too long :)

Oh, I almost forgot! Last Thursday Kellie and I did the KS95 for Kids Radiothon. What fun! I will definitely do that again next year. The DJ's were there telling stories and walking around talking to all of us and then a group of kids would come with bags of change and dump them into the big pot. My first hour there I won a $75 gift certificate to McCormick & Schmick's in Minneapolis for making the most out-going phone calls and getting donations. My girlfriend, Anne Marie, donated and got picked to play "Smarter Than Stacy" (the dj) at noon where they ask you 5 questions and you see if you get more answers right than Stacy. She won a gift certificate to California Pizza Kitchen. So a good day was had by all and they raised lots of money for Childrens Cancer Research Fund and Gillette Hospital, which happened to be where I interned during my surg tech program and saw lots of amazing surgeries.

Anyhoo, I can't believe we're in the middle of March already...did February even happen? I'm going to be sending out birthday party invitations for someones FIRST birthday pretty soon. CRAZY!

Teef

Now there's 4 to brush!

Where's Spring??

It's snowing again as I write this. Come on already, I want to see green!

No big updates here. No official training/work plan for Troy's new job yet. He started this past Monday but he's still doing what he's always been doing. Tomorrow he'll be down in Rochester all day to set up and work at some kind of convention in the evening, showing their products.

The realtor is coming on Saturday to get our house on the market so we've been busy packing up a few things and painting the master bath a lovely neutral cream color. A good house cleaning and we'll be ready for sale! This is our next big hurdle, selling this house. I hope the right family is out there looking for this particular house - 3 bathrooms, up to 6 bedrooms, nice landscaping, a huge backyard noone's going to build on, fairly quiet neighborhood, close to a park, walking distance to town and church, etc etc. I'll post a link to it once it's listed on the MLS.

Here are a few pictures of Lucy from the other day. I wanted a picture to put in her birthday invitations. This year has gone way too fast and she's getting so big! We have Baby n Me playgroup this afternoon and she is now the oldest kid there and she's graduating to plain ol' playgroup next month! Speaking of which, how crazy is this - playgroup is so huge that next Monday at 9 am you have to start calling and redialing to get through to sign up for the next 10 week session. My girlfriend who has her daughter in it already said her and another friend get together with their cellphones and when one gets through then they pass the phone to the other to get signed up as well. I forget what the class size is limited to, but wow!

Tomorrow Kellie and I are working the phones at the KS95 for Kids Radiothon out at Southdale Mall. It will be on the radio Thursday thru Saturday, raising money for childrens cancer research. If you've ever listened to it, you've probably cried listening to it too. They have actual cancer patients, survivors, ones who've lost children to cancer sharing their stories on the air.

Nothing much else to report. We did attend our first community supper at church last night. It's held the first Tuesday of every month at our church, put on by various churches in the community. And boy was it packed! I hope there are things like this to wherever we're moving to.