Thursday and More

This past Thursday was a day of fun for our family but ended in much sadness. The sad part first - I found out that afternoon that a friend had died tragically while selflessly helping others without power in the Kentucky ice storms. If you live near the cities, you definitely saw this on the news: http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/utility_worker_dies_in_fall_feb_12_2009

I knew Andy through my good friends, the Rumpels, we were both attendants in their wedding 10 years ago. He was a very kind man and leaves behind a young wife and daughter, something none of us ever wants to imagine.

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Troy took off work on Thursday so we could have a family day of fun out at the Mall of America. Lucy awoke way too early and by 8:00am we were all, ha ha, down for naps already! After our early morning naps we headed out to the Mall of America to go to Underwater Adventures. None of us had ever been there and it was pretty cool! As you can see from the pictures, Lucy loved it. Every creature was a "toe toe" (turtle).

Doesn't that huge turtle look like a cartoon?

After our tour, and a quick stop at Lego Land, we met friend Kellie for lunch at Ruby Tuesday's in the Mall since she was in the area. After we parted we made the rounds through Nickelodeon Universe, but didn't take Lucy on any rides. There may have been one or two she could have gone on with Troy but, egads, the ride prices are high! She did enjoy perusing the store and seeing all the Dora and Blues Clues she could handle.

We surprisingly did no shopping, probably due to exhaustion, so before we left we did another quick tour through Underwater Adventures, before heading to my parents house. We ended up visiting and having dinner with everyone before heading back to Baldwin for a nice bubblebath and bed.

For about a week now, our favorite nighttime routine is Lucy and Mom taking a bubble bath in our "whirlpool" tub. She loves the bubbles and I figure we won't have much more time to do this and it still be cute!

Last night was a big transition for Lucy - into a whole new bedroom and a whole new big girl bed! Her full-size bed was now complete with bedding and I wanted to wait for a weekend (in case the nights were rough) to transition her. Well, silly me, it was no problem! She woke up once about an hour after being put down, crying, to which I stood in her room not talking to her while she relaxed and then eased my way out the door. She slept til morning and took a long nap in there this afternoon, too!

Today is Valentine's Day. This morning started out with Bible Study circle at church. We then got a visit from Grandpa Duffy and Mary delivering treats for Lucy. We followed that up with a visit from Nana and Papa delivering more treats and we topped it off with chinese take-out for lunch. I am now smelling the bacon-wrapped whatever goodness Troy is whipping up for our V-Day dinner. It could be a shoe wrapped in bacon and it would still taste good!

Lucy this morning:

And we never blog about Abby, so here she is. Abby loves to relax, bark at people outside, and protect us, oh, and eat too. Her favorite nighttime routine is after Lucy goes to bed and Mom and Dad go downstairs to watch TV. She lays on the couch with Dad and gets her belly scratched.

A Hodgepodge of Photos and the Giggle Factory

I am so bad at posting to this blog, but I imagine things will pick up again when there's another face to be photographed around here.



This is Christmas Bread aka Bohemian Twist. I grew up with my grandma (full-blooded Czech) making this for the holidays every year. It's a beautiful-looking bread, great to eat with butter or toasted, sliced very thinly. I have been wanting the recipes of the "memories" I have of grandma in the kitchen, this being one of them, and my aunt provided the translated version of this very old recipe. I ended up finally attempting a loaf AFTER Christmas and it turned out pretty good for a first timer. I don't think it rose/rised? nearly enough but I have never cooked with yeast before (egads!) Lucy DID love it though and I think I'll try to make it a yearly tradition.



Here are photos of Lucy with Hope H. from church at the beginning of Chinese New Year:

Daycare commented that Lucy loves to give hugs when she goes bye bye, but I figured every kid did?

Here is a photo of Lucy and daddy sledding (or as she calls it the "sleigh") a couple weekends ago when it didn't dip below zero:

And here is Lucy relaxing on our bed before we headed out to The Giggle Factory in Hudson this past weekend:
Wasn't this weekend's weather wonderful? If only spring would stay now, but I know a couple more months of ishy weather are on it's way.

On Saturday we met up with grandma and grandpa Hill and cousin Jamie at the Giggle Factory (an indoor play yard for kids) in Hudson. The girls didn't know what to think of it. There were lots of older kids running around and pushing them out of the way and they didn't really care for that. Now adults CAN go up there to assist the kids, but imagine this one who is as big around as she is tall trying to weave her way up ladders and thru chutes. Interesting, NOT! But there is a toddler play area on the floor with squishy items that the girls did enjoy.

After that we had a toddler lunch at the golden arches in Hudson. Let me just say that the one in Baldwin MUCH nicer! There were no high chairs to be found in Hudson, the two they had were in use, plus I think the staff at the Baldwin McD's is just a lot friendlier!

Saturday night Uncle Eric babysat while we went to my cousin Jeff's 30th birthday party at the Green Mill in Woodbury. That was a lot of good clean fun and yummy pizza

This weekend, Troy went up to our storage area and retrieved all of our home decor stuff we had put in storage when the house was on the market. Uncle Eric made our house a home again by putting all of our decor back out, pictures hung on the walls, all that good stuff. Troy is enjoying his "new" man basement.

And here we are at another week. Today Lucy will be going to the doctor with me for my belated 32-week appointment. At this point I'm going every 2 weeks until I hit 36 weeks, then every week after that. Lots of appointments to be made today!