To my youngest son

Hello baby boy~ We could be meeting any day now! What an exciting thought. So many people have such great hopes for you. As your birthday approaches I find myself thinking of your big brother's entrance into the world. As you've probably heard me say a million times during this past nine monhths, it was not so smooth. I hope for a smooth greeting for you sweetheart. I hope for no breathing tubes and oscillators. I hope for no cardiologists at your bedside doing tests (although we are so thankful for you) when I meet you face to face. I hope for no threatened helicopter rides that have anything to do with taking blood out of your sweet body, fixing it and givig it back to you. I hope for no narcotics and medicines that paralyze and hold you still for days on end. I hope for all of these things for you and yet in the same breathe I am so very thankful they exist and helped to save your big brother, William. I hope you don't need to know any of these things, but if you do, I hope that this experience also helps to make me a better mom & nurse. But Mom first :) I hope that you find great joy in your big brother. He can be such a sweetheart, kissing owies & patting my shoulder after hugs. And yet in the blink of an eye he can be such a little devil. I hope he doesn't carry you like his baby doll, usually very nice and cuddly but occasionally by the leg swinging him, hitting his head on anything possible. I hope he will find great joy in you too, you'll recognize him: he's the one blowing you kisses and then poking at you mercilessly. I hope you don't get offended when he calls you "baby" because that's your name so far to him. I hope you are born to enjoy hunting and fishing, because your dad is already talking about taking you out icefishing. I told him maybe not this year, you'll be pretty little this winter. I hope you love him the way Will does, we think he makes the world go around. I hope for a short hospital stay and a safe trip to your new home (I hope we finish your room someday :). I hope for days full of happiness when we all get to meet and get to know each other. I hope you are warm and safe where you are, and that soon enough you'll be warm & safe at home with us. With it snowing outside, and no doubt your brother will sound lounder, and everything will look brighter. I hope to see you soon, when you're ready sweet baby.



And of course a sweet welcome to our new nephew Colton!! We can't wait to see you sweetheart!

Boy oh Boy

So this morning I wasn't totally concentrating when I finished my post. I meant to eand with:

So we're obviously thinking of names for our newest little boy, tell us what you think William's little brother's name should be. You can post anonymously if you so desire. Can't wait to hear what you guys like!

What happened to the summer?

Oh my gosh, I logged on to update the site, and realized it's been two whole months since I've been chatting on here! Boy have I been taking it easy. I have been procrastinating about getting our home internet up and running, mostly due to previous computer problems which are 95% fixed now. Now I just need some time to have them out to the house when a little two year old won't drive us crazy, and will let us get it done.

So anyways the camping trip went well, we had a blast. Time goes to fast, especially when you have to drive six hours there & back but it was also good to get home and have some time together. We had a good time with both of our families and even some time with the cousins. We have a ton of great pics I'll have to get up once we have internet....

We have been busy getting settled into our new home. For those of you who haven't been there, or seen pics, we have a bit of a wallpaper problem which will slowly be repaired one room at a time :) So we started with William's room to be...and have now finished one room. I should say once we have new curtains for the boy we'll be done and moving the crib into his room. We have ordered some furnitre for our bedroom & the living room to be, which should be here next week so that's exciting as well. There is alot of empty space now~ if you can imagine a two bedroom apartment filling up a four bedroom house, hahaha or leaving it mosly empty :)

Our little baby turned two on August 8th. How crazy is that?? Pretty crazy I think. What has William been up to? William is now running like crazy. He's got a great throwing arm on him, and always picks up multiple different balls while shopping at the store. He is learning to love cars (or vroom according to him), and sometimes trains( which are choo-choos). He can actually say train but chooses not to say car or truck because he likes to go Vroom! William is finally learning more words you can understand. He says eat, drink, please (more like peas) and thank you (ank u) is learning lots of animals and their sounds. He can say pee for potty and is usually right about when he should go, whether he refuses to go into the bathroom or not (hopefully it's not at a time he's diaperless). He is a great eater, and especially loves fruit (or fwoot as he says it) but has learned how to ask for treats (tweets) He has know how to say NO for a long time but his new favorite phrase is "I want toooo" and two could be anything from going outside to a drink, sometimes who knows :) He has definitely learned how to turn on the waterworks and can make the whole Target store look at you like an abuser. Thankfully most people who comment say things like "it won't always be your son", or "we could never even take my son out to the store".

We're excited to announce that William is going to be a big brother in December. He's going to be having a baby brother around December 28th and we couldn't be more excited. When the internet is fixed we'll put up the little guys first photos. For those of you wondering I feel pretty good, but it hasn't always been this good :) Once William's room is finished, we'll start working on the nursery to be, where he's currently residing.

I could write alot more but I figure that's enough big news for one morning. I'll same some for another day! Thanks for checking up on us, and sorry I've been delinquent. Hopefully it will get better here shortly.

Life with an Almost two year old.....

A few precious moments from our last few weeks
* I was going to work a night shift and woke up to the guys coming home from daycare. I came downstairs to SMELL my husband washing my sons hair with peanut butter because his love of gum had worked it's way into the top of Will's head. SuperDad saved his hair, I told Will next time it would be a summer haircut for him.

* Will loves change. He runs around the house & picks up change (that he's left all around the house) and then proceeds to crawl over to the VCR and start dropping the change into it as if it's a slot machine. Jeremy is calmly saying "WILLIAM" in an attention getting voice, while I can't help but say, "Seriously, it's a little late now :)"

* William heart his babydoll, which is actually my babydoll, the last doll I remember wanting for myself and receiving from my parents. One day he threw a huge fit because he wanted to take Baby out of the house with us shopping. So I gave in and Baby came shopping with us. Poor Baby, she didn't know what was going to happen to her. We got to the mall and he wasn't about to leave Baby in the car while we shopped so I let him hold her in the stroller (as he is NOT allowed free roaming while shopping with one parent or I might loose my only son). We were on our way thru the mall when he says BABY, so I'm looking around for the baby he's looking at all the while he's saying BABY louder and louder. Finally I'm going to tell him that I don't see a baby when I look at him and realize Baby is MISSING. The cute little baby is the perfect size for being thrown out, and rolled over with even seeing her or feeling a bump. So we turn around and spenc a few extra moments to find Baby. She was traumatized a few times that trip, and by the end I told him, "If you have to throw her out could you at least let me know right away so I can just grab her & not have to search all over?" To which he politely smiled thinking "Yeah right, Mom, HAHAHAHA, where's the fun in that?".

* William loves Rice Krispie Bars. We were on a car trip and he was pretty upset and wanting to be there, and we weren't. So he quietly settled for snack time in the car. I only give him part of the bar at a time, for choking reasons, and so I peeked in the rear view wondering if he was ready for more. Only to find a human Rice Krispie Bar peeking back at me, literally. If only I had the camera, he picked each krispie apart and stuck it in his eyes, on his face, and then when he ran out of face in between all of his fingers & toes. I've never seen edible camouflauge before, but it was hilarious. And seeing how pleased with himself only made it even funnier.

* William does not love frogs. On a recent fishing trip there were lots of frogs & toads out, and Jeremy figured William would love to play with them, why not he loves worms? William was just interested until the frog actually made an attempt to jump during which poor Will was scared out of his mind. Let's just say there was some really crying going on.

Kids....you have to love them!
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Where does the time go?

As I get older, I continue to be amazed at how fast time flies by. So in the last two weeks: we have gotten everything we possessed moved into the house, and maybe half of it is unpacked, worked our regular old full time schedules which also means William's been hanging out with his good friends at Julie's house full time (which thankfully he LOVES :), drove to Appleton, MN for a wedding which Jeremy ushered for, and William danced for, drove back to Rochester to work this week again and send William to daycare. CRAZY!! Well at least we are all surviving although the upper respiratory bug we all picked up while moving is lingering on, probably because we haven't been relaxing and sleeping that much! My disease is pretty much cleared up but William's seems to have been recontaminated by his parents is fighting off round two.

We are looking forward to a break coming up soon, we'll be driving up north to camp and spend time with our families starting next weekend. This is very exciting as the last time we attempted this I was 8 months pregnant, and I probably complained more than normal. :) We are looking forward to a few days off work, and a more relaxing drive up and back as we're not so pressed for time this stay. Thank goodness for time off once in awhile!!

Well hopefully by that time I computer will be fully functional. We now have all discs necessary for the next step (the Dell on call service to walk us thru saving our memory & reinstalling all of the software) and we just need to find a good time for this to happen. That is alot more difficult than it sounds when you live with an almost two year old. :) Obviously it's not the most important thing to do on our lists or it would be done already, but one of these days :) And thank goodness for not moving again for awhile, I'm afraid of what will happen to it next time we move!!

I have removed my April Rose button from the sidebar. For those of you who never checked it out~ good call on your part. Turns out the host wasn't really pregnant and certainly not with a terminally ill baby but did enjoy the audience her story created~ it's a very sad story.

So we'll see you guys soon & thanks for continuing to check in on us! Drop us a comment and let us know who you are :)

All Moved In...Almost

Well we closed on our new house last Friday! Thankfully everything went smoothly :) ...and we're not sleeping in a U-Haul, on the street, or in the PICU sleep room. We moved all of our things on Friday evening and Saturday during the day. Then on Sunday we spent some time getting boxes and furniture from the garage to the correct areas of the house. So eventually we'll have the boxes upacked, and the house will still look pretty empty. At least we managed to find the toiletries, and our work clothes :)

Poor William. He's been slightly traumatized by everything that's been going on. He was happy to see a few toys come back out and has been throwing his ball around the backyard. (Mom you'll be impressed with the foliage in our backyard compared to Easter, we'll be asking you landscaping tips pretty soon). He's already tired of having a two story home, and resorts to sliding down the stairs, apparently we make him work out pretty hard. The last few weeks have just been pretty hard on him, with more time at daycare than usual and less time with mom & dad. Hopefully we'll be making up for it soon :) We are thankful all the time for how easy going he is, he could have made the move alot tougher on all of us!!

In our style, the laptop has gotten a virus right before moving, but should hopefully be all patched up soon. So, sorry no pics for now. Just a quick update from work, while I'm not using the internet for personal use :)

Where did May go???

I can't believe that May is almost gone! That isn't as crazy as the thought that we're closing on our new house a week from today, and will be moving there next weekend. We (as in Jeremy) have been packing up things and getting us ready to go. William's not sure about the whole deal, and is making sure to spread his precious belongings around the apartment, or hide them behind the TV (which is all good until he wants them back, there's quite the stash back there now :).

We're going up North to visit the families this weekend so that's exciting. We haven't seen Jeremy's family since January so it's overdue. I'm hoping it will also be good just to have a weekend away from the apartment to maybe think about something else for a brief change.

It's been CRAZY at work, lots of kids to sick to be on peds but not that critically ill. That makes for busy assignments, but has made my night shifts go by quickly. And I let work know I'll be out of town this weekned so hopefully they won't call three times a day looking for help.

So we'll be updating next weekend but then if there's a brief break in communications it will be related to getting all things up and running at the house. Did I just say that? At our house!?! How cool is that.

Thanks for checking in on us!

Thoughts for Kayleigh

Last winter I had Kayleigh's button on my sidebar. She's a little premi with lung disease & severe PPHN. She has been in the NICU since she was born 11 months ago. She had gotten alot better and I recently have taken it down. While recovering from a routine surgery which was preparing her for going home, she had a stroke & ended up with a severe anoxic brain injury. If you have a few moments please check out her website and send her family some thoughts as they are now missing their sweet girl. Health is so important, and so often taken for granted....we are so blessed.

May already!

Enjoying the slide, doesn't he look grown up?


Enjoying independence feeding himself his yogurt


Enjoying the wagon~ thanks Julie & Johnny! And no he didn't try to jump out after the ball that fell out~ that wouldn't be good!


A previous fishing trip, his own pole, for a few days :)


Mom & William in the rain


Spring showers are going to bring spring flowers, right?? At least they bring mud puddles you can jump in if you're wearing a huge raincoat, & mud boots. Why don't they make raincoats in sizes less than 3T? I guess all the good mommies are keeping their toddlers inside!

Well I can't believe it's May already! Happy Belated Mother's Day!! I hope you ladies all had great days! We had a lazy Sunday. Jeremy & William took me too a late lunch at Red Lobster. It was very good, and of course I ate too much. Then we did a little shopping but Will quickly got a little tired of looking at electronics. (He especially loves laptops, and specifically popping off the keys, which is not probably appreciated while shopping :) So we came back to the apartment and did some relaxing. It was a good day with my guys :) And they did buy me donuts & roses while I was getting to sleep in, so I can't complain.

We have started to pack up all of the things we don't need. So now the apartment is a MESS!! The more things William sees us put in boxes, the more toys or clothes he drags out of his room, or from the laundry basket. He is eternally helpful. He is actually at the age where he loves to pick up things and help put them away, IF he wants to. I think I hear the echo of the word NO in my head even when he's napping. Last week I asked him to say anything else, so UH-OH was the word of the day. It was a refreshing break. Of course I'm pretty sure he was just tired of saying no and not actually listening to my request. :)

We haven't been up to much else. It's been lots of working for both of us, and trying to do necessary activities in our time off~ laundry, dishes and getting groceries. We did go fishing for a bit last weekend. Apparently William didn't LOVE the Pirates of the Caribbean fishing pole we bought him, and we should have bought the Sponge Bob pole (sorry grandma kathy :). After a few short trips out fishing with his new pole he finally managed to drop it into the lake from the dock, and unlike the SpongeBob pole it didn't float, so straight to the bottom it went. Oh well, we are thankful we didn't spend alot on the pole, and he obviously didn't have any attatchment to it. Actually I think he was pleased with himself because then he can go back to using our poles (which have the reels he's used to, none of this kiddie stuff:).

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I have been trying to be better, but this month is probably going to be pretty crazy. We're making the trip to Bemidji to see the families for Memorial Day, yah!! Then the next weekend we'll be closing on our new house! And moving out in two days, thank goodness for friends... And then the first weekend in June we have a wedding and Jeremy's an usher. So if I'm on vacation for a little bit, it's really not vacation at all! I'll at least post about the move to the new house which will be here soon. You have to love moving :)

Feeling always behind....

Just a belated Happy Birthday to my Mommy (who hasn't updated in awhile)!! She had to work on her birthday but Dad & I did pick up some awesome party hats & he let me pick out the cake! Monsters vs Aliens was the first movie they ever took me too, and I was very good! Anyways Happy Birthday Mommy, we missed you, but good think you're celebrating like Uncle Sonny always did, all month long!!I'll let Mom tell you what we're up to. Love, Will :)

Here's some photos from Easter weekend. Now that I've gotten behind maybe someday I'll catch up! Then it will probably be time to move. Anyways Enjoy!!
Thanks for coming down to visit us!

Playing with Grandpa

Dying eggs

Decorating eggs with Grandma

The finished products!!

Hiking at Whitewater...he's to cute.

Three generations

One cool dude

The guides

Just like the grownups

He fits right in...

Relaxing with Grandpa


Since I posted last we haven't been up to alot. Last weekend I worked, and it's been crazy there. I had Friday off because of some classes I had this week, and they called every four hours to see if I wanted to work. So I've worked enough extra hours this week. I work nights this week Tues -Thursday and then have a few weeks of days which will be nice ;)

I had better get off to rest before work tonight. I will eventually get last weeks fishing & jungle gym photos up as well. Sending you guys hugs...

Catching Crayfish & Easter weekend

Well it's been awhile since we've posted now. Two weeks ago we caught crayfish on the river here in Rochester. It was quite the experience. Of course Jeremy found a good recipe and we had crayfish for supper on Sunday evening. It was good, but alot of work for a little bit of meat ;) Enjoy the pics. Obviously Will liked to catch the crayfish (or at least make a valiant effort and lots of splashing) more than he enjoyed sitting on the riverbank. I just couldn't leave the shot out though, he's just always been so expressive.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Then we celebrated Easter last weekend. Every little twenty month old boy is supposed to get five easter baskets right? This one is sure loved :) First we went to the office to pick up our package and Amber, who runs the apartment building, had a few baskets left over from a little easter party they had in the office. Her basket for William was of course filled with candy which is still being carried around the apartment (especially the boxes of jelly beans). Then he opened his package from Grandpa & Grandma E & got his second basket. Thanks so much for the beach toys, outfit(ROAR!!), book & candy. The beach toys are in every room around here. :) Then on Sunday we gave him a very small basket with a book & an egg which hatches into a creature~ dinosaur or turle it's a suprise. No big suprise his parents didn't give him candy which was OK because everybody else has him all set up. Then Grandpa & Grandma D came over & we had Easter brunch & he got another bucket with books & treats. Will really enjoys the hop along bunny book & the music that comes with it. He's sure going to be a sweetheart! And last but not least we went to visit our friends Josey & Beth for dinner and they had picked him out a too cute camo basket with camo & football eggs. Another book & more chocolate for William :) Thanks Beth now he knows how to unwrap kisses all by himself! Thanks to everyone who helped to make our easter special & sweet! We love you guys!

We had a nice visit with my parents last weekend. They came down to visit us which was awesome since Jeremy had to work Good Friday. We were sad to not be able to make it home to Bemidji to see the rest of our families but it's just too much to do in two days. So we were very thankful my parents came to us this year! We got to do a little hiking in Whitewater State Park, see Soldier's Field, have lots of good food, not to mention Olive Garden for my upcoming birthday! Thanks for all of the fun times you guys, we're sooo glad you could make it!! I'll be putting up some more pictures of last weekend & our lastest fishing trip soon but I just don't have them ready yet.

Things William is up to:
*running like crazy!
*climbing & finding his way up on everything
*sitting in his rocking chair flipping thru books
*chatting with everybody he meets in the store or restaurant
*saying NO to every question mommy ask (even if he means YES!!)
*used the potty chair for the second time successfully (Go Will!)
*picking up phones and starting his imaginary conversation with HI
*blowing kisses goodbye, too sweet
*calling everybody BABY, whether your <1yr or greater than 30yr
*sucking on his baby's pacifier while carrying her around~haha
*he can reel in a fishing line faster than anybody else on the lake
*being an awesome friendly lovely little almost 2yr old boy.

Our beautiful boy


This time last year!! It's so amazing how they grow up so fast!

Fishing & then some...

Well we haven't been up to much this week. We have done lots of working & going to daycare. William has been under the weather with a bad head cold & it seems he's finally passed it on to us grownups here. I was suprised it's taken this long, as his nose has been running like a fountain since last week. At least he's been sleeping better, and not waking himself up coughing quite as often. I've heard from a few others that this is going around. We really aren't complaining, this was Will's first winter at daycare & he has hardly been sick....we've been really lucky.

My job has been really sad this spring. It's been hard to leave it all at work. It's easy to do the medical nursing care but much harder to watch people grieving for the whole twelve hour day without internalizing some of it. That's difficult but lately I've felt even worse coming home, hugging Will and being so thankful for our lives. It just isn't fair what some people go thru but I do understand that we just can't save everyone. On the other hand we have had a few AMAZING kids who are doing AWESOME!! That's why it's great to be a nurse~ there is such a variety of jobs, patients, illnesses & outcomes.

Here's a few pics of our cute son while we were out fishing lately. He really enjoys it, which you'll see below :)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy William

Well this post we have some big news~ we've found a house here in Rochester we are in the process of buying!! It's a big decision, so it's been stressful, and a bit overwhelming, but very exciting at the same time. It's nice to think all of our rent money will now be going towards something for us. So in two months we'll be moving once again. I'm not excited to be moving twice in a year but this time should be the last for a long time. We were also pretty spoiled when we moved down here last fall as Mayo covered our moving expenses & we did very little of the moving ourselves. At least this time we'll just be moving across town, so that's awesome :)

Will's doing well. He's learning lots of new words. He can finally say something that's supposed to mean drink, which is big news because it used to just be whining & now we know what he wants. Jeremy taught him how to say money, it's very funny as he walks around with his dollar bill saying mo-ey. He's learning how to use silverware, and is now drinking pretty well from a real cup. He's starting to look like such a big boy, what happened to my little baby?

I like to work my night shifts grouped together so I am excited that after Thursday I'll have a few good weeks of working days with my family. Things are going really well at work. I am starting to feel very comfortable and getting to know lots of my co-workers. I have learned alot, and seen lots of new things in the past five months. That's crazy~ we're coming up on six months already! It's amazing how similiar it is to my work in Fargo, and yet so different somedays.

To my friends and family in the Fargo/Moorhead area~ we have been thinking of you alot lately. I hope that you are staying warm, I heard about lots of snow, and the recent storm. I hope that you are all staying dry as the weekend comes. I hope the river is controlled in it's rising and that no major flooding occurs. Sending you all hugs, keeping you close to my heart.
~I miss you guys~

Happy St Patrick's Day!!

Just some photos to let you know what we've been up too! Mostly we've been working & doing some more house viewing. In our spare time last weekend we did do some fishing. William LOVES the outdoors. Of course everytime we've taken him fishing he becomes more and more adventurous, last time walking right up to the edge and checking the temperature of the water. Which was of course quite cold yet. I think he likes the freedom of outside where he can run around. He's learning how to jump in mud puddles, and now there isn't any snow in most of them so that's nice. He's learning lots of new words and is starting to copy us when we encourage him. Maybe now we'll get him saying grandma :)

Not much else to say today but I hope this finds you all well! I'll write again soon!

March Already!!

Happy William!!

I can do it myself Mom!

William on the move....

Beautiful flowers ;)

What is up with this weather? Mudpuddles??

Will loving the slide, without snow.

Is this what you call Spring??

William loves Mom's glasses~she loves the fingerprints!

Just thought I'ld post a few photos. It's amazing how quickly kids grow up. I swear William's grown a few inches this winter since Christmas. His vocabulary is growing too. He says "NO" alot, in answer to almost every question. He says all done, or all gone. He says dog and does a cute little bow-wow, without the w sound :). He remains a very active little guy, and is now into EVERYTHING. He has to take everything apart, and put it back together (if he feels like it). He's pretty sure he should be able to unscrew the top off water bottles but doesn't quite have the coordination, thank goodness! He can crawl up into his booster seat at the table all by himself now, if he wants too. He is either pushing smaller kids around, or being pushed around. At this point it's at least 50/50, he doesn't like being picked on so hopefully this will be a short phase. As you can see above he loves mudpuddles, snow, slides & Mommy's glasses. Or anything else you take away from him. He remains a very good natured child, full of smiles & laughter. We are so lucky to be his parents.

Work is going well for us. Not a whole lot to say about that. I could go on &on about my job but I'm not sure how much you guys want to hear :) In the end, I'm really enjoying it, starting to feel alot more comfortable with the staff & my skills, and learning alot. It seems like when you work with sick kids, you always hear from other people how they couldn't do it. It's funny because I couldn't imagine working ANYWHERE else!

We are in the process of looking for a house down here. It's been interesting. The more homes you see, the more you realize what you do & don't want. We have a few favorites but are still looking around.

I hope that you guys are enjoying the weather as much as we are! I was being sarcastic, but William wasn't....he isn't sure what's going on. Every time the mudpuddles come out then there's a bunch more snow dumped in them and they freeze over. The photos are actually from the first meltdown of the year. Our snowfall is practically gone now. It would be nice to have some sunny spring days :)

Talk to you all soon! Next time maybe we'll have photos of the whole family, it's just so hard to get the three of us holding still in the same spot, much less smiling ;) Thanks for checking in on us! Annette, Jeremy & William