A note to my son

12/30/15

So I've been slacking, little buddy!  But that doesn't mean I love you any less!!!

When we were awaiting the arrival of your big sister, Erica, I had lots of time on my hands to blog often...but since she's come along, spare/down time is hard to come by!  This week is Christmas Break for me so I've had some time to catch up while Erica's been napping...and so with the help of your mom nagging at me to update this blog...here I am, curled up in the basement by the fire, writing a little note to you!  I've been busy in grad school working on my Master's Degree so I can make us more money and hopefully provide a better future for you.  It's taken a lot of my time with all of the reading I have to do and the papers I have to write...I usually don't get started on them until your big sister has gone to bed for the night.  Fortunately for you, I'll be done in June!!!

Although I had to miss a few doctor's appointments because of school and work, I've loved going to all but a couple of them...it's been so awesome hearing your heartbeat and seeing a few pictures of you on the ultrasound slides a few months ago.  Some day you'll realize why a baby's heartbeat is the best sound in the world!!!

I can't wait to meet you!  I've found some camo clothes for you and Erica has bought a car for you already!  Your room is painted blue and the letters spelling your name are painted and ready to hang once you arrive home (we can't hang them yet because we don't want anyone to see them too early and ruin the surprise!).  By the way...I love your name!  It took some sweet talking and many conversations, but I finally got your mom convinced that we have the right name picked out for you.  (I think she's just a sore loser because I also named your sister!)  I even have a camo outfit picked out for you to wear home from the hospital once you arrive in a few weeks!

I'm really anxious to take you hunting for the first time!  I'm going to bring you to the Big Gun Lodge wayyyyy up in the woods and far away from the hustle-bustle of people.  It's a very special place to me...and your grandpa, Tim for that matter.  I've been going up there since I was 8 years old with my dad.  I wasn't old enough to hunt then, but I loved driving around on the 4 wheeler with him through the woods and helping him see grouse.  I really hope I can take you and your sister along for some hunts when you two get old enough...I've been waiting a really long time to make that memory with you guys!  I'm hoping you'll want to hunt with me, but more importantly, I hope you want to go up to the cabin with me.  It's always been a special place and a special time and I look forward to it every year.  It's a chance to escape life and recharge the batteries by being in the quiet woods, in a cozy cabin and out by the fire watching the river flow by.  I like to think that my worries and stresses are carried away by the river as it runs past the cabin!  Again...I'm so hopeful that you'll want to go to the cabin with me throughout your lifetime and share some memories together as I've done with my dad and other good buddies up there.  I know you'll have a pal, Owen, who will be hoping to see you up there in a few years...I'm sure you two will have lots of fun together running through the woods playing with toy guns, walking with your dads and practicing shooting a BB gun when you get a little older!  I'm thinking I may even get buried up there someday...well, of having some of my ashes throw into the river and sprinkled around the woods...that way I'll always be up at the cabin I love, and even after I'm gone, you'll still be able to come and hang out at the cabin and spend some time with your dad!

On a more serious note...you and I will have to sit down and have a chat once you arrive...you've been torturing your mother for the past 9 months!  She's been pretty miserable carrying you around in her belly...but she loves you very much and can't wait to meet you too!  She's had heartburn from the day we learned you were hiding in her belly.  Her back has been hurting more, and she's had a lot of trouble sleeping and has been sick at times.  You've definitely been testing her will, but I know she'll love you just as much as she loves your big sister!  So basically, what I'm trying to say is that you'll be grounded indefinitely once you arrive...until mom says you're done, you're on lock down, little buddy!!!

We have a bigger house for you!  Earlier this fall, at the end of October, we bought a bigger house for you and your sister.  Each of you have your own bedroom, and a huge toy room downstairs for you to play with all of your toys.  Erica loves the room so far.  I think the best part of the house, the part you'll like most when you get older, is the huge backyard...we have a big hill for you to go sledding down in the winter, a fire pit at the top of the hill...but the best part, is the "bonus yard" we have behind us...it's a huge nature park area...over a mile long and close to a half mile wide of woods, grasslands and rolling hills!  It's pretty awesome!  It feels like we're up in the woods when Lexi and I have walked around it a couple times...and I haven't even come close to seeing it all yet!  If you're anything like me when I was a kid, you'll love running around in the woods and playing "army guys" with toy guns when you get older!  I'm pretty jealous of you...I would've loved to have had this yard when I was a little boy!!!

Well, I'll wrap this up...your sister will probably be waking up from a nap soon and will spoil a perfectly quiet afternoon of solitude!!!  I love you very much, little buddy!  Erica and I talk to you every day and rub mommy's tummy as we talk to you.  We can't wait to meet you.  I'm nervous again to get ready to go to the hospital just because it was tough for me to see mommy hooked up to all of the machines, but I know that you'll be ready to meet us soon and I can't wait to see you and hold you for the first time!  Love ya lots!

-Daddy

Your beautiful mommy! Taken today, 12/30/15 (36 weeks)

Our new house with your big sister, Erica in the front yard

Your bedroom. Mommy has put up some decorations since this picture was taken...she's loved decorating your room with dinosaurs for you!!!

Erica wanted to try a pair of your PJs on one night while we were decorating your room!

...and we're having a little...

9/8/15

We had our 20 week ultra sound tonight, and we're having a ...

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BOY!!!!

We're having a little, baby boy!!!  A BOY!!!

We sat through almost the entire ultrasound before the lady said, "well, let's see if we can tell what this little baby is..."  A few seconds went by.  My eyes were still straining to make out features on the screen and she said, "well, there is the scrotal sac."  It took me a second before I asked,  "Soooo, it's a boy?!?!"  I'm sorry...I guess I refer to certain features with less nerdy terms than those in the medical field!!!

Laura and I both didn't have a worry/care about whatever gender our little one was hiding from us until tonight.  Erica stole my heart from the first second I set my eyes on her, I knew I would enjoy another little girl as much as I'd enjoy a little boy.  Selfishly though, every guy secretly hopes for a boy.  Maybe it's a macho thing, I don't know, but we hope for the boy.  For me, my hopes were to have a boy who I can take hunting and can carry on the family name.  Fortunately for me, I know I'll take Erica hunting a time or two, and hopefully much more.  Who knows, maybe my little dude won't be into hunting...but I'm still excited to have a little baby boy!

I'm excited to have a boy!

As I think about it now...as I write...I'm excited about a boy for a couple of big reasons:

1 - I want a boy who I can teach to be honorable who lives his life with integrity.  It seems that we live in a world today where people become passionate about silly things, and almost overnight.  At the end of the day, so many of these things just don't seem to matter at all in the long run.  I want to help guide my son on a path that will show him that he should follow his heart, know the difference between right and wrong, treat people fairly and with respect, and to always do the right thing.  I guess you could say, I want to help raise someone who will be someone that contributes positively to society.

2 - To have a sense of pride in his work.  My dad always taught me (and, damn did it piss me off at the time!!!) to work hard and do my best work at everything I did.  I see students who don't care too much about anything and don't take the time to put much effort into simple assignments.  I want to show my son that hard work pays off, even if you don't get that pay off immediately (something my dad left out of his mini-lessons!).

3 - To treat women the right way.  Pop culture today makes women appear to be objects and things that don't deserve respect.  I fundamentally disagree with how a lot of society treats women.  I want to teach my son that women are awesome and that they deserve respect and to be treated fairly.  I'm certainly not a feminist by any means, but I'm a little old fashioned when it comes to chivalry and being kind to ladies!  I'll teach him:
-to never hit a woman
-to love her unconditionally
-to open doors for her
-to buy her flowers without reason as well as to buy her flowers when he messes up
-to cook for her
-to call her beautiful each and every day
-to tell her sweatpants and hoodies are sexy
-to say "thank you" for all of the little things she does around the house because she keeps the house running and it'd fall apart if it wasn't for her
-to say "yes, dear" in most arguments, because he'll lose them even if he's right
-to appreciate her and pamper her to the best of his ability while she is pregnant with your child
-to change a diaper because you're responsible for half of that shit!
-to be at her side when she is sick
-to buy her jewelry and other sparkly things
-to always tell her she looks good in those pants
-to never say she looks fat
-to always compliment her cooking (until many years have passed, you cannot say anything bad about something she makes!)
-to tell her each day that you love her
-to hug her each day before you go to work
-to work harder on the marriage when some days seem tougher than others
...and lots of other things I'm undoubtedly leaving out, but am forever thankful that my wife does for me...and for other things that my mom used to do for me.  Basically...not to take an amazing woman for granted! And, not to be shallow and petty if he's with a girl that he finds himself no longer having feelings for.  I remember when I was in high school (and I see it still happens to students today) that guys would break up with girls for stupid reasons they'd say just so they wouldn't have to tell the truth...that they weren't committed or mature enough to be with the girl they were with.

As I think of it now...I plan to teach Erica all of those things too...and would've taught those same things to our next baby had I found out tonight that we were expecting a girl!  These are just simple things descent people should live by!  And good men should live by these things as well, so now...I'm excited and humbled by the responsibility have to always serve as a role model for my little boy when he arrives in January...because he'll always be watching me, just like all little boys should grow up watching their dads!

Thanks so much for reading this entry!  I'm so pumped!  I hope you're excited too!  Do me a favor...I'm not big on "re-posting" or sharing things on social media...but if you liked my list from above, pass it along to some people in your life and see if they'd agree with the things I think all dads have an obligation to teach their little boys.  Let me know what people think?!  Thanks again for reading my Daddy Diary.  As always, we appreciate your well-wishes and best thoughts.  I'll keep you posted on Laura, Erica and my future little guy!  Take care!

Enjoy a couple pics of our little guy...just like his mom and big sister...he's so damn cute!!!

Re-hydrating in the ER and another new chapter?

8/17/15

What better place to catch up on fluids and re-hydration than at the ER?!?!

After a long and borderline-miserable weekend, we headed to the ER to make sure Laura and baby were doing ok.  It started last Thursday when Laura wasn't feeling too good.  We had cleared the first trimester a few weeks ago and all was going well until she had long bouts of nausea and wasn't feeling so hot.  We had a doctor's appointment that afternoon so we planned to talk with the doctor then.  Around lunchtime, the doctor's office called and said they had to postpone it until the following Monday because the doctor was called into the hospital for a delivery of a baby.  Hoping it was just a short term feeling, we went on with our day.  Friday came and didn't go too well either and we braced for the weekend.  The weekend wasn't good!  Laura started to have a tough time holding onto fluids and just didn't feel great at all.  We decided on Sunday that we'd try to move the appointment up from the afternoon to Monday morning so we could get checked out.  Well, Laura called and asked to reschedule and they patched her through to a nurse who listened to the symptoms and they told us to head to the ER to get checked out to make sure the baby was ok and to ensure mom was ok as well.  So, after some tears and a worried few hours waiting to get looked at, we had an ultrasound which told us everything was going great with the baby still and that Laura was healthy.  They hooked Laura up to an IV and gave her some fluids.  Long story short: it was probably a combo of dehydration and a small stomach virus Laura dealt with over the weekend.  I tell you what...the worst feelings on Earth are watching your kids endure pain, and watching your wife go through something like that...because you feel helpless!  Dads seem to naturally shift to the "health and safety department" of family life, so if something throws those two things out of whack, watch out!

After a 4 hour ordeal, they sent us home and told Laura to rest for the remainder of the day and drink lots of water.  Within a couple of days, she was back to her usual self.

Sorry this one was belated, but life has been crazy since that week!  Actually, life all summer long was crazy!  This was the fastest summer yet!  There wasn't a single week where I spent 5 days with Erica!  Whether it was meetings, trainings, traveling or whatever, this summer was chopped up and gone before we realized.

To catch you up a little bit on the stressful past 2 weeks, we have our home on the market and have had our offer on a new home accepted (contingent upon the sale of our house).  We have been looking for a new home since late this past spring.  With another baby on the way and with Laura working out of the house, we need another bedroom and some more storage!  We searched for a couple months and walked through close to two dozen homes and hadn't found anything in our price range that we liked or that didn't need some major remodeling.  So, after being disappointed time and again, we made an appointment with our loan guy to start some paperwork on refinancing our current home and getting a 15 year mortgage and paying off the house quicker.  Then, on a Monday afternoon in late August, I was casually searching Zillow and looked at a property that had been on the market throughout our entire search but didn't jump out at us, as well as an auction home that looked promising.  The first property had numerous pictures on the web but they didn't look good.  The second property also had some pictures that didn't look good but offered a lot of promise.  So we asked our realtor to set up a tour.  The next day we walked through the first house mentioned and fell in love!  The second house (the auction) was a nightmare...one of the worst/most trashed houses we've seen in our searches for homes!

The house has over half an acre at the end of a cul de sac  with the back property line butting up to a large nature preserve.  There's 5 bedrooms with 3 baths, so we'll have a bedroom for the 2 kids as well as Laura's office with another bedroom for guests as well as a dedicated storage room...with lots of extra closet space!  We lined up another walk through the next day with my dad who agreed to tag along and take a good look at everything to see if the house was in good condition, with the idea that if all passed muster, we'd make an offer.  Well, by dinner time that night, we signed all the paperwork and submitted our offer.  By friday that week, our offer was accepted, and our house is now on the market!  We had our first showing tonight with another tomorrow, so we have our fingers crossed that someone will like it and we can keep the process rolling, with a tentative closing date just before Halloween! So...both of us have had some sleepless nights, lots of stressful days and tons of "what ifs" going through our heads over the past 2 weeks!

Anyways...that's been our life for the last 3 weeks!  Thanks again for reading my Daddy Diary.  We appreciate your well-wishes and for checking in on us once in a while.  School started today for me, so it's officially a school  night.  Be on the lookout for upcoming news on our newest bundle of joy!  Just a hint...we had our ultrasound tonight and we're having a...

Hearing the heartbeat!

Written 7/15/15, posted 8/19/15

Hearing your child's heart beat for the first time is priceless!  However, straining to hear your second child's heart beat for the first time over the crying of your 2 year old is a little less moving!

We thought taking Erica with to Laura's doctor appointment last night would be a fun thing for her to do, especially knowing we would be hearing the heart beat for the first time.  We were wrong!  Evidently, Erica only associates the doctor's office with getting shots and hates it...and of course, I feel the same way!  As soon as the doctor walked in, Erica started to squirm and cry.  Once Laura hopped up on the exam table, it was all over with!  Erica was a mess!  Screaming and crying, "Take me out!" and pointing to the door!  I wanted to stay, but the doctor thought it would be best not to traumatize her, so we stepped into the hallway, and listened for the heart beat through the propped-open door.

Hearing the rasping "thump-thump, thump-thump" was as thrilling as it was when we first heard Erica's!  That sound will never get old in my mind, and I'll never forget it!  According to the doctor, all is going well.  Laura is progressing nicely and we are officially at the 12 week mark, which means the 1st Trimester is over, and according to most professionals, this "danger zone" of risky time for baby development is over.  Laura, however, hasn't felt so good lately.  She's had quite a few days in the past 2 weeks where she's been battling some nausea that seems to come at any time of day.  Food sometimes sounds good, and other times she isn't hungry at all.  I am happy to say, though, that she has had her first craving as a pregnant woman (including being pregnant with Erica)...ice water!  Prior to baby #2, she would only drink water without ice.  Nowadays, her cup is so packed full of ice, I'm amazed any water fits in it!  And according to her, she can't get it cold enough!  Weird!  At least it isn't pickles and ice cream!  Over the next few weeks, we'll be letting more friends and family know about our newest bundle of joy that's on its way, due January 23, 2016.

As for Erica, she is hilarious as usual! She is always letting her personality shine and making people laugh with the things she says and does.  Her latest phrases are:

"What the heck?"

"Whaaaaaaaat?" (to show excitement and/or doubt!!!)

"Hurry up car, get out of my way!" (in traffic...and she says it perfectly every time...only when there is a car sitting still, and usually for a dumb reason!)

"Mommy, come here!"

"Where'd ______ go?!?!" (fill in the blank with anyone's name who left the room she is in)

"What's that for?" (any object, near or far, that she sees)

Of course, she says way more than this, but these are the most frequent things she says.

In a couple hours, we'll be in the car and heading to North Dakota to visit Laura's family for a few days.  We'll leave when Laura is done working, so it'll be a late night for Erica.  We are crossing our fingers for this trip...her schedule has been way off since this past weekend.  We were in Mankato for a wedding and Erica was the flower girl, while daddy was a groomsman.  Between setting up the hall on friday, the grooms dinner, pictures and the dance, she had 2 days without a normal nap, odd eating times and late bed times.  I'll be honest, the past 2 days have been hell!!!  She's cranky, isn't eating much, and didn't take a nap again yesterday...which may have contributed to all the tears at the doctor's office.  But right now...knock on wood...she's napping!  So I'm going to wrap this one up and go finish packing the car so we can hit the road and head to the farm when Laura is done working!

Thanks again for checking in on the blog, and I hope you keep coming back as the doctor's appointments will become more frequent as we progress through baby number 2!  Take care and thanks for reading my Daddy Diary!

Stealing daddy's hat at the dance!

Family photo before the dance

Family photo in between professional pictures

My beautiful flower girl!!

Up next...baby #2!!!

Written 6/21/15, updated and posted 8/19/15


That's right...we're expecting baby #2!!!

Our second child is due January 23, 2016!  We just had our first ultrasound last tuesday.  We saw it's tiny little heart beating!  I must say, seeing the heart beating for our second child is just as special as it was when we saw Erica's little heart beat for the first time!  From what we could tell, everything looks great and is proceeding normally!  We will have our next check up in a month, and 2 months from now, depending on our desires, we'll be able to see if we'll be expecting a baby brother or sister for Erica.

Laura and I were cued in on that newest bundle of joy around Memorial Day.  Laura had been pretty tired for a week or so and was generally feeling wiped out and had little energy.  I suspected maybe we had gotten lucky, but she didn't seem as confident.  She took a home test one morning before I went to school and told me as I came into the kitchen that it wasn't positive...and that the result likely didn't mean much because the tests had expired 2 years earlier.  As I was getting ready, I noticed the discarded test in the trash, and coincidentally, the little "+" sign was facing up, and very obviously displayed!  I finished getting ready and went to gather my things to head out to school and I told her, "I don't know which side you looked at, but it look more like a '+' sign than a '-' sign to me!"  She didn't seem to react much and I headed to school.  I was excited, but because Laura didn't react at all, I thought that maybe the test was expired...even though I didn't know something like that could expire.  I'm not sure if it was that day or the next, but over her lunch break, Laura went to Target and bought another test.  The next morning, I was the last one out of bed, so when I went into the bathroom, sitting neatly on the counter was the newest test displaying the same, bold "+" I saw previously!!!  Although it wasn't as big of breaking news as it was when we learned of Erica's existence, I was still super pumped to see that "+" sign again!!!

Erica has seemed to enjoy the idea of being a big sister. We've been talking with her more about a little sibling lately.  She has requested a boy and girl at separate times, so it's nice to see that she has an open mind! (heavy on the sarcasm!)  When I first told her that mommy has a baby in her tummy, she gave me a very strange look!  Since then, when we talk about the baby, she goes and gets her play baby doll and cuddles it while sitting with mommy, so we're optimistic that things should keep going well for this new transition for her/us!  Since finding out, we've only told our parents and Erica about our next bundle of joy.  However, according to my mom, Erica almost let the cat out of the bag last week when she took her to visit Granny.  She wasn't sure what took place, but Erica started saying something about "mommy" and "baby."  My mom didn't pick up on it right away, but she figured it out pretty quickly and apparently she shifted the conversation and played it off as Erica's random babbling of words!!!

But enough about us...Laura has been doing really well so far.  The past couple of weeks have been "ehhh" as Laura puts it.  She doesn't have full-blown morning sickness, but as she says it, just doesn't feel right or normal. She has found that she feels worse with an empty stomach, so she has tried to spread out her meals into smaller snacks to try and keep her stomach calm throughout the day.  She has been sleeping pretty well, but has started to feel some discomfort from some of the changes her body has already started to go through as it prepares for the arrival of our second child!

So, for now, that's all I have on this first post on the 2nd Edition of my Daddy Diary.  I'm ecstatic to be a dad to 2 little kids!  Erica has done nothing but bring endless love and happiness to my life and I can't imagine how rich my life will feel with twice as much love and happiness!  Although someday in the future, I'll wonder why I ever wanted 2 teenagers, right now...I'm full of happiness and anticipation!!!  Thanks again for checking out my Daddy Diary as I start out the next edition.  The updates will again pick up in pace.  I'm not sure if you noticed the slight hint in my previous post, but now that another child is on the way, I'll be typing away on this blog more frequently in the upcoming months to keep you up to date on life in our home!  Thanks again for sending your best wishes our way.  We greatly appreciate it!  Take care!

Here's a picture of an ultrasound from a few days ago (taken August 17) 

A two year old!!!

6/21/15

(Cheering on mommy this weekend at the marathon)

Happy Father's Day to me!!!  My last post was 6 1/2 months ago, and it was just one of the previous few posts that began with something like, "where did the time go?"  Well, I guess I'll follow that theme/trend...I can't begin to think about how much Erica has started doing since the last post!

I'll just begin by saying my little girl makes me smile and laugh so often!  She has developed a charming and funny personality!  She is very high-energy and never stops moving.  She never stops moving...one thing that hasn't changed since the day she was born.  She isn't mischievous, but she is constantly exploring and discovering the world around her.

She loves to climb...anything she can get a foot on, she will try to climb up and over!  Her slide in the backyard is full of foot holes, so she scales all 4 sides of it...including trying to make it up the slide itself.

Erica is definitely an outdoors girl that looks great in camo!!!

She is a talker!  She is very inquisitive, and as my parents said about me as a child, she, "never shuts up!" She babbles non-stop.  She has a pretty strong vocabulary and is doing really well at putting sentences together.  She's no longer just making sounds, but expressing ideas, emotions, and above all...her fun personality!  She is really good at making people laugh, and she knows it!  She makes voices, asks silly questions, uses a high-pitch "puppy voice" when talking to our dog, Lexi.  She's just awesome!

Erica was baptized on mid May with my cousin Holly and long-time buddy, "Scuba" Steve. 

She is a relatively "funky" eater!  I don't know how else to describe her with food.  She absolutely loves salmon, rice and peas.  In fact, those 3 things make up her favorite meal that she never refuses and often requests.  She loves fruit and most veggies, but beyond that, it's a crap shoot!  She typically loves steak, but some nights she doesn't even want to take a bite!  She refuses most breads (except rice, noodles and macaroni and cheese).  She is the only kid I know that doesn't want to even try pancakes, grilled cheese, or typical "kid foods" like that!  It's not like she tries it and doesn't like it, but she refuses to even take a bit and see what it's like.  Of course, she loves candy, especially suckers.  Lately, now that potty training is well under way, she loves fruit snacks!  If she goes potty, she gets a "fish"...either a shark fruit snack or a red Swedish Fish, which she refers to as an "uncle Jorj fish" because our neighbor (who we refer to as "Uncle Jorj") first gave her Swedish fish for something one night by a bonfire and let us keep the pack because he predicted that we'd need them for potty training!!!  If Erica tells us she needs to go to the bathroom, she gets 2 fish!!!  Our night time ritual includes a healthy snack!  After bath each night, we snuggle on the couch and eat fruit.  Over the winter we had oranges.  But now, it's typically blueberries or nectarines nowadays.  We are pumped that she loves fruit as much as she does, and that a healthy snack is a routine and something she looks forward to asks for each day!

Potty training has been hit or miss.  We started her several months ago because she very curious about the potty and what mommy or daddy would do in the bathroom, so we thought we'd try...especially because she was so excited to tell us when Lexi was pooping in the yard or on walks.  Since then, she's had mostly good days, with a few bad days in the mix.  She does the worst with me.  Maybe because I take potty training seriously and I don't want to clean up messes if there's a mishap in the bathroom. But she does really well going for Erica, but does the best with my parents.  They are very intentional about using the bathroom often and she will usually tell them when she needs to go...something that rarely happens for us.

Now that summer is in full swing, Erica is no longer going to her usual daycare every day.  We loved having her a mile from home and with an excellent daycare lady who she loved and who did a great job with Erica during the year.  She learned countless things over the school year that often left us scratching our heads and asking, "where'd she learn that?"  One thing we've heard more over the past month or so is "what's the password?"  While holding her in our arms, she'd ask to get down and we'd say, "no way."  She'd reply with, "what's the password?  The password is macaroni!"  I'm happy to report that the password has never changed, so I'm feeling confident if I ever end up in a pickle and need to convince her to do something with a password lock, I'll be able to figure it out!  If we aren't asked for a password, she may ask for our arms to open by saying, "open sesame!"  Again, we didn't teacher her either of those phrases, but they bring us tons of laughs when she uses them without prompting!

Funny faces with daddy

She loves going to the "boat store" (Cabelas) and climbing around the boats!

Beyond this, I don't even know where to start providing other updates!  Laura and everyone else that is around Erica often would list a million other things I left off this blog update, but I'll just wrap it up here.  The past few weeks have been a whirl wind start to our summer.  Erica has been bouncing back and forth between my parents' and our house due to a couple busy weekends and several busy days with my year-end meetings.  Laura ran her 2nd Grandma's Half Marathon yesterday and Erica, my parents and I were her cheerleaders again.  This morning, we all woke up and we sent Erica and Laura packing as they headed to the farm in ND to be with Laura's parents for a week.  Laura will come home next week, and Erica will stick around for a few extra days into the following week until I meet Russ and Cheryl somewhere in the middle and pick up Erica.  It's going to be a long week and a half without my girls (although I have Lexi in the house to keep me company)!  I have to admit, saying good bye to my little nugget this morning brought a couple of tears to my eyes!  I've never been away from her this long before, and it's going to be a long couple of weeks for me!

And with that, I'll wrap up this edition of my Daddy Diary.  If you're still checking in on this once in a while, I greatly appreciate it!  My sincerest apologies for updating this so sparingly if you were a faithful follower throughout the first part of my journey to becoming a dad, long before my sweet, little Erica was born!  I'm making it a goal to be more active with my blog updates this summer, so please check back again when you get a chance and see what sort of things my little nugget is doing to keep me on my toes!  Thanks again for sending us your best wishes...we've always appreciated your best thoughts over the past 2+ years.  Take care!

Welcome to 2015!!!

1/4/15

I couldn't think of a better reason to do my first blog post in over 4 months than to tell you all about Erica climbing out of her crib for the first time today, and less than an hour later, Laura discovered my first gray hair!!!

I honestly don't even know where to start with this blog post, so I'll just try to fill you in on some highlights over the past 4 months and let you know about some of the many things Erica does now (and the ways she gets into mischief).

First and foremost, my weak attempt at an excuse for my lack of posts lately...I started graduate school just after Labor Day this year and I'm on my way towards earning my Master's in Education Leadership.  Since that first night of class (I have class every Monday night for 3 hours for the next 2 years, with a few weeks off over the holidays along with July and August), I have had very little free time.  Laura will vouch for me...I've been lame...well, lamer than usual over the past few months.  Each night during the week I'm usually doing something for school.  There's tons of reading to do between classes, and most weeks, there's usually a written analysis paper due.  Currently, I've completed 2 classes and have only 8 more to do and I'll have my Master's!!!

Ok...back to the cute one and enough about me.  Erica is truly the best thing that ever happened to me (with Laura being a super-close 2nd!!!).  She brings us so much joy, happiness, and gray hairs!!!  Since daycare started at the end of August, she's had plenty of colds and a couple of fevers, but this little girl is just amazing.  Even when she is sick and totally wiped out, she still has her cute personality and she is such a trooper!!!  Despite congestion, coughs and fevers, she still sleeps through the night and doesn't cause much commotion during the day.  We know when she isn't feeling well because she just wants to be held and cuddles with anyone willing to hold her for a while (this is odd because she never sits still for more than 10 seconds all day long...still!!!)

Her personality continues to blossom into a charming little girl.  She will definitely be a heart-breaker some day!  She is always laughing and she always seems to find ways to make us laugh at her.  Weather she is poking our nose and saying, "beep!" and running away or chasing after Lexi and pulling her tail or dancing in front of the TV while watching a kids' sing-along DVD...she is always having fun and putting smiles on our faces.  She is truly the sparkle in my eye and the joy of my life.  Some days I can't keep up with her non-stop movement and terrorism within the house, yet at the end of each day as we put her down for bedtime, I wish we had a few more hours to hang out with her and laugh.

She is saying all sorts of words.  Some words sound perfect, while others are hard to decipher, but we generally figure out what she is trying to say.  It took a while, but she's saying words together now, so we are greatly assisted in understanding what she's trying to tell us.  I'm proudest of the words I've taught her...of course!!!  My favorite is "poopy butt!"  It's funny because of the long delay between the 2 words and because of the big emphasis she puts on "butt."  Either Laura taught her "beast" as the nickname for Lexi, or she has picked it up from us, but she now refers to her as both "beast", "puppy" and is starting to say "Lexi."

She is a climber...as stated in the opening of this post, she climbed out of her crib at nap time today.  Laura and I were watching TV in the sunroom, an we heard a door close.  We both sprang up from the couch to find her standing in the hallway.  Laura wondered how she did it, and I replied, "Well, let's put her back in the crib and she'll show us!"  Of course, she showed us just how she got out.  Prior to today, she had been moving toy chairs around the house climbing up on them to flip light switches, climbing in and out of a toy tricycle, her Little Tykes red and yellow car and anything else she could lift a foot or leg up on.  For quite a while, she has been climbing up on the chairs at the peninsula where we eat and sits on the chairs like "a big girl" with us.  I'm surprised at all of this for some reason.  I'm most fearful of her getting hurt, because she doesn't have any fear and doesn't understand gravity yet.  I shouldn't be surprised with any of this because she has never sat still, and since the day she was born, she has always been alert and curious of her surroundings.

In regards to her interests:
- she loves dancing in front of the TV to her DVDs
- she loves Goldfish and Animal Crackers for snacks
- she kind of sings along to "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Patty Cake"
- she loves short stories being read to her
- she likes talking to "papa" and "mama" (grandpa and grandma, pronounced like "mam-uh") on the phone and Skype
- she loved opening presents at Christmas this year
- she likes chasing Lexi, especially when "puppy" washes her face
- she likes cooking...whether she watches daddy cook at the stove, or when she "cooks" and feeds us meals on the plates from a tea set she got at Christmas
- she loves taking rides on Gators (John Deere side-by-side UTVs, 4 wheelers and tractors)...a few weeks ago, she went shopping with my dad and I while he looked for a new Polaris Razor, and she sat on a few mini-sized 4 wheelers!!!)
- she likes steak, crab legs, cheese, yogurt and pears
- she loves watching "Wockey" before bedtime (MN Wild hockey games)
- she loves watching planes fly overhead and hears them and points them out with ease
- her favorite word is "more"...she always wants more of everything...whether it's tickles from daddy, cookies from grandma, or stories from mommy, she always wants more, and she usually says it with a smile on her face
- she can be a monster, but she is doing really well with saying "please" and "thanks/'tank' you"
- she says "uh uh" and "nope" as if she's been saying them for years!!!
- she loves taking pictures on our phones and looking at pictures other people have on their phones
- she's an outdoors girl, and despite the snow on the ground, she doesn't seem to mind the cold!!!  If she could live outside, she would...hopefully she'll still be this way in another 5-10 years when I can start taking her up to the cabin to hunt and ride 4 wheelers with her daddy!!!

I hope you've enjoyed the quick update.  I'll try to do more frequent posts, but my next grad class will be starting in a week, and my typing time will most likely be dedicated to my classes until Spring Break.  I'll try to be a better blogger in the upcoming months!!!  If you still happen to be following this infrequent blog, I want to thank you again for checking this out, and for those faithful followers, we appreciate your best wishes/thoughts you send our way!  Take care and thanks for reading my Daddy Diary!!!

...enjoy the pictures...

She loves yogurt!!!

First day at daycare this year!!!

She watched her first Wild training camp and got a puck from the practice!!

Being whacky with mommy!! Such a fun personality!!!

She was a (not so happy) bunny for Halloween this year

She loves eating ice cream with Papa Tim

Erica helped daddy repaint the bathroom

You never know what she will run around the corner with (or what she may be doing when you round the corner). In this case walking down the hall with her pants down

Setting up the Christmas tree with mommy

She was a trooper while dealing with an eye infection...and a cute trooper!!!

Reading with mommy

Decorating cookies with KeeKee at great Granny's house

Shopping for 4 wheelers with papa

She pulled all of her toys out of a bag in the car while traveling to ND on Christmas

A sled ride with Papa Russ in ND

Before tackling presents in ND

Fighting a cold on the couch with daddy...and still a cute trooper!!!

She loves shopping at hunting stores with daddy!!!

Her new hobby "fix it!"

Our climber...taken this morning before she escaped her crib!

Lunch with mommy and daddy at the Rainforest Cafe at the MOA after Underwater World this morning