This blog is my "online" journal of my family's life. My husband Hans and I have one son, Jacob who turned 3 in mid April, and another son due in Mid October! Hans works as a system operator for a electrical company, and I work from home. I finished my college degree in December of 09 and couldn't be happier and more proud of myself. Working, having a baby and going to school was hard and some days made me want to pull my hair out. But I stuck with it and completed it!
We moved from Alaska to South Dakota in May 2011 for Hans' new job, and have settled nicely. He finished his degree in December 2010, and is now working in his new field. In June, he decided to go back to school to get his bachelors degree in the same field, and is currently working on that and is scheduled to finish in May 2014! Now that we are here in SD, we took the leap and bought our first house and love it!
To learn more about us click on the about us tab and keep coming back to read about our adventures!
Wow, it has been awhile since I have updated (Sorry Nana!). Lots has happened in the past 2 1/2 months, so I will try to do a quick recap!
Hans and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by going on a cruise while Jacob spent the week with Hans' parents in Colorado.
Hans surprised me with a trip to North Dakota to go and visit Megan and Mike while they were in Bismark!
November brought the start of the busy holiday season, and with that visitors! My mom and youngest sister (Sara) came to visit us for Thanksgiving.
December came and I went to Minnesota for Megan's baby shower on the 10th. We had a great girls weekend, and I can't wait for baby blueberry to come into the world sometime in late February or early March
The following weekend, Hans had a "boys" weekend in Minneapolis with some friends. They went to the NHL game on Saturday night, and the NFL game on Sunday. This was his first time seeing a NFL gave live, and it was is favorite team playing as visitors (The New Orleans Saints)
This bring us up to Christmas!
Jacob enjoyed coming downstairs this morning to find the family room full of new presents! He has enjoyed playing all day with all his new stuff!
I know that I haven't posted in awhile, but I would first like to pay tribute to the men and women who lost their lives 10 years ago today due to a horrible terrorist attack on our Country.
9-11 is the first large even in my life that someone can ask me "Where were you when it happened?" and I can tell them from my own memory where I was and what I was doing. Because of the time difference between NY and Alaska (4 hours) I first heard about the attack when my alarm went off for me to get up in the morning for school. I have just started my Senior year in high school. I am a avid snoozer when it comes to waking up in the morning, so I didn't even think twice when my alarm when off that morning. After laying in bed thinking to myself, I didn't just hear what I think I heard, no it couldn't be I must have been dreaming it. I waited for my alarm to go back off and sure enough the DJ was still talking about the first plane hitting the tower. At this point, I jumped out of bed, ran and turned on the TV. I then went and woke up my mom and we watched in horror as the second plane hit the second tower. I remember sitting there thinking that my life as I knew it had changed. I remember my mom wondering if she should send me to school and I told her "mom, this is Palmer, Alaska there isn't anything here that anyone would want to blow up, I will be fine." She eventually agreed and I ended up going to school where my classmates and teachers huddled around the computers to listen to the news reports as we all watched the fateful events of that day.
On one hand, it is hard to believe that it has been 10 years, on the other it isn't. Time goes by in the blink of an eye. I still think about that day often, and am most touched by the song Alan Jackson wrote "Where were you when the World Stopped Turning"
OK now that I have said my piece about 9/11/01 onto our update!
First I am sorry I didn't update about this much earlier, but I actually didn't break my ankle! After my fall and ER trip, I went to the doctors for a follow-up that following Monday. They determined that it wasn't actually broken, I just tore the ligaments. This was great news as the healing time would be a lot quicker and I could be move from the big black walking boot cast and crutches to a air cast with no crutches! It has been pretty good and healing very well since then. I have has a few days that I have over done it with the walking (went to the State Fair and walked all day and it was hurting me a lot after that)
Since I did not break my ankle, I was able to go with Hans this weekend to Minneapolis! He had to go for a work conference and Jacob and I went to have fun! On Friday while Hans was busy all day, Jacob and I started our day off by going to the Zoo! We had a great time! The bears were pretty cool and were playing right at the glass so we got some cool pictures of them! Here is one of Jacob and I with the bear behind us!
After we left the Zoo, and Jacob decided that the nap in the van was good enough for him we went to the Mall of America to look around! We had fun looking at all the stores, and Jacob enjoyed being able to pick out some stuff at the Disney store! After the mall we drove out to our friends Megan's parents house to have dinner. Hans was not able to join us as he was still busy with his meetings. We really enjoyed having dinner with Walt and Terry and can't wait to be able to go back to visit them in the future.
On Saturday, Hans had stuff in the morning so Jacob and I just hung out in the hotel room playing on the computer and watching movies. Once Hans was done, we headed back over to the mall to do a little more shopping and looking around. Saturday night, Hans had a banquet to end his conference so he went to that, and Jacob and I went out to eat and then to go and find the craft stores!
Today we got up and packed up. We hit the road to make out 6 hour drive back home. We made a stop at the outlet mall to try and find some new clothes for Jacob as he is about to move up to 3T and we have nothing in that size! We lucked out and were able to get him almost everything he will need (at least for now) for just around a hundred bucks! I thought that was a pretty good deal!
This week I am really looking forward to the mom's group (MOPS) that I have found here in Huron to start up their regular meetings!
Another thing that I am looking forward to is our Anniversary cruise that leaves in 5 weeks from today!! I can't believe that it is only 5 weeks away!
We had a busy, but fun weekend! On Friday morning, Hans flew back to Omaha from Dallas from being gone at his friends mom's funeral in Louisiana. He then drove over to Des Moines IA. Jacob and I loaded up the van on Friday morning to head down to Des Moines to meet up with Hans for my scrapbooking stuff. Jacob did very well on the 7 hour drive (thanks to our DVD player!) and I am very thankful for that!
We have a friend who lives in Des Moines, so we were able to meet up with her and her family for dinner before my festivities started. As we were leaving our hotel, Jacob was running down the hall and ran right into the door jam and hit his eye. :( He now has quite the nice shiner on his right eye.
Friday night, the first part of my scrapbooking festivities was a meet & greet with the owner and designer of Pink By Design stamps Sarah. She also had 3 of her design team present and they were some awesome women!! I actually ran into them at Michaels craft store a few hours before the event started, and then at Starbucks! Each month, Sarah hosts a live Ustream event where she shows off the new stamps that are coming out, and she always has her starbucks in hand! Since we don't have starbucks in Huron, I had to get my fill while I was down in IA! After the first hour of getting to talk with Sarah and her designers, it was time for the live Ustream. It was so much fun to be sitting across and watching it all live. She did some giveaways for the people that were there live, as well as to the people watching. She also showed off the 6 stamp sets that were being released that night.
On Saturday, Hans, Jacob and I got up and went to Sam's club. After that, Hans and Jacob headed back home and I stayed to attend day 2 of the scrapbooking activities. Sarah's 3 designers all had a "make and take" project, and they were really cute and fun to make. I also was able to do a little shopping with some birthday money that I received early and got some goodies at the craft stores! I then made the 7 hour drive home, getting me home late last night!
Today we had a family day, we went to church and then came home to do some things around the house. I have some pictures from this weekend, I however don't have them uploaded yet, so will try and do that tomorrow and get them added.
We have been busy! After closing we jumped into some home projects and are still trying to finish some up. Hans' parents came to visit on Friday the 15th and stayed until the following Thursday! They helped us complete so many projects, and we are forever grateful for that!
The projects started with a work bench for Hans' in the 3rd garage space. They were able to complete that in an afternoon and Hans enjoys having an area to keep all his tools.
The next project was to put together Jacob's new playset for the back yard that my mom bought for him when she was here. The directions said that it should take 2 people 4 to 6 hours.....but they lied. With no real issues it took Hans and his dad 16ish hours over 2 days to get it all done! And to make matters worse, they were working outside when we were having record high temps of 100+! But thankfully they got it all together and Jacob LOVES it!
The next project that we tackled was painting the upstairs of the house. When we had made out large trek to Menards to get the wood for Hans' work bench, I checked out the paint they had and we found colors that we liked better than the other stores we had already been checking out. So we decided to go ahead and pick up the paint and supplies so that I could get started with the help of Diane. So over the course of 2 days while Jacob was at daycare, we painted the formal living room, dining room and kitchen! It looks so good, and I am loving the color! I will get some pictures sometime next week once we have all the new curtain rods hung up and maybe even some art! Diane also tackled hemming some of the curtains for the bedrooms that I had bought at Kohls when I was in Colorado.
This week has been a little hectic because Hans' best friend Richard mom passed away last week Friday. He drove down to Omaha, NE on Monday night and then flew down to Dallas, TX and then drove over to West Monroe, LA for the funeral that was today. He was also one of the pallbearers as a request of Richard. He will be flying back on Friday, but this weekend is when we were going to head to Iowa so that I can go to a scrapbooking mini convention. So when he lands in Omaha, he will be driving over to Des Moines, IA and Jacob and I will drive down to meet up with him. We are going to be able to meet up with a friend that Hans' used to work with as she lives in Des Moines now! Then on Saturday, Jacob and Hans will hang out for a bit and then head back towards home while I finish up at the scrapbooking event.
We had a great time this past weekend with all our visitors! Megan and Mike arrived very late Thursday night last week and stayed until early Monday morning. They had to head back for Mike to work the night shift (he is a cop.) We enjoyed seeing them again as it had been a while. They are getting very excited as they are also closing on their house next week!
On Friday night, my mom and sister Kim arrived. On Saturday, Megan, Kim and I went to the city pool (where I got nice and sun burn!), while Mike and Hans made a trip to Mitchell to go to Menard's and Cabellas (boy stuff!). Mom stayed here at the house with Jacob so that he could take his much needed nap! After the pool, we stopped and looked at a local store that was advertising their patio furniture at 50% off. I was able to find a really good deal on a table with 6 chairs. This was a house warming gift to us from my mom. She also bought Jacob a play set (swing, slide) for his late birthday / early Christmas gift! That was one of the items that Hans and Mike picked up at Menard's. It will be built once Hans' parents come the weekend of the 15th and Hans has his dad's help.
We really enjoyed having the patio table, and ate a few meals outside since having it. We also enjoy it in the evenings when the sun is going down and it isn't so hot outside. :) On Saturday night, Mom, Megan, Mike, Hans and I all went to watch the fireworks! Kim wasn't feeling well, so she stayed home with Jacob as he was already in bed. We enjoyed the show and did our best to not be eaten alive by all the mosquitoes!
Sunday we just had a lazy day after Church playing games and visiting. Then we had to say goodby to M&M early Monday morning. After they left, we were able to get a few more hours sleep before Jacob was insistent on us being awake (Grandma wasn't keeping him entertained enough I guess). We hung out and then went down to check out the 4th of July celebration festivities going on. Most of the stuff had already ended, but we were able to walk around some booths that were set up in the park down town. We then came home and Jacob had a blast playing with Grandma and Aunt Kim in his play room!
Then after dinner on Monday, Mom got a couple good family pictures for us!
Next week we have some exciting things going on!! On Monday 7/11 we will be signing the papers to officially own our house!!!!! I am so excited! Then on Friday 7/15 Hans parents are coming for a visit!!!
I am also happy to report that Jacob is doing very good with sleeping in his own bed and for most of every night! I was worried that he would regress with the full house, but he did great!
We are having a influx of visitors starting tonight!!!! Megan and Mike are coming to visit for the weekend!!! I can't believe that it has already been almost 6 months since Jacob and I have seen Mike, and 5 months for Megan! Then on Friday night, my mom and sister Kim will be arriving and be here until Tuesday! Then we will have a break for a week and a half, and then Hans' parents are coming for a visit!
I have been keeping busy with my normal work, but I also opened an Etsy store to sell my hand made cards! I received my first custom order for some baby shower invitations and they are going to be going out in the mail today! If you would like to read more about them go here....
Well I hope you all have a fun and safe 4th of July weekend!
Is how long Jacob nursed for! I have been so ready for him to be done for a while now, but he just wasn't ready to stop. Well last week we finally hit a wall with his sleeping issues and we had to start some sleep training. Thankfully that has been going very well! And with him sleeping in his own bed every night all night he doesn't ask to nurse! He will now fall asleep on his own after being tucked in and given a good night kiss and hug and a story read to him. I am so proud of the improvements that we have all made in the past couple of days!
On another note, I started my 90 day challenge at Curves today! I am really excited about this challenge and am looking forward to the results.
We are going to have quite the busy house this coming weekend! Megan and Mike are coming for the holiday weekend and so are my mom and sister Kim! Then on the 15Th of July, Mark and Diane are coming for a while! And of course on the 11th we close on our house!!
What a week we have had here.....unfortunately we are still all sick and trying like mad to get better. I took Jacob back to the doctor on Friday and he has double ear infections again. So onto another round of antibiotics. I am still not better, but the doctors can't figure out what exactly I have, so I am just suffering through and crossing my fingers that I am getting better. Now poor Hans started to feel sick Thursday night and has spent his weekend sick.
On Thursday, our friend Megan and her mom left to drive from Anchorage to North Dakota. :( Megan's husband and dad did the drive the week before with a U-Haul full of all their stuff. Megan and her mom made it there today. On Wednesday evening, Megan came over to say goodbye :( :( :( I took a bunch of pictures of her and Jacob as she was "Auntie Megan" him.
Hans job search: Hans received a call from the company in South Dakota that he interviewed with back in January. Apparently they have had another position open up can called to see if he was interested in interviewing for it! He had a skype interview a week ago Wednesday and they called him back Friday and want him to come to South Dakota for an in person interview!! He will be talking to them tomorrow to set up when that will be!!!! I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will know something soon!!!
This week we don't have much coming up, except Hans' mom is coming later Friday night!!!! She will be staying up here for 10 days!! I am so excited to see Diane and for Jacob to have some Oma time!
I almost forgot to tell you all this....but I pulled out Jacob's potty chair and he loves to sit on it!!! They have been putting him on the potty at daycare, so I figured that I would do so here at home as well! He has not yet done anything in the potty, but sure loves sitting on it!
So apparently blogger ate this post the other night, and I just now noticed! Sorry about that!
The past week has been spent with me sick still, Jacob getting better and Hans staying healthy! Our good friends Megan and Mike are moving :( and Hans helped pack up their u-haul for Mike and Megan's dad to drive down to ND. Megan is still here in AK wrapping up all the loose ends and will be hitting the road in their other car here in a couple of days.
Hans had a second interview last week with a company in South Dakota. We hope to hear back soon about that job! I would love to be able to post next time about us moving!
Jacob has started to count! The other day we were eating at a restaurant and he was playing with the coffee creamers on the table. I started to count them with him and right after I said one, he said two!! It was really cute! I can't believe how much he is growing lately. His talking is getting so much clearer every day and I notice new words all the time.
On Monday, I meet up with our friend Jennifer and her son Stephen at a bouncy place for the boys to run around and get some energy out. Jacob had a blast jumping and running around!
We are very excited for March 12th as Oma will be here! She is coming to visit us as well as her friend Sharon.
Hi! This week has been a crazy one! We all are still trying to get over our sickness, and poor Jacob's is back to needing meds. I took him to the doctors today (Thank God for weekend hours!) and he has another ear infection - it was so bad that the puss has been backing up and coming out his tear duct! I was really glad to hear that he didn't have pink eye, but still grossed out that the green yuck was from his ear. He also has to have eye drops that he cares for as much as anyone would like a stick in the eye. He is also been fighting taking any oral meds, so we are going to have to try and figure out another way to get his meds into him without him spitting them all back out at us.
This week we got our new iphones.....well they were shipped to us, and then after 2 different people from Verizon customer service and tech support not being able to figure out how to get them to activate until they realized that they have to be on a Verizon tower to do so, I flew to Seattle and back on Wednesday just to get to an actual Verizon cell tower so our phones would start working! Thank God we had air miles, so it only cost us $10 for the ticket and a day of my time and now our phones work! I am so in love with my iphone! I am on it constantly (which may or may no be a good thing lol)
On Friday night, I tagged along with Megan and Mike to Denali Winery to make wine! It first started out with a wine tasting to pick what kind of wine we wanted to make. We had a great time, and our wine will be ready for us to come bottle in about 8 weeks. Unfortunately Megan and Mike will have moved to ND by then, so we will have to get it bottled for them and find a way to ship it to them. :)
Yesterday was my oldest niece Kaylee's 18th birthday! I can't believe that she is already that old! I remember the day she was born :( Jacob and I were able to go over and visit her and her son at her dads house and eat dinner with them to celebrate her birthday. So in honor of her birthday, she will be my first picture!
Hi! Sorry I am a day late with this post. Jacob has been really sick since Thursday (thankfully he is better today!) However now Hans and I are both sick :(.
On Thursday, I picked Jacob up from daycare and headed home. He would only nap if I was laying down with him, so mommy got a nap in to! When he woke up he was feeling pretty warm so I took his temp and it was around 102.8! After getting a dose of meds in him and eating some dinner I thought that he was doing OK as his fever came down....oh how wrong I was! Around 8 Hans was going to give him a bath and as I was undressing him he was shaking. Hans just thought that it was because I was getting him out of his clothes and ready for the bath. I noticed that his legs looked a little purplish. We went ahead and put him in the bath and he just sat there. If you know anything about toddlers, you will know that most love to play in the water, so for him to not want to be in the tub was a little weird. Hans realized that he didn't want to be in the tub, so quickly washed him up and took him out. As he was drying him off, Jacob started to violently shake. It was so frightening. At this point not only were his legs/feet purplish but so were his hands and arms. I started to call the after hours number for our pediatrician office when Hans told me to just call 911. About 5 minutes later the paramedics arrived and checked Jacob out. He was VERY warm to the touch, so the paramedics thought that he may have had a "fever" seizure. :( They advised that he needed to be seen at the ER, but said that he was stable enough for us to drive him if we so choose. We decided this was what we would do, so we packed up and headed to the ER.
When we arrived at the ER, they thankfully had no one waiting in the waiting room so were able to take us right back. After taking his vitals - his temp was up to 104.2 at this point - they took us right back to an exam bed and got a dose of Tylenol in him. The doctor came and talked to us and asked us a bunch of questions. He didn't think that Jacob had the seizure, but just shakes that can happen when you have a fever that high. He wanted to wait and just watch him and see how he did before ordering any tests. We waited for about an hour or so and they felt that he was ok to be sent home. Apparently there is no treatment for fever seizures, so even if that is what happened, there is no meds to give to stop them or correct them. If he did in fact have one, it doesn't make him more likely to have another or be more prone to a seizure disorder. They sent us home with a strict time table of when to give Tylenol and Motrin, and advised that we follow up with our pediatrician's office the following morning.
Throughout the night, his temp would spike back up around the time that he was due for the next dose of meds. I called the Pediatricians office in the morning and took him in the afternoon. After telling her all that happened, she told me "I am not going to tell you he didn't have a seizure, and I am not going to tell you he didn't, because we proceed the same way no matter what happened".....this made me feel a little better and yet scared at the same time. She is the one that went into detail about how they don't have any treatment for fever seizures and explained it all to me. After talking to her, I did feel more confident and less scared. I just knew that we were in for a sick baby for a few more days.
Saturday we were supposed to go to our monthly meet-up for our mom/kid group that was a valentines day party. Because Jacob was still sick, we had to cancel going. I had already made the cupcakes for the event, so my friend Jennifer came by and picked them up!
Saturday night we had plans to go out to dinner with Megan and Mike as it was Mike's 25th birthday, and Jacob was going to go play with his friend Stephen (Jennifer's' son) but since he was sick I didn't think he should go over to play. I was just going to stay at home with him and have Hans bring me back dinner. However when Megan and Mike got to our place, Jacob perked up and started playing! At that point, I could really use some time out of the house, so we packed Jacob up with us and went to dinner. Here was Mikes' birthday card...
This card is designed to hold either a gift card or cash! Happy Birthday Mike! Hope you enjoy your gift!
Onto our picture of the week!
Even sick he will smile! (please excuse the mess!)
Hi! This weekend has been a fun one! Friday night we went to an Aces game with Megan and Mike. It was a GREAT game! There was a huge fight at the end of the game that ended in 3 Aces players being suspended and 7 of the other teams guys being suspended as well as both coaches! Saturday night I really wanted to go to the second game in the series since Friday's game was so good, but Hans was at work and everyone else that I called couldn't go...so I packed up Jacob and we went! I took the camera along and got some great pictures! He LOVES going to the games and cheers right along with everyone else! At Aces games, we ring cow-bells and he loves to ring 2 of them at a time!
Here are some pictures that I put together if him from last nights game! We have him wear the head phones to help protect his ears due to the noise in the arena. When we score, for horns are blown and are really loud, plus all the cheering and cowbells makes it for one loud place. He has been wearing them since he was 2 weeks old, so he is used to them.
Hans should *fingers crossed* hear back from the job in South Dakota early this week! They had to postpone the final decision as they had to reschedule one of the final interviews to last Friday thus pushing back the decisions until next week. I really hope that we will have good news in the next few days!
Today while Jacob was napping, I finished up some Valentines Day cards for some family members. If you would like to see pictures head on over to my crafting blog!
Hi! What a week it has been! Jacob is still on meds to clear up his ear infection. We had to do a med change mid week do to the side effects of the other med that he was on. Unfortunately he isn't a big fan of taking the new med and fights me tooth and nail when it is time to take it.
Yesterday (Thursday) we had a playdate with one of my friends Christie and her 2 little girls! It was the first time that we were able to meet up with her and meet her youngest daughter M who is 3 months! Then last night Jacob went over to Megan and Mikes' house to play while Hans and I had a movie date! (Thanks again guys!) We went to the new theater and watched "No strings Attached". It was a great movie and we had a great time. Then tonight we went to the Aces game with Megan and Mike and the Aces won 5 to 4! It was a very physical game. The first period had lots of stoppages due to fights and penalty's that we thought the game was going to take until midnight to finish! Thankfully it didn't and it ended just before 10. There was however a big fight after the final buzzer that will end up with some players being suspended and fined! Poor Hans has to work tomorrow night and Sunday and will not be able to go to the next 2 games where they will be playing the same team. He will just have to listen to the games on his radio. I am thinking about going as I am sure that they will be very good games!
Tomorrow, we have another play date with my friend Jennifer and her son Stephen.We are meeting at a local indoor play place and then coming here for lunch. Stephen and Jacob get along so well and enjoy playing together, and Jennifer and I like to get together and chat!
Today I finally did something that needed to be done.....I cleaned out Jacob's toy box! I have never went through his toys and pulled out the more babyish items. It so needed to be done due to his toys taking over our place really badly. I plan on taking the toys that we are willing to part with to our local used kids store and selling them!
Hi everyone! This past week has been pretty busy and COLD around here. Today it was a chilly -2 when I left for Church this morning and -6 when I was on my way home tonight from getting my hair cut! I totally need an auto start in the van. I tried to convince Hans that we need to get one as I really miss having one (I had one in my Trailblazer.)
Jacob is getting better after being under the weather the past couple of weeks. I took him to the pediatrician on Monday and he is on meds for a sinus infection, and thankfully they are working! Hans received a job offer from North Dakota, but has since turned the job down after having time to read over the offer and us talking about it. We decided that it just wasn't the job for him. He also had a interview on Wednesday via the phone with a company in South Dakota. He felt that it went really well and they said that they would get back to him in 7 to 10 days. So we are keeping our fingers crossed for that job!
This evening Jacob and I went over to Megan and Mike's house to see their new dog! She is a really good puppy! Jacob and her got along pretty well.
