Yesterday, as a family we went to the Kansas City Northern Railroad.  It was Sunday afternoon, we hadn’t done much over the weekend and were looking for something different to do.  Someplace on the web, Shane found the Kansas City Northern Railroad and since this is a train family, it was definitely of interest.

It is not an large railroad, but they take you around the area twice for $.50 a ride.  They have a tunnel, S-curve, a wooden trestle bridge, and a road crossing you go over, so as you can see a little bit of everything.  Allyssa went on the ride three times, and would have gone at least three more if we had let her.  It’s a short drive from home, about 20 minutes so we will definitely be going back again.

This morning, Allyssa and I slept in a bit (OK as usual), arising around 11 or so.  While I made homemade pancakes for breakfast, Shane helped Allyssa as she chose her outfit.  I think those overalls are getting a bit short on her and may have to be put away soon.

After brunch, we be brought out her presents.  She enjoyed opening her gifts without a doubt.  From mom and dad she received Thomas & Friends Water Tower Figure 8 set, the Figure 8 Expansion Pack, Rosie, Annie & Claribel, a musical caboose, as well as Thomas.  She also received a Winnie the Pooh matching game.  There is just nothing for games out there for two year olds.  Most of the “little kid” games are all for ages 3+.    That’s okay, she’ll have hours and hours of fun with her Thomas trains.

We didn’t do her shopping until Friday.  Yes, she was with us, but that allowed us to find out what she liked.  And when it was time to actually purchase, momma distracted her by taking her to other sections so we could “look around”.  Daddy would then purchase the items and put them in the trunk.  It worked rather well, once we could get her distracted.

Just before we left on Friday, the mailman had arrived.  The timing was great since that meant that Allyssa received her cards and gift cards before we left. She enjoyed having her cards read to her and looking at the pictures.  With her gift cards she picked out a table for her Thomas things which came with track and some Thomas like train pieces.  The size of the track and such matches the Thomas things she received today which is the main reason it was selected.  She also picked out a slide.  This is a Little Tikes slide which can be used indoors or outdoors, but since we have a secluded outdoor area with nothing for her to play with that is definitely going outside.

This may make it easier to have her go outside to play while mom and dad stay inside, and watch her through the wall of patio doors.  So far she hasn’t liked being outside if mom or dad aren’t with her.  And even if we have to go out with her some of the time, she has things to play with rather than looking for someone to always play with.  Like when we take the ball outside to play.

When we were visiting family in March she received her birthday gifts from grandma.  She received a twin stroller and a diaper bag for her babies.  She had received twins as big as she is from grandma about a month before.  Grandma keeps her very well stocked in dolls.  She already has a barbie doll as well, but she’s still too young for that so that one is up and way until she’s older.

We tried to find out what Allyssa would like for supper, but we don’t think that Allyssa was understanding us.   She wasn’t hungry at the time, and everything we suggested she kept saying no.  While I was at the store picking something up, I also picked up a balloon for her.  She loved it when I walked in with the balloon.  She certainly managed to tangle herself up in it quite well, but she was definitely having lots of fun too.

When I returned, Shane had decided that everyone should go out for ice cream.  He had gone online and found an ice cream place nearby that we hadn’t been to yet.  So we went.  It wasn’t that far, but it would be a bit of a walk if were to attempt to walk to it in the future.  It’s about a mile or so.  After ice cream we drove around a bit, attempting to get to know the area a bit better.  This particular time we went east, and learned we only want to go so far east in this area.  But if we hadn’t tried we wouldn’t have known and now we do.

Allyssa slept through part of the drive, but when we returned home, it was definitely nap time.  Everyone laid down, apparently we are all tired from our SCA event yesterday.  Not that it was a hardship to have some extra sleep.  After our nap we had supper which was enjoyed by all.

While we didn’t follow the traditional order, but she did receive a birthday cake.  After supper I made some pineapple upside-down cake.  That was chosen since Allyssa love pineapple in general.  For some reason I think she was too full to truly enjoy her cake though since she didn’t eat it all, but she certainly had a lot for supper so it is understandable.

Just one extra note, you can click on any of these pictures to see a larger view.

He talks about doing dinner, but he enjoys that (usually) and find it relaxing.  But don’t worry he doesn’t do all the cooking.  I make the lunches for the 3 of us since he works and will be going to school from home.  While some might thing that lunch is a lighter meal, it’s still important to keep it balanced.  My theory is that we’d be better off if lunch is a bit heartier and dinner a bit lighter since most don’t have a lot of physical activity in the evening.

Shane has also started doing weekly fighter practice for SCA.  This is once a week on Wednesday.  Allyssa and I go as well, we talk to others and watch him get hit with sticks.  It’s good to get to know the other SCA folks in the area.  And we have several events we are talking about going to in the near future.

We have found two parks in the area which Allyssa enjoys.  Of course we’ve also found out that as long as the park has slides it will be one that she enjoys.  She is a huge fan of riding the slides.

I have found a cross stitching shop in the area.  It wasn’t easy but I have finally figured out how to find shops when you new to the area and have no idea of what they are called.  It’s hard to do an internet search for them without a name, and harder still to do a yellow pages search because often the shops are so poorly categorized on the online yellow pages.  I was on a website of a company that dye their own fabric colors for cross stitch.  They are a wholesale company so when I asked them about shops in my area they were able to give me the name of two within 21 miles of me.  So now I know how to look for shops in the future.  Go to the wholesale suppliers and ask them who is in my area.

Why worry about giving a local shop?  Well I try to support the local shops whenever possible.  I have a simple view of things.  If I don’t do my part to support my local shop, when I need to pick something up quick they won’t be there.  The day after I received the information about local shops, I went to the closest one and checked them out.  It was good to be in a shop dedicated to needlework.  Not one where it’s just shoved off into a small corner of the craft store, which keeps getting smaller.

I finished the birth announcement I was working on for Allyssa.  Please click on the image to see the entire piece.  Now I’ll have to clean and mount it.  Of course, since that one is done, I had to start another project.  This new project is one of Santa looking at signs to check his directions.  It’s on a black background and is originally from an old postcard.  I have an entire book of Santa’s from old artwork it’s called Santa Remembered from Leisure Arts.

Allyssa is growing in leaps and bounds, but lately it’s been hard to get her to sleep on her own.  She wants to be attached to momma when she sleeps.  She just doesn’t want to let go.  Lately it’s been if she won’t let go at nap time, we get up.  It makes her more tired in the evening, but she has to learn that she can’t stay attached to momma.

When she falls asleep at night, she also wants to stay attached also.  This makes things hard for momma.  While I don’t mind taking an afternoon nap with her (actually I usually enjoy a good afternoon nap), I like to get up for a bit after Shane and Allyssa are in bed.  It’s a good time for me to have some private quiet time.  It’s my ME time, and I have learned that I need it.  If I can’t have my me time for I get more irritable and much easier to annoy.  I have also found that if the housework isn’t done before they go to bed it’s not going to get done that night.  My time is for me, not for housework.  (Doing housework during that time is a sure fire way for me to get extremely annoyed.)

Well that’s all my thoughts for now.  I’ll try catching people up again soon.

I guess it could be worse, I mean, she is always putting rocks and leaves in her mouth. If she wants to eat green pepper then I will let her. Besides, it’s healthier than a cracker, isn’t it?

Today I moved the entire blog back to Blogger because WordPress wouldn’t let me track how many of you are actually reading this blog. With this move I have made the site more friendly and updated the look. I hope you like it.

Now, how did I find time to do this? Simple! I left my job to go back into freelance work. TravelNet was working me to death and I just couldn’t do it any more. A lucrative project came up that will keep me busy for a few months at least, and I had to take it. So now I get to sit at home again and just have fun – when I am not working. My last day was August 28th, just before Labor Day weekend.

So, now that I am not so burned out every evening, perhaps I will find time to update this blog more often. And just so you don’t forget what she looks like, here’s a picture of Allyssa with my Dad and Roseanne at Steve’s Wedding Vow Renewal back in June.

Anyway, on to the real reason for this post. As you probably know if you’ve been checking we haven’t posted much since Allyssa turned nine months old. That’s just stupid, because we have pictures and we want to share them, but time slips by and they don’t get posted. Until I realized that WordPress allows me to back date posts! A blog like this is not only a great way to keep family and friends up to date on the family, but also to keep a historical record of our lives as a family.

So today and throughout the next month I will be adding posts and back dating them to when they actually were taken. This will allow me to get my memories down somewhere while they are still somewhat fresh in my mind, and let you get up to date on our life so far in 2008. So if you see me I don’t want to hear, “Geez, I must not have visited your site in a while, I never saw all those posts!” because you know now that it was my fault and not yours. So enjoy them as I get them up and share your thoughts if you care to. For now, Happy Mothers Day!

We decided to hold the party at Laura’s Dad’s place in Holmen since that is the area were most of the family lives. We drove down Friday night so we would have all morning to prepare the 20 pounds of BBQ Ribs and the 20 pounds of Taco meat for the lunch. Laura had a bit of running to do before the party and I stayed at the house to make the food and frost the cakes she had baked the night before. We were expecting 42 people and wanted to make sure nobody left hungry.

The party started at around 2:00 as relatives started showing up. The house quickly filled with people who know and love Allyssa. Turns out we weren’t as prepared as we had hoped. Where to put the presents? Where will all these people eat? What about the decorations? Oh well, the party started and we were all enjoying just being together for such a wonderful occasion.

I wish I could say the whole thing went off without a hitch… oh, wait, I can say that! As far as I know, the only problem we had is that nobody wanted to sing Karaoke out in the garage. I had my youngest brother Shay bring his equipment hoping that someone would enjoy it. But the weather didn’t cooperate. It was so cold and windy that we had to keep the garage doors closed and the volume a little lower. There is also something funny with the electrical in Holmen because every time Shay does a show there, his best amplifier doesn’t work right. Oh well, at least the younger kids enjoyed some music.

Allyssa received a lot of wonderful gifts even though she wasn’t very enthusiastic about opening them, Hey, give her a break, she’s only 1 and every new toy brings a new level of excitement. Her favorite so far seems to be the Purple Mini Van my sister Shawna found. She carries that thing around all the time. Not that she doesn’t enjoy her other toys, she just has her favorite, for now.

And then came the cakes, yes, I said cakes. A Black Forest cake, a white cake with pure white buttercream frosting, and a peanut butter cake with fudge frosting. That Black Forest cake, two layers of devils food with cherry filling and a rich fudge drizzle frosting, seemed to be the favorite, and that is what you see Allyssa eating in the photo above. Surprisingly though, that peanut butter cake Laura found a recipe for was very good, and one we will surely add to our normal list of recipes.

All in all, the day went very well, and Allyssa seemed to enjoy it, though we know someday she won’t have memories of it – but there is always video! If I can ever get the footage from my brother Scott maybe we can share some here. I also learned a lesson about cooking – 40 pounds of meat is too much for 42 people. Anyone want some of the 10 pounds of leftover taco meat we have?

The picture above doesn’t really look great, because the lighting in the pool area of the hotel was not very bright, so getting a good picture was hard, and even though I pointed her out, Allyssa just wouldn’t look at mom or the camera. This picture was taken just minutes after we got in the water, and though it took her a little while to adjust to the water, she really enjoyed swimming. We did learn that that modesty at her age isn’t as important as comfort. In the photo she is wearing a shirt which we quickly found made her feel cold when the cold shirt was out of the water. The next time we took her she did not wear a shirt.

This won’t be the last time we take her swimming, but unfortunately we haven’t found a public pool in the area so we will just have to go swimming in the St. Croix River. It’s so clear and inviting we can’t wait for the weather to warm up some so we can enjoy the river. I don’t think we will be purchasing a boat any time soon though – gotta get a better car first. Driving this full size van we have is just too much on gas. Until then we can enjoy the river from one of the two beaches in town.

The other day we saw her trying to crawl up onto the toy shelf for some reason. We didn’t get a picture then and we wished we had. Then today she did it again. For no reason, she clears off the bottom shelf then climbs in. I love my daughter and I love playing with toys, but even I think this is going too far! At least she is starting to put things on the shelf – maybe we should teach her that toys go on the shelf, and the baby belongs in daddies arms where he can love and protect her forever.

And Allyssa is really getting into it, reaching out for eggs that she finds. Ok, daddy found it and pointed it out to her, but she was having a ball trying to get it. It was also fun to see Allyssa find all of her eggs first (with daddy’s help). At mom’s, she has these plastic eggs filled with money and candy, and each grandchild gets the same number of eggs, each with their own color. It’s not really a contest to see who finds them all first, but NYAH, Allyssa won!

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games, she also took some time to hang with her cousin Heather. Look at her expression – “we come all this way only to have you ignore me and talk on the darn phone?” Come on Heather, hang up the phone and have fun with the family. Your friends will see you on Monday!