Back from the Dead ... Part II

Since NUMEROUS people have commented on how I haven't been posting lately, I figured it was fine time for another "rambles ala Kristin". And what better excuse than ....

Miss Paige's 1st Birthday.

Yes, it's true. my little princess has turned one. It's so hard to believe. As I made food last night for the party today, I kept glancing at the clock and trying to remember where we were just a year ago ... Calling my mom after dinner at 6:30 to come be with Riley because this may just be it, being told at 9:00 that I had 45 minutes to walk the halls because I wasn't contracting enough (at which point I made Ryan climb like 15 flights of steps), and strangly enough, I woke up at about 3:00 in the morning last night and remembered how a year before I was SO relieved that labor had been so short. I'd been so unbelievably afraid that it'd all happen like Riley's birth did.

I find it amazing that a baby can change so much in one year. At one year, Paige is a joyful little girl who melts my heart in the mornings when she wraps her chubby little arms around my neck and snuggles in tight. I always said I wanted a boy and a girl ... "the best of both worlds" ... only, I never knew just how true that phrase was. I have such different, but equally important, bonds with each of them. I can't even fully put it into words how they're different ... but they are. I had the typical, "how will I ever love another child as much as I love Riley" thoughts that I think every mother has as she is pregnant with baby #2. Everyone told me, "you will" but I didn't know how that was possible. Now I feel like I can join that "club" ... and want to tell all those mothers who are pregnant with their second (boy there are a lot of you too!), you will.

With all the happiness that happened in our house today, I couldn't help but be a bit saddened by the thought that my dad never got to meet Paige. I hope that she'll somehow be able to know what an important part of our family he is. He loved his grandchildren so much, and at all these milestones his absence is especially missed!

We had a great party today. Grandma Karen, Auntie Krys, Uncle Jim, Auntie Deb, Great-Auntie Gayle, and Cousins Nate, Ben and Jack were all here. Tammy and Clint surprised us by coming down too! (We're celebrating both Weston's AND Paige's first birthdays in Warroad over Thanksgiving weekend!)

Well, on to the part most of you are probably waiting for ... PICTURES!

(As I'm typing this my daughter has tried to climb up the steps right next to my desk ... and when I tell her no she smiles at me and crawls even faster. Now she's mad at me because I've blocked her way with the rocking horse.)

Okay ... on with the pictures ...

I made cupcakes instead of having a cake. My mother, sister in law (Krys) and my sister were all suprised that I decorated these myself ... evidently they don't think I have any creative abilities :)

So of course Paige had her own cupcake ... she was much cleaner than Riley was when he did this on his first birthday ... but he also had a whole little cake.

Clint decided to put our wood floors to good use and was sliding the kids down the hall and across the living room on their butts. They thought it was hilarious! Then the kids (Riley and Cousin Jack) doubled up on Clint ... and pretty soon he had all four of the younger ones.

I LOVE Weston's face in this one ...

Mr. Weston ...

The Zahradnik Cousins minus Katelyn (poor Katelyn, she missed the party today because she was sick. Paige missed her only girl cousin!)

Tammy, Clint and Weston ...

OUR family picture ... Riley needs a family picture for school on Monday ... and sadly, we have VERY few family pictures ... I'm actually pretty happy with this ...

So there you have it ... Paige's first birthday. Unfortunally, I was so focused on getting pictures of the kids when something was happening ... I missed most of the adults. :( If I get any pictures sent to me I'll be sure to post them too!

Next time I'll do a long post about Riley since he's had a few things happening lately too. But for now, I think I'm going to relax a little bit! :)

Naked baby butt

As I was setting up for a shoot I have tomorrow, I thought I'd try naked baby butt pictures of Paige. She'll soon be too old for this so I figured I better get it in now while I could. (URRRR, I'm not sure why these keep showing up kind of pixelated ... )

And of course ... my little man model ...

Do toes get a bath in jail?

Sorry for the title ... but I couldn't come up with anything creative for the picture drop off below.

Not much is new here. We have auntie Tammy and cousin Weston coming down this weekend because uncle Clint is going north. Should be fun!!

Here are a few pictures from my new camera. I'm in love with it ... so much that I told Ryan the first night that I wanted to take it to bed with me. :)

Riley waiting for us to come home

from talking with the neighbors

so he could take a bath ....

Riley and Paige started taking
baths together now.
Paige LOVES taking baths
and Riley enjoys having someone
to play with in there.

Hi Paige!

"Hi Paige"

"Hi"

It's happened. I'm not sure if she fully understands, but Paige has started saying "hi" when you say it to her first. I thought I was imagining it at first, but she's done it for Shelley a few times too. It's the cutest sweetest little voice. *swoon*

She is a TRUE Zahradnik!!!

All weekend long I wanted to make a big meal for Sunday night. It was something I started right after Riley was born ... make something for dinner that took more than 20 minutes. By Saturday night I'd come up with the meal I wanted to make ... dumplings, sauerkraut and a pork roast. To those of you who know the Zahradnik side, this would probably come as no surprise to you as a meal choice. For others ... I grew up eating dumplings and sauerkraut. It was a traditional family meal for my dads side. I LOVE sauerkraut.

Unfortunately, Ryan and Riley have not come to love it like I have. Ryan will eat the dumplings with nothing over top (a crime in my eyes) and Riley ... well, Riley decided last night that he'd eat dumplings dipped in ketchup. Ugg. However, the big test last night was to see if Miss Paige would eat it. She hasn't refused a single thing we've given her thus far (including walleye that Grandma Fern gave her) but I was a bit afraid at what she'd think of her first bite of sauerkraut. I chopped up one of the small dumplings that Riley had rolled out, put some kraut on top and let it cool ... then plopped it all on her tray. I had my camera ready to get a shot of the "what the heck is this look" ... she picked it up, put it in her mouth .... and went back for more without a second thought. No puckering of the face, no pushing it off her tray ... in fact, she started to prefer the kraut over the dumplings. WHOO HOO!! I have finally produced a true Zahradnik girl (as if her moodiness and short temper wasn't a clue anyway).

By the end of the meal, she had sauerkraut in her hair, on the floor .... basically everywhere. I didn't care though ... she'd eaten it and that was all that mattered.

I did warn Shelley this morning about her dinner last night ... telling her to watch out for what may come out the other end. Hopefully it won't be too bad ... for Ryan and I realized that in the daycare diaper bag are all summer clothes still ... and today the highs are in the 60's.

And as a side note ... Ryan, self-proclaimed sauerkraut hater, when asked how the pork roast was said, "It was good." ... at which point I smirked ... I had slipped a little bit of sauerkraut juice into the roast pan. Ha ha ...

High and Dry!!

Well, maybe not so much high ... but we are dry! After 8 or 9 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, Our house became river-front property but we somehow stayed dry!! Unfortunately, not all of our neighbors had the same luck. It's kind of strange to drive by houses and see carpet from the basements sitting out on the curbs. The water did, however, finish my tomato plants for the year ... I couldn't get out to pick the tomatoes off and with all the extra rain they took on a growth spurt and ended up splitting open. Oh well, if that's the extent of our worries, I'm not complaining!!

Riley enjoyed getting out last night and playing with Wyatt, the neighbor boy. They rode bikes up and down the sidewalk ... and for quite a while they had an audience watching from the front window. Miss Paige has discovered there is a whole new world out the windows and doors. She gets quite the giggles when they actually acknowledge that she's there too.

Another "Awwwww" moment this morning ... we were trying to get Riley up so we laid Paige on top of him in bed. He smiled, wrapped her up and they snuggled for a few minutes.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from last night ...

Watching brother ...




Riley riding bike with Wyatt ....



All worn out and ready for bed .... (too bad she only slept for an hour and then was up for almost 2.5 hours.)



And a couple from Paige's bath the night before ...

Naked baby butt ...




Brother "helping" her play ....


Clean baby ...

Knudson Peanut ... Version II

Paige had her 9 month well child doctors appointment on Monday. Evidentially she's taking after her brother.

17 lb 3 oz ~ 13 percentile
27 inches long ~ 31 percentile
Head circumference ... don't remember exactly but I know it was in the 60th percentile.

She gained pounds (was 15 something at 6 months) but dropped in overall percentile. The doctor didn't seem too worried based on the fact that Riley is such a skinny kid (at one point he'd dropped to the 4th percentile for weight). In fact, if she keeps gaining at the rate she is now I think she'll be at the exact same point Riley was at his one year check up.

And yes, she must have a big head. :) But I had to laugh when the nurse was trying to measure ... she made some kind of comment about needing to make sure the "crown" fit correctly ... yes, even others think she's a princess! Ha ha!

Dr. MacLaughlin also wasn't too worried about her weight because Miss Paige will literally eat anything that is put in front of her. She's basically off baby food and loves to feed herself. Some of her menu items at this time include .... asparagus, pasta, steamed veggies (carrots, celery, potato, peas and green beans), black beans, bread with hummus, banana (and she especially loves it when I'll let her bite off the banana that's still half covered with the peel), cheese, nectarines ... the list could go on and on because she seriously will eat ANYTHING!!

We also impressed Dr. M with her accomplishments developmentally. Paige drinks water out of a sippy cup at meal time, is feeding herself at meal times 99% of the time, is holding her own bottle all of the time, is pulling up and beginning to take a couple of steps around furniture and says "ma ma". Paige calmly sat there while Dr. M looked in her ears and then opened her mouth when Dr. M wanted to look in. Ha ha ... it was the funniest thing ... I'm sure it was a coincidence but we all had a good chuckle about it. And then, as if we hadn't "amazed" them all enough, Paige flinched when the nurse gave the shot in her leg ... but did not cry at all. This from the girl who was crying so hard at her 3 month shots that the nurses stopped in the middle so I could calm her down.

So yes, I'm quite proud of my little girl. Now if I could just figure out how to stop her from growing up ......

Update ...

This is strictly an update post ... no pictures! :)

Riley Arthur
Riley has learned that there is a difference between boys and girls. We hear routinely about "peanuts" (we've tried to correct the way he says it but it still comes out as peanuts) and how mommy and sister don't have one. He proudly announced this new knowledge at daycare one morning last week when we were dropping him off. He seriously is NOT this old is he?

Riley is also learning what it really means to have a little sister who puts things in his mouth. This weekend him and dad went through the toy box upstairs to take out all the toys that are too small for Paige. He seemed fine with it but we shall see what happens in the future when he wants to bring something upstairs from the toy room (where all the small stuff ended up!).

Paige Caroline
Miss Paige is a girl on the move. She's still army crawling, however she gets up on her hands and knees and acts like she's ready to take off at any moment. She's also pulling herself up to her knees and has even made all the way to a standing position a few times. I was commenting to Ryan last night that she's growing up WAY too fast. It makes me sad that my "baby" will be 9 months this week. I feel like it was yesterday that big brother Riley came up to the hospital to meet her for the first time.

She's all girl though. I pulled out a little doll that she had received as a gift and let her play with it yesterday. She sat contently and played/chewed on it for a good 15 minutes while I was prepping dinner ... and then picked it up randomly throughout the rest of the day.


Swimming
Last Friday both Ryan and I were done with work early so we took the kids swimming at a pool in Rochester. The swimming lessons we had Riley in did wonders for him as he's now just a FISH! His favorite thing to do is to jump off the side of the pool to dad who is waiting to catch him. Ryan keeps going further and further out to see how far Riley can jump ... and I must say, the kid does pretty well! Miss Paige LOVES the water as well. After being in the big pool for a while she was shivering because it had gotten cloudy so I took her out and wrapped her up in a towel. Well, she didn't want that, she wanted to be in the water!! She loves splashing (and trying to drink) the water.

It's the Red Dress!!

I had an offer for two free photo wrapped canvases so we headed out Saturday around dinner time to see if we could get a couple good shots of the kids (you know, because I didn't have ANY already). I pulled out the red dress for Paige to wear. I fell in love with this dress last year at Gymboree. We had just found out a few weeks before that we were having a girl ... it was full price but once Ryan saw the look in my eye he knew we weren't leaving the store without it. I'm so lucky I have a husband who is willing to give into my need to have such cute clothes for the kids.

Anyway, Paige cooperated REALLY well. She's in that age where she makes faces, still sits in one spot for a little more than two seconds and is just fun. Her brother on the other hand, while he was dressed in a handsome Gymboree vest, didn't want to cooperate. It had been a long day for Riley and mom (growing pains on his part ... thinking he doesn't need to listen to us) and I think we were both a little tired of each other. These pictures have a bit of a blue cast to them that I need to fix but I still had to share them with everyone. I think these will officially be Paiges 9 month pictures.

Enjoy!

What we chose for the canvas for Paige ...





And Riley's canvas picture ...

Tiaras Make You Taller

Yes, this is true ... or so says Gymboree. The title for today's post is from a shirt I wanted to get for Paige ... but I don't think her daddy was too impressed. :)

Miss Paige is full of energy and personality these days. She now has 8 teeth that have popped through (see the picture in the post below), is army crawling all over the house ... except for when she wants you to pick her up .. then she expects you to come get HER, and is still loving her brother (and puppy) to death.

I sometimes marvel at what an easy baby she is. She lays down easily for bedtime and naps ... as long as she has her blankie she's usually fine. She really only cries if she's hungry. She doesn't mind grass at all ... we've put her down in the backyard before and she'll just take off crawling without any hesistation. And usually, she's happy to just "go along for the ride" for whatever it is that we're doing.

Her and Riley are still holding hands when they ride in the Xterra. Riley can easily make her laugh so every once in a while we'll hear giggles coming from the backseat. If she's not on the floor getting into her brothers stuff (which STILL hasn't been much of an issue with Riley, yet ... thank heavens!!) she's usually crawling towards Pumba. She LOVES him ... and while he's good with her and will mildly put up with a few pokes from her ... he'll usually get up and leave the attack area. In his mind, she's no good to him unless she's eating!

So below are pictures. The first one is what she looks like when she's saying, "mama" ... it's pretty cute in person.

Weekend Highlights ...

Just a few highlights (and one lowlight) from this past weekend ...

• Miss Paige has been scooting her way around the past week or so ... but on Sunday she really took off with the army crawl. She made her way from the living room into the kitchen where I was prepping dinner. Yes, now will really be the test between Riley and Paige as I'm sure she'll be getting into his things.
• Miss Paige has also been a bit cranky because she's getting 5 teeth all at once ... the four front ones across the top and one more on the bottom (she already has her two bottom, center teeth.
• Riley decided he liked using the word "adorable" on Saturday. He told me his sister looked "adorable" in her outfit ... and that something at my moms house was "adorable".
• Miss Paige is out of her infant car carrier. Last Tuesday we bought Riley new seats and gave his old ones to Paige. This means now that we're actually stuck at home during her nap times.
• Riley was (for the most part) a really good kid this past weekend. I was watching him on Sunday and was just amazed at how polite he can be when he wants to. Ryan and I were also commenting on how smart he is ... he can figure out how to do just about anything he puts his mind to (which isn't always the best thing).
• And finally for the lowlight of the weekend ... Riley and I were at the house next door petting "Durby" a beagle who Riley loves. Pumba had followed us over a bit and evidently was a bit peeved that he wasn't getting any attention ... so Pumba "marked" Riley as his. Yes, my dog raised his leg and peed on my son. Riley had pee all over his shoulder and all down his arm. Luckly I saw Pumba doing it right away so there wasn't a ton ... but obviously we had to go in and scrub Rileys shoulder/hands/arm and change clothes. Riley didn't really have much to say about it ... I think he was more shocked than anything.

So there were the highlights of our weekend. It was pretty busy for us ... garage sale at my moms (for which Ryan and I made almost $250), I had two photo shoots and Ryan had school.

Vacation is bliss!!

Hey everyone!

Just stopping in quickly. Ryan and I are on "vacation" this week ... well, it's a vacation from work ... not a vacation from Byron. :) Our daycare provider took the week off so we decided to both take it off as well and spend a week stress free. Since we didn't have any true vacation plans I was a bit worried about getting bored but so far we've been having a great time. Here are a few highlights ....

Riley ~ Ryan and I dropped Paige off at my moms today and took Riley to one of the pools in Rochester. This pool has a great little children's area that's zero depth, fountains ... the works. Towards the end of our visit there, Riley was playing with one of four little water fountains (maybe the correct word isn't fountains ... but it's water that bubbles up out of the water about a foot high). There were five middle school boys who had wandered over from the big pool also playing with them. At first my motherly instincts popped in ... thinking that they'd try to kick him off the one so that they could control them all ... but instead what happened was HILARIOUS!!

Three of the boys were covering the holes for three of the fountains ... meaning the water was super high and forceful coming out of the one Riley was at. The poor kid was trying to keep up with the bigger kids ... he'd try to cover the hole with his foot but the force was just too much so it'd end up squirting ALL OVER. Never one to give up, Riley decided to use the full force of water to his advantage ... buy straddling over it and laughing to beat heck. Not only were the middle school boys laughing hard ... but so were we. They "played" with Riley a little ... covering and uncovering each fountain to give him some sprays in the face as he looked to see why the water had slowed down. Over all it was just a hilarious thing to watch. The middle school kids couldn't believe Riley. :) Yep, that's our son.

Miss Paige ... While Paige didn't get to go with us today, she has gotten some pool action this week. On Monday we took out Riley's toddler tub and filled it with warm water. Paige was decked out in her baby bikini and everything. I have pictures but don't have them downloaded yet. All this as she's now SEVEN MONTHS old. *gasp* Where does the time go? :(

She's started some new things this week too ... she's beginning to say the sound "da" and "ma" ... but I don't think she knows what she's saying yet. She's also started holding her bottle when she decides she wants to.

I feel like I'm forgetting stuff but that's it for now. Really, for not having any plans I really am having a blast on this vacation. It's been great to have EVERYONE home ... and believe it or not, we've all gotten along too. ;)

I'll post back later this week with pictures!! Enjoy the rest of the week!!

They like to snuggle!

This morning I dressed Paige then put her in bed with her still-sleeping brother. I put her right on his belly, thinking that she'd start banging away with those wild arms of hers and eventually wake him up. Instead, she laid her head down and he woke up just enough to realize she was there, then wrapped her up in his arms to snuggle.

They were both as content as could be.

PLEASE tell me they'll love each other this much forever. :)

PS ~ Don't forget to check out the new pictures of (mostly) Paige below.

Bad, bad mommy!!

You know it's been a while since you've last updated when even your husband mentions it. :) Yes, Ryan reminded me that I hadn't updated in a while. I have no pictures to share but I'll do a quick run-down of our past two weeks.

We spent half of Memorial Day weekend down in Jackson and Worthington. We had an High school graduation open house on Saturday for Kristin's second cousin then spent the night in a hotel in Jackson with grandma, Uncle Jim, Auntie (or Unkie ~ as Riley says for all of his aunties) Krys and cousins Nate and Ben. I'm not sure if it was the water readiness classes for Riley or just the fact that he's a year older than he was last summer ... but he LOVES the water now. The kid who had the death grip mastered while in the water is now telling Ryan to move further out into the pool so he can jump further (off the edge). So, yes, we had a great time at the hotel ... the kids (including Paige in her little bikini that grandma Karen bought her last year) swam, we all ate way too much snacky food and my brother tried harassing beer out of our cousins in the next hotel. Sunday we went to our yearly family reunion in Jackson. It was good to see everyone ... but there were about a million little gnats that LOVED my hairspray so we ended up cutting out of there a little earlier than normal. Riley had a great time though. It's kind of funny to see how times have changed ... for the longest time, I was always the one out at the park with everyone elses kids and now those kids are the ones out at the park with mine.

Other than that we haven't been up to much. Ryan had school this past weekend so the kids and I kidnapped Grandma Karen and took her to Old Navy. We also had a birthday party for cousins Katelyn and Jack on Sunday.

We have a busy couple of weeks coming up. Ryan's parents are coming down this weekend for a visit, Ryan and I are taking all of next week off because we didn't have daycare, Ryan has school again and then the next weekend we (along with our other neighbors, Jason, Leah and Micah) off to Steve and Charina's new home up in Becker. Riley is VERY excited about this visit. We're looking forward to having all three families together again.

I promise to try and post more often. Since it's gotten nice out again we've been spending a lot of time outside and I haven't been on the computer much. Anyway, hope everyone has a great day!!

Remind me not to worry about Paige not eating ....

Despite the fact that Paige isn't eating nearly enough out of the bottle (according to what all the books say she should be eating), she's gaining weight! My chubby thighed little girl weighed in at 15 pounds and 24 inches yesterday. Some of you may be thinking, "She only weighs 15 pounds at 6 months?" ... but compared to Riley who was at 19 pounds at 1 year, this is a bit different for us. I think she comes in right around the 50 percentile ... so in other words ... she's perfect. :) But I already knew this.

Mother's Day was good. We woke up early and went out to breakfast with Big Hill Grandma (Grandma Karen) and Uncle Jim's family. I got two cards (one from Riley/Paige and one from Ryan), an adorable bucket of foam flowers that Shelley had Riley make at daycare and Ryan and the kids came along with me to pick out all my outside flowers for the year. It was a GREAT day spent with the family.

Nothing else is new. We've just been busy with outside projects. Ryan and I have been trying to add a bit of curb appeal to our house. We planted a tree for Paige this past weekend (we did the same for Riley when he was born) and have a few new bushes to plant. If anyone feels like painting trim, shutters or a couple doors, let me know. I'll be around on Friday to set you up with paint and a brush. :)

I haven't taken any pictures lately. We had a wedding this past weekend and I tried to take pictures there but was shot down by their photographer ... boo hoo. I'm sure I'll get some new pictures up soon though.

As Quiet as a Mouse ...

I'm here ... trying to get rid of the cobwebs that may have gathered on my page after a whole week without a typed word. *gasp*

We've been BUSY. Busy printing programs for a wedding this next weekend, busy with swim lessons, busy grocery shopping (it was payday ... whooo hoooo!) and most importantly ... busy playing!

Riley
Riley just completed his fourth week of "Water Readiness" through Rochester Community Ed. He goes once a week with dad and they play games in the water to try to get him more comfortable. I think it's working. He still didn't want dad to let go this past week when they were in the water with the life jackets but he's not holding on to dad for dear life anymore either. (Remember ... you can click on the pictures to see them bigger!!)

On a walk one night, Riley took a tumble off the edge of the path and scraped up his knee. We got home and cleaned it up ... all the while insisting that it have a band-aid on it. Well, below is what happens when daddy and Riley are the ones putting on the "band-aid" ... you end up with the whole knee covered with gauze. The next morning, we couldn't take it off ... and he went to daycare with that pant leg rolled up over his knee. That lasted the whole entire day at daycare and even through a visit to Grandma Karen's house. Needless to say, he gave everyone a huge sob story about how he was hurt ... and took any sympathy he could get.




















Just a random shot from last night ....

Miss Paige
One of Miss Paige's favorite things right now is swinging outside. She especially loves it when daddy pretends to be hit and hurt by her feet. (Auntie Cheryl ... if you're reading ... I think we have enough pictures of the kids enjoying the Rainbow that we could supply a whole advertising campaign. Ha ha)