my boys goofing around

Love these cute pics of my boys. I can't believe how well they play together. Zander is such a "mother hen". I love overhearing Zander talking to Mason in a higher pitched voice, "Mason, would you like to play blocks with me?"

big boy bath x 2

The other day, we did a "big boy bath" with both boys. Zander was so excited, until he realized that he only got half of the bathtub to sprawl. But then once he realized how much fun Mason was having, he was okay.

P.S. Yes, Zander needs a haircut - he's getting one tomorrow :)

Holiday Craziness!!

Where do I even start?! Chronologically, I suppose... How has this holiday turned into such a rat race. It's for the kids, I tell myself!

Dec. 22nd
Eric & Mindi hosted the "Weinhagen Christmas". Super fun. All were there except the Handts who were sick. After we ate, the "kids" (big and small) went sledding out back. Eric's gotta to be in heaven now with his 3 acres of land. I love their house, even if it is out in the boonies.
































Dec 23rd
Two photo shoots and lots of last minute xmas gift making/buying/gathering! Here are some of the homemade gifts I put together (I stole the holiday card keeper and regular card holder from a fellow scrapper Lain Ehmann) ...









































Dec 24th
We hosted the xmas gathering that includes my parents, Marissa & Jason and June & Dud. I made 2 pasta dishes. They were yummy and pretty easy. I kept forgetting that this is Mason's first Christmas. He mostly loved climbing on the presents. I wouldn't say he really opened any presents, but he tore a few pieces of wrapping paper. He was excited to see what was inside. The only problem was getting the toys out of the packaging. Everything has a gazillion twist ties. Zander's fave toys were lincoln logs and a car ramp that attaches to a door. This present was actually for Mana & Zander :)
We also took family photos...the first time in many years. I guess we took one at M & J's wedding, but nothing since. Very sad since we're photographers and all. I'll update this post with a link to Phanfare from the "session".














Dec 25th
The boys woke up around 6am to see what Santa brought. The first thing Zander said when he came out into the living room..."Santa ate his cookie!". We then opened up presents from each other. Zander insisted on a "Christmas mohawk" like our friend Todd.










After Mason's nap, it was off to Grandma Wendy and Grandpa RT's house. Talk about chaos. I guess you can't expect 4 kids to sit and watch each other open up gifts. I didn't really see what everyone got. Wendy made super cool hard-cover books from all the Duluth trips. There were a bunch from the last 5-7 years and then a whole bunch from Mana's childhood. Super cool!






















Then it was off to my parent's house for the massive Kutzner gathering. There are two pools of gift exchanging. On group draws a name. The other group brings 4 random gifts totaling ~$30 and we play the dice game. Mana and I are in the dice game group. I like the adventure of "stealing" and thrill of not knowing what you're getting until the "buzzer".

Go home, go to sleep!!!!! Seriously, I wish I had a whole day just to sleep! After being up until about 2 am for the last 4-5 nights, 10pm is sounding like heaven about now!

Christmas card

We finally got our Christmas card out. Since people should be getting it today, I'll post the images here.

iPod nano red has arrived!!

Tuesday, the ipod nano red that I won from MommyCast arrived! It's so awesome. It's even inscribed - see photo below. I just love the way that Apple packages their products. I've been playing the iquiz game a lot. It quizzes you on the songs you have loaded. Too fun!

Holiday madness

How did this time of year get to be so crazy?! To me, the preparation of the holidays is so stressful and chaotic. The celebration factor has been lost. I've been working like a mad woman in my office on some "projects" which cannot be revealed until after next week. I will definitely be posting photos, just not yet. I'm so excited. Zander has been helping me, so it makes it even more fun!

Lucky winner of...

an iPod nano red!!!! I've been enetering the "secret word" contest from the MommyCast podcast. There are secret words hidden in the 5 most recent podcasts. I found them all and emailed the show each time I heard a secret word. I've won a bunch of prizes already. Then, on the 5th and final podcast you have to email the show all 5 secret words and also figure out what the 5 words have in common. It was easy.... all were things or characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! A classic at our house! The 7th person to do this final task, wins the iPod nano and that is ME!!!! So excited!!

Mason - monthly photo (9 months)

Here's Mason's monthly photo - better late than never. The previous monthly photos are posted here and here.

water heater :(

A few days ago, our basement had a giant puddle. Turns out the water heater is leaking . We're having it replaced tomorrow morning. It will be $800... Merry Christmas to us!

watch and wait

Watch and wait is the name of the game for Mason lately...

I finally connected with the pediatric surgeon today. He feels comfortable moving forward with the surgery to repair Mason's hernia.... but I don't. With differing opinions, and the fact that the surgery isn't an emergency surgery, I'd like to wait until we can visibly see the hernia, he's uncomfortable or when his main doc can check him again at the one year check-up. The only risk of "watching and waiting" is the risk of strangulation - occurs when part of the intestine gets trapped inside the hernia. This happens about 5% of the time and requires emergency surgery.

Got a call from Liz that Mason has not been eating well and been really fussy. She suspected an ear infection. I called the clinic and got an appt for 3:30pm. Doc checked him out and said his ears are "suspicious". He gave us a prescription for amoxicillin and said only to fill it if he gets a fever (which he hasn't had yet) or if the cold and stuffiness persists a week from now. Let's hope kid #2 will be better about taking meds (and doesn't puke at the sight of the bottle).

And since we were at the doc (which happened to be a different one, but one we also know), we asked him to check out Mason's supposed hernia. He couldn't find one either. Both him and the surgeon think that the "baby fat" in that area may be making it hard to find - or making it appear to be a hernia when it isn't. So, as I discussed with the surgeon earlier in the afternoon, we'll watch and wait.

bootie bump

Tonight Zander and I were doing word flashcards. He was working on the word "soon". He wasn't quite sure how to sound out the two o's, so I helped him a bit. I told him they sound like "ooooh" and he responded, "like bootie bump?!" and then bumped me from the side with his little bootie. I was laughing so hard and asked where he heard that. He said, "dad always gives me bootie bumps!"

Sunday events

Cookie baking
Went to my parent's house to bake cookies with Mom and Marissa (and Jason). We made 7 kinds, 7! Jason requested frosted sugar cookies and wanted to do the frosting, so we let him.

Zander: Are you going to work, mom?
Me: No, to grandma Karen's house.
Zander: Who else is going to be there?
Me: Just me, Gma Karen and Auntie 'Rissa.
Zander: Oh, it's just for girls, then.
Me: Yep (I better not tell him that Uncle Jason was there!)

Dinner
Girls dinner at Big Bowl with Tara and Stacy. Love catching up with friends (and yummy food too)!

I'm taking the day off work tomorrow to do x-mas shopping. I'll probably hit Rosedale and a few other places.

Christmas early?!

Today I received the KOTM (kit of the month) I ordered. I'm so excited to use them!

Game back on...maybe

The pediatric surgeon talked with the primary physician who said she definitely felt a hernia, so the pediatric surgeon left us a message that he wants to go ahead with the surgery, but wants to talk to us first. He's not available until next week, so we'll find out more next week. I'd like to know if we can "watch and wait". I'd hate to put Mason through surgery that he doesn't need. I want to find out if there's any negative repercussions with waiting and watching.

False alarm - no double hernia

Today was Mason's appointment with the pediatric surgeon. He couldn't find any signs of a hernia - that was originally diagnosed by Mason's regular doctor. He was very thorough. He said that a hernia would usually be the size of a golf ball - very obvious. This wasn't the case for Mason, and after the exam, he still didn't think Mason has a double hernia. The surgeon does want to talk with Mason's regular that diagnosed it to gets her thoughts. The surgeon said that 25% of the time, a hernia doesn't show itself at random times.... so he wants to talk with her to see how she came to her diagnosis. At Mason's check-up on Monday, she showed us what she thought to be the hernias and this was similar to how things looked today with the surgeon.... so I'm pretty sure there is no hernia. Whew! A sigh of relief after we heard the good news from the surgeon.

Mason update

Monday 12/3 was Mason's 9-month check-up. It started out well. Mason is meeting all his developmental milestones. He's still on the small side (18 lbs, 4 oz), but acceptable. Then, his doc did a physical exam...and found that he has a double hernia and needs surgery to repair it! :( This is quite common on Mana's side of the family. Mana and his dad had a single hernia. Mana's brother had a double hernia and all of Mana's uncles had hernias. Just a bad gene I guess. So far, Zander has lucked out. So, the next step is to meet with a pediatric surgeon. We're doing that Thursday afternoon. The surgeon will assess how soon the surgery needs to be scheduled (which will be at Children's Hospital in St. Paul) and we'll go from there. Poor little guy! Here's a few pictures from this weekend. He's climbing up onto everything!!

Cousin pics

Trying to get a decent picture of 4 kids - ages 3.5, 3, 13.5 months and 9 months....now that's crazy!!

Saturday events

Medtronic Holiday Party

Well, Mana's predictions were correct (not that I doubted him)... not a successful visit with Santa. All week, we've been talking to Zander about what he's going to ask Santa for x-mas - cars. Very simple...cars. We basically got right into the Santa line (since we arrived 20 minutes before it ended - which is a story that's not worth telling). Anyhow, we were escorted into the Santa #1 line (they had 3 Santas!), where we saw the family in front of us finishing up with their pictures. Right then, I felt Zander grab onto my leg. I looked down and his lip began to quiver. I had pretty much lost all hope of the visit we talked about with Zander. Sure enough, when it was our turn, we walked towards Santa and Zander started screaming. (Did I mention that Mason is just observing everything going on - no crying whatsoever). So, the photographer suggested we do a "family" picture. So, that's how it all went down. All 4 of us in the Santa photo.
After the formal photo, we grabbed our treat bags and munched on them for about 5 minutes before seeing the mime from MarketFest and getting kicked out. Quick, but painful ordeal.



Archiver's Scrap Mania

As mentioned in a previous post, I attended Archiver's "Scrap Mania" with my friend from work, Nikole. It's basically a night (5-11pm) to scrap all you want and use all the tools onsite. It's $15 which includes dinner, a page layout to do (or take with you) and a make-and-take which was a snowman tag. It was cute, but too glittery... I'll be finding glitter everywhere for days!
In my preparation for the "mania" (as the "avids" would say), I was apparently very optimistic. I packed supplies for 3 projects. I almost finished one of those projects. If I do this again (which I would like to do) , now I know how much I can realistically get done. Tonight, I put the finishing touches on the pumpkin patch album I worked on. I bought the album kit (SEI) at the scrapbook convention this summer and I think it works really well with these photos.