I'll never understand...

... why Skogen runs into his room nakie after every bath and pees on the floor (kinda reminds me of another family member who used to consistently pee in his closet - and I'm not talking about Erik).
... why Maida blows her nose into midair whenever she has a bugger or stuffy nose.  I think she's seen Erik do the "farmer blow" outside one too many times and doesn't understand that it's not as appropriate indoors.
... how God knows just what we need and when we need it.  To my surprise, Erik spent the entire day on Saturday with us (THANK YOU, GOD!).  It felt like months since I'd seen him last.  Maida and I couldn't stop sitting super close to him on the couch or hugging him.  We even ventured out into the cold and did a family activity that we have never done before, which resulted in a big surprise for everyone.  I'll post about that later, when I get pictures!

Dealing with Weekends

I dread weekends.  They're tough.  Most families look forward to the weekend... time off from work, time to finish up some house projects, play games, watch movies, watch the kids play, sleep in... I usually watch the weekend come and go with house projects untouched, no fun movies or games played, no sleeping in... it's just how it goes when you're married to a doctor-to-be!  People still get sick on Saturdays and Sundays.  Speaking of Sundays, that's the day that I dread the most.  Getting up early, getting the kids up early, dressing up, driving the 35 minutes to church, and then trying to get two kids to sit still during worship.  Luckily they're pretty good during church, but it does take a lot of work.  Most of the time I have pretty good friends at church that will pitch in and help if I need it.  Somehow or another we make it through church and I usually come out feeling blessed for making the effort to be there.

A lot of times on the weekend it's easy to get caught up in feeling sorry for myself, feeling alone, or depressed without Erik around at all.  But most of the time, I try to be thankful, happy, and excited about what I have.  I'm really looking forward to the birth of our third baby and think about it almost every hour of the day.  I enjoy hearing about Brandon and Karlie and watching how full of joy they are as they prepare for their first baby.  I have to hold myself back from calling them everyday just to hear all about what's been going on with the pregnancy.  I like spending time with my kids and I'm so thankful to have them.  Without them, it would be VERY lonely.  I love being creative with them and teaching them new things.  At the end of the day our house is a disaster, with toys spread from one end the other, but it makes me smile because it's evidence that a lot of fun was being had.  We all three look forward to a weekly playgroup that we attend with moms and kids from church, it's especially great to get out of the house.  I'm happy about having my own washer and dryer, even if I don't have time to wash clothes.  I enjoy getting a shower in everyday, even if it means that I have to shower in my bathing suit with one or two of the kids with me in the shower.  I'm thankful for the ability to cook my children home cooked meals every night and I especially love it when they like it and ask for seconds.  I love leftovers that we can eat for lunch the next day.  Without Erik we survive, we deal with it by dealing with it.  We support and smile as much as we can (although sometimes I fail at this) and look forward to the day that he will be Dr. Erik Scharrer.  It's then when he'll look back and wonder where the past four years went and how his kids grew up so fast.  I'll look back and wonder how I survived the infant and toddler years alone.  We'll look back together and know that we made it and are stronger because of it... and maybe then we'll finally have some free weekends to spend together doing house projects, watching movies, playing games, and sleeping in.

Well, it's 3:00am and Erik just got home from work a little while ago.  Now he's asleep next to me in bed, so I better go take advantage of the time.  This is usually the only alone time I get with him, so I like to tell him all about my day.  He sleeps and I talk.  It's nice because has no comments to anything I say!  It's great to actually have him here tonight, which makes a pretty good start to the weekend already!

I had to share...

Last night Erik was at work until late again, so I decided to sleep with Maida. While we were falling asleep, she reached through the covers and found my arm. While rubbing it, she said, "Mommy, you are such a good mommy for us." It melted my heart. I don't think that I've ever loved a little girl so much in my whole life.

Today Maida said, "Mommy, Karlie has a girl baby in her tummy and I know this because Brandon and Karlie told me that. Can we have a girl baby in your tummy, too?" I took this opportunity to again try to get her used to the idea that it might be a boy and that we just have to wait and see what God gives us. She then said, "Well, maybe you should just ask Brandon and Karlie how they got a girl baby in Karlie's tummy, then, and maybe that will help."

Babywise - It's My Thing

Skogen is feeding himself breakfast this morning.  For some reason he threw a tantrum when I tried to feed him, so I handed him the spoon and told him to go to town.  He's now COVERED head-to-toe in blueberry oatmeal, but at least he's happy and fed.  :)  I have a feeling a morning bath will be needed soon.

For the past several weeks I have been watching a friend's baby.  Baby N's mom and dad have a very different parenting style than I do (I think every parent does things a bit differently) and I've had to learn and adapt as I go.  Sometimes I feel like such a failure at trying to mother Baby N during the day because I'm so used to how I did things with my two babies.  Other times it has been a positive thing to explore with a different parenting style than my own, and has been a good way to experiment with things that I could maybe implement when I have a third one of my own.

One thing that this experience has taught me is how much of a Babywise parent I am.  I thrive as a mom by having my kids on a schedule.  I didn't start Maida on Babywise until she was three months old, because I really thought that I was more of an attachment/feed on demand mother, however I got burned out really fast on that method.  I started Skogen on Babywise before we even left the hospital and it was such a blessing.  I really feel like the schedule made my babies happier babies and made me in return, a happier mother.

The one thing that I appreciated about the Babywise method is that I always fed my babies every three hours, so they never cried because they were hungry.  They knew that as soon as they woke up, they would eat.  They wouldn't have to cry or whine or kick and scream before I could figure out that they were hungry.  I provided what they needed before they really needed it.  They also never got overly tired because I knew exactly what time they should go to sleep, according to when they ate.  I also knew exactly how long they'd sleep because they would sleep until the next feeding, which I'd already have ready for them before they woke up.  With this method, my babies hardly ever woke up crying, they woke up happy because they knew they were going to get to eat!  Nighttime was a bit different than the daytime on the Babywise schedule because I would never wake them up to eat (like most mothers probably do), I'd just let them go as long as they could and then feed them as soon as they woke up.  Skogen was sleeping 6-7 hours by two weeks old, 9 hours by 9 weeks old, and at least 11-12 hours a night shortly after that.  It was great!  I have to admit that there are some things of the Babywise method that I didn't use, one of those being letting your baby cry it out.  I have never been able to do that!  However, I adapted The Happiest Baby on the Block and The No Cry Sleep Solution together with Babywise to make what we called, "Karawise," which I used in the situations where I couldn't get my babies to go to sleep.

Another thing that I really appreciated about Babywise is that it carries into the toddler years, too.  You save a lot of temper tantrums by knowing what your toddler is going to need before he needs it.  Examples: if I know that Skogen is going to need a nap at 1:00, then I stay home at 1:00 and give him a nap... if we're out at a playdate at 10:00 in the morning and I know that's when Skogen eats a snack, I'll bring a snack instead of letting him have a meltdown first, and then going, "Oh, I guess he wants a sanck, maybe I should have brought one."  I feel that it taught me the ability to anticipate the needs of my children before the needs became out of control.

The only complaints I have about Babywise is that it can get stressful trying to keep your baby on a schedule and it's not always the best method for premature or smaller babies, or babies that may have eating issues.  However, for the bigger babies (like I had!) it is totally worth it.

Anyway, you can read more about Babywise on the internet, or buy the book in any baby store, if you are interested.  It has really been a sleep saver, tear saver, sanity saver for me as a mom and I know that as soon as baby #3 makes his or her arrival, I'll probably be more apt to lean on this method again.  I just hope that baby #3 adapts to it.  I know that every baby is different and responds differently to things, though.  What kinds of methods have other moms used and had success with?  Have any of you had success with Babywise, too?

By the way, 100 people have read the blog between yesterday when I posted and when I posted this post.  I just wanted to remind you all to vote on our baby poll!  I think it's interesting how the boy and girl votes keep tying with each other!

Bellies to Babies

Check out my cute pregnant sister-in-law!

She's looking pregnant, now, and I think that she's so adorable.

Brandon sent me this picture this morning.  It was taken at their gender reveal party last night.

Very soon she'll be in all maternity clothes!

Speaking of maternity clothes, I discovered the CUTEST most PRACTICAL and AMAZING store EVER!  "Bellies to Babies," a consignment store for just maternity clothes.  I'm actually really sad that I wasn't the one to come up with the idea to open a store like this!  The kids and I made a visit yesterday and I was surprised to see that they even had a kid and dad area where the kids can play and dads can sit and read while the moms shop!  In the back, there are super cute changing rooms called, "Changing Wombs," and a nice nursing room with a rocking chair and changing table.  The whole store was painted in a chocolate brown and light pink.  I met the owner and she was so sweet and down to earth.  They have a rental service, too, where you can rent a formal maternity dress, because who wants to spend so much money on a dress that you'll just wear once!  There is a small section there, too, of newborn baby clothes.  To see their website, click here.  I'm totally planning on selling all of maternity clothes to her after this pregnancy.

Talking about maternity clothes, I may need to take them out soon, too!  My pants are getting pretty snug.  According to Baby Center, the baby is now as long as a lemon (and Karlie's baby is now as long as a banana!).  I've been taking pictures every week of me with a food comparable to the baby's size.  (I missed weeks 10 and 11 because I didn't know what a kumquat or fig was.)  I feel like weeks 12-20 are always so awkward because you don't really look pregnant, you just look chunky.  I can't wait to reach the looking pregnant stage.

A Special Day

Today is a special day.

It's not only a special day because our new sliding glass door in the dining room is going in (YAY!), but it's special because Karlie and Brandon (Erik's brother and wife) are finding out whether or not they are expecting a girl or a boy.  Hopefully the baby cooperates with them so that their party tonight isn't for nothing!  :)  They are having a gender reveal party.  Of course since we live 1,000 miles away, we won't be making the party, but all the guests were asked to wear either pink or blue, depending on whether or not you thought it was a boy or a girl.  Just for fun, I decided to dress us today according to what we think the gender is.

Maida is totally convinced that it's a GIRL!

Skogen had no idea, but since he's a boy, I figured he'd want a boy cousin.

I actually went back and forth, but settled on a boy.  (Maida had to take my picture, sorry.)

Last week we purchased a family membership at the YMCA.  I really wasn't all that into it until we actually signed up and met with a personal trainer.  I really feel like we are making a great step in the right direction to becoming a healthier family.  The best part about the YMCA's family membership is that we get free daycare while we work out.  Erik and I never EVER have time alone.  Hopefully we can use our time at the YMCA as dates!  Even if we don't work out together, they have a hot tub that we can enjoy together after we work out.  There are also several children's programs that I hope to get the kids involved in.  Hopefully it will give the kids and I something to do when Erik is at work.

This last weekend Erik got a surprise weekend off!  This was perfect timing.  Lately I have been so concerned about how much Erik is having to work.  He goes to work at 6am and usually doesn't get home until between 11pm and 2am.  There have also been times when he doesn't come home until 4am, then he jumps in the shower, changes his clothes, and takes off for the hospital again.  He is literally sleeping an average of 2-3 hours per night.  I have no idea how he is making it.  Between work and studying, he tries to squeeze in time to play with the kids, check his email, and help around the house, but there is really actually no time for any of that.  I have tried to stop sending Erik any email forwards (sometimes it takes him over an hour just to read all the email forwards he gets),  stop expecting him to help with things around the house, and stop asking him to help with the kids.  Those are just little things that I have realized that I can do, to make his life easier right now.  It was so nice to have him here all weekend, though, to help a little bit with the kids (especially at church!).  It also felt so great to sleep and know he was sleeping next to me, instead of waking up every half hour, wondering when he would be coming home.

Hopefully I'll be able to share a little bit more about our life as a medical school family in future blog posts.  I read other blogs of medical spouses and it really helps for me to see that I'm not the only one going through these stressful times.  I've been hesitant up to this point to share personal struggles that we've had as a medical school family because in the past we've had readers get offended or too sensitive to what we were sharing.  It's all part of the our journey, though - my journey, Maida's journey, Skogen's journey, Erik's journey, and I want our blog journey to reflect our real life journey so when we look back in 10, 20, 30 years from now, we'll feel so good at how far we've come!  The picture on the right is Erik getting his white coat, over two years ago.  I can't believe our medical school journey is half over and that Erik is over halfway to being a doctor!  I'm so proud of him.

Since Erik had the night off last night, we were able to go to a Vikings party at church!  We had a devotional, watched the game, and ate some nummy lasagna that Wendy made.  It was Melissa's birthday, too, so she brought an amazing Vikings birthday cake (she's one of the biggest Vikings fans I know!).  We all had a great time until Brett Favre threw that interception with seconds remaining in the game (a game that we already had won).  It was the most awful feeling for me because I knew at that minute that we had lost the game.  Seven months seems way too long to wait for another football season to start again.

In ending this post, I would just like to mention some people that I have been praying for.  I believe in the power of prayer and know that many of you do, too.  If maybe you have a spare minute or two, you all would use it to pray for these people, also...

*  Kate (http://www.prayforkate.com/) - a little girl with a brain tumor.  I have no idea who this little girl is, but I've been praying for her for the past six months.

*  Jason (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/stampers) - a minister from Minnesota in the hospital with a weird and painful infection.  Him and his wife have four little kids (the youngest being a brand new baby)

*  Jamie (http://lailahrafik.blogspot.com/) - the sister-in-law of a girl that I went to college with and was in Gamma with.  She was in a bad car accident while overseas in the Peace Corps and is now in a coma.  Her family flew overseas to be with her right after the accident and then they flew with her back to the US where they are now.

*  Dr. Maple (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/johnmaple) - one of my professors from college battling cancer

*  Karlie and Brandon - Erik's brother and his wife have their big ultrasound tomorrow where they not only find out the sex, but they check over the baby to make sure that everything is good and normal.  Prayers that everything checks out okay.

Maida fell asleep on the way home from church.  After she woke up, we were talking at the kitchen table...
Maida:  Mommy, I think I had a dream.
Mommy:  Really?
Maida:  Yeah, it was a like a movie in my head!
Later on we found out that her and Daddy were in the dream, a long with an elephant who lost his underwear!

Today while playing in the living room...
Maida:  AAAAAACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mommy:  Maida, did you sneeze?
Maida:  No.
Mommy:  But I heard you.
Maida:  Oh, yeah, that.  You probably just heard that bless-you that was coming out of my nose.

Preschool/Toddler Open Gym

Today we went to an open gym with some friends.  There were TONS of balls all around and mats for the kids to roll and jump on.  Skogen was so so funny.  He just kept walking all over the place saying, "Ball!  Ball!"  His favorite ball was a big blue ball that was almost bigger that he was!

Maida enjoyed running around, too, and even got Skogen to chase her for a little while!

Skogen's friend Trey, from church, chased him on the mats!

Maida saw other kids with their shoes off, so of course she had to take hers off.

They were so worn out when we got home!  These pictures I took of them in their car seats before I took them out of the car.  They both slept for 2 1/2 hours after I took them out and put them in their beds.

Lastly, here is a video mainly for Daddy because Maida thought that he would be so proud of her jumping and jumping...

Healthy Eating

Erik's been really encouraging me to eat healthy lately and have healthy foods around the house.  I love that he wants us to be healthy, but I'm so confused as to where to start.  First of all, I don't really think that we eat very unhealthy.  We never have candy, cookies, cake, rice crispee bars, chocolate, Little Debbies, Doritoes, Cheetos, or anything like that around.  I try to give the kids at least two fruits and veggies a day, along with some meat.  For snacks we enjoy toast or string cheese.  Do any of you have any suggestions as to where to start with this healthy business?  How do I make our diet more healthy?   Any suggestions for some recipes?

Crash

When I left her, she was sitting up on the couch with the computer on her lap,watching a Dora movie on the laptop, and happily repeating everything Dora was asking her to.

When I got back into the room (less than 5 minutes later), I found her like this:

It's amazing how fast they crash.

Weekend Recap

*** UPDATE:  I fixed the video!  Erik tried to help out and apparently his computer wouldn't publish this post with the video.  The video should be attached to this post, now.   Sorry!  :)

This was one of the best weekends! It all started with Grandma and Bumpa coming down to our house on Friday night and bringing cousin, Natalie, to play! Maida was so excited to see her cousin. They babysat for us on Friday night so that Erik and I could go out with good friends, Kristin and Bryan. We had dinner at Biaggi's, which was really good, and had a great time catching up with them. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

On Saturday afternoon we had Skogen's first birthday party with a few friends and family (video below). It was so fun to make "#1" official. Skogen really enjoyed the pizza and cake and opening presents. His big sister helped him out with the unwrapping and he was very good at sharing his new toys with his friends.

After the birthday party, I was able to leave the kids with Erik and go to the hospital to visit my friend, Hannah, who just had baby Kenan. He was the same size as Skogen was when he was born. It brought back lots of memories to hold him. I love babies!

After seeing baby Kenan, I met Erik at church where we celebrated our friend, Chris's, 40th birthday. We had such good food and great fellowship!

On Sunday morning I had to go to church alone, but we surprisingly made it on time for class and church and I felt blessed by the worship. After church we enjoyed an awesome Vikings game (SKOL Vikings!) and then ventured out in the cold again to go to small group Bible study where we ate some baked potatoes and had a nice discussion and prayer time.

Today Erik and I both had off of work, so we stayed up late last night watching a movie, slept in until 9:00 this morning (well, E slept in until 10:30!), and have been on our computers ever since! It's nice to just sit together on the couch and enjoy watching the kids play while we get some work done. It has actually taken me all day to put together a video of Skogen's first birthday. It isn't even that great of a video. I'm not really sure why it has taken me so long! Hopefully you enjoy it...
(You may want to fast forward through the cake eating. I left it pretty long so that the grandparents and great-grandparents could see it!)

Princess Dance Party

Maida had to wear a pretty yellow dress and her high heels (we were pretending because we couldn't find them!).  She was pretending that Daddy was the prince and kept asking him to "have this dance."

HaPpY BiRtHdAy, SkOgEn!

Happy birthday, Skogen!!!

My life has been so richly blessed by having you in it.  You have a smile on your face every morning when I get your out of your crib and you fill my days with joy and laughter by the little things you do (like stand on your head just to get me to laugh).  You are the happiest, most easy going, loving, sweetest, little boy that I have ever known.  I have enjoyed watching you grow - I've seen everything from your first roll, to your first sit, to your first rattle, to your first food, first cup, first crawl, first word, first sign, and first steps.  I haven't missed a thing!

We are going to celebrate with you on Saturday, when some friends and family can come over and watch you eat your very own piece of cake.  Today we are just hanging out at home with Maida and N.  Maida and I are enjoying yelling, "Happy Birthday, Skogen!!!" every once-in-a-while and watching you put your "number one" finger up.  It's so cute!

One special thing that happened today was that you got your very first birthday card.  You have no idea what a birthday card is, but you have been carrying it all over the house all morning.  You are very possessive of the card and won't let Maida touch it.  You have taken it over to N a few times and showed him, but you won't let him get too close to it, either.  The funny thing is, it's the cutest card I've ever seen, and by "cutest," I really mean "funny" in a cute way.  The card is from your great-grandpa Fritz Scharrer Sr.  I can't believe that he remembered your birthday!  Here's a picture of the card...

On the front of the card, he crossed off all of the candle flames, except for one, where he wrote your name because you are one year old (don't worry about your name being spelled wrong, he spells all of our names wrong every now and again - he's old).

On the inside, he apologizes for not buying a one-year birthday card and says that he hopes this card makes you happy.  I'll have to write him and tell him that you wouldn't put it down all day!

Here is a video of some pictures that I put together from your first year of life.  We love you, Skogen and can't imagine life without you.

Baby Talk

Today I had my first prenatal doctor visit.  I've been in twice before, but just saw the nurse practitioner both times.  So, today I actually met the lady who I've picked to be apart of my perfect birth team.  She was great - funny, nice, caring, cool, intelligent, together, easy-going, and smiley, but I'm hesitant.  I'm hesitant to commit to her just yet.  There are so many options in childbirth, and I really want to have a doctor that wants exactly what I want in my birth.  So, we'll see what happens and where we decide to go from here.

(I have journaled more about my first doctor visit here, and I plan to keep most of our pregnancy story there, instead of putting it all over the blog, because I know that not everyone likes to read about these kind of things!)

This is a picture of a model of a baby at 12 weeks gestation.  I used this when I volunteered a few years ago to sit at county fairs and teach women about abortions.  Maida and I thought it was fun to put the baby on my tummy so that we could imagine how big our baby is right now and what he or she looks like.

I've put up a new poll on our blog!  Please go vote for if you think this baby is a boy or girl.  We will NOT be finding out the gender at our ultrasound in March, but I thought it would be fun to see what you all thought was growing in my belly!  Maida was convinced that we were having twins - a boy and a girl, just like Dora's mommy!  We've finally got her to understand that there is only one baby in there (ultrasound confirmed!) and so now she's super sure that it is a girl.

9-1-1-G-R-A-N-D-M-A

I went ahead and called 9-1-1-G-R-A-N-D-M-A last night.  I am so far behind on everything and I just can't get it together.  I don't know whether it's because I got backed up on everything when we were sick before we went to CO, because I've been dealing with a great deal of nausea (thanks to baby #3), because our bathroom remodel STILL isn't done and our bathroom stuff is spread out all over the house, or because I started "working" this week and didn't get everything accomplished before I took on too much.  Which ever the case, I'm hoping that my mom can help me straighten things out this weekend.  I know my husband would appreciate some clean underwear to wear to work and I also know he'd appreciate it if he didn't have to wear dirty dress pants to work, too.  Poor Erik has been leaving the house every morning at 6:00 and hasn't been getting home until 10:30 every night.  Then he has studying to do.  On average he gets three to four hours of sleep a night.  On top of his busy work schedule, he has to go to drill this weekend.  I don't know how he does it.  The least I could do is give the guy some clean clothes!  Luckily 9-1-1-G-R-A-N-D-M-A has great response time and she'll be here on Saturday!

Lately I've been really surprised at some of the things Skogen is doing.  I decided to document some of the cutest ones...
*  Yesterday Skogen spent some time in the bathroom squirting water out of his bath toys and onto the floor.  After he did this for a few minutes, he noticed there was some water on the floor.  Instead of swishing it all over the bathroom, like he'd normally do, he turned around, reached a towel on the vanity, brought it over to the water on the floor, and started wiping it up.
*  Skogen likes to touch my camera lens.  It's a really big pain to clean, so I usually try to not let him have the camera.  This morning when I wasn't looking he got the camera.  Before I knew it, he brought the camera up to his face and said, "EEEEEE."  He kept pointing the camera at things and saying cheese!  Then I showed him how we can take a self portrait and say, "cheese," together when we take it.  So that's all he wanted to do all morning.
*  He just started listening to and following simple commands like, "Skogen, go get your juice cup under the coffee table and mommy will give you more juice," or, "Let's change your diaper.  Can you go get mommy a diaper?"   It's so fun to see the transition between baby and toddler!

Speaking of Skogen, did you guys know that he's turning ONE next week?!!  Holy cow.

Prayers for Kate McRae

After Scott died, I didn't think that I'd ever be able to pray like that for anyone else again.  I was burnt out- burnt out from praying and feeling like God didn't answer.  However, as life moved on, and I've healed, I have to admit that I've been praying again!  And lately I've REALLY been praying for a specific little girl that I have never met.    I'd like to ask you to join me in praying for her.  You can jump in a live stream prayer vigil tonight at 9:30 EST at: http://www.livestream.com/brianwurzell.  You can also find updates on Kate here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mcraekate.  Please please go read up on Kate and pray for her and her family.

Monarch Ski Pictures

I just got these pictures from my mom last night.  My camera had died as soon as we arrived at the mountain (of course!) so I didn't get any pictures of us skiing.  Luckily my mom had her camera and took a few pictures for us.  I'm very sad that I didn't get any videos of Maida skiing, though.

Maida and Mommy ready to hit the mountain!

Papa and Nanna

We tried to take a family picture on the mountain, but Maida didn't want to stop skiing to take a picture, so she wouldn't look at the camera.

This is how Maida skied the first day because we forgot the harness.  It was a little tricky because she would get going really fast!  I don't have a picture of her with the harness on, but it went around her chest and waist, with ropes that went behind her that Erik held on to.  Then he could control her speed and help turn her.  She skied all over with the harness and loved it!  She also really loved the chair lifts and got really excited and silly when she was on them.

Daddy and Maida and Nana

Our whole family

These pictures make it look really snowy and icky, but actually it was only like this for a few hours this particular morning (the morning we decide to take pictures!).  Most of the time it was very sunny and good ski weather.

New Years Eve

On New Years Eve, Erik surprised us by getting off of work early and then took us out to dinner!  We tried several resaurants, but most places weren't taking reservations, and had an hour and a half wait to get in.  So, we ended up going to Granite City, which was only a 20 minute wait!  The food was GREAT!  We pigged out and didn't even have any leftovers.

Maida in her New Years Eve outfit, which she picked out herself:

And she insisted on wearing these shoes!  However, we battled with her to wear boots since it was waaaaay below zero out and we didn't want any frost bit toes!

She finally agreed and put her boots on.

Maida and Daddy having fun at the restaurant!

Skogen took a picture of me with food in my teeth!

Here is our little man pigging out!  It is so nice for him to be able to feed himself, now!

Since the kids had a late nap on the way to the restaurant, we let them stay up and watch the ball drop.  Maida thought that was pretty cool!  Then we all slept in until 10:15 the next morning.  It was GREAT!