It’s August? When did that happen?

Wow, an entire month has flown by and now it’s almost September! I can’t believe it! So much has happened so this is going to be a long post! It’s safe to say that if it’s Friday that we are packed up and heading to the lake for the weekend. Except on Friday, August 6 when our sweet little guy turned 1 and when closed on our NEW HOUSE! That’s right, we took the plunge and bought what we consider our dream home in Eau Claire. Jason and I have been searching for houses in the Eau Claire area for the last 3 years with the hope that eventually we would be able to move back and be closer to our friends and his family. When this house came on the market, I knew we were going to buy it. As if the two wooded acres on a cul-de-sac, weren’t enough to convince us, the 4 bedrooms, gorgeous kitchen and amazing screen porch did us in. After a lot of thinking and talking, we decided to go for it.

As most of you can imagine, this prompted our friends and family to ask a ton of questions.

Q: Did you sell your townhouse?

A: Sadly no. We had it on the market for over a year with no offers. The housing market is just too rough right now so we took it off the market and we’re going to hire a management company to take care of renting it out.

Q: When are you moving into the Eau Claire house?

A: We don’t have a date nailed down yet but we’re hoping to be settled in by Christmas.

Q: Emily, are you quitting your job?

A: The answer to this is…well, I don’t have an answer quite yet! It’s possible that my current employer will have a position for me on our national team where I could work from home part-time (which would be awesome)! Otherwise, I have a few awesome friends that have presented me with a few options in EC. J I guess time will tell. If all of my options fall through, I will be a full-time stay at home mom.

Q: Does this mean you and Jason are actually going to live together!?

A: haha, that’s the plan. I mean we’ve only lived apart during the week for the last, um, 4 years? It will be nice to do ordinary things like grocery shop and go for walks on a weekday.

Q: When can we see the new place?

A: Look for a housewarming invite coming to a mailbox near you!

So as you can see, there are still a few things up in the air but I’m convinced that things are going to work out for the best and I cannot wait to be in EC full-time.

The weekend after we closed on the house, I had the bright idea to have our entire families over to the new house for Carter’s first birthday party because really how hard could it be? I’m sure that it would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t booked a photo shoot that morning at the cabin. I owe the entire party going off without a hitch to Jason and my mom. Jason mowed the jungle that had formed in the front yard, cleaned, grocery shopped and grilled. My mom helped keep me calm when Carter decided that napping was overrated and while I ran back and forth to the store for all of the things I realized I forgot. It was all worth it for the look on Carter’s face when he got a look at the cakes that Aunt Ellie made just for him!

You see me rollin'...

While our new house is awesome, it did not come with a washer and dryer, that meant that Carter had his first visit to the laundry mat. I have to say that he was very well behaved right up until we had to put the clothes in the dryers. At that point, he decided that 38 minutes was long enough to sit in his stroller and be good. Thankfully Jason showed up just as C was thinking about having a meltdown. Jason took him for a spin around the laundry mat in one of the carts. Nothing like a few laps around the laundry mat to say hello to everyone to put a smile on my little guy’s face.

After our laundry adventure, I popped a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. Just as I was pulling it out of the oven, I realized that we didn’t have a pizza cutter or knives or anything that we could pretend to use as a cutting device. Leave it to my handy husband to pull out…his hatchet. I’ll just let that sink in for a second while you take a look at the picture below. What can I say, he’s resourceful!

I spent the following week between the new house and the old house, hanging out with my little guy for the week. Daycare was closed so Carter and I got some serious mother/son bonding time in. On Monday, we met up with Missy and Ella at Irving Park. Carter had his first visit to a petting zoo and I can confidently say that he hate donkeys. Oh the yelling and crying that ensued when Missy tried to give Carter some food to feed to the donkey. I decided to steer clear of the bigger animals and check out the goats and bunnies.

We headed back to Minne just in time for C’s afternoon nap. Tuesday morning we cruised down to Excelsior for a Regent Hill photo shoot. Thankfully this shoot was for one of our oldest family friends so Chris took Carter to the playground while I took Michael’s senior pictures. You can check them out here.

I spent Wednesday cleaning the house, doing more laundry, packing and getting ready to head back to the EC house on Thursday afternoon. I had the super fun task of mowing the lawn. Did I mention that we have 2 acres of which about a ½ acre is grass? I should also mention that I despise mowing the lawn. Even with our fancy new self propelled lawn mower, I found myself wishing for a riding mower. But it saved Jason a trip to the house and allowed him to go straight up to the cabin for a relaxing weekend on the water.

Carter welcomed a new girlfriend prospect bright and early Friday morning. Missy, Ryan and big sister Ella welcomed Addison Jean to the family. Congratulations Cesafsky’s! 🙂

In addition to all of this fun, we had to make our routine trip to the pedestrian for shots and measurements. Carter once again tipped the charts for height at 33 ¾ inches – literally off the charts but tracking consistently. He weighed in at 24lbs and 11oz which put him in the 80 percentile. His melon was in the 80 percentile as well. Overall everything looked good and we’re officially done with formula. Did you hear that? It was my wallet breathing a sigh of relief!

I almost forgot, it’s official, I’m a WISCONSIN RESIDENT!! GO PACK GO!

Thanks for checking in with us, I’m hoping to update the blog more regularly!

 

A-DA!

Lately Carter has been speaking in a language that no one understood…that was until Jason and I went on a run to Dairy Queen and realized Carter was speaking “DQ Drive-Thru”. It’s so obvious, I don’t know how we missed it! Clearly he’s confirming our order of a small reese’s peanut butter cup blizzard and a medium mr. misty.

 

9 month stats (3 months late)

Side note: We are coming up on Carter’s 1 year appointment (sniff, sniff my baby is growing up) but I just realized that this post never went through! Here are his 9 month vitals for those of you keeping track!

Carter went in for his 9 month, no shots (yay!) check up last week. Here are his stats:

Length | 31 inches | 100+ percentile

Weight | 23 pounds | 80 percentile

Head | 19 inches | 90 percentile

I think all the new foods we’ve added to his diet are paying off! He’ll now eat:

• Grilled cheese
• Mac & cheese
• Ravioli
• Spaghetti
• Bananas
• Noodles
• Green beans, corn, broccoli (no peas!)
• Tortillas
• Chicken nuggets
• Sweet Potato fries
• Chicken
• Mashed potatoes

Carter has learned lots of new things over the last few weeks including:

• Pointing
• Clapping
• Waving
• Cruising
• Climbing up the stairs
• Speed crawling

He has started to get brave and cruise around all the furniture as well as balancing between the couch and coffee table.

 

Walk, walk, walk, boom

 

Poll: Roll Call

 

4th of July 2010

I’m a little behind on posts because we have been going non-stop on the weekends! This past weekend, we tried something new! We stayed home. With no plans. Are you shocked? It was so, so nice!

We spent our first 4th of July weekend on Bear Trap and it was amazing! Perfect weather, great food and company plus an amazing fireworks show right off our dock (that’s a pier for you Wisconsin folks playing at home). This was the first year that we didn’t have to leave hours early to get a good spot to watch the fireworks, wait impatiently for them to start and then rush to the car to beat the 100’s of other people leaving the show. This year we sat on the patio until dusk, lit the red flares, waited for the sun to go down and then lazily wandered down to the dock to watch the amazing fireworks. All while holding a cold beer! After the show, we headed back up the cabin steps to a roaring fire where we made s’mores. I mean really, it doesn’t get much better than that!

The fireworks started well after Carter’s 7:00pm bedtime so he didn’t get to enjoy them this year but I’m happy to report that they didn’t wake him up either. That’s a win-win in my book!

Flags are fun!

Prime seating

At dusk, everyone around the lake lights flares on their shoreline. When the flares go out, the fireworks start!

I got bit by a fish as I was getting this shot. The freakout that insued almost cost me my camera!

 

 

Thursday is the New Monday

It seems like Thursdays keep sneaking up on me. Just as I get unpacked from one weekend adventure, I realize that all the freshly folded laundry needs to be repacked! Carter & I have pretty boring weekdays. We get up, go to work and daycare, come home, eat dinner, take a bath (him not me) and then I try to decompress from the day. Rinse, wash and repeat until Thursday. Thursday nights are different than Monday – Wednesday. Thursday nights are spent finishing laundry, cleaning and packing up for the weekend.  I honestly can’t remember the last time we were home on a weekend. Without looking at a calendar, I would guess that it was the weekend of Carter’s baptism (Early-May!). We spend the majority of the weekends between the cabin in Amery and visiting friends and family in Eau Claire. Right this second, we (Ellie, Andrew, Carter and I) are cruising down highway 29 to Fond du Lac to visit my extended family for the weekend.  Jason headed up to the cabin with some friends to relax and fish – lucky!

Carter has been growing like a weed and learning all kinds of new things! His first tooth finally popped through the surface on May 20. I can honestly say that I didn’t notice that he was teething so when daycare called to tell me, I was shocked. The only difference in Carter was that he would cry about an hour after he went to bed every night. I would give him Tylenol and he would go back to sleep. After 3 consecutive nights of waking up 2 or 3 times before I even made it to bed, the first tooth appeared! Now he has the two bottom center teeth. So, so cute! This has opened up a new realm of food! He will literally eat anything that you put in front of him. From chicken nuggets to cheerios, he eats it all. Which is probably why he was 23 lbs at his 9 month check up and 30 inches long! That puts him in the 90 percentile for weight and off the charts for length. He’s a solid kid! Hauling around a kid who these days – at 10 month is just over 25 lbs has been taking its toll on my body. I couldn’t figure out why my wrists, arms and back hurt every night but it finally clicked and after a quick trip to my chiropractor, I’m adjusted, realigned and feeling much better!

A few weekends ago, I dropped Carter off at Grandpa & Grandma Duss’ house and headed over to the Wisconsin Dells to join Jason and our friends Matt + Jill for an all-expenses paid trip to the Chula Vista Resort. Matt & Jason both work in the construction industry and there were attending a conference and wives were invited along! Jill and I slept in Saturday, went shopping at the outlets, took naps and then prettied ourselves up for dinner and a casino night. I have had pretty good luck at previous work-related casino nights with Jason. He doesn’t gamble, even with fake money so he usually forks over his starting amount and I gamble for both of us. The first time I did this was at an Ames Construction Christmas party, I got extremely lucky and went home with a video ipod! The second year, I won Jason a set of really nice golf clubs. And this year (different event) I won a netbook! I couldn’t believe it! I had been eying it up all night but didn’t think I stood a chance! But the first raffle ticket pulled out of the bucket was mine and the netbook had my name on it! It’s so nice to have a non-work computer to play around on. I’m actually typing on it right now! 🙂

Jason celebrated his first Father’s Day last weekend. We spent the weekend at the cabin relaxing and helping my parent’s build the new stairs down to the lake. The project went pretty smooth and was a lot less painful than any of us would have guessed!

Carter has been getting extra brave and is now cruising around the furniture like a speed racer! He even gets brave and lets go for a second or two before he “butt bombs” and drops to the floor. Crawling is still is main mode of transportation and he is getting fast! He can make it half way up the stairs before he stops to see if anyone has caught him. He loves, loves, love baths. Today he stuck his face in the water and blew bubbles. Each time he came up giggling. Like my dad sarcastically says “It’s too bad he’s not a happy kid.” You may have read about our “Crystal Light Incident”  on Facebook. Carter is busy and by busy I mean fast. Fast enough to dump an entire glass of cherry limeade Crystal Light on himself while I got ready for work one morning. I had to explain to Melissa, our daycare lady, that he wasn’t sporting a random skin disease.

Warning: Crystal Light Stains Babies

Work has been steadily picking up for me which is good and bad. It’s good because I have lots to do when I’m in the office. Bad because sometimes that means I have to work when I get home too.

Giving multi-tasking a whole new meaning

It's hard to get anything done when this cutie is playing peek a boo with the shower curtain!

A FDL recap…

After a super fun baby shower at the lake, everyone headed to the Nejedlo’s for a pool party! Think cold beer, warm sun & yummy Eaton’s pizza!

Carter & the Nejedlo Girls

He's a fish!

After the pool party we headed out to the farm to visit the Voelker side of the family. There were two amazingly friendly horses out in the pasture that loved carrots! Carter wasn’t too sure about them!

This weekend we are headed up to the cabin for our first 4th of July on Bear Trap Lake! We cannot wait!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/regent_hill_designs/4746742382/

 

Blackmail

Just one picture for today. This is what happens when Carter gets into Aunt Ellie’s bottomless purse of fun!

 

Busy, Busy!

Wow, the last 2 weeks have flown by. Last Friday night, Carter and I had a date with my college roommates and their significant others in downtown St. Paul. We met up with Erin & Dan, who were in town from Milwaukee and headed to the Brooks & Dunn concert, and Jen & Travis for dinner. Armed with a full diaper bag of snacks and sippy cups, we headed off to a semi-fancy restaurant. Carter did surprisingly well and managed to keep the mess to a minimum!

The following night, Carter was baptized at the church I grew up at in Deephaven. Despite a shorter than normal nap, Carter didn’t seem to mind having to sit quietly for an entire hour. He took in all the sites, smiled, waved and “talked” to the people around us. Carter’s godparents are Jason’s brother Shane and my sister Ellie. Unfortunately, Shane lives in Germany so he wasn’t able to join us for the weekend so my brother Andrew volunteered to stand-in for Shane. Afterward, we all headed to my parent’s house for dinner. My mom made an amazing meal of pulled beef and pork sandwiches along with potato salad and noodle salad. It was yummy!

Great-Grandpa Marv

Stand-in Godfather, Andrew | Godmother Ellie

Grandpa & Grandma Cheerio

It was so great to have all of our families together. Not only did we have Carter’s grandparents but Jason’s grandparents joined us as well. We were even able to update our 4 generations of Duss’ photo.

Four Generations of Duss'

On May 18, I got a call from daycare, my first instinct was to be worried, but when I listened to the voicemail, it was Melissa telling me that Carter has cut his first tooth! After 9 long months of being toothless, the first tooth popped through the surface. Since then he’s been cranky but overall he’s been his normal smiley, happy self!  At the park today, I noticed that there is a 2^nd tooth making its appearance. I guess that explains the party he wanted to have in our bed last night from 10-11pm!

If you look closely you can see two teeth on the bottom!

Daycare was closed last Wednesday, so Aunt Ellie came up to our house Tuesday night to watch Grey’s, have a slumber party and babysit C while I was at work.

Watching Grey's (it was very intense)

They had a great time which included a trip to the park, a walk, lots of playing and naps for both of them! They even came to visit me at the office!

what do you want?

Yum, yum spaghetti!

Taking a break on his way up

Last weekend, Jason was on full-time daddy duty while I headed out to Cape Cod for a girls weekend! After a relaxing mani/pedi Thursday night, I headed out to Boston early Friday morning. (Thanks again to my dad for getting up entirely too early – 4am to take me to the airport!) It was an amazing weekend filled with good conversations, good friends and spa time. I even managed to sneak in a photo shoot at the beach!

I was worried about the boys back at home but everything went smoothly and Jason said Carter was on his best behavior. I even got a couple pictures of the action!

As relaxing as the weekend was, I was anxious and so happy to come home to my boys! This week C and I have been laying low and recovering from my weekend away. The last 2 nights I’ve given him a bath outside in the pool. Cooper tried to join Carter a few times…”hey kid, move over!”

I will leave you with a video that makes me giggle!

 

Odd conversations & my first mother’s day

You know what’s weird? This conversation:

Bri-guy: Hey Em, Marty called, there’s a Cessna tied to our dock.

Me: Excuse me, what now?

Bri-guy: A plane. It’s tied to the dock.

Me: Whaaaaaaat?

Bri-guy: He said he had to make an executive decision so he tied the plane to our dock.

Me: So I shouldn’t be alarmed by the giant Cessna parked at our dock. In the lake. Are you sure you’re feeling OK dad?

Bri-guy: Just take a picture and send it to me when you get there. {he just figured out how to text and send pictures – haha, love you dad}

Me: Did he at least leave us the keys? No? Shoot.

That’s how my conversation with down with my dad Friday afternoon. I should back up a bit…our cabin neighbor is a retired pilot and lives 2 doors down. Apparently a friend of his stopped by for the night and landed his float plane on the lake. It wasn’t until after the plane had landed that they realized they were missing an adequate parking spot. Lucky for them, our new to us pontoon hadn’t been delivered yet.

Sure enough, I got to the cabin and found this:

And Saturday morning we got to watch as the pilot taxied out onto the lake and buzzed us ala “Top Gun”.

It was quite the site! It turns out that it was a good thing Marty didn’t leave the keys because did you know that you take off into the wind? Ha, I wouldn’t have made it very far.

Saturday night, Jason took me out to dinner for Mother’s Day | 30^th Birthday. We decided to try some place new and headed to Paradise Landing in Balsam Lake. I wasn’t sure what to expect since the last few restaurants that we had been to up there (aka by the cabin) were a bust. But Paradise Landing didn’t disappoint. Not only was the food yummy and the beer extra cold, but we had a killer view of the sun setting over the lake. It was a beautiful night and we had babysitters (thanks again mom & dad) which meant we closed the place down. It had been a long time since JD & I had been on date – it was so nice to talk without distractions.

Sunday was Mother’s day. I slept in, laid on the dock, went for a walk with my two favorite guys and had a giant lunch with my parents, brother, Jason and Carter. It was the perfect day!

Aside from the busy but fun weekend, the week went by entirely too fast. Carter had fun at daycare, we went for lots of walks and even played on the swings at the park near our house. I am amazed everyday at how fast he can crawl and how one minute he is next to me and the next he is across the room pulled up on various pieces of furniture! Oh and we learned that ground turkey is not Carter’s favorite food. The proof is in the pictures.

Mean mama! I can't believe you're making me try this again so you can take a picure!

I would rather eat grass! Blech!