Madison Lee's Summit Jayhawkers

New Ads

2011-10-14T11:24:00.002-05:00

Apparently YouTube has taken notice of several of our high ranking videos. 2 of them have over 5000 views. So, they are now inviting us to become revenue sharers! I have no idea how much we could actually make, but it seems to involve us getting some pittance only if people click on the ads. So...we'll probably never make any money. But, just for fun, we'll run some ads on this page too! That's right, you can now view our page with...ads! Just like watching TV! Fun for the whole family! So go ahead and click on those ads and watch the less than one penny income come pouring in!!

Work job

2011-10-04T22:36:00.003-05:00

Work is going better. I'm the stroke director for the hospital, so I get to do some fun things like going to schools to teach kids about stroke. There's a video on this page of me with the Missouri Maverick players. #6 Jared Lavender and #20 Derek Palladry.

http://fortosage.net/education/school/school.php?sectiondetailid=145&

Fun times with 5th and 6th graders!

Birthday!

2011-09-18T22:02:00.004-05:00

It was a good day. Katie let me sleep in until 8. The kids all said Happy Birthday to me right away (well, Peter kept saying "Happy Day" but that was even cuter). We had donuts for breakfast. I was able to putter around the house while Katie got ready for the party. I took the girls to Home Depot while Katie put Peter down for ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif nap. We got some stuff, then went to Fazoli's for lunch (kids ate free last weekend!). When we got back I did some more work (fixing sink stoppers, replacing flourescent lights).

My parents, Katie's parents and the Thomas-Vogrin family came over. We had chicken fried steak and the fixin's. We started with some alcohol shots courtesy of Matt and Jen (leftovers from their wedding 10 years ago).

We then opened presents. Katie set up a treasure hunt (a new tradition we do for each other) and I found Darth Vader masks at each spot. All the kids got one

From 2011 Robert Birthday

Katie made some yummy cakes

From 2011 Robert Birthday

Thanks to all who helped me celebrate, either in person, in spirit...or on Facebook!

September

2011-09-14T14:10:00.002-05:00

We've been having fun the last few weeks! I didn't have to work on Labor Day weekend after all, so we all went to the Santa-Cali-Gon Days in Independence. We had typical fair food, the girls got their faces painted in a Mormon tent for free (they were playing a movie about the testaments in their bible, kind of scared Mary Ann), and hung out with my family. We then went over to my parent's house for pizza. fun time!

This last weekend we went to the circus with Katie's parents. The girls (and to a lesser degree Peter) loved the whole thing, especially the cotton candy and popcorn...

Mary Ann and Rose both started ballet classes this past week. They both did a good job in their class. Mary Ann's is pretty late--7:15 to 8pm! So, past normal bedtime. We'll see how that works out!

No pictures in this post because work blocks picasa. But, we have lots of new pictures over there--go check it out!

August update

2011-08-24T19:27:00.004-05:00

We'll try to follow suit of the Buschelman's desire to update more often. A frequent and oft forgotten resolution, but oh well, here we go!

We've been blessed to have relatively children in this time of transition. We've all been working on getting used to the new house, the new job, the new...everything! In July we went with Nana to visit Oma. It was a good trip and the kids did well interacting with Oma.

From July 2011

We were able to visit California, MO and see grandpa Mac's bench and see his footstone in the cemetery.

From July 2011

Later in the month my aunt and uncle from Texas came to visit for a day. We hadn't seen them in a long time, so being closer has already made us a lot more available to most of the family!

In August I started work at Centerpoint hospital. I'm even on the webpage (though no photo yet...)! They didn't have everything ready for me (no e-mail, no pager, no white coat...) but I was able to see patients. I've already had my first week of call. I only had to go into the hospital once at night, but having to go in to round on the weekends was rough. Oh well, only 1 in 4 call isn't too bad.

We also celebrated Katie's birthday! Since her parents were in Ohio, my parents came over to help celebrate.

From August 2011

She got lots of great stuff and we had fun playing games.

From August 2011

The kids started school!

From August 2011

Peter is getting more and more interactive. His favorite thing is to tell "knock knock jokes." For a while, his only version was "knock knock (who's there?) Ball (ball who?) who!" Then he would insert other things instead of ball, but the punchline was always "who!" He finally started mumbling other things for the punchline. The first time he didn't do "who" was momentous...now it's just annoying again

The Buschelmans came to visit for a whole day. They were on their way to Lawrence and Colorado but stopped in Lee's Summit for a day and a half. It was great having the kids play together. Then today they finally started working on our roof! They are doing the back half today; hopefully tomorrow they get done!

From August 2011

Moved!

2011-07-22T17:55:00.003-05:00

Well, for those that don't know it, we moved. I won't dwell on that since it was quite a while ago (I can't believe it's been over 3 weeks!). These days we're focused on getting the house in order. We're still unpacking boxes, but the house is livable. The 3 kids are back together in a room for better or for worse. They seem to like it and they aren't keeping each other up too much.

We're enjoying my month off from work, though I seem to be gone too much for Katie's taste. I escape to Lowe's to buy lots of stuff for the house, or go out to search for a car. I've decided on a VW Jetta--check out a picture of it!

I start work on August 1st. Katie's bday is coming up--August 7th. We'll probably head to St Louis for that weekend to hook up with her sisters and parents. We've been lucky to be able to see so many people so far--both her mom (her dad is in Germany), my parents and several friends. Right now Katie and the girls are at the neighborhood pool with her mom while I babysit Peter.

Good day

2011-05-22T22:17:00.002-05:00

We had a great day today. Rather than try to catch up with what we've been up to, maybe just a slice of life for ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifll of our faithful readers (hello? do we have any left??)http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Started on Saturday night. Somehow we convinced Mitzi to come up for the night and for today. We watched SNL with JT as host. It was pretty darn funny.

This morning Mitzi went to church (we went last night since we knew we were going out today) early. Then we had breakfast at the Pancake Cafe. It was pretty good. The 3 adults all got different things so we could try them all. Good! http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

We then tried to go to a dairy to see how they make cheese, but unlike what their website said, they actually are closed on Sundays. Booo!

So we went to The House on the Rock. It was pretty cool. It was on our bucket list of things to do http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbefore we left Madison. We did the 3rd tour. We saw the world's biggest carousel, a room with tons of huge organs, a doll carousel, lots of doll houses, and lots of other mechanical inventions. Amazing!

Lastly we finally took Mitzi to our favorite local winery. We got there early so we got a bottle of wine, some pretzles, cheese dip and meat sticks and ate outside. It wasn't cold and rainy like everyone predicted! Then we went on the tour and had a tasting. We ended up buying 6 and Mitzi buying 6 bottles of wine. Tasty delicious!

Thus ended another good weekend. Last weekend we went to The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help. It's the only approved Marian apparition site in the entire US--and it's right here in Wisconsin!

Next weekend: Peter's second birthday!

So far...so long

2011-03-26T09:39:00.002-05:00

Yet again, a while since our last post. Rather than try to recap the last few months, we'll just do a snapshot of current going-ons.

Peter is talking more and more. He still tends to make several words sound similar, so sometimes there is a little frustration when we can't understand him. For example, in the mornings he always wants "goggles!!!" for breakfast. That could mean bagels or pretzels. OR something totally different. Usually we can pacify him with just a bowl of cold cereal. Or sometimes he just picks that up and throws it on the floor.

He also loves to point things out and name them. Most large vehicles on the road are "Bus!!" We try to correct him but he probably thinks we're just idiots. At least his scar on his forehead is looking better and better. Just a little red mark. We'll see if he's left with any permanent changes from that or from the multitude of bumps on his left forehead. He continues to enjoy getting up on chairs.

Rose is still really enjoying being with Peter during the days when Mary Ann is at school. Her current favorite movie to watch is "Princess and the Frog." She can watch it every day. She is doing very well as the big girl of the house. She amazes us when she acts mature, especially when she helps clean the house.

Mary Ann is doing well in school. She recently had a talent show at school. The Kindergarten classes sang a song together. There were also a bunch of kids who did breakdancing. Several Michael Jackson songs. The girls loved when some kids danced to a Beiber song.

Our main thing now is that we're trying to sell the house. That helps keep the house clean. It's a challenge getting the house ready for showings, but Katie is doing a stellar job. Peter is sleeping in the old play room, so he seems to be sleeping better now that the girls don't keep him up. We also have less toys for the kids to get out, so even if all the toys are out, it's not a horrible mess. If anybody wants a nice house in Madison, let us know!!

We're really excited about KU basketball, of course. The only #1 still left in the tournament. Go Hawks! So, this weekend is sweet 16, elite 8. Next weekend: final four. Weekend after that: go to Hawaii!!

Another long time since the last post...

2011-01-29T12:57:00.002-06:00

Well, I guess we had better start with Christmas. We stayed here for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I had both days off, so we spent it together, just hanging out. Mary Ann helped me put the ornaments on the tree (Rose had to go to bed early since she didn't eat any dinner). Mary Ann still reminds Rose of that to this day...

Santa came as expected. Everyone got great gifts. The kids all loved the many gifts, though of course some were more loved than other (all gifts are equal, but some are more equal than others...). Of course, some of the "less equal" ones are now some of their favorites...

We then drove to St Louis for the night, stayed with the St Louis Keels. Always low-key, relaxing to go there. We drove to Jeff City and had lunch with Oma. Peter called the police, either by the phone or with Oma's life-line. They called and Katie told them what was up, but then later Oma called L'Opa and told him the police came; we're still not sure if they actually did or if she just thought they did.

We stayed several days in Lawrence with L'Opa, Nana and Mitzi. We turned the first night into a traditional Christmas Eve with the normal soups and then lit the candles on the tree. Santa came there, but once again the gifts were left in the upstairs closet until we could get them in the morning. Everyone had fun opening yet more presents.

The kids all turned a little sick in Lawrence. They all seemed their sickest on the night Katie and I were going to go to the KU basketball game, so Katie gave her ticket to L'Opa. We saw a great game and the kids all turned magically healthy 10 minutes after we left for the game.

Then off to KC. We saw Fr Scott, the Thomas-Vogrin family, and my parents. Yet again, more and more presents. Those kids were so excited! We had a fun few days in KC. We celebrated New Years with the kids early and most of us used that as our official countdown too =)

We had an easy drive back--only one stop in the 8 hour drive. Much better than the Beier's had...

We've mainly been working on 2 things this calendar year--moving and deciding on a job. I've been offered many positions, and Katie and I are sifting through them, trying to decide. We think we have it down, but aren't ready to sign the deal yet. We've been slowly working on the house, trying to get it in order to sell it. We'll probably put it on the market in late Feb, early March.

We just got back from a trip to KC to look at neighborhoods. We missed our connection in Chicago so had to spend the night there. We were in KC for about 9 hours. Awesome...

The kids keep on progressing. Peter is saying more and more words. He now likes to push chairs around and use them as stools to get up to things. Rose is blooming at her preschool and seems to be bonding with Peter really well. Mary Ann just got her first report card and is doing great at school.

Things to Remember

2010-12-17T20:44:00.003-06:00

We've been too lax for a while of keeping this blog up to date from month to month, defeating it's purpose of being our personal record of these wonderful memories of our children. Sorry!

Robert has been gone this week for interviews and I just wanted to jot down a couple of small things that made my heart smile today.

First of all the two girls are very entertained by asking us simple addition problems.
Rose: Mom, what is 5 plus 5 plus? (Second plus here means equals, she is starting to use that word, too)
Mary Ann: What is 350 plus 350 plus pi?
Mom: Rose, it's 10; Mary Ann it's 703.14..... (I'm also thinking, let's not get any more complicated, I haven't had any coffee yet)

I then proceeded to alter life as she knew it by informing Mary Ann that pi is a number between 3 and 4. Mary Ann calmly corrected me that this couldn't be true, there is no number between 3 and 4. When I told her there were lots of numbers between 3 and 4 she filed that info away. Then brought it out later today when I asked her how the day rated and she said "Oh, about a 4.5".

My memory of Rose and Peter from today is our time in the Starbucks by our gym. It's become a pretty regular Friday routine that after we go to the gym we then go to Starbucks for pumpkin bread, kid's hot chocolate and a coffee beverage. In honor of the holidays we've added a slice of gingerbread to our usual fare as well. Peter and Rose are great in the cafe, Rose efficiently removes the edges of her pumpkin bread to give to Peter. Peter eats his pieces and then they both go and play at the little kids table for a bit. Then Rose takes a napkin and wipes off our table, deposits the crumbs and cups in the trash and it's time to go. Today they were both so wonderful there I just wanted to record it for posterity's sake.

Tonight I scored a few points by getting "Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale" from the RedBox to watch. I have to say that my opposition to Barbie has dwindled. She's fun, she's pretty, and I just can't buy honestly into the idea that she gives girls a false ideal of perfection and beauty. And her movies are actually kind of fun to watch. I'm shocked to admit it, but they aren't that bad.

We are also enjoying listening to a new-t0-us holiday radio story called "The Cinnamon Bear". Originally aired in 1937, it's available online to listen to and we've gotten caught up in each cliffhanger episode. If you've seen photographs of families settled around their radio listening and staring at it, you have an idea of what our family is doing most evenings. Except we're staring at our laptop. The similarity again made me wonder that even in this incredible age of technology, our behaviors can still mirror those from 70 years ago.

I have wonderful kids. And even though it took a visit from super scary Mommy tonight to finally get them to settle down and go to sleep, I love their little socks off.

Kindergarten

2010-09-01T11:38:00.004-05:00

Mary Ann started Kindergarten today! It was a very exciting day. We practiced bicycling to school last week; we put Rose and Peter in the trailer and Katie pulled them with her bike. Mary Ann rode her own bicycle all the way there and back. It was pretty exciting!

We took her to school today. Since it was the first day we just walked. Mitzi is here visiting so she stayed home with Rose and Peter. We made it there in time but learned that Mary Ann was switched from one class to another; it upset us a little because we had known 2 kids already. Hopefully this new class/teacher are a good fit for Mary Ann. She seemed both very excited and also a little nervous. As she told us repeatedly...

Katie was of course also excited...and a little sad. Especially with the new twist of the class switch.

Mid-July

2010-07-18T20:35:00.003-05:00

It's been 2 months since our last post. It's been a very busy time!

We went to KC/Lawrence for a week in the end of July. We first went to Katie's cousin's wedding the first Saturday we were there. Katie and I got to dress up.

We went to a Royal's baseball game with the Thomas family (well, most of them). We got nice tickets that included food/drink in them, so we all had lots of good stadium food.

From KC trip May 2010

We then hooked up with the Buschelmans minus Eric, and went to the Great Wolf Lodge. We got a "kid's cabin" room with a special area for the kids to sleep in. Most of the kids loved it...Will did NOT (hence him being in the background for this picture).

From KC trip May 2010

We went back and forth to Lawrence, but finally ended up in KCK for Fr Scott's ordination. I was the first reader, and it was one of the most special moments of my life. We are all so happy to finally have him be a priest.

From Scott's Ordination

We went back to Lawrence to celebrate Peter's first birthday. Jen Vogrin made the cake which looked and tasted great. Peter approved!

From KC trip May 2010

We had a nice Father's Day in June. Peter was in a very silly mood, so we got lots of good pictures of him such as below

From 2010 June-July

I finished neurology residency in June. There was a nice graduation party for which my parents came up.

From 2010 June-July

Unfortunately we got a flat tire; Mary Ann got a hands-on tutorial!

From 2010 June-July

We finally took the plunge and took the kids on their first camping trip. Katie and I had been wanting to do this for a long time, but there was always a reason to shy away from it before. So many of our pre-kid memories are from camping trips (Utah, Yellowstone, Missouri State Parks) and we have so much camping gear that we finally pulled the trigger. The park we went to was nice...except WAY too many mosquitos. Poor Peter was eaten alive. Overall we learned some better ways to camp.

From 2010 June-July

Finally, we just had some Salina relatives visit us. Marina, Jen, Ashley and Meghan all drove up from Kansas to spend an extended weekend. We had lots of fun times, boating twice, going to the Farmer's Market, going to a pool. The best part was Mary Ann's and Rose's first soccer game. They played on separate teams with games right after the other. Mary Ann's team was on fire, shutting out the other team. Rose's team played a team mostly with kids a year older. They only scored one goal, but Rose scored that goal! It was 2 hours in the hot sun, but it was much more exciting than we had feared. The time actually went by fairly quickly. Both girls did a great job and seem to have natural talent. Next game next Sunday!

From soccer 1st game

Catching Up

2010-05-16T02:48:00.002-05:00

Spring has sprung in Madison and fingers are crossed that chilly weather is now a thing of the past until mid-September. I've recently been thinking that I need to make it part of my weekly tasks to update this blog, but let's not hold our breaths on that one. But I thought I'd take advantage of this early Sunday morning insomnia to record some of the random events of the last 5 months or so.

January:

1. Welcomed in the New Year with Katie's siblings and family in Lawrence. Great night!
2. Celebrated Mitzi's 26th birthday in Madison with a minor car accident and KU victory over at K-State. (And yes, we are allowed to return to Buffalo Wild Wings)
3. Hatched the plan for a 6 month Keel-Reddig Biggest Loser competition

February:
1. Celebrated Mary Ann's 5th Birthday with a carnival themed birthday party in the basement. She got her first Barbies (Thank you, Cornetts!)
2. Began (and ended) construction of the bathroom. Looks good!
3. Celebrated our third Feuerzangenbowle with friends and enjoyed watching the Vancouver Opening Ceremonies
3. Robert and Katie attended the annual "Beat the Winter Blues Ball" and got their groove on

March:
1. A blur, what happened during March? Oh wait, the NCAA tournament. Well, let's not think about March this year.
2. Well, one thing--enrolled Mary Ann in Kindergarten. She is so excited! Especially since she does not have to do chores since she'll be in school all day. (Um, right)

April:
1. Celebrated Holy Week. Enjoyed our traditional (modified) Seder Meal on Holy Thursday with Mitzi and all of us attended Holy Thursday mass. Most memorable part (family-wise) is Peter cracking himself up playing peek-a-boo during the solemn procession of the Eucharist.
2. Go to see "How to Train Your Dragon" in the theater as a family. Everyone gave it two thumbs up!
3. Mary Ann got to attend Holy Saturday mass with Mitzi and Robert, but called it a night after the Gospel. Rose and Peter stayed home with Katie and helped make bread.
4. Easter was a big hit all around, lots of Jelly Beans enjoyed by all!
5. Rose, Peter, and Katie continue to go to the Middleton Library storytime. Rose particularly enjoys playing "Bluebird, come to my window", especially if she gets a purple bird, and also dancing to "The Bean Bag Rock" with a purple bean bag
5. We get to visit Mary Ann's preschool and see what all she does (which is a lot). Very impressed with her learning! The "Stamp Game" particularly
6. Enjoyed first post-Lent ice cream cone with Babcock Ice Cream on campus. Peter likes ice cream
7. Went to the first Farmer's Market of the season, mainly just to look around and get donuts. Robert survived, barely.
7. Went to Chicago to see Mitzi and Scott. Great visit! Mitzi has an awesome office, Scott gave a lovely homily.
8. Peter begins to decide to crawl
9. The girls enjoy dressing up like Fancy Nancy--ooo-la-la!

May
1. We get our boat out of storage!
2. Nancy (Grandma) comes for a week long visit
3. Go to Farmer's Market for the 2nd time this season and successfully get Spicy Cheese Bread
4. Rose and Mary Ann complete their Storybook Ballet lessons with "Beauty and the Beast", they were beautiful!
3. Robert and Katie go to Baltimore. Robert attends the American Pain Society Convention and Katie gets a pedicure. We also go to DC to see the sights and visit with friends.
4. The girls and Peter go to Chuckie Cheese
5. Enjoy a wonderful Mother's Day, complete with coffee and biscotti in bed to start and a banana split to finish.
6. Spend a Saturday getting the garden ready to plant. Green thumbs have finally started pricking
7. Peter is moving in earnest now and drinks out of sippy up like a pro. He can feed himself and has realized if he doesn't like something he can spit it out (green beans).
8. Spend a beautiful evening on the lake. The girls do so well on the boat. Rose was just chilling in the front as we cruised along, sunglasses on, legs propped up, living the good life. Peter's not sure about having to wear his life jacket, but as long he can eat a pretzel, he's happy. Mary Ann likes to help Robert drive.

We're looking forward to a wonderful summer!

Bathroom

2010-02-23T21:32:00.004-06:00

So...we've been working on our bathroom. More specifically, I've done some demolition and a construction guy has been doing some...construction work.

We started with a bathtub and a shower stall

From demolition & construction

There was also a wall between the single sink vanity and the shower stall (on the left)

From demolition & construction

I ripped out the shower stall and the wall

From demolition & construction

We kept the bathroom with a sink for quite a while so we could still use it

From demolition & construction

On Valentine's Day Mitzi and I then took out the vanity

From demolition & construction

Construction finally started, with drywall going up first including 2 ledges that would flank the new vanity

From demolition & construction

He put some new pipes in for the new sinks (and in the process made our main water turn-off switch to the whole house leak in our basement...)

From demolition & construction

He put in some new floor tiles...

From demolition & construction

...some shower tiles

From demolition & construction

and finally the vanity cover and sinks

From demolition & construction

We still have to prime and paint the room (we got a light gray for the walls). It's super bright in there with all the vanity lights on. After we paint, the construction guy will come back to grout the shower tiles, put in the baseboards and install the actual shower in the tub. We are so close! Unfortunately I have our residency inservice test this week, so can't work on painting until Saturday.

Lent has started; we're trying to get the girls to do something. Mary Ann (for now) has agreed to only have sweets on Sunday; Rose didn't want to give up anything. We watch the Olympics occasionally, and try to get most of the KU games watched too.

Christmas Voyage

2010-01-06T21:05:00.003-06:00

We're back! We made it, over 1500 miles and 10 days. Whew!

We started off on Dec 28th, driving to St Louis. We spent the night with the St Louis Keels (Rocky, Jane, Hannah and Abby). The girls had a great time dressing up in the costumes. We really liked the laid-back tone of the night.

We left the morning of the 29th. We met up with the Oklahoma Keels (Fritz, Kelly, Jesse and Wiley) en route to Jefferson City where we spent lunch with Oma.

From Christmas

We even got to go to the local HyVee to get her groceries, though she did forget she needed milk. After lunch we stopped in California, MO to see the grave of Katie's grandma. We then drove through KC rush hour to make it to Lawrence. Everyone else was already there. We designated Dec 29th as "Christmas Eve" for the family. We had a good first night and got the kids to bed fairly early.

From Christmas

December 30th was Christmas. There were tons of presents from Santa as you can see--we almost lost Mitzi. See our Picasa page for pics of the kids opening presents. We had a nice Christmas dinner that Nana made--even though we had to excuse the Buschelmans since they had a baptism party.

From Christmas

On Dec 31st we went to Free State for lunch. L'Opa reserved the upstairs private room for our group. There are still a few extra seats at the table, so only a few more kids allowed. Afterwards we toured the campus in the car and saw the Chi-O fountain look like it was crystalized but really they just used lots of plastic bottles to make it look neat. We saw the new Oread hotel that they are constructing on the north end of campus. Future spot for the Keel-Clan to stay?

From Christmas

We then went to Jaybowl with our friends Matt, Jen, Luke and Faith. We used the bumpers. They have a great deal--one lane of bowling, including shoes, up to 8 people per lane, for just $18 per hour. Not bad entertainment for 4 kids!

From Christmas

We then went back to the Keel house for New Year's Eve. The kids got cool glasses and glowing bracelets. The kids had their countdown at 10pm. Dominic was conked out as was Rose. The adults then counted down at midnight after a night of drinking and games. It was a pretty fun night. Some games (like "Things") are a lot more fun with people drinking. On Jan 1st Katie, Mitzi and I went to Mass since Katie and I couldn't go the night before. We had leftover Christmas dinner for our last meal in Lawrence.

From Christmas

On Jan 2 we went to Salina for one night. We opened presents and found that one of the dogs there ate most of our presents that we had shipped to Salina. The girls were really excited that their "friends" / cousins were able to make it over to play that night.

From Christmas

We drove to KC on the 3rd. We opened presents that night. On the 4th we had a great day. We went to Crown Center to do a little shopping. Then we went to Quiznos for a quick lunch. We then went to see the movie "The Princess and the Frog." The girls loved it, though there were a few scary parts. The most exciting part was when my dad spilled his coke on him and partly on Rose. Luckily she survived, though it was touch and go for a while. We went to 119th street to do a little shopping, then off to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. It was nice to have a big salad after days of heavy foods.

From Christmas

The next day the girls went to get their hair cut, hopefully to cut down on tangles. Afterwards we had a combination of Yello Sub (ok, really Planet Sub) and Gates BBQ for lunch. We then went to Wonderscope for a few hours. It's a really cool place--take your kids if you go to KC! The girls tested balls rolling, played doctor, went in a Lego submarine, dressed up as astronauts, and pretended to go shopping. For dinner we went to one of the best places in KC--Gojo Japanese Steak House. We all had leftovers.

We drove back on Wednesday the 6th. We left early to miss the big snow storm that was hitting Iowa in the early afternoon. We were lucky and only had a few very light snow showers.

I'm on vacation until next Monday. Plan for me for this week: demolition of our upstairs bathroom!

Christmas

2009-12-27T22:33:00.004-06:00

From Collages

We had a great Christmas. I had to work Christmas Eve until about 4:30 and have had to carry my pager around since then since I am on home backup call, but have able to stay home and enjoy the last few days with everyone. We spent a immediate-family only Christmas. On Christmas Eve Katie braved the crowds of kids and took our kids (without me) to Mass at 4pm. There was bedlam from what I heard. Kids everywhere. We weren't able to make it to practice so our kids weren't in the procession, which drove our kids to tears. Then they really didn't do well with the crowd. But, they made it home with no casualties. We had a nice supper and the kids went to sleep in record time after being placed in bed. Santa came by and put together a nice wooden crib for the girls' dolls. He was rewarded with hand-picked cookies and milk.
On Christmas morning the girls actually slept in a bit. Once they got up they were amazed at the presents under the tree. The big unwrapped presents included the crib and a new 2-3 person sled. They both opened their stockings and enjoyed a flashlight, tape measure, balloons to make balloon animals and a snow-globe each. They were allowed to open Santa's gifts, then we had breakfast (homemade cinnamon rolls!) and then we had to go to church since I didn't make it on the 24th. It was much less crowded. When we got home, they were eager to open all the rest of the presents, including one each from grandma and grandpa. They really like their G&G presents (weaving thing for Mary Ann, doll for Rose, water mat for Peter). They also liked the other gits, most notably big (2' x 3') floor puzzles, Disney princess find-things books, fishing game, and Ice Age Meltdown movie from Deacon Scott.
Yesterday (Saturday) we went to Costco and Michaels. When we got back I took the girls sledding after the sun went down. We had a blast on the new sled. It was pretty bumpy with packed snow. So much so that the front of our new sled now had a baseball sized hole in it...
Today we went to to church and then went to a new restaurant for breakfast. Katie took a 2.5 hour nap and we then kept on working trying to get ready for our big vacation. We head to St Louis to see those St Louis Keels. On Tuesday we meet up with the Oklahoma Keels to go visit Oma en route to going to Lawrence. Tuesday will be the Keel Christmas Eve, with Wednesday being Christmas day. We'll see the Thomas-Vogrins on New Years Eve after having lunch at Free State (reserved upper room for the big clan). Then on the 2nd we head to Salina, then on the 3rd back to Kansas City for a few days.
We'll get more pictures up, but we do have some up to mid-December on Picasa. Don't forget to check out our YouTube page too!

Tooth!

2009-11-16T21:55:00.002-06:00

We found Peter's first tooth today. It finally poked through the gums. Of course now he seems more fussy. The girls are very excited and join in the congrats we lavish on the little guy.

Back on blog

2009-10-29T22:40:00.001-05:00

Life here's going well. Work is going well--I just am finishing up an elective month in neuro-pathology and next month have an elective in headache/pain. So, elective months are easier so stress level low. Being the chief is getting hard at times, yelling at the troops to do things. They don't like being told things.

Katie is about to kill the girls some days. Even though Rose turned 3 yesterday and we cut her some slack, she was still not acting good enough. Katie almost cancelled the birthday. But when she's acting good she's doing great. For some reason her favorite color is purple (I hope she outgrows that!) and is learning things with Katie. She, Katie and Peter go to "little church" on Tuesdays when Mary Ann is in school and I hear she does great there.

Mary Ann is doing great. Sometimes I don't believe Katie about what Mary Ann is doing. Supposedly the teacher can read a sentence out loud and Mary Ann can write it. She has done a project about mammals and wrote 6 things that mammals do/have, and even now can still recite them (which she often does). She's reading short words fairly well. I really can't believe it. We're worried that when she goes to Kindergarten next year she'll just be bored the whole time.

Peter is also doing well. He's rolling over and making cute sounds. He keeps growing. We (ok, actually Katie) started putting him in the bounce-a-roo and now his feet hit the ground and he likes to bounce. He used to sleep from ~9pm to 5am, but now wakes up at midnight. So, while that is still great compared to most kids, it's definitely not letting Katie get as much sleep as she was getting.

I recently went to San Diego for a conference which was great, except being alone really sucked. Katie took the kids to Dayton and I hear they had a great time. It's fun that our kids all play together so well. I hope we can all end up closer together in the future.

We also just went to the Wisconsin Dells last weekend for another conference. Mitzi went too and really was indispensible in helping us watch the kids at the water park, especially when I was in conference.

We're thinking about renovating our upstairs bathroom. The shower stall got another crack in it so we want to just pull out the shower. We want to convert the tub (which has no shower) to a regular shower/tub. We'd like to replace the tub. We will tear down the wall between teh sink and the current shower stall and convert the sink to a 2-basin sink by elongating it into the shower stall space. We've had one guy come look at it and don't have his bid, but some lady today came and gave us a $8000-$15,000 rough bid. Wow...how in the world can it be that much, and how can her estimate be so wide? If it will really cost that much...uh, anybody want to come up and help me renovate a bathroom? Really, if it costs that much I'll just rip out the shower stall myself, install one of those attachable shower heads to the current tub, and just rip out part of the wall and just get someone to install the new sink and cabinets. Crazy.

We've got some pics of my San Diego trip up, we'll get more up soon including Rose's birthday party. Don't forget to check out the youtube videos--we post videos there every so often.

July time

2009-07-07T13:37:00.003-05:00

It's still great having Peter around. He's looking older and wiser every day--must be the constant torture from his sisters. He's doing all the baby things great. He might be in a growth spurt since he wants to eat all...the...time. Not that we don't want him to grow, but Katie could use a little more rest.

Mary Ann went to her first day of school today. She started at a Montessori preschool today. She's been really excited about it for several weeks. She really enjoyed it today, bringing home a sheet of practice letters: p, e and t. She does a pretty good job of writing.

Rose is loving being in an open-side crib at night. She seems to relish the freedom that Mary Ann has had for so long. It's tough to tell which kid is which now when one of them comes down the stairs at night. The hardest thing is trying to corral them at night so they don't just keep screaming and giggling and running around the whole upstairs.

We had a great holiday weekend. The Buschelmans came up Friday through Monday. We went boating, went to the Wollersheim winery, splash park, and farmer's market (well, everyone except me). The kids loved being around each other, even if Rose and Dominic took turns hitting each other. It was a lot of fun when the Beier's came over for supper on Saturday and we added yet another kid to the mix.

I'm working night float this month, so that means I'm at work all day Sunday through Monday morning, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, 8pm-8am. If I get enough sleep it's great so I can play with the kids and get home-work done during the days, but if I need to sleep the kids aren't always happy that I'm home and not playing with them. I also moved into my new office with the new academic year--the chief resident gets his own office, but being a computer guy I wish the computer wasn't slower than any other computer in the hospital...

Peter--still here!

2009-06-24T18:35:00.002-05:00

We are thoroughly enjoying Peter. He is a great baby. He eats very well. He's sleeping very well through the days and nights. He's making good diapers. And...well, that's about all he's doing. He looks really cute.
The girls came back to much appreciation. It's great to have the whole family together. The girls dote on Peter all the time, even if he's sleeping. They like to rock him and poke him in the face. They also like to tell us when he's crying, even if we're holding him.
It's been pretty hot around here. We put out our inflatable pool and the girls love being in it. Katie and I've been working on the garden and yard and we're getting a pretty good looking yard. We harvested some lettuce on Monday and it tasted great. We also had home-grown radishes on it.

Peter!

2009-06-12T17:11:00.002-05:00

Well, we haven't posted for a while...but Peter is here!<

From Peter 5-29-09

Born 5-29-09 at 11:55am. 8pounds, 2 ounces; 19 inches; head 35cm (hey, a neurologist really cares about head size!). Katie did another GREAT job. She never thinks so at the time, but I, the Ob doc and the nurses all said she did. Meriter once again was a great place to have a baby. Peter's sisters were very excited to see him and hold him. Katie's mom and sister Mitzi were both here and were a big help, taking care of the girls for the 2 days we were at the hospital.

From Peter 5-29-09

On the Tuesday after Peter was born Katie's mom took the girls to Lawrence for a week. Then they went to my parents' house for a week. Every night we talk to them and they are always very eager to know how baby Peter is doing. Rose always asks if he is crying, and if we say "no," she always asks "why?!?!"
Katie and I have been taking advantage of time without girls. Also, I'm on vacation this week so we've all been able to spend good time together. We were able to go out for our anniversary (7 years!) to a nice place: Samba, where you get all you can eat meat!

From Peter 6-12-09

We also were able to go see Star Trek in the movie theaters. We've been enjoying the animals visiting our bird feeder right outside our bay windows: golden finches, cardinals and squirrels. While we'd rather have birds, the squirrels sure are fun to watch. Plus, the animals make the sunflower seeds fall out, so we have sunflowers growing under the feeder. Today we went to the Wollersheim Winery. We took the tour and then did a wine tasting. Our favorite by far: The Ice Wine. It's picked when the grapes are frozen and is pretty expensive: $47 for half a bottle. It's now on both Katie's and my wish-lists for presents...also great was the Port wine...20% alcohol and all good.
Also today Peter had his 2 week check up. He initially had lost 10% of his weight, but now has made it back...and more! He is up to 8lb, 13 ounces. His height is up to 20.75 inches, and his head is 37.4cm (go brain!).
The girls come back Monday--my mom is driving them back up and will stay here for a week. We are working a lot on our garden, and will have more pictures up soon. Check all the pictures out and have a great day!

Time flies when you're having fun...

2009-05-23T04:37:00.002-05:00

Good grief! Where did May go? We are now at T-minus 2 days before our due date for Peter and I'm trying to jinx it by assuming that we'll go right up to that day. He seems pretty comfortable where he is right now.

May in Madison is a great month. All the things that we really like about living here get started again: The Farmer's Market, boating, being outside without jackets, gardening, etc. The weeks have been zipping by pretty quickly! We've had visits from Liesel and Eric and the boys and now Mitzi is here to help with the girls once Peter makes his appearance. I'm not sure if Mary Ann and Rose are aware of how imminent his birth is, but they are super excited. Rose especially, I just hope she makes the that Baby Peter inside Mommy's tummy will be the same Baby Peter outside Mommy's tummy.

Mary Ann's ballet class wrapped up with a special class featuring Snow White. Pictures are up on Picasa for that. Her swimming lessons are going great. She can do a pretty good version of the crawl all by herself for several feet! Rose continues to be very confident in the water too. Her favorite actitivities include jumping in from the side and bobbing up and down on the stairs going into the pool. Katie just enjoys the fact that the pool is heated to 90 degrees!

Rose's potty training has slid downhill, mainly due to her parents' haphazard approach. Lately we've been having her just wear panties and asking her repeatedly if she needs to go. This doesn't seem to be too effective, since most of the time we'll ask her and then 5 minutes later there's an accident to clean up, which Rose finds pretty funny, indicating a slight difference of opinion between her sense of humor and her parents'.

Robert has been home on vacation for the last week. It's been great to have him around for this (hopefully) last week of pregnancy, so Katie can rest a bit more in the afternoons especially. We've done a lot of work in the yard. Our compost pile has actually done what it was supposed to and decomposed, so it's been pretty exciting (at least for Katie) to add it to our gardens. We started seeds again this year in our bay window and for the first time ever we grew more seedlings than mold and actually have transplanted them outside. So far they have fended off the rabbits and squirrels, but it's still early days! We're giving pumpkins another shot, along with beans, snap peas, green peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, and carrots. We still have some flower seeds to plant, but that just might be a job for Nana and the girls next week!

We haven't gotten in much boating this season. It might be kind of a weak year for that. Katie's a bit too pregnant to enjoy the "bumpy" waters of Lake Mendota right now and we're pretty sure it'll be a bit before we feel comfortable taking Peter out. Which does not mean that visitors to sunny Madison will be out of luck. I'm sure that Robert will have a great time taking people out, as long as they agree to pull him a bit in the inner tube!

Happy Summer everyone!

St Louis

2009-04-19T10:35:00.002-05:00

We went to St Louis for my interview at Washington University. I'm applying for a fellowship position there, and they were nice enough to let me come talk to them. We all drove down Wednesday after work. We were welcomed by Rocky and Jane, Katie's aunt and uncle. On Thurday we went to the zoo. I hadn't been since I was in St Louis applying for neurology residency. The girls loved it--the petting zoo, the penguins, the big cats, and the elephants were all favorites. It was beautiful outside, much nicer than Madison. We even took a picnic lunch! We went to a Vietnamese restaurant and a Gelateria that night, walking to both from the St Louis Keel's house.
On Friday I went to my interviews which went well; Katie and the girls went to the Science Center where the kids had a blast. In the afternoon we all met up at the Botanical Gardens which had most of the flowers in their prime. They also have a kid's area where the kids can run around and get in the water. Check out Rocky's pictures for some of the fun. (we'll get our pics up soon!).
On Saturday I took the kids and Rocky to the Arch where we got to see Hannah at work. Katie, the kids and Jane went to to have a tour with Abby at the Earthways Center where they saw ways to make homes more "green" and good for the environment. We drove back to Madison after lunch. The trip wasn't too bad--especially since the girls had DVDs to watch in the van!
Coming this week: Robert works Mendota on Sunday, dinner with the Beier's on Monday, neurology resident retreat on Wednesday, and then I go to Kansas City Thursday to Sunday to interview at KU Med!

New Videos

2009-04-05T14:53:00.001-05:00

There are a bunch of new videos that we just posted. Check them out--but don't miss our recent post below either =)

Skip March...April!

2009-04-04T11:12:00.003-05:00

So we'll just skip any March updates...

If you haven't heard about Obama's newest excitement about healthcare, check it out soon and make your voice heard! For Robert's take on it, check out the Leaven article.

Also, I just received word that I will be the next chief resident of the neurology department for the 2009-2010 academic year. So basically I'll be a supervisor, helping with scheduling of rotations and being the go-between between the staff and other residents. I might even get my own office!

Mary Ann just started swimming lessons again. She and Rose both seem fearless in the water. Which is good and bad...hopefully it doesn't promote Rose jumping out of the boat again...

We're looking at preschools for Mary Ann next year. Trying to decide between Montessori schools and "regular" preschools. We didn't know that it was so competitive to get into some of these places, so some are already booked solid. Guess you have to get your foot in the door and then other siblings get in easier. It's like little kingdoms, with the nobility getting better stuff...

Rose is getting more and more into potty training. We started a "star chart" where she gets stars for going in the potty. She's gotten about 8 stars so far. So, Mary Ann needed her own star chart; we're still working out the rules for her to get stars.

It's finally getting warmer here. Still not out of the woods yet--it very likely could still snow. But, no snow on the ground. We went sledding last weekend when there was a bit of snow. It wasn't too cold but still sled-able.

I've got interviews at Washington University and Kansas University set up so far. We're all driving to St Louis for a fun-filled few days with the St Louis Keels (not sure if they know what they're getting into...) and then I'm flying alone to KC for a few fun-filled days with KC people!

Katie's still pregnant---she's got the most important job of all!

KU

2009-02-22T15:12:00.002-06:00

We've been watching a lot more KU games this year than last year. I think it has both to do with the championship last year and we seem to be getting more games on ESPN360.com than we did last year. We like the new look for the videos on there too; the "full screen" version actually uses the whole page instead of part of the page being used for ESPN ads and such.

For the upcoming game tomorrow against Oklahoma: are people happier that Blake Griffin might be out for the game? I have mixed feelings. On one hand, anything that improves our chances is good, but on the other hand it would be nice to beat the whole OU team. I think overall I will take a win no matter what, so I guess it's better to be against a lesser OU team. What I really wanted was to play the #1 team in the country, but I bet OU won't be that team come gametime.

Other news
It snowed here the last few days...a lot. We had to snowblow and it seemed to have about 6 inches at our house. We went for a walk today and the girls loved to sit, then fall backwards, in the snow next to the sidewalk. They made lots of snow angels. It's cute the first few times, but we really wanted to go just a little faster...

The girls are really loving all of Mary Ann's toys from her birthday. Favorite is probably the Leap Frog system from my parents. We got the old one we had from a long time ago and so they both can read/play at once. I can't imagine the screaming if we only had one system... They also drag out the naked puzzle that Matt and Jen got Mary Ann... (Mary Ann says "that where you pee pee!")

Movie of the weekend: Kung Fu Panda. Rose was kung-fuing the TV at the end of the movie, then danced for the closing credits (doing Eric's family proud).

Videos

2009-01-04T16:15:00.001-06:00

Just to let you know--we're posting videos directly to YouTube now. Click on the link to the left to get to our videos on YouTube!

Christmas 2008

2009-01-03T15:40:00.005-06:00

Well, we finally posted pics of Christmas. Katie took the girls to Santa at a local mall. Luckily the mall they chose let you take your own pics and you didn't have to buy their overpriced pictures.
The neurology department had their holiday party on the Friday before Christmas. We had fun, mainly because we had the neighbors watch the kids. There was dancing, which turned good once we started requesting good songs (Dancing Queen, You Shook Me All Night Long, etc).
The next day we drove to Kansas City. We left early and had breakfast and lunch on the way. We had fun with my parents for a few days, having dinner with our friends Matt, Jen, Luke and Faith on Sunday after we went to ride the train at Union Station.
On Monday we went to Crown Center with my mom, came home and opened presents from my parents. Katie got me a nice leather jacket, and I got her a guitar and an iRobot Roomba (which we used for the first time today). On Tuesday we went to Salina for one night.
On Christmas Eve we drove to Lawrence to have lunch with Katie's grandpa Mac and aunt Mary Lou. Katie and I sang with L'Opa, Mitzi and Fritz in the choir on Christmas Eve. Mary Ann ran back and forth from the choir to Jesse in the congregation while Rose slept through almost all of church on Katie's then my shoulders. We opened presents Christmas morning, with the highlight being Mary Ann opening her princess outfits. She shouted, "It's just what I always wanted!!!" followed soon after "Santa got this at Costco!" The were way too many people at Katie's parents, but it sure was fun having every one there.
On Friday we drove to Jefferson City where we met up with Oma and the St Louis Keels. We stayed the night at a hotel where we were able to swim early Saturday.
On Saturday we drove back to Kansas City for a St. Lawrence alumni party at Msgr Krische's house. We were able to see lots of old friends. We finally drove back to Madison on Sunday.
Today we went to the zoo where they have a new tiger. It was pretty cold, but really cool to have only a piece of glass between us and the walking tiger.
Well, hope everyone had a great Christmas and that 2009 is going well!

Finally...

2008-12-15T21:54:00.003-06:00

Well, Mary Ann's hair has been getting a little long. The "tangle monster" keeps attacking her and is getting more brazen. He used to only attack at night, now it seems she is tangled after just a few minutes of beating up Rose. So, Sunday night we mentioned this to her and that she needs a haircut. Katie and I talked, maybe one of us would just snip an inch or two off the back.

well.

Mary Ann took it upon herself to cut her own hair. She snagged the left half of her head before Katie found her. She put most of the hair in the trash can. But, still...funny if you weren't there, which luckily only Katie was. So, emergency appointment at the salon . Now, it looks cute but she has to remember to part her hair to the other side. The bangs keep hanging in her eyes so she automatically pushes it to the left, but because of her efforts it works better to the right. Ah, Christmas pictures...

Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T18:12:00.003-06:00

Well, it worked again. Many people in the house at once. This time, our two kids and the Buschelman kids: Dom age 2, Will age 4 months. It was fun seeing the kids interact with each other. We had the actual Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday since Robert worked Friday and Eric didn't arrive until Friday. It was very good, with everyone pitching it. We had Nana and Li'l Opa; Eric, Liesel, Dominic and Will; Mitzi; and us 4 (well, really 5...). See the pictures page for all the pics, already with captions!

It's been snowing off and on for the last few days. Nothing major sticking, at least not for very long. I am done with November, the worst working month of the year. I worked 4 of the 5 weekends at the hospital, and the other weekend at Mendota moonlighting. Plus, I was on an inpatient month, which is always a hard rotation. For December I'm on epilepsy, which has a few inpatients but mainly is reading EEGs and going to epilepsy clinics. Much easier.

Katie's feeling fine at 14 weeks. A little tired and has a bad head cold, but handling the kids pretty well. Just a few more weeks and we'll be in Kansas and Missouri. Then, only a few more weeks until we know the gender!

October

2008-10-12T20:05:00.004-05:00

Hello, friends and family!

It must seem that the Reddigs of Wisconsin have lost their blogging mojo. And alas, that may be true. Or at least when the time arrives to blog, memories and creative streaks are well past their peak. But, a few things have happened in the last month that we'd like to keep record of.

Robert celebrated his 29th Birthday with a dinner at Bunky's restaurant and the gift of a new Wii game (the Legos Star Wars) and a gift certificate for golf lessons. Following that Matt and Jen and the kiddos from KC arrived for a long weekend of boating, farmer's marketing, Trader Joeing, circus museuming, Pride and Prejudicing, zooing, and faux camping. (Just don't tell the little ones that roasting hot dogs and marshmallows in your own backyard and then going to sleep in your own bed isn't actually camping). We had a great time with them and Mary Ann and Luke got to see who had the strongest willpower/personality and we think it ended in a draw. Rose was torn between wanting desparately to be a big kid like Mary Ann and Luke and being a doting big sister to Faith.

We also have closed the season on our garden. Our tomato plants did fantastic, unfortunately we missed the largest harvest while we were gone on vacation and our compost will be rather tomato heavy next year. Until Katie learns how to can, she may have to limit herself to 2 tomato plants from now on. (No, Nana, that is not a hint for possible Christmas presents). We also harvested 16 pumpkins from our homegrown pumpkin patch and a huge number of gourds. Our house is decked out for fall!

The homeschooling experiment is going well. We're focusing on prereading skills, prewriting skills, and math concepts. Mary Ann is very excited to realize that the words we say have sounds in them that she is starting to associate with letters. It's pretty cool to see her stop mid-conversation and start sounding out a word with so much excitement and recognition. Rose is doing a good job too of participating. She is sorting colors and learning the sounds of things as well. She really wants to do everything Mary Ann does and does not fall for it when I try to give her a modified version of an activity to work on.

Robert is working on setting up a shed to give us some more storage and allow both cars to be in the garage for the winter. That has been quite a project and the girls have been able to help with things like putting washers on screws and things. They both think they are ready to use the power drill.

And today marks the end of our first boating season. We had a final tour of the lake and locks with our friends the Beiers and then pulled the boat out to be winterized and then stored.

And on that note, this post will close. Until next time, folks!

Vacation...done.

2008-09-13T20:25:00.003-05:00

Well, we just got back tonight. It was a wonderful week: 2 nights in Chicago with Mitzi and then 6 nights with Liesel, Eric, Dom and Will in Dayton. It was going to be just 4 nights, but we had nothing pressing back in Madison so we spontaneously stayed an extra night. Crazy Reddigs!!
The time in Chicago was nice. We got to stay on Mitzi's new futon/fold out bed. It was much better than an air mattress. We went to the Aquarium, but unfortunately the Ocean part was closed so it was a pretty short trip. We then met up with Scott and walked around downtown a bit. We went back to Mitzi's for some deep dish Chicago pizza and a movie (or another for the guys). On Sunday we went to church and then headed to Ohio.
In Ohio we finally saw the recently baptized William Thomas Buschelman. He is, as Mary Ann says, "so cute!" We had a good time during our time in Ohio. We stayed at a hotel for 4 nights which included a very good size breakfast in the mornings. Eric and Liesel showed us around Dayton and the surrounding areas. We really enjoyed putting the girls and boys to bed and then breaking out games or the Wii at night. We finally headed home today and now everyone is pretty tired. so...goodnight!

Jayhawks

2008-09-03T18:59:00.003-05:00

Poor former Jayhawks... I guess they didn't get life lessons at KU.

Farewell to Summer?

2008-08-31T14:25:00.002-05:00

Happy Labor Day Weekend to All! We are enjoying one of the warmest weekends of the entire summer, so it is hard to believe our days of lazy summer days are fast coming to a close. We have had a beautiful summer, enhanced by the visits of many family and friends and of course the ability to get away from it all on the Madison lakes.

During late July and August we were running the Jayhawker Bed and Breakfast of the North, hosting all of our parents, 2 aunts, one uncle, 2 cousins, 1 sister/sister-in-law, and one very good friend . Katie turned 30, which she thinks isn't really that big of a deal, but appreciated the yellow caution tape decorating the door warning of the festivities. We learned that Rose's life jacket does really work, and Mary Ann discovered that she can swim for a bit without being "helped". Robert was on night float, so that gave our days and especially vacation-ey feel, and hopefully we didn't wear him out too much! Today is his last day/night! Our garden started yielding lovely tomatoes and even a few green beans. Katie's not sure she's as impressed with heirloom tomatoes as everyone said she would be. We should be set for lots of pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns, and also Thanksgiving's centerpiece will involve multiple gourds.

We're looking forward to September. Robert will have a week of vacation and we'll go to Chicago for some Windy City fun with Mitzi before traveling on to Dayton to see Buschelmans and meet little William. Then we'll try to get set with our home school preschool and look forward to the visit of the Vogrin-Thomas clan!

What makes me laugh

2008-07-11T13:21:00.003-05:00

1. Listening to Mary Ann's version of "Just Leave Everything to Me" from the opening of "Hello Dolly", including the conversation to the train ticket seller.

2. Listening to announcers from some part of Great Britain pronounce "Chipotle" as they refer to the Garmin-Chipotle Tour de France team

3. Watching a news broadcast about a new sport called Chess Boxing

4. Listening to Mary Ann sing a song about how she needs to clean up the mess she made with the Candyland game so her mom doesn't get mad and she has to do a timeout, (while she is actually cleaning up the Candyland game)

5. Watching Rose bring a purse with her Elmo cellphone into the gym on her arm in the middle of a downpour

Celebrating Independence Day

2008-07-06T18:42:00.002-05:00

Happy Belated 4th of July to everyone. Here in Madison the 4th seems like a quiet event since the big party takes place the week before at the Rhythm and Booms Fest. We went out on the lake to view the 31 1/2 minute firework display choreographed to music. It was really cool, and Mary Ann especially liked the fact that they played her favorite songs from Mary Poppins and Sound of Music. Robert did a fantastic job navigating the boat in the dark, dealing with a lot of boat traffic and pretty choppy waters. We also discovered that brownies are excellent for smooshing into the carpeting of the boat too. : )
Robert had a three day weekend for the 4th of July, a nice little break. We didn't make any big plans, which was nice. Both girls had little colds and Mary Ann developed an ear infection, so it was a good weekend to lay low. We did go out on the lake with our friends the Cornetts to do some tubing and explore the lock system between lakes Mendota and Monona and that was pretty interesting too. Robert also got to go to the Mendota Mental Health Hospital to do the orientation for his moonlighting hours there. He's pretty excited about the opportunity to work there a bit on the side.
Rose has learned a few more words, she especially likes pointing out the parts of the face, with particular emphasis on the eyes. She also likes to say the word "Mine" whenever the situation may or may not warrant it. She also says "Thank you" without prompting, which is rather nice. And her favorite song appears to be the "Wheels on the Bus", favorite action being "Beep, beep, beep".

Madison When It Drizzles (and pours)

2008-06-14T09:21:00.003-05:00

We just wanted to let everyone know that we haven't floated away yet. The hardest hit areas in Wisconsin are close by and many of our roads and highways are closed due to flooding, but we are all safe and fine. We are thankful that the only effect of the recent rains has been a bit of water in the basement, and our thoughts and prayers are with those that have not been so lucky. We are also not able to boat for an undetermined time because the Madison lakes are contaminated with sewage because of overflows at the sewer plants. But again, we are thankful that is all we have to deal with.

Weather aside, we are doing well. Robert has happily adjusted back to working days in the Stroke ward and the girls and Katie are adjusting to not having him home during the day. Our major activity most days is a visit to our gym. The girls have just completed ten weeks of swimming lessons and both are very comfortable and confident in the water. In fact Rose would rather have her face in the water than not. Mary Ann can take a dance class and yoga class at the gym, so the benefit to Katie is that she does actually wind up going and so the investment is paying off. And just for the record, she completed a 1/4 marathon (which she thinks sounds better than 6.5 miles) in 70 minutes and ran a 5K in under 30 minutes this past week. Firsts for her.

Belgium humor?

2008-05-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

Just saw this on CNN. A spokesman said "the plane is very seriously damaged." Duh.

Boat!

2008-05-03T15:29:00.002-05:00

We did it! We picked up the boat today from the Wisconsin Dells. We bought a 2000 Crownline 180BR. That's an 18foot bowrider (open at the front so you can sit there). We towed it back with the minivan; we just had a hitch placed on it by U-Haul earlier this week. We have several pictures of it on our photos page. We've also finally got around to posting a bunch of pictures--3 more albums, all the way back to Easter.

Katie heads to KC and Lawrence this coming week, so Robert will either be stuck with a boat and no way to transport it (Katie will take the minivan) or else we'll have to find a slip to keep our boat in during the summer months.

Additionally, my next year's schedule came out, so now I know when I'm free to have guests come up. So, start making plans to come visit us in Madison! You can stay in the new guest room in the basement and then go out on the water!

Images to Savor

2008-04-10T14:55:00.004-05:00

Congraulations and Thank You, Coach Self

Super Mario!!

Welcome Back, Danny!

Rock Chalk Roy!

Rock Chalk World!!!

2008-04-08T08:08:00.003-05:00

National Champions! There were yells, screams, tears and shouts of joy (followed by a rapid flickering of the porch light) to signal the Jayhawks amazing win over the Memphis Tigers. 75-68, I've never seen sweeter numbers! A dream come true! Rock Chalk!!

Traitor

2008-04-04T16:05:00.002-05:00

Well, it's almost here. Final Four Weekend. It seems to me that the 2 best teams are playing each other on Saturday: North Carolina and Kansas. A poll on ESPN had people rank who they thought would win the championship; North Carolina got the most votes, then Kansas. It's really too bad they are already facing each other. I wouldn't want to face Benedict Williams until the most important game of the year. Facing them in the semi-finals is like the US facing Russia in ice hockey, another semi-final game. I mean, who cares that they beat Finland for the gold medal? While I would rather win the championship than beat Roy (if I had the choice between the two) it is a little bit of a letdown to face UNC on Saturday and not Monday.
But still, I will be rooting for KU and against Roy. UNC used to be a team I would root for, and I probably still hate Duke more than UNC, but the feeling of betrayal is still there.
I remember from years past Roy would get emotional if people criticized him. Hopefully all the comments from Kansas fans in the last week have hurt Roy's concentration, though I doubt it has. Still, any edge is still an edge.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

Life is Good

2008-03-18T10:01:00.002-05:00

A couple of momentous events have taken place in our lives, well at least momentous for us, so I wanted to make sure they made it into the family record. The first is that Katie finally ran in her second 5K race (Shamrock Shuffle) and despite the more hilly than expected nature of the route finished with a satisfactory time of 35:06. She's now looking forward to participating in annual Madison Crazylegs Classic, an 8K race that ends at the 50 yard line of Camp Randall, the UW football stadium.
Also for the first time ever, Robert and Katie completed without error or cheating the Sunday (3/16/08) New York Times crossword puzzle. A last minute memory from Robert that the French word for water is eau saved the day! There was much rejoicing.
We also just had a couple of great visits from Liesel and Dominic (despite the fact that illness took over our house for a few days and their return to Ohio was challenged by a blizzard) and Stacy, Amanda, Ashley, and Meghan who made the trip up from Salina. We had a great time with all of you! While they were here we went to the KidsExpo where Mary Ann got to ride a miniature circus train and a pony and Rose became infatuated with the Oscar Meyer WienerMobile and we all got Wiener Whistles! Hurray!
Also, while I'm on a roll blogging here, I'll let you know that we also just got our carpet installed today in the new room, so now we (i.e. Robert) just need to put in the baseboards and it will be all ready for Mitzi!!
We wish you all a Blessed Holy Week!

Basement

2008-03-01T20:10:00.003-06:00

Well, the basement is changing. My dad and uncle came up from KC and Salina to help work on our basement renovation. I had the studs and wiring done (and almost all the insulation) by the time they got up here last Sunday. The 3 of us were able to hang the drywall, mud and get primer and paint on. Today I (with Mary Ann's help) was able to get a coat of our "accent" paint on 1 wall. We have light blue/off white on the ceiling and 3 walls and a darker blue on one wall. It's finally looking like a room. But, it sure is long and thin. We still have to put up some caulk around the window, get carpet, put up baseboard and crown molding (or maybe just quarter round...). And get doors for the closets. It's a pretty nice room.

Vacation is over for Robert. 2 weeks off from work now gone. Who knows when the next vacation will be--the next school year's schedule isn't out yet. Any requests anyone?

Birthday extravaganzas!

2008-02-21T15:26:00.003-06:00

Well, as briefly touched on in the last post, Mary Ann is now 3. 3! Wow. We've had 2 birthday parties. The first was just the 4 of us on her actual b-day. We had cake before dinner, spaghetti for dinner, and presents too! She really loved all of her presents. Then, on Sat Feb 16th, we had some of her friends over. 7 kids, other than our 2. Yikes! But, Mary Ann had fun. First the kids played upstairs, then downstairs. They danced, they rocked on the rocking horse (turning it into a see-saw) and then had cupcakes. It's still Lent, so no chocolate for us.
This past Tuesday and Wednesday were spent at the Kalahari resort. It's one of the biggest indoor water parks in America. We had gone there last December for the Wisconsin Neurological Society's meeting. Mary Ann's been talking about it ever since, calling it the "elephant place" since that is the theme for Kalahari. Anyway, we got a special deal and went there for 1 night and 2 days. 2 very long days. We reserved a queen suite which was very nice. 2 queen beds in one room for the kids. Another room for us. There were 2 bathrooms, 3 TVs, and a real-sized coffee pot. It was pretty nice. The kids stayed up until 9:30, giggling, turning the lights on, turning the TV on, and Mary Ann getting into Rose's pack-and-play. We all had a great time in the water park. We also went to the outlet mall. Those idiots decided to make an outdoor mall, which obviously isn't very smart in the winter weather of Wisconsin. But, we got some good deals. We left the Dells at about 6:30pm and made it back for a good nights rest.
And, Obama and McCain won the primaries in Wisconsin. We'll see if they both win the nomination. We DID vote on the way out of town on Tuesday, even if we did vote for different people.

What to do in the Winter

2008-02-09T14:12:00.000-06:00

Well, in honor of the 13 plus inches of snow that fell last week and the arctic blast we are supposed to have this weekend (wind chills of 35 below zero are possible) I thought I'd brainstorm some ideas of what we can do here in the winter. For those of you who read this to keep up on the family, I'll let you know that we are all doing well, Rose is jabbering more, Mary Ann had a marvelous birthday on the 5th, and while we are all experiencing symptoms of cabin fever, I don't think it will reach "The Shining" level of insanity.

Winter Activities:
1. Painting finger and toenails
2. Playing with Play-doh
3. Watching a lot of movies
4. Emptying all toys from bins onto the floor
5. Spreading toys from one end of the house to the other, on both floors
6. Staring out the window in disbelief that snow can come down that hard and that fast
7. Staring at the window in disbelief that ice can actually form inside the window
8. Taking naps
9. Reading silly novels
10. Play Ring-around-the-Rosie
11. Play London Bridges falling down
12. Build a bear cave
13. Turn the bear cave into London Bridge
14. Go to bed at 6:30
15. Mentally thank the inventor of the snow blower multiple times
16. Call your sisters many times
17. Google anything and everything
18. Watch "Happy, Hairy Monsters" on YouTube
19. Teach a 3 year old how to start videos herself on YouTube
20. Have a family jam session
21. Have a family dance session
22. Smear toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror
23. Unroll the roll of toilet paper, it's totally worth doing a timeout
24. Play with your mom's fingernail polish by yourself
25. Learn how to make yourself dizzy (Rose is really good at this)

Politics

2008-01-04T20:34:00.000-06:00

Now that the first state has spoken, I wanted to ask all of our readers:
If you consider yourself a Republican, are there any Democrats you would vote for over a Republican? And, vice versa if you are a Democrat. So, after the people are nominated by their parties, are there any match ups that you could see yourself voting for the other side?

Back in Madison

2007-12-30T14:41:00.000-06:00

Well, we're back! Did you miss us? Well, most likely if you're reading this you actually saw us in Missouri or Kansas...but, we can act like the postings on here are their own person, so you have missed us in that case...

Anyway, we took a trip out southwest to Missouri and Kansas. We started out after I got off work on the Friday before Christmas. First stop: KC MO. We went to Crown Center on Saturday and stood in line for 2 hours to see Santa. Luckily we were able to trade off who was in line so everyone could go around Crown Center for a list. Then, we went to Mission KS for Faith's baptism--Katie and I were the Godparents! Whoo-hoo!

On Sunday we went to see Katie's grandpa Mac and aunts Vicki (aka Mickey Mouse) and Mary Lou. Then off to Go-Jo's for dinner. Mary Ann says it's "a little scary" when the big flame comes up.

On Monday we drove to Salina KS to spend the night and Christmas morning with my family. We got lots of great presents. Mary Ann did all the right things in acting totally pumped by her presents.

On Tuesday we drove to Lawrence where we pretended to be a day behind, so we celebrated Christmas Eve on Christmas night and then opened presents the next morning. Again, Mary Ann was totally pumped, especially by the big kitchen that Santa gave her!

We drove back on Thursday so I could go to work on Friday. It snowed a bunch on Friday, so we missed the big storm. And, it had snowed a lot on the Saturday we were in KC, so we missed that storm. All in all not bad driving, thank the Lord!

Here's a fun article from a priest in KC talking about how much fun a Wii is!

Lots of new pics in many albums--take a look!

Coming home to snow again

2007-12-05T15:06:00.000-06:00

We went to Chicago this past weekend. We went to the Christkindlmarket to see the German stuff. It wasn't that exciting--it was just one small square jam packed with shops and LOTS of people. And food tents that were overpriced. We got a couple of pretzels and 1 glass of glühwein--hot spiced wine. It came in its own porcelin blue boot (small) that we brought home. It was good on a VERY chilly day! Then, we walked down to see the bean, a big shiny reflective thing just south of the main strip on Michigan Ave. Then, we went to lunch and went to Crate and Barrel. Finally went back to Mitzi's and warmed up.

Came back late Sunday. We went to church at the cathedral; the Bishop presided. Then we went to Ikea with Mitzi. It takes forever to drive past O'Hare. We bought some stuff at Ikea. We got home about 9pm. Our house was snowed in. And, snow plowed in. When we went to get out, we found that we weren't just snowed in, we were iced in. The snowfall had been covered by freezing rain, so we could walk on top of the snowfall without falling in. So, we got the girls in and then started working on shoveling out my car so I could get to work. We gave up soon and just decided I would take the van, so we parked that on the street. On Monday we worked on clearing out the car--it took both a real shovel to break up the ice and a snow shovel to haul off the chunks. Our neighbor came over to help clear the driveway off so we could park in the driveway. The ice on the sidewalks/driveway "can" come off in nice discrete chunks if you are lucky. Then, yesterday Katie cleared off most of the sidewalks, with me coming home to finish the job last night. We finally were able to use the snowblower last night to clear off the snow that had fallen on the cleared off parts.

Today I am sick; called in sick. So, Katie snow blowed this morning. She also went to help the neighbor that helped us. I have called work to tell them I'm not coming.

Check out the new pics on the photo page!

Pre-Thanksgiving

2007-11-19T17:51:00.001-06:00

Well, it is the week of Thanksgiving. More importantly, Mitzi is here! She has come up for her annual (2nd annual!) week in Madison. We have been enjoying having another adult (Mitzi's an adult?) around to talk to...and play Wii with! Oh...and help with the kids. We bought a new snowblower today--one of our biggest purchases ever, after the house and cars. It's a Madison snowblower--capable (hopefully) of dealing with the big snowstorms. Maybe Mary Ann can even ride on it.

Many people are coming up on Wednesday: the Buschelmans, L'Opa, Nana and Oma. Not Casey, as Mary Ann keeps asking about; the dog will stay in Missouri. Robert's parents are staying in KC to host the Salina family for T-day.

Kalahari

2007-10-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

Last weekend Robert got to go to the annual statewide Neurology Conference, held at the Kalahari Resort. His registration included staying at the hotel and 4 waterpark passes. We got there about 11:00 Saturday morning. Robert went to his conference and I got to figure out how to conquer this waterpark (just so we're all clear here, it is an indoor waterpark) with 2 little ones in tow. Our room wasn't ready yet, so the girls and I went to the nearby outlet mall so I could see how many times I could tell Mary Ann we would just go into the store really quickly. Then we went back to the hotel, the room still wasn't quite ready, so we ate lunch and decided that we could go to waterpark anyways and use the locker room as a home base. (Mary Ann and Rose were both very helpful during this conference). I've never been to a water park myself, so I didn't know what to expect, but all three of us were pretty excited. The park was very child friendly, lots of slides and pools for the girls to enjoy. I discovered that Rose has no qualms about crawling into water, in fact she doesn't stop after the water submerges her face. Mary Ann was a little more cautious, but after seeing all the other kids make it down the slides in one piece, she was good to go. Sunday was especially a lot of fun, since Robert could be with us the whole day and we could trade off who was with the girls while the other one got to do the more "exciting" rides. It was a great weekend and a nice change of pace for us all!

Ella's

2007-10-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

We went to a crazy restaurant yesterday for brunch. It's called Ella's Deli and it's very kid friendly! It has tons of flying toys in there, and the tables are all boxes with glass tops with things to look at inside. If you've been to Madison, it's the place on East Wash that has the big carousel out front. Rose was the quietest she's ever been; she just stared at the ceiling the whole time. Unfortunately they don't have the best food and it's just a tad pricey, but maybe worth having 2 quiet kids...

Washington, ABC

2007-10-10T15:26:00.001-05:00

The weekend of October 6-7 I got the chance to go to Washington, DC for my friend Sara's wedding. Thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law I got to go out a bit early and see some of my friends from high school who have made DC their home as well. It was a fantastic trip to catch up with these people and enjoy a little vacation. I got to visit the International Spy Museum and learn that I may not be spy material, navigate the DC area via the Metro (thank you to Darren for the tutorial), eat Greek and Turkish tapas at Zaytinya, and attend a beautiful wedding and reception (Sara and Frank I'm so happy for you).
It is good now to be back at home and settle back into our routine. The girls had a fabulous time with Grandma, what a blessing family is! This week cooler weather has settled in, at least for now. (In all honesty we're ready for it--please remind me of that when it snows in April next year). Next on our list is the Rose Walk Watch. Happy October everyone!

SWiit Success

2007-09-17T13:35:00.000-05:00

Happy 28th Birthday to Robert!! We had the big celebration on Saturday, so Mitzi and Scott, who surprised Robert when he arrived Friday night, could be here for the action. After a breakfast of Bubblebread and bacon (sorry Mitzi) Robert opened the present of his dreams. Then we basically played all day with the new toy. It is pretty cool, especially the boxing game. Mitzi and I woke up actually a bit sore because of the action. Thank you to everyone for helping to make it happen!!

Pulling an Eric

2007-09-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

This post has nothing to do with our children, so if that is the only reason you check our blog, stop reading now.

The following is my new favorite dialogue from a movie:

Dr. Jules Hilbert (played by Dustin Hoffman): Aren't you relieved to know you're not a golem?
Harold Crick (played by Will Farrell): Yes. I am relieved to know that I am not a golem.
(http://imdb.com/title/tt0420223/quotes)

The movie is "Stranger Than Fiction" and I give it 2 Thumbs up! (Do golem's have thumbs? Wow, thank goodness I'm not a golem!)

Construction

2007-09-11T21:10:00.000-05:00

We burst through today. For those that don't know, we have a plan to turn the unfinished part of our basement into a guest bedroom, and kind of open up the living space in the basement into that bedroom. We don't have the final plans yet, but we've started on deconstruction. I tore down the workbench several weeks ago and reconstructed it in the garage. Then, when my parents were up, we tore down the ceiling and the wood paneling on the wall between the unfinished part and the walk-in closet. For the last week I've been working on tearing down the shelves in that closet. Today, Katie and I broke through the drywall; now we can walk between the closet and the unfinished area. It's pretty rewarding to tear through a wall. Hopefully it all works out the way we want; either way it will be a learning process. Hopefully rewarding both mentally...and financially =)

Rose Updates!

2007-09-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

The month of September has been a big one already for Baby Rose! First, the most impressive news, she gained a whopping 2 and 1/2 pounds during August, boosting her weight to 16 pounds, 15 ounces. She's now in the 7th percentile for weight and the pediatrician was pleased too. Thank you to YoBaby Organic yogurt!

Also in the last couple of days she has figure out how to go up all of the stairs from our basement, going down is still a big dilemma, but I'm sure she'll figure it out in no time at all. (Mary Ann would like to say as well that she too can go up all of the basement stairs.)

And yesterday Rose figured out how to clap her hands. She did it for the first time on accident a couple of days ago and looked at her hands in bewilderment. Then Friday she really figured it out. Now she'll clap her hands no matter what her mood. (Mary Ann would again like to say that she can clap her hands too).

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid!

2007-08-24T16:07:00.000-05:00

In all honesty, we don't have a very active social life in Madison. This is probably self-evident since we have videos of things like a Robin dive-bombing our back door and for excitement we talk about the time the Robin flew into the porch...Well at least one of us talks about that for excitement, she also breaks into her own rendition of "Sweet Caroline" in the middle of the grocery store too, but that's a different story.
Back to our social life, or lack there of. As with our weather this past week, when it rains, it certainly pours (occasionally into our basement). We had a children's fashion show last night, where Rose made her modeling debut. Pics will come. It was part of the grand opening events for a kid-friendly cafe that has opened in Madison called Bean Sprouts. It was fun, but 2 1/2 half years of parenting has not taught me to expect the organized chaos children's activities always entail. Kids running everywhere, kids dancing, kids walking around with the "runway" decorations, kids not getting the point of "Hot Potato" or in this case: "Hot Bean". Rose was adorable (she wore an organic cotton onesie and pants set and it was so soft I would almost pay for it), Mary Ann had fun and I felt a bit bewildered and was thankful to get the girls home, in bed so I could get our house back in order, since somehow getting Rose ready for the event also included the house becoming very messy.
Today we had plans to go to a friend's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Mary Ann, Rose and I were all Chuck E. Cheese novices and I envisioned a fairly quiet meal around a couple of pans of pizza, then taking Mary Ann around, tokens in hand, having a blast with the games and rides. Of course eventually we ran out of tokens and I had to inform Mary Ann we were out of the "special money", which wasn't happily accepted, but luckily she had enough tickets to "buy" a little (can we say super-little) dinosaur figure.

More Rose action

2007-08-22T13:21:00.000-05:00

Now Rose is going up steps. Well, step. Yep, she is going up the step from the back porch (aka sunroom aka 3-season porch aka airplane aka....) to the house. She started doing it 2 days ago, on 8/20/07. She can't quite yet go down, though she is thinking about it. By thinking I mean she crawls to the step, puts her head down on the step, and pushes her butt in the air. It looks like she is going to summersault down the stair. Which might not be too bad for 1 step, but not something we want to see for the basement steps.

Also, Mary Ann is doing much better using the potty. She is dry the majority of days of the week. If she has looser pants on, she is even going into the bathroom by herself and doing it all herself. We just hope she doesn't flush the entire roll of TP again...

And, more bad news. Water came in our basement again. We got home from church Sunday and started making breakfast. I (Robert) went downstairs to check something on the computer. When I walked through the carpet...squelch. Soggy carpet. We think the downspout near the stove-pipe came off slightly (a different downspout this time...) and water came in through the old hole in the wall. It must not have been too much, because it doesn't look like the top of the entertainment center was wet, so it must have just dripped in. But, the majority of the carpet in the big room was wet, extending to the stairs. So, off to the hardware store again to get a carpet cleaner to suck up the water. We were able to empty more than 13 gallons of water, plus several more from the dehumidifier. We made many many sweeps of the cleaner, going non-stop (pretty much) from noon to 5. We finally got most of the water up and actually cleaned the carpet. We still have fans going downstairs and have kept the AC on since then to help dehumidify. So, the whole house smells. Bad. Can't wait for my parents to come this weekend and sleep downstairs!! =)

Opa

2007-08-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

On Friday, July 27th, Mitzi, the girls, and I drove down to Jefferson City and up the hill to the Hickory Grove to say good-bye to Opa. It was a last minute decision kind of a trip, I had already decided a few weeks earlier, when it became clear that Opa's health was declining more rapidly, that I had said my good-byes already and a visit now wouldn't change that. But after learning how much it cheered both Opa and Oma to see their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I realized that a trip was much more important than any prior good-byes.
When we arrived, it was great to see Oma, Jane, and Mom sitting around the table drinking a glass of wine. Opa was sleeping in his room, and while it became clear that he would not be waking to actually see us, simply being there at the time was more fulfilling (and that's not quite the word I mean) than I could have possible imagined.

The next morning at the hotel Mom called to say that it looked like Opa had passed a hurdle and that his breathing and demeanor as he slept was one of peace. His final hours were approaching. We arrived at the Hickory Grove, Oma was sitting at Opa's side, we gave her a hug and kiss. Then someone mentioned the word "walk" and both Mary Ann and Casey became very excited. I took them out, down the drive way and up Zion Road, trying to convince (rather unsuccessfully) Mary Ann that she either needed to hold my hand or walk on the grass. We looked at wildflowers and butterflies and I showed her the little creek that was always the highpoint of walks with Oma, to stand at the edge and throw rocks in, hearing the splash if the season had been wet enough to keep water in it.

It wasn't a long walk at all and we made our way back up the driveway. I looked at the row of evergreen trees Opa had planted and marveled at how tall they had grown, as I could still remember being pulled around them in the trailer of Opa's tractor. By the time we reached the house, and I saw everyone gathered in the sunporch, I realized that Opa had gone.

What followed was a peaceful family time. Tears and laughter (mainly at Mary Ann), hugs and wrestling (mainly with Mary Ann). Opa dying at home, allowed, for him (I hope) and his family (at least for me) his death to truly be the next natural step in his life. He was cared for and surrounded by people he loved and people who loved him. Thank you to Oma, Rocky, Jane, Mom and Dad for allowing this to be the case.

Rose Crawls!

2007-07-22T16:13:00.000-05:00

She also got her first tooth today: right on the bottom in front! Go Rose!

"Spones" and the Spirit of Detachment

2007-07-22T14:47:00.001-05:00

Many of you may be trying to guess what this image may be. I'll let you guess for a while...
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Some of you may have accurately guessed that it is a picture of today's lesson in humility. As many of you know, I take a certain amount of pride in putting my former lesson planning skills into use by making weekly menus. Some may think I'm a bit too much of a control freak about this (and yes, I am still aware of who fell behind on their shift on the Thanksgiving cooking schedule last year), but I do enjoy making my menus. I've really been on a roll the last few weeks too, organization and preparation have really worked out. And this morning the plan was to make blueberry scones before church so there would be less wait post-mass for our brunch. It all worked out beautifully, Mary Ann slept until nearly eight (I do love her help in the kitchen, but I have found that you can't rush Mary Ann through her cooking and she likes to make sure whatever it is passes a taste test as each stage of the preparation), Rose was in a good mood, Robert did dishes as I finished them. We could have been on Food Network...it was that good.
Mass was very nice, the girls were great, and I even got to pay attention to the readings. Perhaps I should have seen that Martha/Mary Gospel as a foreshadowing of things to come. (I know, Nana, I know!)
We get home, Robert starts breakfast, scones are in the oven, Rose goes down for a nap, Mary Ann's setting the table--eat your heart out June Cleaver.
The scones take a bit longer to bake than expected--no problem we have smoothies, eggs, little smokies and coffee to tied us over. After a third or fourth oven check, I decide that I've put them in the wrong pan and need to transfer them to a cookie sheet. (By the way, I absolutely do not recommend the silicon bakeware). In the process, these beautiful scones totally fall apart into the mess you see above. Insert here a few very choice words. After being pretty upset and disappointed for a bit, I discover that they still taste okay, life is still good, and maybe I can market them in some future life as "Spones" (spoon + scone)

The moral of the story is: Food doesn't have to look good to taste good, crumbled scones are definitely not worth getting upset about and don't trust pretty red baking pans.

A Peaceful Moment

2007-07-18T20:14:00.000-05:00

I have just left the girls' room and both are asleep. 30 minutes ago that was not the case. Both went down without too much fussing, but occasional cries from Rose would elicit Mary Ann pounding on the door and the yell that Rose was "getting louder". This wouldn't really help Rose settle down, but eventually all was quiet. After about 10 minutes of this quiet, I again heard Mary Ann at the door informing me that Rose again was getting louder. She must have psychic abilities, because no sooner had she predicted this with her thumps at the door, but Rose indeed did get louder. Amazing! So after some snuggling and shushing and magic "bugga-boo" star light (Thank you again, Nana!) both girls fell asleep. The contrast between the two of them crying and they two of them sleeping is amazing. I'm sure the neighbors have noticed this as well. But it's a lovely time to spend with them and to thank God for His blessings.

On an entirely different note, my surfing of the web tonight led me to this website. Fun gift ideas for kids: http://store.padilly.com

And if anyone is curious about what a typical day in our life is like, check out this website: http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/index.php and look at today's strip

Blog Addiction

2007-07-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

So I should be in bed now. Addiction is too strong of a word, but having a blog is as bad as surfing the Net. I just want this one to look as good as my siblings'! (punctuation on ending a sentence with a plural possessive?) I'm tired, have a summer cold, and am pretty sure at least there will be at least one major interruption in the night, make that one more, as we've already had a major wake-up call around 9:15. That was at least tempered by the fact that Rose had pulled herself up in her crib and, though she was screaming her head off, it was pretty cute. I'm not sure if she didn't know how to sit back down and that was what the big fuss was about or she liked adding a bit more drama to the whole "wake-up" the whole house act, but after 20 minutes both girls were back to sleep and it wound up being just enough time for the banana bread in the oven to finish baking. So all's well that ends well. And I should also go to bed so tomorrow can begin well. Gute Nacht, meine Damen und Herren.

Divebombing Robin

2007-07-12T20:33:00.001-05:00

Since early May a husband and wife team of Robins have been nesting on the downspout just north of our back door. They are currently tag-team feeding their second brood of baby Robins. They are pretty adorable. However, not so adorable is the protective behavior at least one of these Robins, in my opinion, the Papa Robin, have adopted. Papa Robin likes to stalk you and then dive bomb you as you try participate in any activity that involves lingering around said backdoor, "lingering" here means more than 5 seconds. Today, while trying to water plants using the water from our wading pool, Papa mounted an attack. I swiftly ran into the porch through back door and Papa followed. What followed was a tense 3-5 minute period of waiting to see what would happen. M.A. was fingerpainting at the time, and watching a live Robin fly around her porch was probably one of the most exciting experiences of her life, right up there with Mitzi's yellow plane and Nathan slipping in the pool. During this time we could hear Mama Robin giving Papa Robin h--- for being so idiotic about his behavior and after he finally made it out, you could still hear her giving him a piece of her mind. I have to respect Papa for caring so much for his family, but I also feel some empathy with the Mama, don't ask me why, but I do.

Morning Came, Coffee followed: The First Post

2007-07-11T13:57:00.000-05:00

A first post by K. Reddig! So far much better than doing HTML code. No promises will be made about the frequency of postings, however. Nap times and the nebulous concept of "Quiet Time" (i.e. M.A. spends time on our bed for the 50 minutes of the "Quiet Time CD". Quiet may actually be a stretch to actually describe those 50 minutes, as I hear her clomping around the room in my shoes and catch her making prank calls on the phone, but I will optimistically always consider it Quiet Time.

Hmmmm...so why do people blog exactly?? To stay in touch? Post random thoughts for all the world to see? Feel like they are doing something productive when they should be a) dusting b) getting supper ready c) organizing storage areas d) watering the garden e) finding flowers for the table f) cleaning the bathroom g) writing postcards h ) creating a to-do list ? Oh wait, I just did that! So that's what blogging's all about! Cool!

All right, so as I get used to this, maybe posts will be less goofy and more thought-provoking. But at least I know what I need to do now!