14 Months

Mr. Micah man turned 14 months on March 26th. I recently held a friend's 4 month old son, and it's so hard to remember Micah being that small (and immobile too)!

Following the trend of my friend, Amanda, here are fourteen fun facts about Micah.

1) Mobility!! We are in constant motion, making it difficult to get a good picture of Micah. He is fully walking and now starting to run
2) Outside - Micah's favorite activity is being outside. Whether it would be riding in his stroller, being chased around the backyard, running after Brutus, or picking up rocks from our patio, this kiddo loves being outside. And, this beautiful, spring weather is making us get outside as much as possible these days.
3) Books - Micah continues to enjoy having books read to him. His favorite books currently are "Puppy Count", "Where's my Puppy", and "Ten Little Puppies". Do you notice a trend here...?!
4) Brutus is one of Micah's best friends. Micah loves sharing toys with him, and when he thinks Brutus may be chasing him. Brutus loves Micah's willingness to share snacks.
5) Gentle - we've been trying to teach Micah the concept of gentle. Micah is unfortunately in a hitting phase, hitting Brutus, Kyle and myself and even himself when he gets upset. We hope that this phase will pass soon...
6) Infant room - Micah continues to attend daycare at least 3-4 days/week. He's currently in the infant room and will transition to the toddler room at the end of May. He is surrounded by a lot of little ones, and is the oldest in the room by over 6 months. I am actually looking forward to his transition to the toddler room, where he will be surrounded by others around his age.
7) Sleeping so well - I hate bragging, because it eventually backfires on me, but Micah has been generally sleeping 11-12 hours a night. Lets hope it continues.
8) Milk - Micah is currently drinking whole milk. He still gets one 2-3 ounce bottle in the evening, as we use up his last box of formula. He has transitioned to a sippy cup during the day, but needs help holding onto it and tipping it upside down. Our goal for this month is to independently use a sippy cup.
9) Cheese, yogurt, and mac and cheese, and goldfish are all favorites of Micah's.
10) "Truck" is the recent new word, and it gets said approximately 100 times/day.
11) Cooking - this kiddo loves to be in the kitchen with me. If he has a bowl of snacks - usually goldfish or Kix cereal, he will stir it with a plastic spoon.
12) Clothes - Micah is generally wearing 18-24 month clothes and size 5 diapers.
13) Playgroups - Micah attends ECFE "Bearly Toddler" class on Friday mornings and MOPS on Wednesday mornings. He loves playing at the gym at ECFE and using the sensory table. He does not like to sit for story or craft time.
14) Teeth - Micah has 12 teeth altogether and is working on more as I type this. He has the front 4 on the top and bottom and all 4 of his first year molars. He's currently working on the top two incisors.

Here are a few recent pictures of Micah:

Look at the cute curl off the the left. I love it!

Story time with Daddy. Check out the front of his shirt. It's saturated with drool, supporting that he is working on more teeth....

30th Birthday Celebration

I am a week late on my blog entries, for a number of reasons. The weather has been gorgeous and we've been trying to get outside as much as possible. And, by the time Micah goes to bed each night between 8-9:00, I am exhausted. The couch and HGTV have become my evening routine before retiring for the night.

Last weekend, I got together with a group of my closest college friends in the Cities to celebrate our 30th birthdays. It was an awesome weekend!! Keep in mind, that we are all super busy, so we had to begin planning this weekend several months ago. I had been looking forward to the weekend since we found a date that we all were available.

Anna was nice enough to host us for the weekend at her cute home in St. Louis Park. On Friday night, those of us that we available got together for a movie/drinks night. It was so much fun to catch up again! On Saturday the real celebration began. We spent the afternoon at New Reflections Spa in Plymouth where we got massages, facials, manicures and pedicures. We had a great dinner at the Melting Pot. The Melting Pot is an upscale fondue restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. It was a fun, interactive 4-course dinner, and it tasted awesome too! Finally, we went to a "Girls Only" comedy show. After, a great day together we all went back to Anna's for a wine and a good old-fashioned sleepover. Okay, the wine was a 5-year old bottle of Riesling of Kristen's that was signed by Andrew Firestone, from the Bachelor, and we all agreed that it did not age well!

I am so, so thankful to have such a good group of college girlfriends!! These weekends sometimes make me wish that I lived closer to them, so that we could get together more often. But, I love my life in Winona with Kyle, Micah and Brutus so, so much! I definitely missed my boys while I was away, but a weekend away to 'recharge" was what I needed. Kyle, Micah and Brutus survived fine without me, and Kyle seemed to really enjoy the one on one time he had with Micah.

When it rains, it pours - literally!

As I'm typing this blog entry, I can hear the sheets of rain hit our windows. I keep looking up the ceiling and at our built-in cabinet anticipating to see water leaking into our house. It has been a rough few weeks of house expenses and repairs!

Approximately 2 years ago, Kyle and I began to hear some scratching and squealing occurring along the ceiling of the bathroom that's attached to our bedroom. Our master bathroom is a dormer that was converted into a bathroom a few years prior to Kyle and I purchasing the house. The noises would generally occur at night as we were beginning to fall or asleep or we'd hear them in the morning. Naturally, they were always present when Kyle would be out of town for the night! In December of 2010, we had an exterminator come out to our house. At that time, it was determined that we probably had bats, but that nothing could be done about them in the winter. You see, in the state of MN, bats are classified as a 'protected species' and they cannot be exterminated in the winter. Completely dumb, huh?! The exterminator did reassure us that the bats could not access the inside of our house through the attic. That statement does have merit, as we have yet to see a bat in the living areas of our house. We fully anticipated having the exterminator come out last spring, but the squealing and scratching noises seemed to stop, so we figured the bats had moved on. This was not the case! A few weeks ago, I was ironing in our guest bedroom one evening, when I heard the same noises behind one of the walls. That was enough! Last week, we called a new exterminator - Orkin - in to assess the situation. As a side note, they drive white trucks with big red lettering describing the extermination services the company provides. A few of our overly observant neighbors have made the point to ask us about our 'infestation'.  Orkin clarified that we do have bats. Only $1800 later, and our house should be bat-free and have new insulation in the attic! Today they came to install one-way doors along the corner of our dormers to allow the bats to leave, but be unable to return. They also sealed up any potential areas of interest. Finally, they reiterated the horrible shingling job that was performed.

The roof situation continues to royally frustrate me! Our roof looks terrible! Every evening I will take Brutus and Micah for a walk after getting home from work. During those walks, I look at everyone's shingles, and ours are definitely flawed. They don't lay well, and you can tell that they were put up quickly and by an amateur crew. Kyle and I have learned our lesson with future contractors. We have a call into the roofing company that laid our shingles and they will be coming back in early April, so until then we wait and pray that our shingles will stand-up to the rain.

Finally, on Sunday night our washing machine decided to quit. Looking back on the detailed house records that the previous owner left us, it was installed in 1999. Washing machines generally only have a 12 year life-span, so ours had put in its 12 years of service. A new washing machine was purchased on Monday, and it will be delivered in 2 weeks. Thank you Lowe's for having a great sale!

Despite all of the house repairs, life is good. I truly believe that these repairs are a blessing in disguise. We currently do have some extra money to cover the costs without tapping into our savings or home equity loan accounts. Plus, Kyle and I are getting closer and closer to putting our house on the market. We want to leave this house in good condition, so these repairs are an unfortunate necessity. More to come on our house hunting, as well as other events in our lives.

Five years ago...

Last night was the 5 year anniversary of when Kyle proposed to me in my walk-in closet at the Oaks as we were getting ready to go to the Glass Menagerie at the Guthrie. Below are some pictures from that night 5 years ago. Hopefully we haven't aged too much since then : )

At J.P. American Bistro (which no longer exists)

At the Guthrie

We generally do not celebrate engagement anniversaries, and probably would have been fine with sharing a bottle of wine after Micah went to bed. But, my parents needed their grandson fix, as it had been 2 weeks. We took them up on their offer to come down to Winona so that we could have a night out. It was so nice to sit down and have a meal together where we could have a conversation! At this point in our lives, our meals are centered around feeding Micah. We rarely go out to eat as a family, as Micah's at the age where he wants to move : ) That's fine though, I love the family meals that we have at home, and we are saving money by cooking at home. Kyle and and I ended up going to Manny's Mexican restaurant in La Crosse. And, since we were in the area, we checked out the new Once Upon a Child too. 

Great Wolf - Part 2

It was a rough week at the Raadt household leading up to our much anticipated and planned weekend with the Kelley's at Great Wolf. For the past few weeks, Micah has had an increase in irritability and drooling, both of which we attributed to teething. He has however managed to stay relatively healthy until this last week.  Last Tuesday morning, he woke up sounding a little congested, but still healthy enough to send to daycare By evening, he was pretty uncomfortable. I told Kyle that it was going to be a rough night, and I was right. Micah was up several times throughout the night with a fever. I kept Micah home from daycare on Wednesday and Thursday, and by the time we left on Friday he was fever-free, but not back to his regular self. On Thursday, I began feeling sick, and unfortunately it stayed with me throughout the weekend.

I did not take too many pictures, as I didn't feel great, but I was able to get a few cute shots of Kyle and Micah.

This last picture was taken by Amanda. Micah and Harrison both fell asleep in the wave pool on Saturday morning for approximately an hour.

While Micah and I weren't completely feeling our best, we still had a great time. Micah was less apprehensive about the water this second trip. I have spring/summer fever, so I'm looking forward to getting to the pool with Micah a lot this summer.

Happy Birthday Brutus

Last Friday, our Brutus pup turned 3 years old, or 21 years old in human years, as Kyle likes to remind me. It's hard to believe that just 3 short years ago we were puppy-less and child-less. Micah and Brutus both add so many smiles to our daily life. Kyle and I found Brutus advertised in the Rochester Post Bulletin in the spring of 2009. We made the trek down to Charles City, Iowa on one of our days off of work, and picked the "small, light dog" out of the litter. Brutus has been well worth the measly $200 that we paid for him. He is treated like another member of the family.

Brutus spent his birthday in Stewartville at his favorite place, my parent's house, as we were all at Wisconsin Dells. Kyle and I joking call their house the "J and C" Bed and Breakfast, as Brutus gets spoiled with a lot of attention, treats, and trips to the park. Additionally, he gets to play with his best friend Jack, my parents golden retriever.

Below is a picture that my brother took of the birthday boy and Jack anxiously awaiting Puppy Pepperoni handouts.