Chef Micah

Our little Micah Man has loved cooking since he was at least 6-7 months old. From the time that he could independently sit up, I would give him pots and pans to pound on while I was cooking. Once he could stand, he loved (and still loves) emptying out the bottom shelves of my pantry. Now, he loves sorting Cheerios, goldfish, raisins, etc into my mixing bowls and stirring them. He also insists on being held if he notices that you have something cooking on the stovetop, only to monitor the situation. Kyle and I truly believe that he will end up working as a chef someday.

A few weeks ago, Micah and I were at the new Once Upon a Child in Onalaska, when Micah began playing with their display kitchen set. Although, it thoroughly entertained him while I did some quick browsing, he could not be peeled away from it when it was time to go. So, I made a quick, impulsive decision to buy him a kitchen set. When it comes to his toys, most of them are handed down from friends or bought second-hand, so it felt good to buy him something new that was truly his. He loves his new kitchen set, and is always willing to fry you up something, boil water, or make you hot coffee - his favorite thing to do.

Micah with the box - Kyle and I found it more productive to put it together for Micah while he was sleeping.

Next morning's reactions

Brewing his caffeine addicted mommy some hot coffee complete with a few goldfish, while a hungry dog looks on.

A little bit of everything

It seems like it has been a busy 2 weeks, and I realized that it's been awhile since I've posted on here. Kyle has had a busy work schedule, which comes with being a retail pharmacist. He currently is finishing a 7 day stretch of work, most of those shifts being evenings, so I have been single parenting the past week.  The night flies by from getting home from work, making dinner, taking Brutus for a walk, cleaning up the kitchen, giving Micah a bath and putting him to bed. By the time 9:00 rolls around, I am physically and mentally exhausted. And, I only have to do that every third week! I have the utmost respect for single parents that have a schedule similar to this every night! It's been a busy 2 weeks, so get comfy because I'm sure that this post will get lengthy : )

30th birthday:

On April 3rd, I celebrated my 30th birthday. It really feels great to be in my 30's! I can't say that I'll say the same thing about my 40's and beyond. Kyle and I worked on my actual birthday, but he and Micah made me a special breakfast before work. They also got me a yummy cake too. I had celebrated with my friends a few weeks ago, so when Kyle asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I responded with time - uninterrupted time out in our yard. On the day before my birthday, I spent 6 hours out in our yard, and got a lot accomplished. Photos of our yard to come sometime soon...

Washing machine:


A few weeks ago, I posted that our washing machine had broken. After 12 years of service, we decided to buy a new one versus repair it. Lowe's was having a great sale, and with delivery of our new machine and removal of our current one, who could pass up such a deal?! I ended up buying a cheaper, high efficiency washer. If you know our house, you know that our laundry location if a complete inconvenience for me, but worse for a delivery person. You have to go through kitchen and our main floor bathroom, and then make a tight 90 degree turn down a steep flight of stairs.

The delivery guys were great, and even I wrote a letter to corporate letting them know how much I appreciated their work. But, they jokingly told me not to call them when our dryer went out...

Easter:


We had a great Easter enjoying the beautiful weather, spending time with family, and ultimately remembering the true meaning of Easter that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we could have eternal life. After attending a packed early church service at Pleasant Valley, Kyle, Micah and I headed up to Northfield where we had Easter lunch at his Grandma Millie's house. Several family members were there, and Micah was spoiled with attention and an Easter basket full of yummy candy, which his momma managed to polish off for him. Attempts were made to get pictures of Micah, especially, a 4 generation picture, but Micah was less than cooperative during picture-taking time.

This was the best we got that day...

We went back to Stewartville late afternoon where we had dinner with my parents and brother. My mom put together a mini-easter egg hunt for Micah, and he had fun finding the eggs. We also took a nice walk, given the beautiful weather that day. 

We are so thankful that we live close enough to our families to celebrate Holidays with them.

Other happenings:

Below are a few pictures of Micah from the past few weeks. We were trying to get outside as much as possible, but the weather has definitely kept us in the past few days.

New set of wheels

Our house projects are slowly getting accomplished. Orkin came last week and put new insulation in our attic. They kept the one-way bat doors in place, as the nights have still been cool enough that bats may still try to access our attic. They saw no evidence of bats nor have we have heard any activity in our walls since they came to install the doors several weeks ago : ) Our roof is being inspected on Monday, after several calls to our roofing company. Finally, after threatening legal action on Tuesday, they returned our call within 30 minutes....

We may have found a house that we like. It has a lot of great features, but it does need some updates allowing us to put our personal touch on the house. It's in a comfortable price range for us, and on the same side of town as our jobs, church, gym, Target, Walmart, etc. We are still weighing the positives and negatives, so not offers are being written up as I type this : )

Anniversary and other happenings...

It's currently 8:30 on a Sunday morning, and Kyle and I are sitting in silence. It is so strange!! Our two kiddos, Micah and Brutus are still slumbering. We had full intentions of going to 9:00 church this morning, but instead we will shoot for the 10:45 service. Micah must be catching up from his exciting night of playing with Grandpa Jim and "Gram C".

This past Thursday was our 4-year anniversary. The weather on Thursday during the day was beautiful, reminiscent of the weather on March 29, 2008. These past 4 years (or 14 years since we began dating) have gone by so quickly. It's been a wonderful adventure growing as a person, couple, and family. I'm so thankful to have such a good husband by my side. We have a solid relationship, and I look forward to celebrating many, many, many more years together.

We both worked on Thursday, but we still enjoyed the evening with a yummy crockpot supper and some backyard playing with Micah and Brutus. Kyle bought me some pretty tulips, making me even more anxious to get out in our yard and do some work. Last evening my parents came down to watch Micah while Kyle and I had a night out in LaCrosse. We had reservations at one of our favorite restaurants, Kate's on State at 7:30, but we ended up going down to LaCrosse a little early. We debated about going shopping before dinner, but in the end we decided to stop in at the Starlight Lounge, a fun martini bar, before dinner. It was so nice to just sit down and talk - not about work, nor Micah, but about us, future plans, and yes - houses. More on that below. Dinner at Kate's was amazing! Kate's on State is a small, upscale Italian restaurant. It's one of those places that we can only afford to go to on special occasions, because we can easily drop over $100 on dinner and drinks. We've only been there twice, but everything that we've had there has been fabulous, and last night was no exception. The Filet Mignon that I had was the best steak that I've ever had, and usually I'm not a huge red-meat eater.

4-year anniversary pictures

This weekend has also been the 1-year anniversary of our house-hunting. We've been casually looking for a new house in the Winona area over the past year. The reason that we are wanting to move is solely based on size. We love so much about our current house. We love our porches, our fenced-in backyard, and our garage. We love our landscaping. We love the charm that our house has with its wide woodwork and hardwood floors, tall ceilings, and built-in cabinets. We love our updated kitchen, our big windows, and our low maintenance siding. But, we don't love is the lack of cupboard space, our non-functional basement space and our child-sized bathtub. We've considered adding on to our house, because we love our neighborhood, but we would lose our yard space and out price our neighborhood. We have a lot of specific wants in our next house, as we fully intend to stay in the house for several years, similar to the houses that our parents live in. We've probably looked at 20-25 houses within the Winona area, but have not yet found anything in our price range that fulfills our wants. At this point, we are in no hurry, so we'll continue to patiently wait until the 'right' place comes on the market.