Get out of jail free card...

I got one just the other day. Mary and I were discussing what we were going to do for our 2nd wedding anniversary when she said our anniversary date was the 27th. Hmmm, that's interesting because our wedding certificate claims it was the 29th.

Catching up

Once the holiday season kicked in the bloggin slowed down. So I am catching up with a bunch of photos of Anika.

Here Anika is in her car seat with her paparazzi proof cover.


Sleeping beauty...
Anika in one of her Christmas outfits


Here she is playing with her cousin Theo. When Theo was getting ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa's his dad asked him if he was bringing any toys and he replied "I don't need to, Anika is my toy".


Happy baby just hanging out...

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Anika got a lot of fun gifts from the relatives (most of them very noisy :) Unfortunately she started getting another gift...a tooth. Which made her quite unhappy on Christmas Eve during the day.

Later that night she calmed down and enjoyed the festivities.

This year Mary got a family membership to the MN Zoo, so Anika will be getting to spend some time with monkeys other than her cousins.

Having a garage is great

I am so glad we have the garage. This morning my car wouldn't start, my battery was dead. It was so nice swapping out my battery in a dry lighted garage versus out on the street in the wind and the snow.

Busy weekend

It was a busy weekend. Mary and Anika finished putting up the Christmas tree. Anika was a big help with the ornaments.

Here she is making sure mom puts the star in the right place.

Saturday was also the first time she had babysitters. Grandma and Grandpa Zilge came to watch her. Mary and I went to The New Standards annual holiday show at the Fitzgerald theater in St. Paul. Sara and Tom joined us and we went for dinner at La Grolla before hand. Dinner was great and so was the show. The New Standards always put on a good show. They are a jazz trio that take some of your favorite popular music and arrange into a jazz style. Using a piano, upright bass and a vibraphone. This year some of the songs they played were The Replacements "Androgynous", Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives" and Britney Spears "Toxic".

When we got home at about 11:30, everthing was as it should be, baby was sleeping and Grandparents were awake.

Sunday we went to the Como Zoo Conservatory. Their annual Holiday flower show had started on Saturday. I never thought I would feel under dressed at the zoo, but it seemed like every family there had on their Sunday bests. That was because they were taking their Christmas card photos. Some of them ran into problems with security, since you had to have a permit to take "posed photos", candid shots were fine.

Here is a "non-posed" photo

It was much nicer inside than outside

We went through the new Tropical Encounters exhibit, it was really nice. Unlike the rest of the conservatory they also have some animals in the mix.
Let's just say the humidity level in the exhibit is quite a bit different than in our house


That's one tall fern
If you are looking for something to do and want to get out of the cold we suggest heading here. They also have a cafeteria, while we didn't eat there, the food smelled good.

2 Months old

Saturday Anika turned two months old. Friday was her 2 month doctor appointment. This appointment included vaccination shots. There was much crying...from both child and mom. Hearing that first scream of pain, and not really being able to comfort her was hard, but she was a trooper and after a few minutes the crying subsided and she fell asleep, Anika that is.

Here are the 2 month vitals:
Weight: 11lbs 10oz 73rd percentile
Height: 23.5 inches 89th percentile

Here is her 2 month photo with lamb

Camera fun

Where's Mary? She is in the photo, trust me.

I pulled out the camera and tri-pod and decided to play around a little bit. I set the shutter speed to 15 seconds per shot. So during the photo Mary was walking around the tree in a circle, and she was "ghosted" out of the picture.

Here is another one with a 15 second exposure but she was pretty much stationary. It looks as if you can see right through her. Click on the picture and notice the blinds.

Fun at Klunds

Earlier this year the Lunds invited us, as well at the McVay's and the Rubinow's down to St. Peter to hang out and play Wii.

They asked everyone down again for this Saturday. Larry's wife had emergency gall bladder surgery, she'll do anything to avoid spending time with Scott. We are hoping her recovery is going well. Mary wasn't feeling well so she stayed at her parents house while Anika and I went down for a good time.

Here Kevin is teaching Anika her first lesson, don't fall for the old "pull my finger" trick.

Koleman is giving Anika advice as he has fallen for this trick many times.

After the kids went to bed, the adults took over the Wii and Rock Band broke out. Here is the legendary duo of Hall and Oates


A mean guitar solo

Later on the Bangles showed up

Recent pics...

I figured I would put out some recent pics of Anika

Post-bath in her flower wrap


Wearing her "Daddy Luv's Me" outfit


A little Viking fan
Entranced by Grandma Sue's animated toy from Hallmark

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was great. We did our normal traveling. From W. St. Paul to Cottage Grove for early dinner with my family. Then from Cottage Grove to Shakopee for dinner with Mary's side and finally back home to crash. While this is nothing new to us, since this is pretty much the same pattern we follow every holiday, it is a little different toting Anika around. Now our travel schedule is also dictated by her feeding schedule.

Here are a few pics from turkey day.

Anika in her Thanksgiving day dress with Grandma Zilge


Anika with the Melchior grandparents and cousins Sam, Theo and Finnegan.

Pre-Thanksgiving Tradition

For the last 10 years or so, you could find me at First Avenue the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. This year was no different.

The first 4 or 5 years Soul Asylum was playing, over the last 5 years it has become Ike Reilly's show. You never know what you will get with him. The shows are always good, but some shows he is drunker than others. This show he was a medium drunk. Sounds almost Replacements-ish.

This year my brother Ryan was able to go with me. He doesn't get to go to shows too often anymore since he is busy running his pizza place, Bella Pizza in Inver Grove Heights. We stopped in at Glueks to have a beer or two and I got the buffalo wings. This used to be one of our pre-concert stops before we headed into First Ave. Tweet and I would always grab an order of buffalo wings and quesadillas and a couple of tall beers.

I decided on the way out to get Anika a little something

Maybe someday she can join daddy for the pre-Thanksgiving tradition.

Second income...

I probably go off campus for lunch about 3 times a week. Usually I go with Mike Matzek. One day he gets a call from his wife and she informs him that Target is having a sale on formula and he needs to grab about 8 cans.

So over lunch we stop at Target and he gets 8 cans. His bill is just a few cents shy of $200. I was shocked and glad Mary is breast feeding. I asked Mike how long it takes his son Jack to go through a can of formula, it is roughly a week. Based on those numbers I figure each one of Mary's breasts is making $12.50 a week.

Speaking of Mary's breasts, I have conversations with Mary in my sleep that I don't remember. Last night was one of those times. Apparently I tapped her on her breast about 3 or 4 times, then I raised my hand and waived my finger in the air. She figures I was trying to tell her that Anika needed to be fed, or that her breasts were number 1.

Flash back...

Mary and I headed to Seattle last June to visit my cousin Kyle and his family. While we were there we headed to Pikes Place market.

While it is known mainly for it's fish...


the imported Texas pastries caught my eye.

Of course it is Seattle law that you must purchase something while you are there.

Seattle has these new high tech porta-potties. When you are done going to the bathroom they teleport you to a coffee house.

High Tech gadgets

For those of you who don't know, we are using cloth diapers. Since we aren't using a service (not that we could if we even wanted to, the last one in the Twin Cities went out of business) we are washing them ourselves. We have a couple of different styles Bum Genius, Kissaluvs, and a bamboo one by Tot Bots. Currently the washing technique is Mary scraping out the poop and then put them in the wash.

To eliminate the poop scraping Mary bought a sprayer to add to the toilet so we could rinse out the poop instead. Lucky me I got to install it. Five minutes later, she had her sprayer.

Look it comes with a super cool toilet holster.


And here it is in all it's glory.

I know Mary always hoped to have a bidet, but this is ridiculous.

One Month

Anika is one month old today. We went for her one month checkup and all is well. She now weighs 9lbs 5oz and she grew a little over an inch. This checkup was quite easy for her. I think the part that bothered her most was being naked. She would squawk just to let the doctor know she needed to hurry up, but there was no real melt down. In fact this time they took her temp through her ear. She didn't much care for the rectal thermometer last time (can't say I blame her).

If anyone had trouble it was Mary. You could see her grimace evertime Ani looked anything close to uncomfortable. We will see how well Mary does next time when Ani gets three shots. I will be taking bets on who cries more, Mary or Anika.

Here is her one month photo with Lamb. We are hoping to get a picture of her on the 6th of every month with Lamb to track her growth. So far so good...

Halloween

This was Anika's first Halloween and we spent it in Fridley with Mary's family. This was going to be the first time all the cousins would be able to go out trick or treating. Marty, Donna and Finnegan were in town. Unfortunately Finn got sick and they had to stay in Shakopee.

Anika went as a Chili Pepper.


At one point she decided she wanted her costume to be more authentic. So she tried to make her face as red as the rest of it.


Theo went as Teddy Rosevelt and Sam went as what his dad looks like after Sam has been squirreling around for a few hours.


More photos from Halloween can found here

Garage update

Last weekend I got the siding caulked. Now all I really have left to do, at least just to get me through the winter, is to finish putting up the fascia, get the final inspection on the electrical and grade out the land around the garage.

I also would like to get some shelving up for storage. My dad is coming over to help with that this weekend.

Here are a couple photos of the inside of the garage.

A post for Theo

During the course of building the garage, there was a pile of wood scraps and other stuff piling up. At some point during the summer the pile started to smell. I finally got around to cleaning up the pile and I found out why. Dead rabbit.

Unlike the mouse in Klund's post this rabbit was not well admired. In fact this rabbit was as Mary would put it "...one of those damn rabbit's". Mary didn't care much for the rabbits. They were considered garden terrorists. One day your tulips would be there, the next day they were gone.

As for the post title, if you were a nine year old boy who is interested in birds of prey and their leftovers, you would enjoy that picture as well.

Special Guest Writer

We are very lucky to have a special guest writer today. Mary

One of the greatest rewards of being Anika's mom is watching Anika's dad, aka Tall Brad, in action. Here is a sample of some of dad's best:
1. To Anika in a whipser; "Don't tell your mom, but I'm in love with another girl."
2. To me, "I never used to understand what you meant when you would say '...it makes my heart ache'. When I look at her, I now understand."
3 To Anika: after a "classic" Brad joke "That's going to be really funny to you in a few years." Hmm, I hope he gets funnier in the years ahead, but she'll never doubt how much Daddy loves her.

Thanks to everyone for sending well wishes, warm meals, and moral support our way. We hope to be sharing lots of adventures with you soon.
Mary

Backup your important data

A friend of mine, Mike, learned the hard way. He had and external hard drive that he used to store all of his photos and home movies. None of these were on his computer, just on the HD. Unfortunately his external HD crashed, so now he is hoping a tech service can recover them.

This got me to thinking about my backup solution. None, as of right now. Scooter told me that Ming is using an online service and loves it. So I will be looking into that, it is roughly $4 a month for unlimited storage.

So back up those photos and other important info before it is too late.

Woman Jailed for Killing ex-husband

A Japanese woman was put in jail after she killed her ex-husband. I know you are saying to yourself "So,what, it is not like I haven't heard of that happening before". While she killed her ex-husband, nobody really died. She actually killed her online persona's ex-husband.

Confused? Here is a quote from the story about the murder of the online virtual game, "Players in 'Maple Story' raise and manipulate digital images called 'avatars' that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles."

So basically her online husband divorced her online character. She got so mad she hacked into his computer and killed his character. But unlike the online game, the jail she is in is real. She was arrested for illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data.

Here is a the full story

The Weekend

So this past weekend we got much closer to finishing the garage. The best part is that we are now able to park in it. All that I have left for this year, is to finish putting on the facia, caulking the siding, get the final electrical inspection and have the land graded out around the garage. That sounds like a lot but compared to what I had left a couple weeks ago it feels like a drop in the bucket.

So after working on the garage most of Saturday and some of Sunday we took Anika for a walk. We would like to think she enjoys these walks, but truth be told, every time the stroller is out of the house and on the pavement she falls asleep.


This is part of Cherokee park. I have a feeling I will be spending plenty of weekend afternoons here in the future.

Near Miss

Well it almost happened. Everyone talks about how sooner or later you will get pooped or peed on. Anika came close to getting me tonight. Mary was feeding her and thought she needed her diaper changed.

So I put her on a blanket on the floor and took off her diaper. It looked pretty dry. Of course as soon as I say that, she starts to pee. I put another towel under her and wait it out. I clean her up and get another diaper. I have both of her legs in one hand and I am about to slide the new diaper under her. Just as I lift up, I hear it before I see it. As someone once said, it is like someone squeezed the mustard bottle as hard as they could. With reflexes not seen in these parts in some time I avoid the stream of poop. If there were Baby Olympics she would be a medalist. I think she cleared the blanket by a good two feet.

A quick week

It is Sunday night and what a week. Anika has been great. We have been quite lucky, she sleeps a lot and hardly ever cries.

We spent today watching the football game and visiting with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Sue.


As you can see Anika finds Coach Childress' offensive scheme a little boring.

We spent Saturday on the road. We started out by heading to Delano to get some pictures taken. Angela, a former co-worker of Mary's, is now a professional photographer. We had a blast having photos taken of the three of us and a bunch of photos of Anika. We can't wait to see them.

After the photos we headed down to Victoria to Curt, Jen and the rest of their family. They had just moved into their new home. It is incredibly beautiful. Also, now Curt has only a 45 minute commute to Thomson Reuters (I still want to just call it West) instead of an hour and fifteen minutes.

We finally got home a little after 8p.m. She slept the entire time we were in the car. Right now she is great to travel with. I am sure there will come a day when she will want to control the radio dial.

We are finally home

Everyone made it home safe and sound. We are so excited to get her home. The hospital room was getting a little cramped.


We made it through the first night with some team work. Mary let me sleep while she fed her, and then I got up and would help change her and burp her. Then Mary would go back to sleep while I rocked Anika back to sleep. She was quite alert last night, which was no surprise since she slept all day.

If you are looking to visit give us a call, we would love for you to meet her.

Anika and family

Proud mother and daughter

The proud parents
Anika had visitors today. The grand parents showed up as well as some uncle, aunts and cousins. The cousins were extremely excited to meet her and that was fun. Some other friends showed up as well. Of course she slept through every visit. We are so grateful for all of the warm thoughts and visits. Anika is overwhelmed with all of the compliments.

Here are some more photos of family and visitors . She can't wait to meet more interesting people to add their photos to this album will continue to grow.

Anika Suzanne Zilge

She has arrived and we feel so incredibly lucky.


First lets get the vitals out of the way. She arrived on Monday October 6th @ 7:38 p.m. She weighed 7lbs 6.8oz, her height was 20 1/4" and her head was 13".

Mary's contractions started at 4 in the morning. At 5 o'clock she woke me up (thanks for the extra hour of sleep honey). The contractions were about 6 minutes apart. The progressed to 5 minutes rather quickly. After an hour of contractions 5 minutes apart we called the hospital. They had us wait at home for another hour.

We finally were admitted at 8:45. At 10:30 Mary got her epidural. Funny epidural story. At one point Mary asked me to scratch her left knee. So I started scratching it through the sheets. She said "No under the sheets". So I obliged, and she said "Under both sheets". To which I replied "Honey I am scratching directly on your skin"..."Oh".

At about 1:30 they administered pitocin to speed things up. We got to the pushing stage at 5:00 and we were pretty happy with how things were progressing. Well after more than two and a half hours of pushing little Anika arrived.

If you wish to see more photos go to http://gallery.me.com/brad.zilge#100107 some of the photos seem the same, others don't.