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