So Much To Tell....

Wow, there is so much to tell you! What a fun week we have had! I obviously can't share everything we have been up to but I will touch on the highlights.

Last Thursday P. and I went to the Annual Wedgwood Celebration Dinner downtown at DeVos Hall. We went last year and had such a good time we made sure to go again. They serve you a wonderful dinner while you chat with other Wedgwood employees and supporters and you watch some really neat presentations on what Wedgwood does for the children of this community. It feels a little like church summer camp all over again. I came home with this spiritual fire blazing inside me after seeing how God is working through just one small Christian company. Wedgwood is a pretty amazing organization that gives so freely and unselfishly to the abused kids of Grand Rapids. You have to be a truly patient, loving and faithful person to work with these kids and Wedgwood employs a lot of these people, including my husband. Anyway, it was another great night celebrating and supporting God's work through Wedgwood. Thank you to our wonderful friends Jim, Karen and Kari who watched Pete for us while we went out on the town. We feel truly blessed to have them in our lives and part of our extended family. Here are a few pictures. Can you believe it, some pictures without Pete? I didn't think it would ever happen......On Friday one of my best friends in the whole world came to visit me from CO. Her job brings her out this way a few times a year and I am SO thankful for that. We had such an amazing three days together catching up on old times and laughing histerically over nothing really. Erin and I were instant friends from the minute we met and to this day have stayed close no matter the distance between us. Every few months I need my Erin fix to feel like myself again. We have so much fun together as you will see in the pics. She left early this morning and I miss her already.

Us at Robinette's Apple Orchard in front of the big pumpkins for sale. Pete wouldn't hold still for a picture so we smashed his face between ours to keep him looking at the camera. So funny. We made our own scarecrow at the Rockford Fall Festival. Isn't she stylish?At the Rockford Dam with the fall colors behind us. Making tacky do-it-yourself Christmas ornamets for each other. Tacky-er the better! And yesterday evening Erin took pictures of our family in front of the changing fall leaves in our neighborhood. For anyone not in MI I wish you could see the leaves changing colors. It is so beautiful.
Have a great week family and friends! Thanks for reading my blog and traveling down the road of life with me. Love, AM

Pete Turns 6 Months

I can't believe 6 months ago our beautiful baby boy came into this world. Time has flown! I can say with all my heart that this has been the best 6 months of my life. And my life was really good already. P. and I have a wonderful, loving, fun marriage. We get along like two best friends and work together like a well oiled machine. We live comfortably and happily and though there are things we want we are not in desperate need of anything. I used to think I could take or leave having kids. Now that I have Pete I know I would have missed out on the best thing life on this earth has to offer. And it is especially great with such a good partner by my side. So today I thank God for blessing me beyond what I deserve. Thank you Pete for filling my heart with so much joy it is overflowing. Thank you to my husband for being my everything.

We had some friends over today to celebrate our little boy. Here is a picture of their sons singing happy birthday to Pete with us. We made sure to eat a few extra pieces of cake for Pete since he wasn't able to have any.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Ok, so there is no snow and it isn't officially winter yet but boy did it feel like it today. It was dark and gloomy, the wind whipped through your clothes and by the time Pete and I got home from our short walk our noses, ears and hands were hurting from the cold. Well, mine were at least so I am guessing his were too. He wasn't able to confirm that for me though..... :)

How do I feel about this? Well, if you know me at all you know how I feel about being cold. I don't like it. I can see getting out of the house is going to be even more complicated now with the extra bundling and layering I am going to have to do. It reminds me of Ralphie's little brother in A Christmas Story where his mom dresses him in so much clothes he can't walk or move his arms. That is such a great movie. Anyway, back to my point......life is not quite as good this time of year here in MI. Why don't we just move you ask? Well, that is not quite as easy as you might think. We had a realtor come look at our house this week to see what we could do with it right now and he said, if you don't HAVE to move, don't. We are looking to lose quite a bit of money if we try to leave our home in this economy and housing market. Money that we don't have and if we did have it needs to go to quite a lot of other things. If we do decide to put it on the market he recommended putting it up for sale at way less than we bought it for and less than we owe. That just isn't possible. So, I guess we stay. Stay until things turn around. Stay until we have more equity. Stay until someone offers us what we need to break even. Stay until we win the lottery.......

So, we will stay and make the most of it. We will unpack all our warm clothes, slippers and blankets. We will turn on the heat and gas fireplace. We will go buy some hot chocolate packets and cans of soup and go on cold walks until our noses fall off. Well, that is a lie, any colder than this and I don't go on walks anymore. This is not going to help my quest to lose the baby weight......

Here are some pictures from our walk today. Check out this hilarious face on Pete. He said, "What is this crappy weather mom and why do I have socks on my hands????"

New Find

Pete found dad's goatee last night.

Pictures of Pete

Here are some pictures from today. Pete is such a happy boy, such a joy. Even when mom messes with his hair.....

Back from CA

We are back. Well, we got back Tuesday night but I am just now getting around to blogging about it. And it is almost midnight so I am not going to do much of that now either. But, I am happy to share some pictures with you of our trip. They kinda tell the story anyway.

Our trip was really good. Really tiring and very busy but really nice. Everyone loved Pete. He was such a sweetheart and like always such an angel. Lots of smiles and lots of love. I was so proud.

Here are some pictures. Goodnight all. A.M.

My beautiful niece Holly holding Pete. She LOVED Pete and he loved her. They became quick buddies.My best friend Kristyn, her four kids and Pete.Everyone. P., Steve my brother, Cory my nephew, my dad, my aunt Paddy, my cousin Donnie and his wife Debbie, me, Pete, my niece Holly, my mom, my sister-in-law Julie, my cousin Kaela and her husband Colin.My parents with Pete.Pete's first plane ride.Cousins.

You Know You Are Asian When.....

You know you are Asian when....... you smile and your chubby cheeks push your already small eyes closed.

The Poop is Gone!

Knock on wood, but the poop is finally gone. Thank God. After 3 weeks of a bad tummy Pete has finally dried up. What a relief. Poor little guy. We still have no idea what caused the 21 days of wet, green, incredibly stinky poop, and that kind of bothers me, but I am just glad that for a day and a half now we haven't seen it. Check out the pictures of his poop. No j/k. Here are some cute pictures from this morning.

My little champ with a diaper on his head.P. reading Money magazine to our little financial guru.

Pete Starts Solids

Today Pete ate rice cereal for the first time. He was a champ. The first few tries he was like, "What in the world is this stuff?". My friend Chele was over and gave him a whole bowl of cereal like he had been eating it all his life. He is so smart. Such a fast learner. Guess he was more ready for solids than I thought. Anyway, he ate the whole bowl and looked like he could have had some more. It was pretty neat. Brought tears to my eyes.....most things do these days. Anyway, P. was pretty excited about it and couldn't wait to feed him tonight when he got home. Here are some pics of my friend Chele and P. feeding Pete. Another eventful day in the life of Pete. Oh and keep him in your prayers. They are still trying to figure out what is causing his diarrhea. It has been over 2 weeks now and it's still bad. That is why they told me to only feed him lactose-free formula and rice cereal for a few days to see if we can clear it up. Here is his "I'm confused at what this stuff is" look.

Casino

Today we met Omi, Opa, Mike, Katelyn, Krischan and Uncle Gerhard up in Mt. Pleasant at the casino for a little food and fun.  Well, a lot of food and fun.  They have a great buffet up there and you know how much I love buffets.....  Anyway, it was a great time.  I taught Pete a little Blackjack, he caught on fast.  Thought I would start him off easy and work him up to Poker and Craps later.  No j/k.  Pete hung out in the arcade with the other kids and finally had enough fun and passed out on Opa.  Thanks for a nice afternoon Omi and Opa.  It was great to see you and Uncle Gerhard.  

Start of the 2008 NFL Regular Season

Our little Philadelphia Eagle.  (Only because I don't have a SF 49er outfit for him.)

Tonight football season started.  The Giants are playing the Redskins right now and so far it is a pretty good game.  Watching the Giants and Eli Manning brings back memories of last year's Super Bowl when the Giants were supposed to get rolled by the Patriots and they came back to win in the closing minutes.  Boy was that a fun game.  Tonight P. and I got some sub sandwiches, dressed Pete in his Philadelphia Eagles outfit and have been watching the game going on 3 hours now.  Of course we have done a lot of other things while watching the game but we always come back to the t.v. 

How do I feel about football?  I love it.  I love the SF 49ers no matter how terrible they have been over the past few years.  I am not a fair weather fan.  I am a Niner for life.  Jerry Rice is my all time favorite player.  Then Joe Montana, then Steve Young.  I thought about naming our son Nolan after the 49ers coaches.  We didn't, obviously.  I don't get to see many games living out here in MI.  We mainly get Detroit, Chicago, Green Bay and Cincinnati games which I don't get too excited about.  I used to get excited about Green Bay but not since Brett Favre went stupid.  Football to me means chips and dip, chili and cornbread and reason to curl up on the couch with a blanket and Dr Pepper.  But it also means fall and winter are around the corner.  It's a sign of the end of summer and the coming of my least favorite time of year, winter.  Not just any winter, winter in MI.  So tonight is bittersweet for me.  A start of something good and a start of something not so good.  My 49ers won't be good.  They won't be good for a long time but that's ok.  We'll hang in there.  Off to watch the RNC, it will help put me to sleep......  :)  

Labor Day Weekend

We had a great holiday weekend here in warm, sunny Grand Rapids, MI.  We finally had the summer weather I have been waiting all summer for!  Now this is more like it.  I am a warm weather person.  I like to be warm, even hot sometimes.  There is not a time I can remember when I enjoyed being cold.  So this weekend was perfect.  High 80's, low 90's, sunny, not too humid.  

I played volleyball three times this weekend.  It felt so good to get moving again.  Friday we spent the evening at a friends house across town who has a grass court in their backyard.  After playing for an hour or so we chatted around a fire pit, having drinks, roasting marshmallows getting home just in time to put Pete down for the "10 count" as P. would say.  Saturday ITT Tech took us all out for a day at Craig's Cruisers a local miniature golf/go-cart place. They provided us with pizza buffet wristbands for 3 hours of food, my kind of eating, and 2 hours of fun.  We had a blast with our good friends the Potters.  Check out the pictures.

Sunday we played volleyball with 2 other couples at a park that has sand courts.  We played at 3pm and it was hot.  The sand was hot and the sun was scorching but it felt great to use those muscles I lost way back before my neck surgery.  I am encouraged and excited to be exercising again and hopefully will gain some strength and lose some pounds if I can keep this up.  I miss being active.  Then Monday my friend Lisa watched Pete for us while we went to lunch in Rockford, MI.  Rockford is just north of Grand Rapids and we have yet to explore the cute little town.  So, she recommended a place right on the river and we ate in the window overlooking the dam.  It was so pretty.  It was such a perfect day.  After lunch we went on a walk and sat by the river eating ice-cream and talking about the future.  We went to pick Pete up about 2 hours later and of course he got rave reviews.  No problems.  No fussing.  He is such a good boy.  We appreciate Lisa so much for offering to spend some time with Pete while we spend a little time together as husband and wife.  It is refreshing for our marriage and she is happy to offer her time without anything in return.  

Then a friend invited me to play ball with a bunch of girls she knows, indoor.  Oh, so fun.  This is my second time playing with them and I love it.  Not too competitive but just enough to keep me challenged and get my heart rate up.  If all goes well I might be able to play with them every Wed and Sun nights.  Boy would I love that.  So, we will see what happens.  But right now I am having fun with it and feeling like my old self again.  

Pete is great.  No problems.  Still dealing with tummy issues so I think I might call the doctor again tomorrow and tell her things are still coming out as fast as they are going in.  P. is great.  Hopefully he is refreshed after a nice long weekend at home.  And so it is 11pm and I must go to bed.  Pete has been down for almost an hour and that is precious time for me to be wasting sitting here awake.  Hope you are well.  All my love to you.  AM

My Favorite Pictures From This Week

Mom and friend Kari taking pictures of Pete dressed up in a pink bonnet.

"I'm secure in my masculinity."
Mom thought it was funny.  
Dad catching dinner on Lake MI.
My boys.
Chillin' in my shades.

Little Ducky

I found this ducky outfit at a thrift store last weekend and had to buy it. First because it was only $.99 and second because my friend Kari loves rubber duckies and I knew she would love seeing Pete in it. P. wasn't too thrilled about the purchase or the pictures I took of Pete dressed as a duck but that's ok. I had fun with it and Pete didn't seem to mind either. Take a look at our sweet ducky.How is Pete? He is great. What a great baby. Every where we go people comment on how good he is, how sweet, how cute and how smiley. He smiles at everyone. Sometimes it seems as though he stares at people just to get their attention so he can smile at them. His 4 month doctor's appointment was last Monday and things went well. He gained about 2 lbs, grew another 3 inches and was very healthy. And he has been very healthy until this past week. He has had tummy troubles for about 6 days now and I am starting to feel sorry for the little fella. But he doesn't fuss. He doesn't complain. He just smiles. Have I mentioned yet what a great baby he is?

Blueberries

On Wednesday P., Katie and Natalie went to pick blueberries. They picked about 10 lbs and we froze about 6 lbs of them. I ate the other 4 lbs in a matter of about 2 days so we decided to go back and get more yesterday. I think this is pretty late for blueberry season but they were so good and for $1.35/lb you can't beat it. Plus we really enjoy picking fruit. It is a fun thing to do together and with Pete around this year we never got out to pick anything else. Last year we picked cherries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. You wouldn't believe all the blueberries! We ate about a pound each and brought home another 6 lbs. Pete wasn't too into it so he took a little snoozer. See pictures.