Christmas in Michigan

Wow, it's been a crazy week! Christmas has come and gone, and so has our trip to Michigan. On Thursday, December 20th, we celebrated our Christmas together as a family. Now I know why Christmas is celebrated in the morning - it's just too hard to get kids to settle down after a night of opening gifts from Santa! But Quinn was great, and she really got into opening the gifts this year. She tore into the paper and got so excited as each new gift was given to her. She is more in tune to what's under the paper this year, too. She got impatient more than once waiting for us to get the toys out of their boxes! Once we got her to bed, waaaay after her bedtime, Kirch and I exchanged our gifts and chilled out in front of our "Christmas Tree"... One more day until we headed for Michigan!

Friday night we picked Quinn up from daycare and took her to see the Winter Lights in Seneca Park. She loved the lights, saying "Yites! Yites!" just about every other second. When we got home, we finally got down to putting her to bed and packing for our trip. We got to bed around midnight and were up at 4am, heading for the airport. Quinn did great while we checked our bags and waited for take off. She did rather well on the plane, too. I have to say, the portable DVD player we bought a couple of years ago and have never used came in SO handy! It was the best money we've ever spent and ignored for so long! Let me tell you, that thing will get plenty of use on road trips from now on - and any flights we take in the future!!!

Michigan was fun, as always. It's exhausting going, but I'm always sad to leave when our time is up. But Quinn had tons of stuff to open between gifts from Pop and Laurie, Brenda, Carrie, Alex and Aric, Eric and Jessica, and Aunt Gail. We shipped 4 boxes of gifts home, that incidentally arrived today - so it's almost like a 2nd Christmas!

Quinn knows her Poppy and Grandma now. She really took to Pop in a big way. She'd point and say "Poppy!" It was so sweet to see her face light up when Pop would walk into her view. Grandma spent lots of time with her, too, feeding her and playing with her. It really was so nice to see them all interact, since we all don't get to spend a lot of time together.

We spent a couple of nights in the cabin - one with Aric and Alex, and one with Pop and Shane. I have some cool pictures of the new cabin. It feels like you're out West in some old one room shack - but it's the coolest shack ever!

I saw Chris Kowalski for the first time well over 10 years while I was out there. He picked us up and took us to his house in Marysville. He married Shelly Davenport and has 3 kids now. But it was like we never lost touch - it really was a great night.

On Saturday, Pop and Laurie took us to the airport and we headed home. Aside from a couple of minor meltdowns, Quinn was a great flyer once again. We made it home at about 6:30pm, dog tired. We got her into bed around 8, and then just started with our unpacking and laundry and all of that fun stuff. At about midnight, Quinn woke up with horrible croup and stridor. What a blast. She sounded like a barking seal, then every time she'd try to catch her breath, she'd gasp for air and cry some more. We called the emergency pediatric nurse and she walked us through steaming up the bathroom and sitting in there with her. Then we bundled her up and went outside for some cold, crisp air. After 2 rounds and 2 hours of this, Quinn was much better and was wanting to play at 2am! She did much better last night, just suffering lots of coughing. We took her to the doctor today just to have her checked out, and Dr. Potter says she is doing just fine. No fluid in her ears and now she just has a very nice cold :-) I'll take that over her having trouble breathing! So we avoided the ER once again - thankfully! I tell you what, our girl is tough. Through every cold and bump she has suffered, she has been a trooper. She just shakes it off, eats like a trucker and plays like.... well, a kid!

So here we are on New Year's Eve night - at home :-) Sponge and Natalie were supposed to come over, but we canceled on them, with Quinn's cold and all... So we're just hanging out at home tonight - probably watching some DVD's and going to bed early. This is the first NYE in forever that I haven't had plans! I guess this is what having a kid is all about, huh?

A Date with Elmo

I got the opportunity to take Quinn to see "Elmo Grows Up" at the Patriot Center on Saturday. It's a live show with all of the Sesame Street characters and it actually was a lot of fun. I lucked into these tickets - I chose not to buy them when the Scheleurs were going because I thought, "There is no way Quinn will sit through a show at this age - she barely watches TV!" Boy, was I wrong... she was enthralled by the characters singing and dancing on the stage! I was shocked - and pleasantly surprised at how much she enjoyed the show. She was happy to sit in the stadium style seat, and flip it up so her legs were just about at her chin. Luckily we had no one sitting around us, so she was able to get up and down from her seat without bothering anyone.

I'm not so sure about this "Elmo" guy yet...

The first act she pretty much sat and just stared at the stage. By the end of the first act, she was dancing to the music. Here is a video of just before the intermission - she was having a blast!



During the first half, Scott, Donna and the boys were sitting directly across from us. They joined us for the 2nd half and then we all went to Sweetwater Tavern for lunch. It was quite a morning, that stretched far into the afternoon! I missed that Kirch couldn't be with us - I definitely want to take her to something like this again soon!

This chair pretty much rocks, Mom........seriously, it ROCKS!

I have to say - Elmo is pretty cool!!!

First Snow, 2007

Yesterday we had our first (and probably last - ha!) snowfall of the season. Aside from the treacherous driving conditions, it really was a beautiful sight. Quinn doesn't remember last year's snow, so this was like watching it all for the first time again - but actually better, because this year I actually saw the wonder and awe in her sweet little face.

When I picked her up from daycare, we came home, ate real quick, and I actually bundled her up and we went outside for a while. Well, she was a tad apprehensive at first, but grew to love walking around in 3 inches of cold white stuff quickly. She'd put her little mittens into the snow, then lift up her hands to me, and say, "Uh Oh!" She didn't know how to get the snow off of her mittens - it was this great mystery to her, and it was just absolutely priceless.

We stayed outside for about a half hour until I was sure her little hands and feet were probably freezing. She didn't care - she did NOT want to come in! She's throwing more aggressive fits as she gets older and is starting to test her boundaries. This is not fun. But what can I do, right? Anyway, as I guessed, when I finally got her undressed and Kirch took her in to put on her PJ's, her hands and feet were so cold! Our daughter is very cold-blooded! It just doesn't bother her to be cold!

Who needs PJ's? Not me!!!

But she had a blast and here is proof...

Wow, this stuff is cool!

It Was Bound to Happen...

I take full responsibility - but it still came as a shock to me when Quinn uttered her very first curse word on Saturday morning! And it was the Mother of all curses - yep, the F word. My jaw dropped. Now like I said, I shouldn't be surprised. Kirch and I can swear like sailors, and it has finally caught up to us. Once again, I didn't give her enough credit for how smart and observant she really is.

Here I was, just changing her diaper in her bedroom on the changing pad. I can't even tell you what happened, but it made my angry, and I uttered the "word" just loud enough for her to hear it. The next thing I know, that little virgin mouth is spewing ugliness all over the place! But luckily, it sounded more like foot than f*%k. Either way, I stopped cold, looked at her and asked, "What did you just say?" Sure enough, she says "Fut! Fut!" You should have seen me, I was like, "Holy Sh..... oh crap! Oh crap! NO, QUINN, NO!!!" And her - "FUT! FUT!" So immediately I said, "Foot!" Well, she caught on to that, and then just started saying foot - so I slyly got myself out of a huge jam, but quickly told Kirch about it when he got home from work. So now we are both really, really watching our language around the Repeater nowadays :-)

Mom and Dad are on their best behavior from now on!

She Finally Knows Who She Is!

Last Tuesday morning, as I walked into her bedroom, Quinn looked at me, smiled, and said, "Dada (while pointing to the door - he had already left for work), Mama (and pointed to me), Kim (and pointed to herself)!" It's the first time she'd ever addressed herself as actually having a name, or being someone instead of "Me!" It's so great to hear her try to say her own name. She can't get the Q-U part down yet, but it's just music to my ears, no matter how she says it...

Today she has been quite the comedienne... At two different times today, she found Kirch's boxers and later his sweatpants, and proceeded to put them on for some hysterical photo opportunities. I also put out our Christmas decorations today, and found a Santa hat that she promptly asked to wear. I've got two plastic Santa Clause boots, one red and one green, that she also decided to try on. She's a real card for the camera, that girl is!