Monday, December 16, 2013

A little bit of a hiatus

April?  Seriously, April?  I cannot believe it's been 7 months since I last blogged. . .

I guess between the boys, work, interrupted sleep and life in general, I shoved this blogging thing on the back burner. . . like way back, like the burner on the stove in the basement that's not plugged in sort of back.

Anyway, Tate has since turned 3!!!  Damon is now 9 1/2 months and walking!!!  Gotta keep up with his big brother.  And we are in the midst of preparing for the holidays.  It's been so much fun this year, Tate actually has a "wish list" for Santa and can barely wait to rip open his gifts.  Damon doesn't care about the gifts, but they make nice steps and obstacles for him to climb on.  When we had family pics with Aaron's family awhile back, we were able to snap a few pics of just our family.






Wednesday, April 17, 2013

This and that. . .

No story or captions, just a few shot from the past 7 weeks since Damon has been here :)








Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Happy Easter!

      First Easter as a family of four.  Tate was all about the egg hunt this year.  A lot of "oh! I found another one!"  Unfortunately, due to the weather, all of the Easter egg hunts were indoors.
     Palm Sunday we spent celebrated Easter in Radcliffe with Aaron's family.  Unfortunately, Tate missed with egg hunt again this year, he got pretty tired after lunch and needed a nap.  But the other kids left his eggs alone and he got to hunt for eggs with cousin Ayda when he woke up.
     Easter Sunday we went to church, had a quick brunch and egg hunt at my parents then went home for naps.  After naps we headed to Grandpa Loren and Grandma Kathy's house for supper.  My cousin Jennifer and her boyfriend helped Tate with an egg hunt, once again, he loved it.  He had so many egg hunts this year, I think he expects to continue to find eggs with treats inside the rest of the year.


Happy Easter!


What do you think Great Grandpa?



Monday, April 15, 2013

Baby Damon's Birth Day!


      So, here are some of the details:

2/25/13:  1 day overdue, worked 8 hrs and heard a lot of "you're still here?" and "you poor thing"
      4:30 pm:  Came home, chased Tate up and down the hallways.  Eviction notice issued.
      6:50 pm:  After supper Tate and I got down on our hands and knees to wash the floor.  Let's go!
      9:30 pm:  Running up and down the stairs.  Take no prisoners!
    11:00 pm:  Watching tv and beginning to realize that this baby might actually be listening. Hmm...
    11:20 pm:  Let's do a load of laundry, take a shower, finish packing, fold some laundry. . .
    11:58 pm:  Timing the contractions . . . for the next 2 hours . . .
2/26/13:
      2:00 am:  "First nurse? Can I come to the hospital?"  "No, wait a bit longer."
      3:30 am:  "Aaron- get up, it's time to go to the hospital!" And then Tate wakes up!
      4:00 am:  After the last snuggles with Tate as an only child (tear), we are on the road to MGMC.
      4:30 am:  Admitted to the hospital and they are not sending me home without a baby!
       . . .          IV started, epidural completed, and feeling pretty good.
      9:15 am:  Finally complete, let's start to push. . .
      9:37 am:  And now we are a family of four!  Sooo worth all the waddling, pain, pushing, and time.
                           

Right before I donned the hospital gown, so happy to finally be in labor!  @ 4:30am. . .
And right after Damon was introduced to the world 5 hrs later @ 9:37am
First photo of our family of four

A lot of silly boys on my hands now

Smooches for his new brother

Bliss

Monday, April 8, 2013

Baby hiatus

     My last post was just 6 days before baby Damon joined our family.  Unlike Tate, this child decided to stay in my belly past his due date by 2 days.  Damon Jon arrived at 9:37am on February 26th, weighing 8 lbs 15 oz and 22 inches long with lots of dark black hair and chubby little cheeks.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  These were all taken while in the hospital when he was just 2 days old.













Monday, February 18, 2013

Changes and excitement

No new baby in the Stensland family yet.  But the expected little boy has sure got this Momma "nesting" and so we've gotten a lot of projects done in the past month or so.  We've also tackled the potty training hurdle with Tate.  He'll be 2 and a half come mid-March and since I wanted to try to get at least one child out of diapers before bringing a new diaper wearing baby into the home, we attempted the "one day potty training" method, with some tweaks here and there.

(Disclaimer- lots of talk of potty and poop in the next paragraphs)

On a Friday that I had the day off from work, I took Tate out of his diaper in the morning and let him run around bottomless or with his swimming trunks on (his choice).  Unfortunately, according to the plan, we weren't suppose to leave the home all day and it was just suppose to be Tate and I one on one all day.  I had an Ob-gyn appointment late morning, so we packed up, went to the appointment and ran a few errands.  By the time we were back home mid-afternoon, nap time was over and we were back to no diapers and potty training.  The time we were away from home, we didn't have any successful potties, but I didn't have unrealistic expectations either.  The rest of the evening went well, many successful potties.  And after he went, we'd put a sticker on his potty sheet and shout "I'm the best!"

Saturday we did the same thing, stripped the diapers, told him that we were throwing away all the diapers and that we don't pee in our underpants, which a phrase Tate repeats quite often these days.  Saturday was super successful, lots of pee and even some poop in that little potty chair.  That's been about ten days ago and we've had a few accidents and some trouble with pooping on the potty, but we're on the right track.  Yay for Tate! (We say that a lot too)

Potty training trunks
Onto the projects:  

We moved Tate into his new "big boy" room shortly after his 2nd birthday back in September, but just recently got the decorating done.  We kept the crib in the baby room and got some new furniture for Tate's bedroom, painted a navy stripe on Tate's wall (the same height as his height when he was born 21.5 inches, just for memories) and hung up some pictures and decor.  Tate loved his new paint, he kept asking me, "Is that my name?"  Not sure why he thought paint and name were synonymous, but all the same, funny to me. 


Tate's room

Tate's room too

Another project we conquered was installing new closet systems.  All three of our bedrooms previously had one long bar for hanging clothes and 2 shelves above it.  Since all three bedrooms will be occupied, Aaron and I have to share a closet now, so we needed to make the best use of the room available.  I did a little research on Lowe's website and got some Rubbermaid closet systems.  Aaron, my father in law, Mike and my Dad all got together on a Saturday to put these together for me.  Mom, Molly and I were in charge of keeping Tate out of the way and spackling/painting the closets as fast as possible to keep the guys moving.  So happy to have these done and a bit more organization.  Aaron and I have the best parents in the world!

Master closet (not my kind of master, but it must do)

Baby closet
Tate's closet


With the help of my Mom and sister, we repainted the baby's room, hung the pictures, shelves and cleaned up ready for baby.

Baby room

New glider put together by Aaron and Cami


 And finally, took down the super dated cream colored draperies in the living room and installed the new curtain rods and drapes.  Crappy picture, but I love them!
New curtains




Tuesday, January 15, 2013

And the final Christmas. . .

The Saturday after Christmas we spend at the farm with my parents and the rest of the family.  After an early nap, we had a late lunch, opened gifts and played outside on the drifts until the sun went down.

Lucky duck Tate got a new glider/balance bike so he'll be all set to ride laps around the culdesac this summer.  But at this point, he's much more content wearing his helmet and letting others push him.  Great workout for your legs, not so great for your lower lumbar.

My mom got a fancy new camera for Christmas, so I only took a few pics on my own camera and a lot on hers.  Mine are downloaded, hers are not.  This is the only shot worth posting, nice.


He's eating a pickle, which he likes, so I'm not sure why such a face. . . 

Monday, January 14, 2013

Christmas again

Christmas day we woke up in hopes Santa had visited.  At 2 years old, Tate knew Santa was coming, he knew he would bring presents and books.  But I still think he was a bit too young to fully understand the Santa/ Christmas concept.  We also sang a lot of "happy dirpedbay to Jesus"   

This may have been our last Christmas where we didn't really have a "wish list" of toys that Tate really really wanted.  And because he was mostly about opening the gifts, we were good to go when I wrapped up some new clothes along with toys.  Both sets of grandparents came down for brunch and to watch Tate open gifts and to spend some family time together on Christmas day.

We were able to be home all day because we didn't need to go to my grandparents home til late afternoon.  So Tate took a great nap at home and then we headed across town to my grandparents for the big Handeland family Christmas and kumla supper. 



checking out the stockings and Santa stuff

yee haw mickey!

"Is this my present?"  We heard that a lot this Christmas

Not sure if we're saying "no-no" or "stay."  Either way Chewy probably listens better than Tate :)

And the big tada. . . a playhouse!  Yay- Tate fits great, his prego Mom, not so much




Thursday, January 10, 2013

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we headed up to Iowa Falls to celebrate Christmas with Aaron's immediate family.  Aaron and Papa took Tate, cousin Claire and cousin Emma down to the frozen river to sled and play outside before it was time to open presents.  They had a blast on the sleds and playing in the snow.  We spent the afternoon snacking, opening gifts, playing and relaxing.  After supper we went to church service, looked at Christmas lights and then headed home to get ready for Santa to visit.  



Aaron pulling Tate & Claire, Papa pulling Emma
Daddy & Tate
Emma, Claire and Tate
Papa & Tate

Ah, come on Tate!  Almost a good pic 
Aaron pulling Tate up the hill, he was clinging on for dear life

Tate is now ready to help Daddy trim trees
I think at this point Tate was building a "cage" of wrapping paper and boxes
Drew & Tate bouncing on his new trampoline