Waiting on Baby

There's been no significant baby activity yet. Today is Laura's official due date. She had a follow-up visit with her doc on Friday, and apparently the doc said she'd be very surprised if Laura made it through this weekend without having the baby. We'll see. If nothing happens today she has another visit and they'll talk about how long to let it go before deciding to induce labor. I don't think it'll come to that.

There's been lots going on this week. Laura had her "retirement party," on Monday. Things went well, and she wasn't too sad to be potentially calling it quits with work for good. I've been wrapping things up with my work (done at the end of the month). Things really slow down at the end of the academic year. I don't have any more talks to give, so it's mostly administrative stuff now and preparing to usher the next year's chief resident group in.

We also have been working on buying a lake lot in Willmar. I got the financing in order with our bank, and we just met up with my dad yesterday to go over the paperwork for submitting an offer. We'll see what happens. It is quite exciting.


Yesterday we also got our families together up at Jen and Lucas's place. Azalea hadn't seen her cousins for a while and she had lots of fun playing with them. She especially liked Jonah's castle bed. She kept climbing up there and got quite mad when we'd pull her down. She was very gentle with Logan and even gave him a hug and a kiss! It was pretty cute, and we're hoping she'll be that loving with her new baby sister. Azalea was also very thrilled when Emily gave her one of her care bear doll's to keep. Thanks Emily!

Emily just graduated from her kindergarten class. We got to watch a video of the ceremony, including Emily's costume and singing, and got to have some of her graduation cake. Congratulations Emily... or Felicitaciones Emily, Estamos muy orgullosa de ti!

More fun at the farm

Wow, another trip to the farm this weekend. It seems like we've been there every weekend in May. It is a fun place to visit of course, but we're always on business as well. We went for a second look at a piece of property that we may be putting an offer on. We do like it a lot, and are really getting into the idea of builiding a house out in Willmar now. It would likely be a lot of headaches (and a lot of money), but pretty rewarding to get the house we want with all the features we're looking for.

It was great weather for our visit to the farm. While Laura and I were out looking at the lot, Grandma and Grandpa were hanging out with Azalea. She had them outside literally all afternoon. Grandpa Foster said she wore him out. We had some fun playing with bubbles on their new porch in the backyard. I put some videos below. It's pretty funny to see how Azalea likes to keep track of Kiki all the time, listen to her try to call her back when Kiki goes and sniffs in the dirt.

Laura is T-minus 7 days from her due date. She's been tired, but doing quite well otherwise. We spent part of the time this weekend getting ready for the new baby. The overnight bag is packed, 2nd carseat in the car, newborn diapers and clothes back out, plan (sort of) in place for what to do with Azalea when Laura goes into labor, etc. It's pretty exciting, but is going to be a major adjustment when the baby gets here. We're hoping Azalea does OK without being the constant center of attention.

Laura is now 38 weeks pregnant. I suppose that means the baby could come at any time, but we're hoping for closer to the due date of June 7th. There's been no activity yet, so I'm thinking she'll have a while yet (but I've been wrong before). This weekend is Laura's last weekend to work. After today she has only 3 days of work remaining... possibly ever. Of course she'll be starting a much more difficult career... full-time mother of two young children.

Speaking of children, Azalea has been a handful this week. She's really into declaring her independence. She loves to be outside, but keeps throwing tantrums whenever we try to hold her hand in (or close to) the street. Our neighborhood is not the most kid-friendly.... people drive way too fast. She's also into throwing tantrums when it's time to come inside, when she wants to watch videos but we try to do something more educational with her, when she wants fig newtons instead of pasta and veggies, when she wants to climb on the furniture, when she hits kiki and we say no, when we try to clean off her face or hands.... the list can go on and on. I guess this is what it's like to raise a toddler. She still has many times during the day when she's a sweet girl, and is doing new things just about every day. We of course still love her very much and have lots of fun with her. She's just a bit more challenging now. Be ready for her if we bring her to your house anytime soon!

Yesterday (Saturday), while Laura was working, Azalea and I went to the farm. I wanted to look at some lake properties out by Willmar (toying with the idea of building a home now), and Azalea hung out with grandma. Azalea has lots of fun running around the farm. Out there she doesn't have to hold hands when she's out for a walk. She gets spoiled, and it makes it all the more difficult when we come home. She certainly loves the open space though! Seems like she will turn out to be a country girl after all. We snuck in a quick pontoon ride on the lake before I headed out, and Azalea had lots of fun on the boat... that is, until she tried to lean on the side of the boat. I didn't like that of course, and said no... then came another tantrum (a particularly bad one).

Weekend Update

Another week has gone by. Laura's now full term! (37 weeks) We don't have a whole lot else to report from the week other than yesterday's activities. We went back to Willmar to look at some homes. We took second looks at 2 homes. The first we really like. It is a nice home on a great lot/nice lake just outside of town. Unfortunately, though, it looks like the home may have a moisture problem. All the windows show evidence of moisture damage/rot. We were thinking we were going to make an offer until we saw this and a few other issues with the house. It's not out of the running, but we're a lot less excited about it now. The second one we looked at is a very nice house, very large and elegant. We were able to see the previous owner's disclosures, though, and again were scared off. Apparently there was a pipe that burst in the home 2 winters ago, and caused a huge amount of damage... ceilings/walls caved in and the like. We noticed there was a mold spot on the basement floor cleverly covered up by a couch. No thanks! So we're still looking. Now we're toying with the idea of building our own place, but not sure if we're up for the challenges that entails.

Azalea of course had a great time out at the farm again. She really loves the open space, and the ability to just roam around in the grass. She came to both houses for a while too, and had lots of fun exploring the new spaces. Lately Azalea has been really loving to Kiki... giving her hugs all the time, petting her (instead of hitting her), and taking her for walks. It's pretty cute. Of course she still really loves Elmo as well. Here's a few pics from earlier this week.

Giving Elmo a bottle.

Brushing Elmo's teeth.

Where's Azalea? This is one of her versions of hiding.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers checking out our blog. Unfortunately Laura had to work today, so it wasn't much of a Mother's Day for her. Azalea and Kiki did get her some flowers though, and we had a picnic lunch for her at work, so hopefully it was still OK for her.

I decided to put in some pictures from the last year of Laura and the babies. She does a great job as a mommy, and we often don't give her the thanks she truly deserves. We're proud of you Laura! Thanks for all you do for our family!

Real Estate Week

Well it has been another busy week. Laura and I both worked a lot during the week, and then this weekend we headed out to Willmar to look at some homes. My dad is actually helping us out, working as our buyer's agent. We looked at 5 very nice, big homes in the area... 2 of which were lake homes. It actually was a bit exhausting, but obviously helpful. One house is leading the candidates right now, but it's pricey so we are hesitant to leap into anything.

Azalea had lots of fun hanging out at the farm while we were house hunting. She was really excited because both sets of grandparents were there... a rare treat! Needless to say she got a bit spoiled this weekend.

Nothing is happening with our house-selling adventure. We had no showings this week. Right now there's 336 townhomes for sale under 200K in our city and the neighboring 2 cities. It's pretty saturated. We are probably going to have to lower our listing price to keep people coming through. It's not a lot of fun to be on the selling side right now.

One nicer day this week Laura took Azalea outside to play in the yard, and she was rather fond of the Azalea plant laura recently bought (that's one of the flowers in her hand). Isn't she growing up fast? She's 18 months old now.

Pointing at airplanes (one of her favorite things right now). Kiki looks a bit sad to be trapped inside.

Boy Azalea's got it nice at the farm. Her own flat screen TV (so she thinks) with a built-in DVD player. Her own kid-sized rocking chair, and her own bed (handy Manny toddler bed that grandma just got). In this picture she waving bye, bye to the Backyardigans (her new favorite DVD).

Grandma Karen got to put some bands in Azalea's hair, and she kept wanting more, so grandma kept going.

This week

She's quite into hats right now, and pretty much always wants to have one on.

Hanging out by the fish at the zoo (one of her favorites).

The grizzlies were wrestling and having fun (they're her other favorites at the zoo).

We don't have too much to report from this week. Laura is finally over her cold, and feeling much better. She hit the 34 week mark today in her pregnancy.... only 6 or so weeks to go (June 7th is the actual due date). Azalea had a good week. Laura took her to the zoo one of the days this week, and as always Azalea had a blast. She also has been letting us know when she needs to go potty now, so we bought a potty chair and she's actually been using it! She's growing up so fast. I had the joy of cleaning out a big nasty dump from the bucket a couple days ago... which was kind of nasty, but hey daddy was proud of his girl.

We hung out with Nick and Andrea on Saturday, as it was Nick's birthday. We had a lovely meal at the OG (Olive Garden). Nick and Andrea are doing great... expecting their little one in August. Andrea is 25 weeks now, so showing off her pregnancy well. Azalea did really well at the restaurant, despite the fact that they brought our food to the wrong table so we had to wait twice as long. Because of the mistake we got free dessert which was a nice trade off!

There's not too much to report on our quest to sell our townhouse. We only had one showing this week, and apparently the buyer really liked it... but she looked at over 20 others and put an offer in on one she looked at the next day. The market is really saturated around here, especially with other townhouses (and several foreclosures). We are excited though, to be going to look at a couple homes in Willmar this weekend.