Growing like a weed

It's official. It's winter!

Aaron, Alyssa, and I are sitting in front of the fireplace up at a condo in Breezy Point (a small town in north central MN) staying warm since it's on its way to a forecasted -30 over night (air temperature, not wind chill). We enjoyed our annual long weekend up here with our friends the Krautkremers and Skluzaceks; our weekend was different than in the past as there are now 3 little girls under the age of 2 and another baby on the way in the group, but fun nonetheless. We enjoyed some time at the new pool, Ice Fest, and in the condo playing games and talking. Alyssa wasn't outside too much but she did have her first ride in a sled although she didn't know it as she fell asleep right before it was our turn to ride in it!

Ice Fest was something to see. I think there were more snowmobiles than cars there and lots of different outdoor hats and gear. We saw some pretty neat snow sculptures, stood by a fire on the snow, watched some folks play ice mini golf and cheered on the snowmobilers racing in the radar runs. It amazes me that after 4 years of coming to Breezy Point I still can be surprised by how much Minnesotans love their winter sports. It was cool to see the many different kinds of snowmobiles and how fast they can go. When we left, the fastest speed was 153 mph for one of the snowmobiles!

Before coming up here Alyssa had her 2 month check up. She weighed in at 13 lbs, 2 oz (95the percentile) and measured 23 3/4 inches in length (92nd percentile). So although she's big, she's not chubby because she's so long too (who does she get that from?). The doctor said she looked great and was a healthy girl. She also had her first round of vaccines - an oral vaccine against whopping cough, and three shots in her thighs. We gave her some baby tylenol at the beginning of her appointment, but she still felt the shots. She screamed and I cried, but 5 minutes later we were all feeling better.

Alyssa continues to grow and change. She's still sleeping through the night - usually at least 9 hours, and her neck is getting stronger each day. She holds it up really well and is able to pick it up and turn while on her stomach. She's got three good friends - Mr. Sun, Mr. Zebra and Bernie. The zebra hangs above her in her bouncy seat and Mr. Sun lights up and plays music on her activity mat. Bernie is a parrot that hangs from her activity mat. She smiles and giggle while looking at all three of them, she's just fascinated by them. Just today she seemed to start recognizing that if she moved her arm/hand, she could move Bernie and make him swing and she could grab on to his perch. Watching these small milestones and her pure fascination is a daily delight.

Alyssa will start day care next week. She's going to a in-home child care provider about four houses down from us. She'll go three days a week, and the other two days, I'll stay home with her. I think this will be a good balance for me, but I'm definitely going to miss seeing her smiles all day long. It might be a good thing that Aaron is going to take her & drop her off in the mornings.

Santa brought us a new camcorder for Christmas and we're enjoying taping Alyssa, so in addition to the photos, we're going to try including some video with this post. Once we learn how to select only a portion of our videos, we'll upload some more, but in the meantime, here's our first attempt at uploading video.Let us know how it works for you; we hope you're able to enjoy it.