New blog address!

We're switching over to a different blog address since this blog is no longer only about Anna. The new address is:

www.mischnickfamily.blogspot.com

So reset those quicklinks and see you at the other address!

Thanksgiving Celebration

Last week we headed down to Effingham, Illinois (about 2 hours SE of Bloomington) to spend Thanksgiving with Matt's extended family, the Rothe clan. Matt's parents; sisters and families; and aunt, uncle, and cousin all converged on a hotel for about 48 hours, but we all spent much of our time, including Thanksgiving dinner, in Altamont with the "matriarch" of the family, Great-grandma Rothe.

The trip was an overall adventure for all, and despite the tiredness we all felt at the end, it was definitely worth the opportunity to see everyone.

The siblings of Matt's generation (and thus the cousins of Anna's generation) were all within about six doors of each other at the hotel, so we swapped out kids at various times. Here is Seth, age 2 1/2, describing to Anna what he sees in the parking lot outside our window.

Besides getting to catch up with all of the families, we also learned what happens when Anna gets terribly overtired and overstimulated ... not something we want to have happen too often in the future :) She was completely wiped out by the time we got back to the hotel on Thursday afternoon for her nap, so tired in fact that she went into overdrive.

The crazy child was acting like a maniac running and crawling around in her pack and play, cackling and laughing hysterically the whole time. We finally decided to try and wear her out, then take a car ride so she'd at least get a little sleep for a nap on Thursday. These pictures are of Matt's attempts to make Anna tired.

She kept crawling frantically towards the top of the headboard, then Matt would grab her legs and pull her back down so she'd literally fly a few feet backwards. Anyway, the plan to get her to nap worked in the end, but because of her lack of sleep, it was no suprise to us when Anna came down with a pretty nasty cold Saturday night.

Overall, we had plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, including a wonderful family, safe travelling, happy memories and good food :)

Friends and family

Last week Anna and I took a day trip over to Milwaukee to spend some time with Gretchen and Josh. We're SO sad they moved! Anna and Josh hit it off right away; we're not sure if they actually remember each other, but they definitely get along very well still. Josh was great with sharing his toys, but he often wanted to join Anna whenever she sat on one of his riding toys :) Unfortunately we had to cut the trip a little short since Anna refused to nap at Josh's house. We managed until a little after 2 p.m. before I decided we needed to go so Anna could get some sleep in the car.


My parents stayed with us Tuesday night and Wednesday morning while on their way to Chicago. Anna thoroughly enjoyed looking through a Wood magazine with Grandpa for about a half hour after breakfast and then she had a great time with Grandma at story time. This one isn't at our local McFarland library, but it has a GREAT toddler's story time designed specifically for 1-2 year olds!


We headed out to lunch afterwards together and Anna was a model toddler at the cafe, especially since she got to eat a plate of fresh fruit and a tasty grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

The rest of the week was relatively low key. Now that the weather is getting colder, we're discovering a lot more morning activities for toddlers around Madison. For example, we learned recently there are tons of open gym opportunities here, but most cost money. However, some people from our church are trying to start up an open gym time in our church's multipurpose gym space on Tuesday mornings ... for free :) Should be fun!

Anna really enjoys helping me with whatever it is I'm doing. Sometimes I appreciate this and can take advantage of it a bit better than at other times. For example, it's easier to have her help me "unload" the dishwasher by letting her put her plates and cups away than it is for her to help me load the dishwasher with dirty silverware.

Last week one evening I thought it'd be fun to let Anna help me with dinner by putting some cheese into the soup I was making, especially since she's good at doing this kind of thing one piece at a time. She loved it! Now I just have to figure out how this can work with other meals, too :)



And finally, we got a couple inches of snow last night and Anna was excited to see it out our patio door this morning. Before we got in the car to run errands this morning, we simple HAD to spend about 20 minutes trapsing around in the snow making footprints and just generally exploring. Can you believe it didn't take any suggesting on my part for Anna to taste the snow?

"firsts"

We've had a handful of "firsts" in our home over the past few weeks; I forgot to mention some of them last week because of the other big family news.

The first "first" has been the appearance of Anna's first molars. We noticed two on the bottom coming in about two weeks ago and then last week two more on the top started poking through. We'd heard that these can take a long time to come through all the way, but Anna's don't seem to be taking too long; the first ones are almost completely through already. Anna doesn't seem to be too bothered by them other than a pretty variable appetite and some crabiness that we can't otherwise pin down.

Another "first" we've had has been the introduction of stickers into Anna's play. Sadie loaned some to Anna during church a few weeks back and Anna was enthralled, so I picked some up at the store. She especially loves putting them on her chest, or on Mommy or Daddy. The face stickers in this picture were positioned by us :)

In addition to Anna's firsts, my "first" trimester is pretty much over. I've been starting to get some energy back and I can even manage most stinky diapers without a clothespin now; I just have to take deep breaths through my sleeve :)

Unfortunately, I wasn't completely over my nausea before Anna came down with her "first" case of the stomach flu late last week. We'd all been pretty blessed so far in that Anna's only sicknesses have included coughs, a runny nose, the croup (last winter) and sometimes a fever. We'd known for a few weeks that the stomach flu was making its way around the families at our church so I wasn't too surprised when Anna threw up all over the kitchen floor on Friday morning. At least it was in the kitchen and BEFORE we'd left the house to run errands that morning. Anna seemed pretty under the weather on Friday and Saturday, but we opted to stay home from church on Sunday, too, since she had a pretty disgusting diaper right before we were going to leave. All seems better as of today. The picture below was taken on Thursday night before we knew Anna was sick. Maybe we should have had some sort of idea :)


Finally, today we seem to have gotten our "first" real snow here in Madison, or at least at our house. We've been having flurries off and on now for a few weeks, but in the past hour we got about an inch of snow to stick in the grass. Nothing major forcasted any time soon, but looks like we need to be ready for it!

Baby picture?

This isn't exactly a baby picture of Anna, but it's one of someone who will have a big impact on her life ... her little brother or sister! That's right ... we're expecting baby Mischnick #2 this coming May. Our official due date at May 22 so that puts us at almost 13 weeks, almost the end of the first trimester (hooray)!

This pregnancy has gone incredible smoothly thus far, with only the "normal" tiredness and queasiness. Thank goodness I was able to take naps with Anna early on; maybe if I'd been able to do that when I was pregnant with Anna, I wouldn't have had such terrible migraines. Anyway, the worst part has probably been the "yucky tummy feeling" (as I liked to put it) which often coincides with Anna's poopy diapers. I discovered pretty early on that a clothespin on the nose does wonders for that little, or big, job. Matt, lovingly, has taken care of those stinky jobs whenever he's home :)



Anna has pretty much no clue right now about what to expect with a new baby (and neither do we), but how could she really? We're just strongly encouraging her loving care of all her stuffed animals. Now they often get "fed" after Anna eats and will even get rocked in the great doll cradle that my Grandpa Colba made for me some 25 years ago. Great practice for being a good big sister, right?



These pictures are from Anna's first real adventure with play-doh the other night. She doesn't exactly have the dexterity to manipulate the play-doh; instead she just likes taking it out of the jar and putting it back in. When I asked her to look up at me, this was the face I got :)

Last bit of news ... Anna has mastered the signs for "help" and "please" this past week. She will initiate the help sign on her own even ... hooray! "Please" still requires a bit of prompting, though :)

Wild animals and cheerleaders?

For Halloween, Anna was a giraffe, although she was mistaken for a horse by several people. Our trick-or-treating consisted of walking to a few houses with our neighbors, Jenny, Travis, and Carly (the 19 month old wild cat in the picture).

The girls didn't really seem to care too much, but it was fun to see them stand at the door of the neighbor's house while 14-year-old Angie answered it and gave them both candy.

Anna also got to try her skills as a cheerleader this weeked. Grandma Barb gave Anna a Packer's cheerleader outfit the last time we went to see them and we figured that since she probably wouldn't wear it too many other times, she got to sport the outfit on Sunday at church.





Of course, being in prime Packer country up here, she got many compliments on the ensemble :) But really, who can resist a smiling toddler running around people's legs after church trying to find someone who will play peek-a-boo with her around a couch. Too bad she hasn't really ever been up much to see one of the games. Maybe if she were they wouldn't lose in overtime!



Anna really got the easy weekend of the three of us this weekend. We decided that with the gorgeous weather (60s and 70s at the beginning of November?!?!) we needed to do our winterizing. That meant that on Friday (Matt had already taken the day off), we hauled 4 truckloads of firewood into the basement. Of course Matt had done all the prep work over the past few years (you know, cutting down the trees, sectioning up logs, splitting and stacking the wood), but we still had to load it all into the truck, drive it across the yard, drop it down the window well chute into the basement storage area, and then stack it. Anna's favorite part was riding around in the truck :)

Then on Saturday, we deposisted somewhere between 10 and 15 cubic yards of manure on our garden to help "feed" it for next year (as the farmer down the road says). This entailed Matt manually loading up the truck with rotted, yet still pretty wet and heavy, manure; using the truck unloader to dump it on the garden; and then I put on the "yuck" boots and pants to shovel it around the garden. Again, Anna's favorite part was riding in the truck :)

The reason I share these two stories is because by Saturday night Matt and I were EXHAUSTED and didn't have the energy to do much but lie on the floor in the basement and watch Anna play. Somehow it all worked out; we'd just cleaned and moved some of her outside toys inside and she ended up playing with her slide for at least an hour. All manner of toys were brought to the top and pushed/thrown down. She'd follow them down, find another, run back to the stair and start the whole process again ... for an hour. By the way, muscles we had forgotten we had are still pretty sore today.

Tractors and pumpkins

Since we have a pretty consistent routine right now with our weekdays (music class, story time, Bible study, and playing both inside and outside), most of our noteworthy events tend to happen on the weekend. Yesterday was definitely one of those exciting days for our family. We didn't have any "official" plans this weekend besides going to church on Sunday morning so on Saturday we thought we'd make the most of it.



After running errands in the morning and playing outside a bunch in the chilly fall weather, Matt took Anna on an off-roading tractor ride around the yard and slightly into the field. Both participants had hearing protection, but I think Matt enjoyed the experience more than Anna. The only time she really smiled was when she saw me waving at her.

Then yesterday evening we decided to carve the big pumpkin that came out of our garden. Anna was not exactly sure what to do with the pumpkin for a long time.

She watched me as I pulled out seeds, but adamantly shook her head no when I'd ask her if she wanted to put her hand in. Finally she thought it was her job to take the seeds I'd pulled out and put them back IN to the pumpkin.

For those of you who didn't know, Anna's been pretty sensative to loud, unexpected noises so we try to prepare her if something is going to be loud. But now she recognizes it when we say, "This is going to be loud, Anna" and starts crying before she even hears it. Anyway, as you can see in the next picture, Matt prefers to carve pumpkins with power tools (it really works better!) and when we were prepping Anna for the noise, she started crying. But after the jigsaw actually started, she realized it wasn't that loud after all and went over to check on Daddy to see what he was doing. Every time she's seen the pumpkin so far since we carved it, she's gotten really excited and waved at it :)