Time Flys WAY too fast!

It is hard to believe that Miss Annabelle is 13 weeks old. It is already time for her to start day care and for me to go back to work. (tear). Although we've been cooped up in the house for the last 3 months (4 months for me - thanks to bedrest) we have had a good time. We got to miss out on the endless snowy commutes, negative 20 degree days and instead just sit at home, watch TV and snuggle.
I am looking forward to interacting with adults, but I will definitely miss my time home with Annabelle. She will be attending the same in-home infant day care Andrew did - Linda's!! yay! We know she will be well taken care of and will learn so much.
We recently made a trip to Green Bay. Here's Mr. Andrew hangin out in the car with his ipad. What started out as Mom & Dad's ipad has quickly turned into Andrew's ipad. He maneuvers around it better than we do.
Here we have Andrew, Grandpa and Nikolas. We discovered it is impossible to get all 3 boys to look at the camera at the same time, so this is the best picture I got. No one is sticking their tongue out, flashing the camera or making a crabby face.
If you don't already know, we are planning to baptize Annabelle on Sunday May 22nd after the 6:15pm mass. You are all welcome to join us!

Koko Cave

For the past couple months I would come downstairs and find all of the rugs in our house scrunched up into balls and it was driving me nuts fixing all of them. At first I thought it was Andrew messing with me, but then I noticed it was happening during the day when he was at preschool. I snapped this picture of the guilty party. Since you can't train a cat I guess I'll have to learn to live with it or live without rugs. Silly Koko!

Burrrr.... Winter in Minnesota.

While the weather outside has been quite frightful, we've been keeping ourselves busy inside. This weekend we visited the Mall of America. Like many other Minnesotans we tend to avoid the MOA unless one of our touristy family members begs us to go, but it felt like a fun thing to do on a cold winter day. Andrew loves the Underwater World and Lego Land. We found a life size "Woody" made out of Legos (see above). Andrew got to buy a Lego Buzz to assemble with Daddy.
Yesterday we enjoyed the Packer victory with our friends the Genovaldi's. In case you don't know, the Genovaldi's are from Chicago and big Bear fans (ugh). This has been an interesting season with them. The best part of the game (other than the end) had to be when their 5 year old daughter said "Daddy, why don't you just cheer for the Packers already!"
Annabelle is growing like a weed. She seems like she's doubled in size since we brought her home. She's smiling and laughing now. We'll see the doctor next week for her 2 month checkup. Andrew is really enjoying being a big brother. He talks to her all the time and offers to watch her. He's looking forward to her sharing a room with him. She's been sleeping in Mom & Dad's room, but soon she'll be making the move to Andrew's room. She's been such a good sleeper, probably better than Andrew is now. She gives Mom & Dad at least 6-7 straight hours of sleep a night.
Littlest Packer Fan.
Mommy, Annabelle and Andrew at Underwater World.
Andrew and Daddy checking out the new Ambulance at the new Chaska Medical Center. We went on a tour of the new place.
We are looking forward to seeing everyone in Green Bay in a few weeks!

Awake!

Hey, she is awake once and a while!

1st Christmas / 1st Bath

We owe you some new pictures. This is Annabelle's typical position... sleeping. The general consensus is that she looks just like Andrew. As long as she's sleeping, we agree. When she's awake and you can see her big brown eyes, then she looks more like Mom.
Here she is getting her first bath at home. Andrew has been an amazing little helper. He retrieves (that's a better word than "fetches", right?) anything we need. He runs to Annabelle as soon as she starts crying (which, thanks to her colic-like behavior, is very often). When he goes to her, he'll say to her "It's ok, it's ok" -- so cute!!
Here's a rare picture of Annabelle with her eyes open. She loves bath time. (By the way, this is the last time you will see a naked picture of our daughter on the internet!!)
Andrew in his Thomas the Train jammies, playing with his Thomas the Train.
We had a great Christmas in Minnesota this year. Andrew was spoiled rotten with all the toys. He was completely obsessed with opening presents. He opened all of his, all of Annabelle's and even helped Mom & Dad open theirs. He was really good about waiting until Christmas to open the presents, but after that, anything wrapped was fair game.
This was the first year we got to test out our "Santa" skills. I think it was more fun for Mom & Dad than it was for Andrew. He left out cookies and milk for Santa and was even convinced he heard Santa's reindeer on the roof (it sounded a bit more like David tapping on the wall). He went to bed early and all his presents were there in the morning. By far the funniest moment of all was when he opened his new bike from Santa and then turned to Mom and Dad and said "Remember when we picked this out?" haha - guess we're not as smooth as we thought we were. He's still convinced Santa brought it, so I'm not sure where that comment came from.
Hope you all had a great Christmas. We didn't get a Christmas card out this year, but I promise a birth announcement is in the mail to you right now.