New blog

I am experimenting with a new blog. I think the other format will be easier to update, based on some mobile apps that make it easy to do on the run. I decided to do this a long time ago, and then in true indecisive-Sarah fashion, hovered in the realm of indecision and have not updated either in months!!

Check it out at macgrovemama.tumblr.com

Until further notice, all posts will be there!

Home full of love

So, I was cleaning my house the other day, or doing some domestic project at home, and I started thinking about how our home "feels" when people walk into it. This is a very soft thing, and I struggle to articulate it. We have a lovely home, full of very nice furniture and really everything we could ever want. But when people walk into it, does it feel welcoming and full of love, or does it just feel like a nicely staged house? Does that make sense to anyone? As E grows up, I want our home to be a place he feels welcome and wants to be in and bring his friends to. That is really important to me. It needs to be full of love (and I'm sure a really big gaming system won't hurt). So when I try to think about what is missing, I quite can't put my finger on anything, except food. In spite of Mike's best efforts to convince me that food does not equal love, I still associate the two. All special occasions growing up didn't just involve food, but pretty much revolved around it. Hamburgers at the lake on the 4th of July, Turkey at Thanksgiving, Grandma's kitchen at Easter, random smorgasbord of creativity for Christmas, and waffles with ice cream on your birthday. So I haven't come up with any conclusions on either question (i.e., does our home feel full of love and how do we make it that way), but my parents came to visit me 2 weekends ago with my brother and his fiance. Activities ranged from mushroom hunting (we were skunked) to rock climbing to shopping at the Mall of America. We had a great time, and I do know that for that weekend our home was full of love. Maybe it was the box of home canned goodies they brought with them? I think this will be as unrewarding to read as it was to write based on its lack of conclusion, and I would love to hear how others fill their homes with love.

Thanks to my family for visiting and filling my home with love! Here are some pictures from our weekend.

 The adorable engaged couple!

 Sharing samples at the farmer's market

 Discovering new things

 Sharing birthdays (and chocolate lava cake)

 Some Grandma and Grandpa love.

My dear husband (and our first date in a very long time thanks to Grandma and Grandpa babysitting), who is such an excellent host and fills my heart with love every day.

Mother's Day

Ahh, Mother's Day. It's kind of like a birthday where I feel a little uncomfortable with attention on me, and people being obligated to call, give gifts, etc. At the same time I do appreciate having a day to remember and appreciate my own Mother and Grandmothers, and know that I don't tell them that enough at other times of the year (or often on Mother's day, for that matter)
So, this year we decided to go up to Duluth the day before. We stayed in our favorite Sheraton. We had planned to order pizza and watch a movie after the kiddo went to sleep (we put his crib in the bathroom), but there was pizza in the lounge that evening, and I think the kiddo didn't go to sleep until we were too tired to watch a movie, so we went to bed.
On Sunday, E decided that he wanted to spend every moment of Mother's day with me, and decided to get up at 3:30. After he woke up from his first nap of the day at 7:30, Mike took him so I could get some sleep before our whirlwind tour of MN State Parks. We hit 3 of them. We started at Split Rock, where we hardly got out of the car because E was asleep. Then we drove down to Jay Cooke, famous for their swinging bridge. Here are a few photos.

 Crossing the swinging bridge - it was kind of scary over the raging river! This is just the end - you don't get a full perspective of how long it is.

 Family photo.

 We let E play in the dirt for quite a while. He was a bit tentative at first, but definitely warmed up to it.

Our two wildlife encounters. E got some smooches from a passing dog, and I saw a snake when I went off trail for a bit. We only got a photo of one!

After that, we had mother's day brunch at the Lazy Moose Cafe.

Finally we stopped at Moose Lake State Park. It is really only a lake - nowhere to hike, just a beach and a boat launch. We let E dip his fingers in the water, and went on our way.

E's first ice fishing

In May, you ask?
Thanks to the Minnesota Children's museum, yes!

The Children's museum opened for our ECFE district for one evening. They have this great toddler room where the babies can just crawl around. It's divided into different habitats. I don't know if this was the frozen tundra or what. I thought it was winter, but then realized that was not a habitat. Anyway, It was by far the coolest section of the whole room - a bit of early brainwashing for Minnesotans? Regardless, E loved yanking on this fishing pole, and I'm sure his dad can't wait to take him ice fishing!

Bathtime

It's tough to get clean when you're only in water up to your knees!!

Fun with a tissue box

You can't actually see that we are playing with a tissue box here, but it was pretty much the most amusing thing ever for E.

Mozarella cheese

The Andersons are back at the cheese making again! A few years ago we made cheese for Christmas for our families. We were confined to hard cheeses then, because we needed something that would keep for a while so we didn't have to make 10 batches of cheese the week before Christmas! I would say we met with moderate success - it probably wasn't the best Christmas gift ever, but cheese is hard to get right!
This week we decided to break out our old cheese making supplies and try again :) No longer confined to hard cheeses, we decided to start with a simple recipe for 30 minute mozarella. I'd say it was closer to 2 hour mozarella, but we would probably be faster next time. It was nothing like the time involved in making hard cheeses! Here is Mike separating out the curds from the whey.

 

After reheating the curds, they magically turned stretchy, and here is out beautiful mozarella braid.

We are going to make pizza with it. And here is our token picture of E :)

Everest climbs stairs

Mike has been training E. So far, he only goes up, but he's getting faster. This was from a few days ago and today he made it all the way to the top! While it is so fun to watch him grow and learn and gain independence, part of me just wants to hold on to him and keep him in my arms forever! I guess that would be awkward once he hits about 8 years old, but you know what I mean. It's hard to believe it has been 9 months already!

Easter

With no family in town, and a commitment and Saturday that kept us from traveling to see them, we had a pretty quiet Easter with just our family. We took a little trip up north on Sunday to the Franconia Sculpture Garden. We had driven past this place a number of times, and seen this from the road

but this is the first time we stopped, and it was lovely! We started with a picnic

There were lots of very large sculptures, and as far as I could tell kids were welcome to crawl on them. We had a basket of goodies for E. We "hid" the basket on one of the sculptures. Which, let's face it, means we set it on the ground beside the sculpture, and still had to entice him to crawl towards it.

Most of the goodies were musical instruments. I love that he likes music so much. He perks up when we turn the radio on at home, he quiets down when we turn lullabies on in the car, and music class was the one activity we could complete with at least minimal crying when he was very young.

 And one last picture. Everest with his new morocco and his matching green stroller.

We finished the day by skyping with Mike's family, and a phone call to mine.

Springtime in Minnesota!

In spite of the snow we had just last week, we believe springtime is finally here! The crocuses have bloomed, literally through the snow, and the tulips are on their way. The battle with the critters has begun, as they promptly ate all my crocuses. I can see a rabbit in the backyard eating things as I write this. In honor of easter, I will leave him alone for now. While people in Minnesota pretend to be tough about the 6 months of winter, everyone comes alive on the first few days of spring. The trails around town are full of people enjoying the weather, and there are smiles on everyone's faces. It is one of my favorite times of year!

One of my favorite things about spring is to see which of my plants survived the winter. Thanks to the healthy layer of snow we had this year, I think everything survived. Roses, Hydrangeas, grapes, and lilacs - I may be out of room to plant anything new this spring! 

We are starting to go on walks again, and got E's swing out. So far, he loves it, and I imagine we will get hours of use out of it. Our jogging stroller is finally getting some use, and I can't wait to get the bikes tuned up for long rides.We went to baby animal month at the zoo, and are hiding our eggs outdoors tomorrow. I'm starting to plan daytrips around the cities to outdoor destinations. Spring is definitely here, and as I become more Minnesotan, there is a smile on my face, too :-)

E's first easter egg hunt

Catch-up, ha! I'm starting from today and moving forward.

We took E to a community sing-along and egg hunt last weekend. E loves music, in spite of the fact that he prefers to chew on the instrument rather than play them.

 Here he is finding his first easter egg. I had to suppress my mother bear instincts when a little girl took the egg out of his hands and her mother let her. That mother will probably be me in a few years, but I struggled to not be annoyed! E didn't care :-) We're going to hide some empty eggs for him tomorrow, as again, he doesn't really care. This is surely the last easter we can get away with hiding empty plastic shells!

Long Boat Key

After the cruise, Mike had a conference so I met my friend Heather and her 3 month old son at her wonderful mother-in-law's condo. In case there is any confusion, both the mother-in-law and the condo are wonderful.
Here is E hanging out with his friend. We plan for them to be good friends their whole lives through!

The wonderful mother-in-law spent a lot of time bouncing on the ball and reading to E. She is one of the first people without blood-relation E has taken a liking to! Heather's mother was there for part of the time as well, and it was wonderful having two grandmas around. Here is Rita doing double-duty.

And here is Heather with her little one. We took advantage of the only warm, sunny day to get some good window shopping in.

Cruise #2

The same cruise, of course :-) #2 probably won't be for a few years!
We went on the "wildlife adventure" cruise in Belize, where we took a boat up the river and then went to a wildlife sanctuary. We saw wild crocodiles, howler monkeys, iguanas, manatees, and all types of birds. Here we are on our lunch break.

This was in the river. Mom thought it was plastic, until it shut it's mouth. They are so incredibly still.

E is in training to wrestle the next one to the ground.

Day 2 we went snorkeling in Costa Maya. E got to experience his first taste of sand, and in spite of the incredibly choppy weather I took him for a little dip in the water.

We also lost our camera/left it in a hammock on the beach. How do we have pictures you ask? Turns out that one of the advantages to having a ridiculously cute baby is that the random couple who finds your camera might be on the same boat and recognize you from the other 5000 people on the boat when they see the kiddo. A minor miracle, I would say.

The final shore excursion was in Cozumel, where we went to the Tulum ruins. In spite of the slight hitch of being stood up by our guide, we were able to make it to the ruins. The ruins were lovely. Cozumel is an overbuild tourist dive. Here are some pics.

Cruise #1

For the first week in February we took a cruise with my parents and my sister and her husband to the western Carribean. Once E settled down after a day or two, it was a lovely trip!

Boarding. E had a complete meltdown just in time to get us swooped into the priority boarding line with the frequent cruisers. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except that our ship was hung up in customs so we ended up waiting in the boarding area for far too long. Thanks to the meltdown, though, we were almost the first ones on the boat!

My sister pretty much dominated the flowrider. Seriously. It must have been all the years of gymnastics training!

E liked hanging out with Grandpa by the flowrider. The water, the wind, and the action - what more could a little guy want.

Formal night #1. I'm really glad I don't look as bad as I felt that night. an 8:30 meal time +a formal dress + a nursing and messy baby are not a good combination!

Stay tuned for shore excursions!

Rite of passage

E has started to eat solids, and because it feels like you must, we started with rice cereal. Here I am giving him his first bite.

That was short lived. E is apparently very independent, and only wants to feed himself. Now he feeds himself food in large chunks (think broccoli). The only way to get a spoon in his mouth is if he is in control.

It's kind of adorable if you can handle the mess!

Two at a time!

My first time with two babes! This is my friend's little boy and E.

I must admit, I was scared, but it wasn't so bad, and when at one point I had one strapped on the front and the other strapped on the back and they both fell asleep. It was short-lived, though, as I made the mistake of rookie mistake of setting the back carrier with sleeping J on the ground. When J woke up I was stuck. I couldn't comfort him without bumping E, and soon I had two crying babies on my hands!

Other Indiana activities

The rest of our Indiana trip was great. It included:
Visits to Grandma Coffman

And Grandma Bevelhimer at Pokagon

where we went swimming and sledding. I am certain Mike and I were far more excited than Everest.

We also hit a couple of museums, including the Auburn Cord Duesenburg museum

And the South Bend Chocolate Company factory tour. Yes, the hats look funny but were well worth it for the chocolate surprise we got at the end of the tour :)