Wisconsin Dells

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week Amelia, myself and my parents met some cousins in Wisconsin Dells! Before our cousins arrived we went on an Original Duck tour!



Somehow Amelia managed to fall asleep part way through the tour!


We stayed at a hotel that had a huge indoor and outdoor waterpark included as part of your room cost. Amelia had a blast in the kiddie areas. She was not a fan of anywhere she could not touch but had fun in wading pools and on kid waterslides :)

I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was playing with kiddos and was wet most of the time! I did get at least one picture of each baby though:


One of Amelia coming down a waterslide for the first time:


Unfortunately her Papa fell over on the last turn so I really only got a picture of his leg in the air...

Amelia and her cousin P had a blast together. We aren't around small kids often and when we are it doesn't go great usually but Amelia loved hanging out with her cousin.


Watching them interact with each other was the highlight of the trip for me.

Amelia was wiped out after our overnight trip and so is this mama.

Wrap-Up

Now that I am on a computer again, with Internet access, I figured I should wrap up our trip to Indiana! Wednesday morning we had breakfast with dad's side of the family. Amelia took this lovely picture of her grandpa and cousin P.


She had her little finger over the flash!

Amelia must like P because she shared her yogis (Gerber yogurt melts) with her:


Breakfast turned into over two hours and we were eventually on our way back to MN by eleven. Amelia slept in the car a lot:


Much like cousin A slept through breakfast earlier in the day:


We are back now. Back to the frigid temperatures. It was -20 on Thursday before windchill was factored in - which made it -30. I have been working on un-packing and doing laundry as well as staying warm!


This little one doesn't seem to mind the cold. The brief periods she is outside (heading to and from the car) she manages to dig around in the snow and whines when I pull her to her carseat! She is definately a lover of the outdoors!

Tonight I am having dinner with my family and leaving Amelia with them. I wish I could say I had some great plans for my night of freedom but I am merely going to get groceries - sans Amelia. What a wild night!

We Made it to Indiana

Amelia, Nana, Grandpa and I made it to Indiana late last night. Amelia enjoyed a couple of DVDs in the car:



She had new Thomas and Veggie Tales DVDs she picked out at Target.

We didn't take any pictures (that turned out) today except those of Amelia and her orange lolli she had to celebrate the Bears' win!

Successful Move

Wednesday was the big day. We had a goal to leave by noon but in reality we didn't leave until 3:30! We were pretty organized in packing and loading until the end...in the end we just kind of threw things in and even threw things away just so we didn't have to deal with them. We even left a TV because there just wasn't room and we figured someone will get use of it. The downside to that is that we will need to purchase a new TV when we move into our next apartment!

Jason's friend, Ben, drove up with us to help Jason unload everything and so he could visit Hudson. He and Jason met in Hudson and it was coincidence that they both ended up in Milwaukee, where they got back in touch. I felt pretty sad as we drove across the Hoan Bridge one last time and I caught one last glance of the city:


We had wonderful driving weather and arrived in town just at dusk.


We were greeted by family and unloaded only what we would need for the night. After visiting for awhile we all went to bed, exhausted.

Thursday we went to our storage unit to unload our things. We sorted out what we would want in the coming months for sure, put things we might need towards the front and things we definately would not need in the way back. It went fast since we had lots of help unloading!



After returning the truck we all had lunch at a new place in town, Shanghai Bistro. Jason's siter, Liz, just got a job there - bartending. They have $4 lunches and it was pretty good and just the right amount of food!

We have been slowly getting into the swing of things here again. I am missing Milwaukee a little more than Jason but I know that will pass. I did live there twice as long as he did after all! Next week I start my job search so hopefully something will come up, fast!

Ben left yesterday.


He has been such a help to our family these past few months and it was nice he could make the trip with us.

I think Amelia is enjoying life at grandpa's house:


Maybe that is what we will call this blog now, "Life at Grandpa's"...?

Amongst Everything Else, I Have a Sick Baby

This post will be long and all over the place, I think, so bear with me.

Last Friday marked the second straight day of non-stop rain here in Milwaukee. My car has a leak in it...I suppose you can figure out where I am going with this:


A lovely tarp on my leaky car :( There is a leak on the passenger side and when the car sits in prolonged and/or heavy rainfall a pool starts to form on the passenger floor. I had this same issue with my other GM car (an Alero). It was fixed with the other car so I am hoping this one can be fixed just as easily. The trick is...when will there be time to bring the car in? Not this week, that is for sure. Next week taking it in is at the top of the to-do list!

Friday I worked which was interesting because we had no concessions to sell! The concession stand construction was in its final stages and we couldn't sell anything to anyone until 7. That made for a long, long day for me. People don't like to hear there is no popcorn at the movies!!!

Jason picked me up from work (he drove me since my car was covered in a tarp) and when we got home we had plans to make baby food. Well, Amelia filled her carseat...completely on the drive home. Can I just say, "EEWWW"? We got her cleaned up, got the squash and pumpkins cooking (for baby food) and started to try and get her carseat clean. We got it done and ended up throwing the cooked squash into the fridge so we could get to bed. The night did not go as planned.

Saturday Amelia continued to have explosive dirty diapers. It was alarming. I fed her some apples and got her ready to walk to Target. We needed a few things so once I thought she was done pooping we left. She looked very cute in her bunny snowsuit:




We made it home from our Target trip with no problems. Once we got home though, the explosive diapers started again. I tried feeding her some rice cereal because it constipates her and I was hoping to counteract some of the explosiveness. Well, whe threw that up instantly and I started to worry. I paged the doctor and she assured me that since Amelia wasn't running a fever and she was in good spirits that I should just keep an eye on her and call back if she got a fever or stopped having wet diapers (dehydration warning). The doctor thought it sounded like she had picked up a virus of some sort.

Once Jason got home he drove me to work again. He told me when he picked me up that there had been no more disgusting diapers. What a relief that was. I thought we had turned a corner...

Sunday morning Amelia still had not soiled herself so I got us all packed up to make the drive to Indiana (my dad and sister were down there, to see Grandpa). We got on the road at around 7:30 and made it there by 10:00. When I got there I had a dirty baby again :( I got her cleaned up, my Grandma took her clothes to get them washed, I changed three dirty diapers in one hour, and then my dad, sister and I headed to lunch with cousins Matt and Liz. Amelia tried a tortilla chip (they were not salted) at lunch:


After lunch we all went to the nursing home to see my Grandpa. We didn't stay too long. I stopped at Meijer with my dad and sister before they headed back to Minnesota and then I headed back to my Grandma's house. We went to dinner at House of Kobe (one of those places where they cook right on your table). Amelia was very interested in the chef. She watched him very intently the entire time:


When my soup came I looked over and saw this:


I thought it was pretty hilarious! It was almost like she was wondering where hers was :)

Doesn't she look like such a big girl sitting up in a restaurant high chair?!


We didn't make it through dinner without an explosion...and there was no changing table at the restaurant! I seriously think it should be required of all public places to have a changing table. I have been so many places without one and it is annoying and hard. I had to change a baby out of her clothes (which were so soiled I just threw them away) and get her cleaned up and in to a new diaper and new clothes on the disgusting bathroom floor. I had a changing pad but that only helps so much.

Anyways, I cancelled plans to meet one last cousin (Tori) after dinner and just got ont he road. I needed to get Amelia home. We made it just after 9:00 and she wasn't too bad. Her carseat was a little dirty again, but it was nothing compared to what I'd been dealing with all weekend. I got her into bed and started to unpack all our stuff.

Half an hour later there was a panicked cry and I found her sitting there, filthy. I felt awful. We got a bath ready, some clean clothes, changed the sheets and it was back to bed for her. It didn't last. I eventually got her up and she watched Beetlejuice on TV while I put some stuff away. Eventually she went to bed and by the time Jason got home I was in tears. I felt like all I had done all weekend was clean up poop. I tried 3 diaper types, different brands even. I am convinced that there is no diaper on this planet, disposable or cloth, that could have contained what was coming out that little girl this weekend.

**Jason thought it might have been the apples causing the diarreah so we stopped them but the diarreah continued. I did some research Sunday night and whole apples, like in applesauce, are actually ok to feed someone with diarreah problems. The whole fruit contains pectin which helps firm stools, therefore, it can be good for someone with diarreah. I started the apples back up Monday!

Monday I stayed home from school in the morning (which turned out ok since one of my morning classes was cancelled). We went to the laundromat Monday to get all the poopy things we had sitting around washed. I just couldn't stand to think of it all sitting around here another 2 or 3 weeks. Monday night I went to work.

Tuesday (yesterday) nothing got done around here. I had a headache so Amelia and I just layed low. Last night though, before bed, she began throwing up uncontrollably. Once we thought she was finished she went back into bed. She woke up, covered in puke, so she got up and got cleaned up, some new clothes and went back to bed. She did watch a little of Hocus Pocus first though...we were watching it while eating a pizza... I know...the girl watched a lot of TV sometimes...she'll be ok.

Today I went to my morning class and then came home. Amelia has been so much better! She even had a dirty diaper that was not diarreah for the first time since Friday :) I think we are finally turning that corner I thought we had turned Saturday. Here are some pictures of her from this afternoon:

Amelia L-O-V-E-S this cat toy:


She always crawls to it and then plays with it!

Amelia has been somewhat pulling up since the weekend! She pulled up on my dad at my grandma's house because she wanted something in his pocket! She doesn't get fully upright yet, but she gets up on her feet while holding onto something. Here she is right before she pushed up on her feet:


I was laying down, so I couldn't ever seem to get a good picture of her once she had gotten up because I was so busy telling her what a big girl she was :)

I assisted her into the standing position here:


She did all the hard work though! I just held her hands and helped her get upright to hold onto the walker :)

She does this all the time too:


She moves her paci to the corner of her mouth and chews on it. It is really bizarre...

Lastly, here is a silly face from Amelia:


Does that look like the face of a sick little girl? She is a trooper. I really hope we are past all the dirty diaper explosions. It has been a long and busy 5 or 6 days around here...

Now Amelia and I are headed to work to have a bar meeting...that is right, now that the new concession stand is in place, we are serving alcohol sometime next month. I really think it is unnecessary but I don't make the rules...