Reading

One of Karsten's activities recently is "reading". He'll sit down with a book and narrate a story by the pictures. This video is him "reading" Goodnight Moon - notice that he has heard it so many times he's got the thing memorized!

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas time and I haven't posted anything on the blog for a really, REALLY long time. Let's just blame that on a very busy 2 year old. For now, please accept my humble apology for not keeping the blog updated and enjoy a montage of pictures from the last few months.

The Fischer family wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas. May you all get to celebrate with family and friends while celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Bobbie's Super Healthy Blueberry Muffins

I apologize for not blogging more right now but having a toddler that refuses to play with himself for longer than 5 minutes isn't really conducive to doing much of anything productive.

And on to the subject at hand.....

Brice and I have been doing the South Beach Diet together for the past few months. This has forced me to think of creative ways to make yummy baked items much healthier. I ran across a recipe the other day that sounded good but wasn't quite healthy enough for my taste so I tweaked it a little bit and the result were yummy, fluffy, tasty blueberry muffins that Karsten just adored this morning for breakfast.

2 cups whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup Splenda
1/4 cup sugar free maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (if frozen, thaw)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

Preaheat oven to 400. Mix together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Beat butter at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add Splenda and syrup, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, stir in vanilla and applesauce. Add flour mixture and milk at low speed until blended. Fold in berries. Bake 20-22 minutes or until golden.

Makes 12 muffins.

Calories 167.8 - Carbs 23.5g - Fiber 2.9g - Sugars 5.6g - Protein 4.2g

North Shore part 2

Our remaining time at the North Shore was pretty un-eventful. Well, except for the fact that the new resort we were at had a fridge in the room for all of the groceries we had bought and of course, we used it right away and thought nothing of it. The next morning we came to realize that the fridge didn't work and everything was spoiled. After talking to the maintenance guy, it had to get reset because of the power outage from the ice storm. Tuesday we hung out in Duluth for the afternoon and then went swimming before dinner. It was Karsten's first time in a big pool and he LOVED it! Wednesday we went to the Depot where the children's museum and train museum are located. Thursday we did the touristy stuff, went to the falls and the lighthouse and thoroughly enjoyed watching some squirrels feast on droppings from the bird feeders. The last night we were there was Karsten's best night for sleeping since we kind of had to train him how to sleep in the same room as us in the pack and play (even though he has no problems with that at daycare). He managed to fall asleep with the lights and TV on and Brice and I talking to each other as I got everything packed and ready to leave the next morning. Figures huh?

Enjoy the rest of the pictures from the trip!

North Shore - Day 1

As most of you probably know by now, Brice and I take an annual trip up to the north shore of Lake Superior for our anniversary. This place is special to us since it is where we spent our honeymoon and it always reminds me of that newly wedded bliss.

This years trip, to say the least, has been quite eventful. I'll have to split the synopsis of our trip into a few posts since there was so much going on.

Monday morning - we got up as usual, right around 7am when our alarm clock, Karsten, awoke from sleep. Brice got started on breakfast and I got to packing everything we needed. We were out of town by about 10:30am and arrived in Duluth around 1pm. It was raining the entire time we were driving and as we got closer to Dulth, the temperature kept dropping from more than 40 degress to just over freezing. When we stopped for lunch, the side roads were covered in slippery slush.

After lunch, we decided to go to the Great Lakes Aquarium (my favorite place to go) since we couldn't check into our hotel until 4. We decided to go without the stroller for the first time and just let Karsten roam the aquarium freely. He had such a great time! He's always liked fish but he's really starting to understand the fish more. He even tried petting a sturgeon! He was watching Brice and I reach in to touch them so he wanted to as well. Brice helped him over the sturgeon tank, he reached in to touch it and pulled his hand out of there really quickly! He loves the water but I guess he's not a fan of actually touching the fish yet. The aquarium has this big model of all of the great lakes complete with locks. You can put a little boat into Lake Superior, move it through all of the locks to eventually get to the Atlantic Ocean. There was this smaller part that was just the perfect size for Karsten so I gave him a boat to play with....of course, I didn't realize until he was already soaked from the water that there were smocks for the kids to put over their clothes so that exact thing wouldn't happen.

After Karsten wore himself out at the aquarium, we decided it was time to load him back up in the car for the shorter portion of the trip up to Two Harbors. As we left Duluth, we noticed the power lines and the trees along the road caked in ice from all the rain that had fallen. Of course, we thought nothing of it. We arrived at Grand Superior Lodge to check in and there was one light on in the entire lobby and no heat. Come to find out, most of the power from there and farther north was completely out and they didn't know when it would be back on. Parts of the hotel had power but our room was not one of those and it didn't have any heat either. They decided to move us to a suite with a fireplace so we could at least have some heat. We were given candles, flashlights and jugs of water so we could flush the toilet. We realized that most of the room had electricity and we were able to put a movie in to keep Karsen partially occupied but the outlet where the fridge was plugged in wasn't working. We stocked up on ice that they had left over in the restaurant to keep all of the food and milk that we bought in Two Harbors cold. Since there was no electricity for the chef to cook in the restaurant, they had a sandwich bar so we could get something to eat that night. I'd have to say, that was a very interesting experience!

In closing, a few pictures from the aquarium. Can you tell how wet Karsten was?

Celebrating warm weather

In celebration of the weather FINALLY getting warm and the snow finally melting, Karsten and I spent a good chunk of the morning outside. Remember his new friend, the vacuum? Well, when we're outside, his friend is the shovel.

Yesterday when we were outside I showed him a few pinecones. He was still after them today! He carried one around for a while until he dropped it about 10 times and then he gave up.



A couple of nights ago we had turkey burgers and french fries. This kid LOVES french fries! Since he had never had them with ketchup before I decided to put a dallop of it on his tray to see what he would do. The first few times he would dunk his fry and then just suck the ketchup off but it didn't take him long to figure out how to dunk and eat. Now I have to look forward to getting ketchup stains out of his clothes!


Last night we had sloppy joes and after Karsten was done eating he took his sippy cup in his mouth and was waving it all around to be a goof.

Hopefully you will all be able to get out into this beautiful weather we have finally been blessed with. We will be putting it to good use!

The promised pictures

How does time fly?

Yikes....it's been a long time since I've done any blogging. I used to do my blogging during nap time but now that Karsten dearest only takes one nap a day I usually get in some relaxing mommy time (you know, taking a shower, eating, maybe napping a little). Sometimes when I even try to be on the computer during awake times Karsten is not very fond of that so I usually just leave it off.

Karsten is now, as of yesterday, 16 months old and weighs a whopping 26 pounds! I thought I would make a list of all of his favorites for you to enjoy.

Food: bananas (he goes through a bunch of these a week) and any bread product, especially pancakes

Words: na-na (banana), ba-ba (Sponge Bob....you know, Squarepants. We watch a lot of him) and ma-ma (this isn't reserved just for me....it's Brice, everyone at daycare, all of our dog friends - he hasn't quite grasped that concept yet)

Activity: vacuuming! I have a picture of that but a certain someone walked away with the USB cable so I can't upload that to the computer just yet. He is also a big fan of dancing. Anytime there is music playing he's bopping along and waving his arms.

We've had the cold going around our house that has been going around....lots of congestion and coughing. Karsten got it first and was better in about a week with nothing lingering. After he was better I got it and I'm still dealing with the effects of that stupid cold two weeks later. I can't WAIT for the sick season to be over!

I'll close with a few pictures that have actually been uploaded. When I find that elusive USB cable I'll be sure to post some more.


Karsten went through this "cooking" phase for a couple of weeks. He would pull all the pots and pans out of the cupboard, along with all of the utinsils out of the drawers and carry them all over the house. I'm still finding utinsils hidden in crazy spots.



On Martin Luther King Jr. day we decided to take Karsten to Edinborough Park in Edina. They have a little toddler play area and this great big play area for the bigger kids to climb in and then they have a gym area where you can play with balls and ride scooters. He had a fun time. Of course, he got a cold after that.....



As I said above, Karsten LOVES pancakes. Brice makes him pancakes probably once a week for breakfast. Well, this morning he decided to make chocolate chip pancakes and the picture speaks for itself.



Since Karsten is down to one nap a day he sometimes is so tired he can't even make it through 10am without falling asleep. This morning we were sitting on the couch watching cartoons and I started thinking what a good job he was doing actually paying attention. I came to find out that he was sitting so still because he was sleeping!

Our Toddler

Now that we have a full grown toddler, Karsten seems to be more entertaining and troublesome all at the same time. One of his favorite things to do is racing me up the stairs when he needs his diaper changed. You see, Brice thought it would be a great idea to teach him to climb the stairs so we don't need to always be carrying him up since he is getting to be one heavy guy. Well, for about a week, all he wanted to do was climb the stairs so we had to put the gate on the stairs to keep him downstairs so we could actually watch him. Thankfully, that has worn off! He also enjoys walking from kitchen to living room and vice versa, picking up something from that room and depositing it in the opposite room where it does not belong. Example: tonight I made a pork roast in the crock pot and I was getting the rolls and veggies set to eat dinner. Well, somehow without me noticing, he got 3 spoons out of the silverware drawer, the pasta fork out of the drawer right next to me and was walking around the house with them. After finally noticing he was making this strange noise on the tile, I saw the utensils he was playing with along with two of his stuffed animals that he carries around. This is why our house is such a pigsty right now....toddlers tend to get into everything!

Recap of Christmas.....we were really busy! I took the week of Christmas off thinking it would be nice to be home and be able to catch up on a lot of things that needed them. Well, that can't happen very well when you aren't home for 4 days! I was really hoping to have a nice, quiet time just the three of us but that never happened. We did end up staying home for New Years though - we had a spread of junk food and champagne and Brice and I actually stayed awake until midnight.

We've been really busy at work lately. United is requesting a lot of extra analysis that we don't have the man power to actually complete in time which means a lot of opportunity for overtime. I've been getting to work sometimes as early as 6am and staying until 5pm when I'm not too sore from sitting on my butt all day. It looks like this is the only way I'll be making any extra money this year because we aren't getting raises this year.....

They've cut shift hours where Brice works and we'll need to see how that's going to effect us. Right now he works saturday, sunday and one day during the week. Well, we don't know if he is going to be able to get all of his hours in 3 days this next coming shift bid. He might end up working 4 days a week which would really suck because we would either have to pay for an extra day of daycare which would be really tough or Brice would have to work overnight and come home in the morning to take care of Karsten. We're hoping for the best but any prayers everyone could say for us would be great!

In conclusion, what else but pictures of Karsten?


We took a trip downtown Minneapolis to see A day in the life of an elf at Macy's. Karsten enjoyed himself for the most part, well, except seeing Santa - he's not a fan!


Karsten's first playing in the snow experience. He likes eating the snow but I guess he got crabby when his mittens got wet. Why can't they make waterproof infant mittens????


Karsten's new "perch" farther up the stairs now that he knows how to climb.


One of the three pictures we took while opening presents on Christmas. I think this is the only time he's really played with the cars that my sister bought for him....


Bathtime! Brice decided that Karsten needed a bubble beard but he couldn't get a good picture of him smiling so this is what you get. He loves bubble baths but he eats the bubbles instead of playing with them most of the time.


Who needs toys when there are empty laundry detergent bottles???


You know it's bedtime when he snuggles up in a blanket on the floor and sucks his thumb.



Karsten loves digging into my lunchbox when I get home from work. On Friday, I had an apple in there I didn't eat....well, I'm sure you can understand by the pictures what happened to my apples!


In closing, our Christmas picture. Thanks Mel for taking this for us even though we took about 30 before we got one that worked!