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.
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?
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!
and I have many pictures to share! On Brice's birthday we took a family trip to the Children's Museum in St. Paul and had a really fun time. That night we went to a church service in Lakeville before finally retiring for the night. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy from that trip.
Yesterday, of course, was Thanksgiving and Karsten got to devour his very first Thanksgiving dinner. After church, we stopped at Caribou Coffee before heading to Brice's dad's for dinner. Karsten had a lot of play time with his 2nd cousins which completely wore him out! He was in bed last night by 7:20....he didn't have anything to eat either because he was so tired! 
I also have a really funny video to share - once I get that uploaded I'll post that as well. Hopefully I'll also have some walking vido of him pretty soon because he's getting close to finally figuring it out!
Karsten had his first Halloween and birthday all in one weekend. I've created slideshows of all of the pictures for you to enjoy.
Since I finally ran out of memory on card in the camera and was forced to finally transfer pictures to the computer I felt it was about time to update the blog with the latest Karsten pictures.
These first pictures of my little ham were taken on a lazy Saturday morning. He must have been all over his bed that night because he woke up with a great big alfalfa sprout! Usually he's cranky in the morning before eating breakfast but this day, he decided to do a show for the camera!
This next picture has quite a story with it. It was getting late but not quite to Karsten's bedtime yet and he was looking like he wasn't planning on going to sleep at any time.....he was crawling all over the house, getting into trouble....you know, what babies do best! All of a sudden, I realize that Karsten stopped right in front of the couch where I was sitting and hadn't moved in a while. He decided to curl up right there on the floor along with his bunny and went to sleep.
On Sunday it was getting to that time in the afternoon where I go searching for a snack and Karsten has snack time as well. I happened to find a couple of pickles in the fridge so I curled up on the couch with my find. Well, Karsten was pretty intrigued by the pickles so I decided to give him a lick and a bite. He didn't make any funny faces so I just decided to give him one of mine for a snack. He ate the WHOLE THING!!!!! I didn't even have to cut it up into pieces for him - he took small bites and chewed really well all by himself!
One other thing that I LOVE is that Karsten is really starting to enjoy cartoons.....I can plop him in front of Blues Clues in the morning while I make his breakfast and he is so enthralled that he doesn't even realize that he's hungry yet. Right now, he's sitting on the couch like a good little boy watching A Bugs Life!
One thing I hate about Karsten right now is his ability to loose shoes. I happened to buy him 2 pairs of tennis shoes at the beginning of fall to wear outside at daycare. Well, he lost one shoe one night when we all went for a walk.....we backtracked the same way on the way home and never found it. I thought at the time that it's a good thing that he has another pair of shoes! Well, last week at daycare he happened to loose another shoe the exact same way! I was hoping we could at least bring the lone shoe home to have a mismatched pair that he could at least wear outside but no luck with that - they are both for the same feet! I found a pair of high tops on the Target website and I might just have to look for those in the store the next time I go.....maybe they'll stay on his feet better!
Brice and I got to go on a date night last Friday thanks to Melanie. We had dinner at Wolley's Steakhouse which is inside the Embassy Suites in Bloomington. We then took a trip to the new Cinemagic Theatre in Burnsville and were finally able to see Fireproof. It really was a great movie and I think it will really inspire all married couples to persevere through the tough times. Marriage is, afterall, a permanent covenant with God and not "just" a piece of paper as I have heard so many people say.
We still haven't decided what to do for Karsten's birthday.....I think we might just end up at Perkins because he loves pancakes and their grilled cheese sandwiches! I made a list of the kind of things Karsten still needs for the winter at Target if anybody is interested in looking at that.
Of course, birthday season starts at our house next Monday. I get to "celebrate" the last joyous year of my twentys.....I'm not quite sure how I feel about that yet! Brice wanted to do something special for me but there really isn't anything going on at any venue that I'm even remotely interested in (except The Producers out at Chanhassen but I'd rather not spend $100+ to see a show when I'm going to see a different show in just a few weeks). I think we'll just go for dinner and a movie.
