Meadow and Her Fox Valley Friends

Meadow woke up around 7 and didn't fall back to sleep like she usually does. We have a no getting up before 8 rule.

My dad heard her and came down to take her for us while we slept in. She was fine hanging out with her Grandpa all morning.

I was fine with getting some good sleep in. Thanks Mr. Mike.

For breakfast, french toast.

I think I've been eating that blueberry syrup for five years.

After breakfast we headed over to Jeff and Amanda's and got to finally meet Alayna.

My mom wanted to come too, but has a cold. She sent with us a little doll for Alayna.

Meadow was thrilled to see another baby friend.

I can't wait until she's a little older so they can play together.

Jeff showed us his other new baby, a man cave to end all man caves. We took it for a quick spin.

Meadow was worn out and took a little nap on me. 

Alayna took a little nap too. I can't believe how long her naps are. Meadow hated sleeping at her age.

She napped for me all the time. You just didn't like putting her in the swing.

It's weird how much babies change over their first year.

We couldn't stay much longer because we had plans to hang out with Chelsea too.

If it was warmer out we were going to take our babes out on their sleds. Instead we went to the antique mall. My dad also wanted to come along.

There was also the whole no snow left thing. It had mostly melted earlier in the week.

We discovered Nolan was on a cover of Life magazine.

Brayden and I went ahead looked for the cool stuff.

There were so many cool toys I would have liked for Meadow.

I wanted to get Anti-monopoly for Blake.

I looked for real crocks for making sauerkraut, but they were all over 50 dollars or way too big for the amount we want to make.

The biggest issue is that they're all missing their lids and gasket.

Brooke found this poster that depicted Milwaukee as the center of the universe. I was really tempted to buy it.

Especially since Scott thinks Milwaukee is the at the center of the universe.

Back at home Brayden helped make dinner.

I made venison schintzel and spaetzle for the family.

We had fun while the food finished eating.

I didn't know food could eat.

We said grace before having our rustic german dinner.

My grandma had given us a Boston cream pie from a raffle she won. I had mine a la mode.

As did I.

The next day after breakfast Meadow bear feel asleep on me. I guess all the fun had worn her out.

The next morning we decided to make another day out of our trip to Wisconsin.

I called my dad in the morning asking if he had plans for lunch. He was planning on stopping home from work, but said we could all go out together.

My wife and baby are both beautiful.

We settled on someplace near where he was working. Culver's it was.

Again. This place never gets old.

Meadow spent the whole time watching everyone except us.

Afterwards I fed Meadow at the place he was working.

I wanted to go to the St. Vincent de Paul in Kaukauna, but it was out of our way so we stopped at the Fox Valley Thrift Shoppe instead.

Just not the same. Thrift shops are so hit or miss.

This place definitely isn't as cool as it used to be. It was mostly junk or overpriced things. As always we did find something for Meadow, two books.

Then we had plans to see Donna and Penelope. We hadn't seen them since Meadow was 2 months old.

Meadow has been having so much fun getting to play with new toys and other babies.

Pippa was excited to see little bear.

Maybe because they are the closest in age, but Meadow and Penelope got along really well and had a lot of fun playing together.

Once in a while they would try to poke one another's eyes out.

They are only a month and half apart and way different in sizes.

After he was done with class Malcolm joined us. 

These two are great to hang out with.

We were all enamored by this toy that Donna found at a flea market. Turns out it's a toy from Target and not some madcap art project.

I wish we could have stayed longer. They will just have to come visit us in Minnesota.

Being as it is St. Patricks Day my parents were dead set on going out for corned beef and cabbage.

I never realized this was such a big deal until this year. It seemed that everyone wanted it.

They didn't want to go anywhere that was too packed and found that the Machine Shed was serving what we wanted.

Everyone else had the meal du jour, but I decided on burnt ends. I should probably leave burnt ends for trips to Kansas City.

The next morning Meadow came to our bed after waking up early. She sleeps in the weirdest positions.

Besides constantly running into the bars at night Meadow liked that she could pull herself up in the crib.

Then we said our goodbyes. My parents wanted to keep Meadow for a week, but I would miss her too much.