Andrej, Jessica, Kaiya and Tobi

A few weeks ago my dad was invited along with one of his best friends to go on a weekend long fishing trip. Fishing just happens to be one of his favorite things to do, so he proposed the plan to my mom. At first she wasn't too excited about spending a weekend alone, but it didn't take long for her to cook up a plan of her own. She got a decent deal on a plane ticket and came to spend a few days with Kaiya and Tobi. It was so much fun to have her here for a spontaneous visit. (Read more …)

If you looked through photo albums of my childhood, you would see year after year pictures of my brother and me standing outside on Easter Sunday. Dressed in our Sunday best, we were always positioned nicely beside some blooming tree or flowers holding our Easter baskets. I knew on the Friday before Easter this year that there would be no outside pictures of Kaiya and Tobi in the new clothes purchased for them by their grandparents and great-grandparents. A huge snow storm blew in as we were dyeing Easter eggs Friday afternoon. As beautiful as it was to watch the snowflakes fall, it didn't exactly fit my picture of Easter weekend. In the weather's defense, Easter did come really early this year.  (Read more …)

I was quite surprised last week when I posted the story about Kaiya's bad dream to see that an entire month had passed between entries. In my typical catch-up fashion, here are a few highlights from the past month or so that should have been blogged: (Read more …)

Christmas was such a special time for our little family. Experiencing it through a child’s eyes is for some reason so much more fun. From decorating the tree, to singing Christmas carols to talking about baby Jesus and yes, even the guy in the red suit made this Christmas with our two year old and seven month old very special. (Read more …)

In keeping with what has become our Thanksgiving tradition (three years in a row) my parents rolled into town following my dad’s annual hunting trip in South Dakota. They arrived the Monday night before Thanksgiving and it was all I could do to keep their excitement at bay and not wake up the kids. They reluctantly agreed with the promise I would let them go in to greet Kaiya when she woke the next morning. (Read more …)

We are a wee bit behind on blogging these days. My only excuse is my lack motivation because I have plenty of material. Andrej's excuse is a little better as he has been extremely busy with work and side projects. We did start a post about our trip to Slovakia, but it is currently stuck in production. Andrej had a great idea that we would write the post together, kind of tag team blogging, where he would write a paragraph and then I would write a paragraph. It is all of two paragraphs long and sitting idly in our drafts folder. Andrej's free time has been spent working on this website and programming an online registration for an upcoming conference in Slovakia. My free time over the last few months has been focused on my latest obsession. I have spent many hours researching, reading reviews, emailing, chatting, deciding, purchasing, washing and using my new stash of cloth diapers. Tobi and I are now a month into my latest venture and I am surprised at how easy, and dare I say, fun cloth diapering is. I am extremely happy with the different types of diapers I purchased and really wish I woud have started when Kaiya was a baby. I definitely want to write more about our transition to cloth soon. (Read more …)