Longville Weekend

We went to Longville this weekend to serve an Asian style dinner party to some people from Grandma and Grandpa B's church. The People bid on the dinner at last summers church auction. Ceili helped entertain the guests and supervised in the kitchen.

On Sunday we returned home to Duluth and Grandma O was there for a short visit. Monday Ceili helped Jon make baby food. They made pears, peas, beans, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and sweet potato. We should have enough for several weeks now. We are in the midst of an ice storm as this is written and we are all praying for spring and warm weather. Hopefully the sun will shine again soon and we can get outside for more walks and playing in the grass.

Swimming to St. Patrick's day

Wow, another busy month! Ceili started swimming classes at the YMCA. She is in a water babies class with her friends Sophia, Kaenen, Emma, and Laurel. Ceili loves the water and naturally kicks and splashes. It doesn't bother her to go under water, lay on her back or put her face in but she has yet to learn to make the motorboat sound with her mouth. We think she thinks it's a big group bath time. Grandma Otis is joining us for lessons this week and we hope Grandma Burgers can join us in the weeks to come.

We Celebrated St. Patrick's day in Red Wing again this year. Ceili's first St. Patrick's day. She got to celebrate with her friend Lucy Villaran. The girls wore dresses made by Jon's Captain's wife, Dietta Keppers. Jon, Erin, Mike, and Abby decorated their strollers for the Red Wing Parade. The weather was perfect and the day was alot of fun.

This coming weekend we are going to Longville to serve an Asian themed dinner for some members of Doug and Alicia's church. The guests bought their seat at an auction to benefit Salem Lutheran. Doug, Alicia, and Ceili will host, Kim and Erin will serve, and Jon and Nick will cook for six special guests. This will also be Ceili's first dinner party.

Erin has been quilting and getting the house ready for spring, Jon has been planning a garden and planting seeds. We all hope that the snow continues to melt and that spring does indeed come earlier than that darn groundhog predicted!

Ceili is now up to five and a half teeth (half because we have been watching one on the top hang out just barely breaking the surface). She has also been fighting a cold but we believe she will be done with it any day now. She continues to pull herself up to standing and is still scooting around on the floor but doesn't appear to like crawling very much.

Baptism

On Sunday February 8th, Ceili was baptized. It was a very fun weekend. We were joined by Uncle Josh, Uncle Adam, Grandma O, and Grandma and Grandpa B. Ceili's sponsors were Debbie and Jamie Domras. Jon went to the mouth of the French River where it enters Lake Superior and got a jar full of water to use. Erin brought a pottery bowl that we had around the house to pour the water into. Ceili wore Erin's baptism dress and a necklace she got from Grandma O. Rev. Robyn Weaver was the pastor that baptized her. Ceili watched her very closely as Robyn spoke. Ceili handled everything as usual, with a great big smile on her face. Afterwards, Grandma and Grandpa B took us out to brunch at Blackwoods.

That tooth we were talking about is getting bigger. It doesn't seem to bother her anymore but Jon noticed the other day that she spends alot more time chewing on things now. Things like wooden chair arms and hard wooden toys, Ouch! I guess it feels good to her. We also gave her a half frozen washcloth and she seemed to enjoy the cold. Thanks for the tip Elizabeth.

Below are some photos from our weekend with more on shutterfly.

Bundled up Baby Update

OK, Here it is. If you would like to vote for Ceili you can follow the link: http://mix108.com/photos.php?mghash=ca030057b23b8d2dae33ca572e7b9630&mggal=50
Her picture is #27. You must register as a Mix 108 VIP to vote. It is quick and free. Thank you for your help. Tell all your friends and family to vote #27. The snowman hat picture below is the same one in the contest. If we win it will surely be because of the wonderful hat made for Ceili by Julie Eul. Thanks Julie, Great hat!

Toothday, February 3rd!

Ceili got her first tooth this weekend. She traveled to Faribault with Erin to visit with Grandma O and Grandma B. She came home with a tooth. We are doing everything we can to put up with her Dutch-Irish temper as she continues with swollen gums and general irritability. Fun!

On another note, Erin decided to enter Ceili in a radio contest. It is called Bundled up Baby and is a photo contest featuring bundled up babies. We will post more details soon. The prize is a remote car starter. Erin says ceili really wants to win it so Erin doesn't have to go all the way out to the car to warm it up for them.

Some new photos:

A Few More Pictures

Found a few more pictures on the camera. Here are a couple from "Thanksgiving" and Ceili's play date with Kaenan Smith. More on shutterfly.

We're back, baby!

Wow, It sure has been busy lately. Kind of lost track of time over Christmas. It was very easy to do because of all the friends and family stopping by. Don't worry, we were able to capture much of it with our camera and you can check out the pictures by clicking the shutterfly link to the left. Jon had much of December off of work and we all traveled to Erin's Uncle Loren's home in Iowa for almost two weeks to hunt and hang out. As always, it was good to see him as well as cousins Austin, Tyler, Ryan, Maddie, and Sam.

After returning from Iowa we settled back in to the house and got into the swing of Christmas. Ceili helped Jon Set up the Christmas tree and helped Erin decorate it. Uncle Josh and Grandma Otis came to stay with us before Christmas and stayed through the following weekend when we were all joined by Grandma and Grandpa Burgers and Uncle Nick and Auntie Kim. We had a great family meal and relaxing weekend.

Ceili was visited by her friend Lucy who also brought her parents Mike and Abby. They stayed for a weekend and it was great to catch up. Erin and Abby were able to sneak away while Jon and Mike hung out with the girls. Despite getting hit with a snowstorm everyone had a great time.

Jon went back to work on New Year's Eve and we stayed pretty close to home until we went down to Kasota to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jamie and Debbie. We had to postpone it earlier because of a scheduling conflict. Unfortunately Lucy, Abby, and Mike were unable to make it, due to a sudden illness. Yuck! Jamie and Debbie were great and we had a good time visiting, eating Debbie's famous turkey, and trying to play Wii.

We are now getting settled into a regular routine and Ceili is exploring new foods. She LOVES beets, as we discovered today. She has also enjoyed spinach, sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, squash, peas, peaches, bananas, apples, and pineapple. She has also started eating a lot more of it. She enjoys fruit in the morning along with rice or oat cereal. Then for lunch and dinner she has veggies and cereal. She has not yet had anything that she has not enjoyed. She and Jon spend a day every couple of weeks making her food for the upcoming weeks and she enjoys watching him cut and cook everything. Erin comes up with a list of new foods and we go as a family to buy what we need. After the food is prepared it is frozen in ice cube trays and stored in ziploc bags. She is also now able to eat Cheerios. She loves to sit in her chair and rake the Cheerios into her lap. Sometimes she even gets them in her mouth. When she does, she really likes them.

Ceili is now six months old! She is getting huge and is working on crawling and is standing on her own if she can support herself on something. She is sleeping on her own at night and is doing well most nights.

This past weekend we had brunch with Smiths and Consies so Ceili got to play with Kaenan Smith and Sophia Consie.