Joanna's First Tree Farm Experience with the Klagos Family

Every year its the same thing. Dad tells Mom to find out where the Balsams are. Mom finds out. We hike miles all over the entire property, eventually stumbling upon the balsams on the complete opposite side that we thought they were. We walk through rows of picked over Balsams arguing about whether or not the needles are flat and we are in fact looking at balsams. We can't find a good balsam. For a moment in time, we consider getting a Fraiser but quickly come to our senses and realize that would be absurd. Our family always gets balsams. But all the balsams are uneven, too skinny, have too many brown spots, too short, too tall or just flat out ugly. But then, all the sudden, after looking at thousands of trees, (that in my opinion all look exactly the same) we find the one. Somehow, there is one perfect balasm amongst all these terribly awful balsams. We (and by we I mean KC) cut the tree down, drag it back to the car, get it tied on and go home, so happy that we found the perfect balsam. Then we get home, get the tree off the car and put it in the tree stand only to find out the perfect tree wasn't so perfect after all. Apparently our freezing cold brains had looked at so many trees, balsams and all, that we could no longer discriminate between the perfect balsam tree and a deformed tree with two trunks. That's what we ended up with this year. A giant crooked balsam with two trunks. The tree is a hot mess. But at least its a balsam.


***I will add that as always, once the lights, ornaments and garland were so beautifully arranged on the tree by my mom, it looked great. Proving that it really doesn't matter what balsam we choose, they will all look the same in the end. But its all about the experience ;)

9 Months Old, A month and a half late

Well, I wrote this post back when Joanna was 9 months old but I never published it! But better late than never so here it is!!! Here are some updates and pictures from Joanna at 9 months:

Weight: 16 1/2 pounds. Still quite a little peanut!

Eating: Purees every meal and lots of finger foods! She has definitely mastered self feeding with finger foods! She loves black eyed peas and Cheerios! Still nursing every three hours. We attempted to introduce formula and rice milk with no luck so the nursing continues!

Movement: She's all over the place! Joanna mastered crawling, standing up on furniture and furniture walking. She loves to be on the move and explore the house. Joanna loves to crawl under things and into small corners as well as through her box tunnel. She is pushing her push toys by herself but she tends to push faster than her feet move and ends up flat on her face! She loves to make a run for the bathroom when Mommy forgets to close the door and since she is currently crawling faster than Mommy can walk, she usually beats me there. By the time I get there she's already standing up on the toilet. She has a huge obsession with the toilets!

Talking: Such a chatterbox! Still no actual words but lots of babbling! She signs more/milk, waves hi and bye, does "so big!" and claps. 

Teeth: Joanna broke her first tooth! Just one but I am sure we have more coming soon!

Play: She's a girl on the go! Joanna is not very into sitting and playing for more than a minute or two before she's off exploring. She does love her books though. One of her favorite things to do is stand up on her bookshelf, pull a book down, sit down and look at it for a second and then stand up and do it all over again until all the books have been taken off the shelf! She also loves to crawl over to the windows and stand up and bang on them! Joanna has also been playing a lot more with Maui. They love to look out the windows together!

Sleep: Well I thought sleep was bad when she was waking up every 3 or 4 hours, and then the 9 month sleep regression hit and I miss only waking up every 3 or 4 hours. Joanna is now waking up about once an hour, sometimes more often. It's only a phase...

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the month:

Playing in the Leaves

Now that I am up and about a little more, I finally got Joanna out to play in the leaves for the first time! We went to Devil's Lake to take some maternity pictures for our friends Andy and Laura who are due with their first baby (a boy!) in a few weeks. We brought Joanna along with Nana (Great Grandma Statz) to enjoy the sunny weather and pretty fall colors. As with all of her firsts, Joanna was very curious about the leaves at first but then started to really enjoy them!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of Laura and Andy that I just have to share!

Busting out the Play Pen

Joanna has officially become a little terror! She is crawling all over, standing up on everything and getting into every possible dangerous situation she can find.  We decided in order to be able to turn our head for a second every now and then, we needed to bust out the playpen. So far it is working great and she actually thinks of the playpen itself as a toy for standing up. I'm hoping we can keep the playpen as a fun place for JoJo to play so we can have a little freedom to get things done every now and then!