Welcome Baby Mia

A friend of my mom wrote: "Her little feet are already leaving footprints on our hearts." As cheesy as it may sound - its so true. Its nice to have had a couple of nights at home to adjust and get to know our little one. Each new sound and face she makes blows me away. This song by Ray LaMontagne has taken on a new meaning for me. Molly made a great mix for us while in the hospital. That combined with amazing midwives and nurses we held a really peaceful space for Mol and Mia. I was blown away with how well Mol handled labor - while every birth is unique - relative to the stories I have heard, this one was on the longer and harder end of the scale. Saying I am deeply proud of Molly would be quite the understatement.

The outpouring of well wishes, support, gifts, cards, visitors, food, and more - has been truly amazing. We are so grateful to be bringing Mia into a community that is as rich in love and spirit as our family and friends.Already in these first few days - in the first few moments even - we have realized what so many have been telling us. Nothing compares. This is even more amazing and wonderful than we could have expected. We are taking lots of pictures and doing our best to savor each moment. We posted some of our favorites below. Check out the full album here.

Impulse Control

Ever since reading Daniel Golemans Emotional Intelligence
- in which he references the now infamous marshmallow test - I have always imagined how fun it would be to watch the kids cope with this challenge.


With the increase in the pace we live our lives - and how easy it is to achieve instant gratification - the lesson of impulse control - and delayed gratification is only more relevant today.

More Dog Jumping

Cin figured out why Leonard preferred jumping off the pontoon - traction. Now with some improvised astro-turf on the dock he can let it all hang out.

From More Dog Jumping

Burning Energy

Mol and I couldn't wait any longer, everyone we know has dogs so - even though we have a new baby due to arrive in the next few weeks - we thought it was a good time to get a NEW PUPPY !!!

Yeah right. No puppy for us for a while - but our neighbors were like "really... a new dog huh...?" We were just watching our friends Anne and Aaron's dog Karma for a couple of days. Thankfully everyone else invited us out to the dog park. We had never been, but it was the best place to go to burn Karma's infinite puppy energy.


Ruby lovin the Baby Bjorn:

Easy Canoe Trip

Last Sunday we were lucky enough to have the perfect weather for a lazy canoe trip down the Saint Croix. There are a couple outfitters that you can go through. This was our second trip with Wild Mountain Its $45 for the canoe with paddles and life vests. It's a bit steep but still worth it. We highly recommend parking your car at the end of the trip just on the Minnesota side of the HWY 243 bridge into Osceola, WI. This way when you are done - you are DONE - and and literally leave the canoe on the beach and just jump into your car and leave. We took our time - stopping a couple of times along the way - and still made it down in under 3 hours.

From St. Croix River

The water was really low in some spots. A little girl canoeing by when mol snapped this even said "look mom it looks like he is walking on water" :)



Even though there were a lot people on the river - it was very peaceful with plenty of "nature" all around. I was able to sneak up pretty close to this hawk before he flew away.

Mol was rockin the super cute baby bump. Passers by would all smile at us and then to each other about how cute they thought it was.

My Favorite Top Gear Segment.

Each time I watch this I still get goose bumps. It is rare to find someone so "expert" at something that can also explain their expertise in such a simple and easy to understand way. "Like Yoda"

Mother of all Belly Flops

Classic Big Picture Blog. I can't believe the big news sites still get away with low resolution fuzzy images.