Otto is at the stage where he could play with tiny figurines and play sets for hours. This comes in really handy while we are all working from home and have conference calls throughout the day. He loves mixing everything together and it’s so fun to watch his imagination work when he plays. It’s hilarious […]

Halloween 2020 well… It’s probably the scariest year it’s every been. Honestly I thought dressing up as 2020 would be the scariest costume yet. However we like to keep things light in this house and we have had a lot of fun with Otto’s Halloween costumes over the years.  We had a few options for […]

After months of shut downs and quarantine this spring, this family was finally getting back into the swing of things around here. Otto was finally not throwing a fit about going to daycare in the morning, Joe and I were able to get work done again at the office, things just seemed to be plugging […]

Living out in the country means that grocery stores are a bit further of a drive (among other things, read here)  but one huge perk is all of the farmers in the area having produce stands in their front yard. Our neighbor to the north has a large orchard where he sells apples and other […]

Otto and I finally got back to Meijer Gardens for the first time since March. I think one of the things that amazes me most about this pandemic is how quickly we forget and/or adapt to the situation. I don’t think that is a good thing? Maybe parts of it are. I know we shouldn’t […]

Can I be honest with you why this post is a little late? It’s because the third anniversary of Otto’s open heart surgery slipped our minds until the day before. We realized it the night of the 3rd that the coming day would make three years since Otto had his open heart surgery. The fact […]

This morning at about 4am Otto leaned over to me in his sleep and said in a whispered voice “it’s time to play hide and seek”. Without missing a beat I responded “no it’s not” and he rolled back over still asleep and continued on. You want to talk about something that will jolt you […]

the gifts are opened, the balloons have deflated and Otto is officially a three year old. I woke up this morning and thought no way he’s now over three. Then I looked at how big he was sprawled out in my bed horizontal taking up the entire space. I was unfortunate enough to get the […]

Before I get started on this post I want to preface it by saying it does not bother me at all when people ask me if we are going to have another child. I choose to look at it from the standpoint people must think we’re doing a pretty good job with Otto that we […]

We had our last (scheduled) doctor visit with Otto for hopefully the rest of the summer and are looking forward to enjoying this time together as a family. Especially this weekend.  We had our final followup with our cardiologist and got the go ahead to go back to daycare and to work starting on Tuesday. […]

Back in March we were geared up and ready for all of Otto’s appointments. We had a sedation appointment scheduled for his kidney ultrasound, ekg and echocardiogram with followups with both doctors that afternoon. Then Covid 19 started trickling into our community and everything shut down with the snap of a finger and it was […]

We were tired of zoom calls and staring at our computer screens. When we have not been working from home we’ve been working on projects all around the farm. We .. well, we were just exhausted. We typically go for a walk during Joe and I’s joint conference call but the other day we decided […]