MN Zoo with Grandma and Great Aunt Janet

One of my very favorite places to go is the ZOO and this time I got to take two of my favorite people - my Grandma Horning and my Great Aunt Janet all the way from Arkansas! This was the first time my Great Aunt Janet has been to the Minnesota Zoo, so I showed her all of my favorite things!

All of the animals were pretty lively and putting on a great show for all of us. Here is a picture of the wolverines wrestling in the water.

Here's a picture of all us - except Mommy...

We've gone to the zoo several times already this summer and the tigers have always been hiding. But, they decided to show up to see Great Aunt Janet! The tigers are Daddy's favorite and I liked them too!

My favorite animals this time were the bears! I saw a lot of bears in South Dakota, but these bears were HUGE! One of the bears decided to put on a show for us and he slipped into the water and was right at the glass swimming in the water! Mommy wished she had our video camera, but we only got this one picture.

We spent most of the afternoon at the zoo and even though I was tired, I didn't want to miss out on any of the fun. I ended up fall asleep as soon as we left the zoo. Daddy must have worn out Mommy, Aunt Janet, and Grandma too, because they fell asleep too.

Just a couple days ago, I showed Mommy one of my bear figurines and said, "Zoo? Janet? Plane." I miss you Great Aunt Janet! Come visit soon, otherwise, I'm going to have to convince Mommy and Daddy to come visit you!

-Amaya

Boating on Cannon Lake

It's October 12 - Happy Columbus Day - and it's snowing.... Hmm... not quite the weather I was wanting for October. While we're stuck inside and Amaya is happily playing in her "fort", I thought I'd enjoy looking at our pictures we finally got downloaded on the computer and post some of them. The next week or so, I'll try to get caught up on the rest of our summer pictures, since it looks like WINTER is already at our doorstep.

Grandpa and Grandma Horning invited us to go boating on Cannon Lake in Fairbault, MN. They hadn't boated there before, but thought the lake was beautiful - and beautiful it was!

What we didn't realize was how SHALLOW the lake was. Getting the boat in the water wasn't a challenge for Grandpa and Steve (they've got a pretty good system in place), but another group of people got their pickup truck stuck while getting the boat in the water! Grandpa to the rescue! He was able to use his truck to pull theirs out! Who would have thought it would be that difficult? While in the water, I think the deepest we got was only 10 feet! Most of the time we were between 4-6 feet of water. The water was also a yucky green color despite the gorgeous blue you see above. The weather was AWESOME and as usual, had a great time - especially when Grandpa drove really FAST!

Somehow, Steve ended up getting the camera and decided to take a picture of Grandma's cute hat! Now, where can we get Amaya one of those to match?

This is one of my favorite pictures of Grandma and Amaya. Pure happiness despite having to wear a bulky life-jacket.

Here's a picture of Steve...

Afterwards, we went to Perkins (surprise, surprise) for dinner. Amaya was most definitely Grandpa's girl and wanted him to color over and over with her. We wished we could have gotten on the boat more this summer, but there's always next summer with plenty more lakes to explore!

Swim Class

Tonight was the most wonderful night and the only thing that would have made it better was if Daddy were here! After Mommy abandoned me in the church nursery for her Bible Study and then dropped me off later at Grandma and Grandpa Gustafson's so she could go to a meeting at work, and then after I took a nap, I FINALLY had Mommy all to myself!

Mommy took me to my very first swimming class! I was so excited but a little nervous too... I thought Mommy was going to drop me off again, but Mommy had her swimsuit on, so I thought maybe she might stay with me. The whole class was full of other mommies and daddies and the 14 other kids - some were even littler than I was! I wanted to jump in right away and got a little squirmy while the teacher was giving out instructions. I wasn't the only one getting squirmy. Two of my new friends from my Gym Class were there too, so I didn't feel so nervous anymore. We sang fun songs, played Ring a Round a Rosie, and played with some balls! I even learned how to float on back with Mommy's help. Some of the other kids didn't like that part, but I really liked it! Mommy didn't want to get her hair wet, but the teacher told us to splash really hard and since I'm learning how to obey, I splashed a lot and I got Mommy's hair REALLY, REALLY wet (and another mommy)! That was pretty funny! I can't wait to go back next week!

When we got home from swim class, Mommy gave me a bath to get all the yucky chlorine off my skin. I tried practicing some of my new skills, but I got too much water on the floor so Mommy cut my bath short. Then we made some popcorn and watched a special Elmo video all about pets! I really want a dog or a cat, but Mommy's allergic and I'd rather have Mommy than have a dog or cat. After the video, Mommy read me LOTS of books. I usually only get to read 3-4, but I got to pick out 10 books to read! WOW! Then Mommy sang all my favorite songs - I really like "This Little Light of Mine" because I pretend to blow out a candle. "Don't let Satan (blow) it out! I love that part! I missed Daddy a lot tonight, because after Mommy gets done singing, I yell "Daddy!" really, really loud and he does crazy dances into my room and tucks me in. Mommy tried to do the same thing that Daddy does, but she's just not as funny as Daddy. I guess that's why God gave me both a Mommy and a Daddy. Now if only Daddy would have been here it would have been perfect. Hurry home Daddy, I miss you!

Amaya

We're Still Here

Have no fear, the Gatzke's are still here! It's been an absolutely crazy week and yours truly is still trying to figure out how to balance work, family, and our newly added fall activities.

Steve treated me to a "Mental Health Day" on Monday to relieve some of the added stress and busy-ness of our week. He was slow at work, so he came home around 10am to pick me up, but Amaya and I were gone. Fortunately, due to my obsession to make lists, he saw my "to-do list" at my desk and tracked us down at the playground in the mall. After I got over the inital shock of seeing Steve at the mall, we decided to head down to Lanesboro for lunch at the Pedal Pusher Cafe and did a little shopping. It was a much needed distraction and we even found a table for our entryway! A little retail shopping, yummy food, and time spent with Steve and Amaya did this girl wonders! (Besides, I didn't really want to fold the laundry and clean anyway!)

Amaya has already had two sessions of her Toddler Gym Class and has loved it! The teacher - Mrs. Anderson - is absolutely wonderful with the kids and I was surprised that the class was more structured than I thought it was going to be. She gives them a few minutes right away for "free time" where they can play with balls, walk on the balance beams, or crawl over the foam cushions. They also get "free time" for the last 10 minutes of class and generally Amaya has wanted to play with the balls, but this week she surprised me and wanted to crawl over the foam cushions again and again. This week she played with hula hoops, bean bags, and a parachute and worked on some skills that she learned the first week (trapping a tennis ball in a plastic juice jug and marching to the beat of a drum). Overall, she's able to follow directions pretty well (with some encouragement from me). It's a great chance for her to get some of her energy expended and I get a little bit of a work out too! On Thursday, she starts her Swim Class, so we'll see how that goes...

I started my weekly Bible Study this week and it feels so go to be back with this amazing group of women. We're doing the Precepts study of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles and already I'm struggling to keep up with the lesson. Maybe I'm making it much harder than it really should be, but I've spent about 7 hours on the study and I'm still not done! One of the things I love about Precepts though is you really dig into the Word. There's a lot of highlighting key words and phrases, memorizing Scripture, obtaining historical background, creating charts and themes, etc. One of the things I don't like about Precepts is that it's difficult for me to find uninterrupted time to really focus on the study (and it's very CHALLENGING!). My other major stressor is that for some reason Amaya doesn't like the church nursery anymore. Maybe we've spoiled her by volunteering so much in the nursery this summer so she's gotten used to having us in there with her. Anyway, she lasted about an hour before they had to come and get me. (She also only lasted about a half an hour in church on Saturday night.) I can't quite figure it out because she does pretty well when we drop her off at the Healthy Living Center Daycare... maybe it'll just take her awhile to adjust to a new nursery. I remember going through this last fall, so hopefully it will get better. We'll see how tomorrow goes...

Speaking of the Healthy Living Center... WE LOVE IT! We've been going about 3-4 times a week - that's about as much as our schedule allows for. I was very sore after the first week when we did a Cable Class and a Cycling Class, so we've stuck to the machines - my favorite being the elliptical machine. The times flies by so quickly and we get a chance to watch TV! (We still don't have cable or rabbit ears and intend to keep it that way for awhile.)

But... we've started a tradition with Steve's mom and dad on Tuesday nights to watch Biggest Loser together! I still think the trainers are hard on the contestants and I'm definitely not a fan of the "game-playing" evidenced by last night's episode, but I still like watching the show. I started watching the show with my mom last year because Steve had school on Tuesdays and I was lonely, but since he has school on Thursdays this year, Steve and I can now watch it together. We also have a long standing tradition of going to my parents on Sunday afternoons - especially during football season and now that my parents have a HUGE TV! (See... we don't need TV when we've got family that we love spending time with!)

Steve continues to enjoy school, but he has quite a bit of reading and finding uninterrupted time is a challenge for him as well. He has a meeting coming up in the next month or so to discuss the third year of grad school in which he does an internship. His internship will be about 20 hours a week, so we're a little unsure if he will be able to cut back his hours at work or if he'll need to quit altogether. We're hoping he'll be able to get internship here in Rochester, but most likely it will be up in the cities. Still there's a lot of unknowns, but we can only plan so much and we leave the rest in God's hands.

October brings a very full month of birthdays and celebrations. Our nephew Miles turns 2, my mom has a birthday on the 16th, our niece Annika has a birthday on the 25th and we are also celebrating our engagement anniversary on the 6th. OH! And we're also heading down to Nebraska at the end of the month to visit my sister and celebrate our niece Hope's baptism. Busy, busy, busy!

With the crisp fall weather we're having, Steve and I have been trying to enjoy the weather before the snow flies. We've been able to get to the MN Zoo with Steve's mom and Aunt Janet, we've gone to Oxbow park with Steve's mom and this weekend were planning on going to the pumpkin patch with the Hulls. There are still so many things left on our "to-list" - go to the Zoo one more time with the Hulls, hit the apple orchard, plant my bulbs, play in the leaves (ours are just now beginning to fall), etc.

With our busy schedule, I'm often reminded to take one day at a time. It's just difficult to find balance... I need to devote time with God... time with Steve... time with Amaya... time with work... time with family... time to myself... I'm also reminded that a person is only as busy as they want to be. I set the schedule. I am (somewhat) in control of our calendar. I can say "no" or "maybe later." I can let the laundry sit for a day or two - it's not going anywhere, right?

So for now... we're still here...

Elmo's Powers

I wish I had Elmo's special powers. Amaya runs to the computer or the TV EVERY TIME she hears Elmo's voice. She snuggles with her Elmo doll EVERY TIME she sees him. When she hears MY voice, she usually runs the other way. When I ask her to snuggle, she says, "NO." What is it about Elmo and why can't I be more like him?

1-2-3

When Amaya doesn't obey, we'll give her a chance and say, "1....2....3!"Up until the last week or so, Steve and I haven't gotten much past the number 1 when she decides to obey. Now, when we get to the number 3, she runs away from us screaming. Fun, right?

So last night, I was working on a puzzle in the dining room and here's our conversation:

Amaya: "Mama! Play?"
Me: "Mama's going to put in a couple more pieces and then I'll come upstairs with you and play."
Amaya: "MAMA! PLAY!"
Me: "I'll be right there."
Amaya: "Come on! ...2...3!" (for whatever reason, she can't say the number 1).

I guess I wasn't obeying very well... Out of the mouth of babes....

Temper Tantrums

I honestly thought that Steve and I would never have one of "those" children. You all know what I'm talking about. You're casually shopping at Target and you see this child kicking, screaming, and flailing their arms around because he didn't get want he wanted. Then you look over at the parents who are obviously humiliated and trying everything they can - often times including bribery - to calm their child down.

Welcome to our world. Our sweet, precious little girl is now one of "those" children who have meltdowns and temper tantrums at the drop of a hat when she doesn't get what she wants. Seriously, Steve and I weren't going to have one of those children. Amaya was going to be a perfect little angel sitting quietly in the grocery cart and when walking down the candy aisle, she would say, "No Mommy, I don't want any candy. I'd like to have some carrot sticks when we get home." And of course, she would eat those carrot sticks after washing her hands and all the while saying please and thank you. Good grief... What planet were we living on?

We've been trying to find a healthy balance between sticking to the rules and discipline while at the same time allowing her to express her frustrations, etc. For the most part, we ignore her temper tantrums and when she's calmed herself down acknowledge her feelings and TRY to redirect her. She's only had one major meltdown today - after I told her that we don't put toys in the potty... that was fun... So, is this the beginning of the "terrible twos" or does it get worse?

Back to Reality...

My three week vacation sadly came to an end last week, and back to reality we go. Steve started his second year of graduate school last week and the homework has already started to pile up. I've been very busy at work and while I wish it wasn't so crazy, I'm definitely relieved for our increase in patient census. Amaya will be starting two classes this fall through our community education - a Toddler Gym class and Swimming class. The swimming class is on Thursday evenings, so this will give Amaya and I something to do while Steve's at school. My weekly Bible study also starts up again next week and I'm looking forward to meeting with everyone and studying God's word. We're going to have a very busy fall...

Amaya has done very well with potty training so far. She still doesn't tell me when she needs to go, so we've managed to take her at predicable times and every 1-2 hours after that. Out of the 10-12 times either Steve or I take her, she's able to go about 5 of those times. Training her hasn't been as stressful as I thought it was going to be despite the horror stories I've heard. It's probably helped that we got a good start on it when I was off from work and didn't have to worrying about any kind of schedule. It will be a little more challenging, especially when she's in the nursery for Bible Study and church and going to different classes, but we'll take one day at a time.

HAPPY GRANDPARENT'S DAY!

Today is a very special today to celebrate 6 of my most favorite people in the world. My Great-Grandma Struckmann, my Great-Grandpa Struckmann, my Grandma Horning, my Grandpa Horning, my Grandma Gustafson, and Grandpa Gustafson. Mommy and Daddy tell me how blessed I am to have 3 sets of grandparents that live in the same town and how fortunate I am to be able to see them several times a week! I have to admit, I like being spoiled and getting lots of attention! So - HAPPY GRANDPARENT'S DAY! I love you all very much! - Amaya

Amaya and Grandma H.

This is right after Amaya's first bath around the last week of January 2008 - my (Steve's) mom is putting on Amaya's clothes.

Many more videos to come!