The Mixed-Up Adventures of the Merry Mederich's.

It's been a long time since I last updated.  Way too long. Last time I updated was in June.  We were still living in Oakdale - not even thinking about selling our house and moving.  Boy has a lot changed. Justin was a teency bit frustrated by his job search.  With church positions, generally you start in youth ministry.  This is all fine and good, except that Justin's passion isn't necessarily for youth, and he's not really one to fake a passion.  It's just not in him.  So in his frustration he ended up meeting up with Scott Woller - lead pastor and founder of Corner Church in Minneapolis.  Corner Church is super awesome.  Scott and Amber started Corner Church in Corner Coffee 10 years ago.  They now have two church locations and both meet in coffee shops - Corner Coffee and The Beat.  The vision is to continue to plant churches in businesses in Minneapolis.  They are super community-driven.  Justin and I decided that ...

Apparently I failed at posting a super awesome first birthday post for Soren.  Instead of re-hashing every gory detail I'll say this, "His party was awesome!"  We had family over for a backyard barbecue complete with a fire and pinata.  Jordan made a sweet video that pretty much covers it all. Click here, but you might only be able to see it if you're facebook friends with Jordan. :) My boy at his party. Enjoying a cupcake. So what is our sweet man up to now that he is 1 and 1 month? Physical.  Soren walks.  Soren climbs, Soren falls and gets bruises.  Soren gets back up and keeps on climbing.  For real.  Today we were at the cabin and Simon, Soren, and Foreman (cousins born within six months of each other) were just three bruisers looking for trouble.  I couldn't tell you exactly when Soren started walking, but it's been awhile.  Maybe two months or so?  Eating.  Soren eats three meals a day and two snac...

This post is going to be mostly pictures.  We spent time in Florida from April 17-24 and it was awesome.  So nice to be away and be together without the pressures of work, house projects, social commitments, etc.  At the end of our time I wasn't even ready to come home, but now that we are here I'm glad.  We rented a cute little 3 bedroom house in Port St. Lucie and it was so nice to be able to put the kids to bed in their own rooms.  Soren was sick at the beginning and didn't sleep awesome for the first two and a half days, but then his cough seemed to subside and we were good to go. Holler! After all, it's nice to get some rest on vacation. Justin's grandparents live in nearby Fort Pierce and we saw them everyday.  They were very generous and insisted on spoiling the great grand-babies.  When we showed up at their house on Saturday they had a few brand new toys just waiting to be tampered with.  Via and Soren loved being at their house and enj...

***Posting this late because I had issues with pictures loading properly again.  Written on March 5 and posted on March 16.*** Yesterday Via was 2 years and 4 months old.  She is truly a treat to be around.  She asks so many questions.  She loves to wear dresses.  She closes her eyes so tight when we pray before meals and at bedtime.  Via likes to put things on the table at meal times. She is sometimes mean to her younger brother, but mostly she is a good big sister.  Physical Milestones:  Via can jump!  She can get both feet off the ground and loves to prove it.  Via is potty-trained!  We are a cloth-diapering family and it's great to be back to only laundering for one baby. Eating:  3 meals and 2 snacks.  Lots of fruits and veggies, but much like her parents she has a major sweet tooth.  We are all trying to be more self-controlled.  She loves veggies and hummus! Sleep:  We put the kids to bed by 7...

February 21 marked Soren's 9 month "birthday."  I'm only a little behind on this update which is not all that bad.  If I get my life together I might even actually get Via's update blog out on March 3! Hard to believe that's only one month shy of my 28 year update.  Oofta.   Yesterday Justin and I went on a date.  We had a cute little high school junior watch our kids while we ran out for just under 3 hours. We love dates! It's always nice to be away for just a bit to refocus on each other.  As we were walking out to the garage Justin commented on how old we are.  I mean - we are many moons away from stepping into retirement, but we are getting to the place where it feels like leaving our kids with a junior in high school is a little unnerving.  She's just a kid for crying out loud, and we are entrusting our kids to her care? We usually have family babysit, so this truly was a new experience for us. And obviously she did great. The goal is alwa...

I have been slacking on my blogging; no good.  I missed Soren's 7 and 8 month updates as well as Via's 2 year, 2 month update.  So, let's get caught up! Soren will be 9 months on February 21, and is a wonder to behold.  Cheeks.  Rolls.  Massive amounts of baby love going on when you snuggle this kid.  He is basically crawling.  Technically it's just an army crawl, but he gets up on all fours all the time.  He just hasn't put the two together yet.  He moves so fast.  It's hard for us to keep up.  He goes for the dog food.  We pick it up in the nick of time.  He wails.  He's headed into the bathroom.  We shut the door.  He wails.  He's a mostly happy kid, but is not super thrilled when he doesn't get what he wants. Soren is 100% bottlefed.  Even though it was my choice, it still makes me sad that I'm not nursing anymore.  We no longer feed him at his nighttime wake-ups (more on that later), ...