2019

Your First Birthday

Shortly after celebrating your first Christmas, we celebrated your first birthday.  We actually waited until after the New Year to make sure everyone was around.  Turns out that people generally don't plan things for the weekend after the Christmas and New Year holidays, so you had a great turnout at your party!  We had your party over at Gramp's and Grammy's house and Mom baked you a home made cake.  We also had a nice selection of food and drink, and most everyone stayed for the entire time  As we set your "Smash Cake" down you stared in awe, and slowly dipped your finger in to have a taste.  You did lots of eating, not a whole lot of smashing.  We let you go at it for a few minutes before deciding you had had enough, otherwise its possible you would have eaten the entire thing.  Suffice it to say you were NOT happy about that!

Getting Your Tubes

After a run of ear infections that left both Mom and Dad running on little sleep for days at a time you were finally cleared to get your tubes!  Although we were relieved that tubes would help you feel better this was also our first experience as parents seeing you carried away from us where we could not protect or comfort you.  It was heartbreaking and terrifying.  Luckily the procedure was very quick and everything went well.  After about an hour you were in our arms and we were on our way home shortly after. 

Buying a House and Remodeling a Kitchen

Keeping the theme of major life changes going Mom and Dad bought a house in March of 2019!  We had moved back to Kalamazoo from Howell and were renting a house in Parchment for a few months.  Initially we thought it would be no problem to find a house in the 4 months or so we had to look.  Turns out it's VERY stressful to find a place to live when you are on a hard deadline.  Luckily, we found a house we really liked a little more than a month before we had to move out, the only problem was Mom wanted to redo the kitchen before moving in.  

Thankfully Papa was handy, retired, and willing to put in a LOT of work.  Over the next 6 weeks we gutted and remodeled the entire kitchen, dining room, living room, and hallway.  During this process your Dad had a panic attack when he had to live one of his worst nightmares in real time (ask him about it someday).  Even with our very best efforts we ended up living at Gramp's and Grammy's place for about a week to finish up some last details before we moved in.  

All in all the house turned out amazing and we were exceedingly happy with the results.  Mom and Dad were both relieved when the project was complete so we could spend more time with you and enjoy our new house.  Now, on to the basement.....but that's a story for another post ;).

Gymnastics

The first activity we put you in was swimming, the second was gymnastics.  You started off very tentative in gymnastic class, but as the sessions went by you started to get more comfortable with all of the equipment....and with the parachute.  Mom and Dad followed you around the gym as you ran, crawled, bounced, and balanced your way across the room.  All in all it was a great way to spend Saturday mornings during your toddler years. 

Fall and Halloween

We had quite a busy fall full of activities, friends, and family.  You went to Gull Meadow Farms 3 TIMES.  Who gets to do that?!   Your first trip was with Gramps and Grammy, and of course you had a wonderful time.  The next visit was with Mom, Dad, and a couple sets of grandparents when we went to get pumpkins and pick apples.  Reece joined us on that adventure.  The last visit we all met Sammy and his family there and we did all of the fun games and activities.  You especially loved all the animals and big slide that you got to go down all by yourself.  

For Halloween, surprise, surprise, you dressed up as Minnie!  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and it was about 32 degrees and snowing.  So instead of dragging you around in the cold (probably making all three of use miserable) we went to a local church that was hosting indoor trick or treating.  Success!    

Bowling

Your first time bowling was a real hoot!  We went to Airway Lanes with Mom, Dad, Nana, Papa, Uncle Chadd, and Colton.  That place has been around for a LONG time.  It used to be just a bowling alley, now its a kids paradise complete with an arcade, lazer tag, go-karts, putt-putt golf, a ropes course and more.  You were a little tentative at first, but after you rolled that bowling ball down the big pink dinosaur for the first time you couldn't get enough!  While we were bowling we ate pizza, and after we were done we had some fun playing video games and playing some game where we shot nerf style balls at each other.

Christmas

Ah Christmas time.  Once again we had a packed Christmas season seeing all of our family, opening lots of presents, and reading The Night Before Christmas for the first time!  This year we had Uncle Chadd and Coltan stay at our house, so you got to wake up and open presents with one of your favorite people.  We also went to Gull Meadow farms to look at their Christmas light display, all three of us were quite impressed.  Not only did you get to feed the Christmas goats while we were there, but you danced your way through the decorated greenhouses.  You also got to sit on Santa's lap, or a least close to Santa, you were not a big fan of him this year.  After all the festivities we headed off to Florida for some sun and relaxation (but that is saved for the next post!).

Schurr Florida Family Vacation - Take 2

Since we had so much fun last year, we headed to Florida once again!  Instead of going to Orlanda and Disney again this year we decided to play it a little more laid back and get a house on AirBnB near the ocean with a pool.  In addition to the usual suspects (Nana, Papa, Chadd, and Coltan), Uncle Chadd brought his new girlfriend Shonda.  The house was huge, it had a screen in swimming pool and hot tub, and we were about a half mile walk to the beach.  What more could we ask for?  We spent our time swimming, drinking, going to the beach, and playing mini-golf.  Some local musician even sang happy birthday to you at the local Tiki Hut. The plan ride went decently well this time around (at least you did not spill bloody mary all over Mom again).