It's my birthday!!!

Wow...how fast a year goes by. Claire celebrated her 1st birthday on December 19th. Erin and I had a little party for her on the 15th with our family's which was a lot of fun. Claire had a couple of firsts that day: eating cake (she loved it!) and opening gifts. We appreciate everyone that traveled over for the day...and for all of the gifts that Claire received!

Breakfast with Santa

Back in the beginning of December Erin, Claire and I went to Plae' Bistro for "Breakfast with Santa". It was Claire's first time meeting the man in the red suite, so we were interested to see her reaction...at first she was ok, but once he got close she wasn't too happy. I can't blame her though...if I was that small a guy in bright red clothes, with a white beard that wanted me to sit on his lap would scare the crap out of me too...actually, I'm still scared of guys who want me to sit on their lap!

Birthday Boys!

November 25th was a very important date for two reasons...Baxter turned 21 (he's actually 3 in human years) and Herb turned the BIG 6-0! We tried to fill Herb's cake with that many candles, but Erin and I were not able to obtain the proper fire permits in time, so he had to settle for six candles instead. Baxter got to have his first adult beverage since he was of legal age...he wanted to go bar hopping, but I didn't want to be hung over for work the next day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope all of our family and friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving...especially after a Packer victory! Here are a few pics of Claire's first Thanksgiving which we spent in Milwaukee at Erin's aunt and uncles house (Ed and CC's). We had a very interesting trip home...we decided to go deer hunting. While driving north on 43, and just a few miles south of Manitowoc, we hit 2 deer (yes, 2 of them at the same time). There wasn't any traffic, and by time we saw them in the head lights it was too late. No one was hurt, other than some damage to Herbs company car. But it sure did make for an exciting end to our day!

Someone is moving!

Last week Friday Claire decided that she was sick of only being able to roll around...so she started army crawling! At least we have Baxter to help keep tabs on her.

Basement update

Well, things are really starting to progress downstairs. After framing for the past two months (when I had time on the weekends), I've finally moved on to other stages of the building process...thank god. Last week we had the full bath installed, and last night we started running all of the electrical/cable/phone wires. So, from 6pm - 2am we (myself and two very helpful friends) worked on that...and we still have a few more hours to go. We do have working recessed lights though, which is great! As you can see from the pics, the drywall was delivered today...so sheetrocking will start on Monday (which means plastering should be done no later than Wednesday morning!). My goal is still to have it done (well, at least almost done) by Claire's 1st b-day party on the 15th...so the next few weeks will be busy! As frustrating as this process has been at times, I just keep thinking of the day I'll be able to sit down there with an adult beverage, and watch a Packer game on our new 46" LCD (which should be here in a few weeks!!). More pics to come next week after the plastering is complete...



The 12' sheets of drywall that were delivered today...thankfully they took it downstairs!



Work-out room



Bathroom



View from family room...we'll have a back bar under the stairs...steps to the right go to the garage.

Bath-time...but for who?

Claire isn't too sure if she's taking a bath...or if Baxter is going to jump in before her.