Saints win

It's a sports weekend. Maeve dressed up for her favorite NFL team - the New Orleans Saints. Kate is teaching her to say 'who dat' for her first words. We'll see if it works! We enjoyed a day of family fun at the 2nd annual pie day at Terry and Tim Bumgarner's house and watched the NFL games.

Notre Dame wins

Today we cheered on the Irish as they marched onward to victory in the Pinstripe bowl game. Maeve enjoyed watching the game with her Dad and Grandpa Ed. After the game, Mom and Grandma Brigid took Maeve and Sadie for a walk on this "balmy" 40 degree day as the weather is forecasted to dip below zero for the high over the next few days. Maeve was so excited after all of this that she played on her mat and has started to interact with it. Check out the link to the video titled Maeve playing.

Maeve's 1st Christmas

Merry Christmas! Maeve enjoyed her first Christmas this morning. She slept through most of it but she got lots of clothes and toys. She is now napping in her infant swing for the first time. Grandma and Grandpa Edmonds visited this year and helped us unwrap presents Christmas morning. We partied with the Kirchner and Wittenborg family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Here are some pictures from all of our activities.

Christmas bear

Kate and Eric both have a picture with a stuffed bear around Christmas time when we were a few months old. This morning we took a picture with Maeve by Eric's stuffed bear. Who does she look more like?! Cast your vote in the comments section.

Maeve's first trip to Mall of America

Maeve visited Mall of America yesterday with her friend Scarlett. Scarlett's mom, Stephanie, and Kate had a great time "mall walking." We didn't shop too much, but we did see shops that we'll be going in someday - like the American Girl store and Janie and Jack. Here is a picture of Scarlett (on the left) and Maeve (on the right). We had them all bundled up because of the cold so you can't see them very well. Hopefully the cold weather cover keeps the germs out too!

Maeve's name

A lot of people ask us about Maeve's name. We chose it because we wanted something Irish that didn't require a nickname. Kate had heard the name before from author Maeve Binchy and from a daughter of one of Brigid's friends. Many of our East Coast relatives know someone with the name or have heard it before as well as people in South Bend. We didn't realize that people in Minnesota hadn't heard the name before so I guess it's not as common as we thought. It looks like only 568 people in the U.S. are named Maeve each year. Check out the link below. We love that she won't have any (most likely) people in her class that have her name. Once you hear the name and see it spelled for the first time then we hope everyone can catch on quickly and love it as much as we do!!

http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Maeve+popularity&x=-285&y=-72

Sadie K

It was a "balmy" 30 degrees today so Kate called Grandpa Steve to come watch Maeve so Sadie could go on a walk. It's hard to give attention to the dog and the baby but Sadie appreciated getting outside today. Too bad the weather is forecasted to get really cold again. Here is a picture of Sadie that Aunt Anne took when she was here in October.

Maeve visits Santa

We went to the Macy's 8th floor display today and met Santa. Maeve was not impressed at first but then fell asleep in his arms. We talked to Santa for several minutes, and Eric learned how to do a "selfie" pic with all 4 of us in the picture. Here is our professional family picture, the "selfie" and a group shot at Santaland.

Happy Birthday Eric

 Eric and Maeve in downtown Minneapolis

Today is Eric's 30th Birthday! Kate and Maeve went downtown to see Eric's work and eat lunch. Maeve did great nursing in public for the first time so that helped so that Kate could spend more time downtown without having to rush home to feed Maeve. We also had our first diaper change in public and Maeve didn't have any accidents :)

Maeve is 1 month old

Maeve is already a month old. Everyone always says that the time flies by and it really does. We are learning so much about her and falling into a routine (of eating, sleeping, and pooping!). Eric went back to work this week leaving mom and Maeve alone. They managed just fine! Mom and Maeve joined a new moms group which meets every Tuesday. It's nice to get out of the house and socialize with other moms and babies. Maeve mostly sleeps through class so we'll take that as a sign that she likes it.

This week Maeve enjoyed tummy time on her mat, eating from her first bottle and following the sounds of mom's voice by moving my head side to side. Maeve also took her first nap in her crib! Mom enjoyed shopping online for Christmas and birthday presents and watching Christmas movies.

Eric feeding Maeve her first bottle

Maeve is 1 month old

Still learning....Where's the time go?

Still learning....Where's the time go? 

Checking out the nursery at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

 

Captured a big smile on camera!

Many hours have gone into getting this blog off the ground.  I'm still learning all about customizing the site.  There is lots to learn within WordPress but I can already tell its going to be a powerful tool.

Trying to find the time to blog is a different story!!  In between diaper changes, feedings, baths, rocking Maeve to sleep and Mom and Dad trying to get the occasional zzz's it is challenging!

Dad returned back to work this week which means this is the first big week Mom and Maeve are on their own!!  They are having fun together and enjoying one another's company. Sadie feels left out from time to time, but with the FREEZING cold temps, Dad hasn't been able to spoil her with any "W's".

Mom and Maeve have a big outing tomorrow to go visit Mom's coworkers at Medtronic!  Lets hope it warms up a bit for them.  Mom and Maeve are coming to meet Dad on Monday for Dads birthday Downtown!  We're looking forward to showing Maeve off in the next few days!

All for now!

Dad

We're live!

I did it.  Yes, I decided to give Word Press a try to learn all about it.  So many people indicate that this is the superior platform to use for blogging.  With the birth of our new baby girl Maeve in November, I decided it was time to figure out what blogging was all about.  Expect the content on this site to change a lot as I work to get a site up and running!!  Please bear with us as we work to get what we hope will be a daily newspaper like update from the Kirchner Family.  I can pretty much guarantee it won't be daily, but at least I can strive for that for now :)  I'm still learning as I go to, so hang in there!

To get the site this far took many late night hours reading and learning all about what a host was, how to get a domain, who the preferred providers were and how to effectively utilize.  To get the site this far took a combination of recommendations from friends, reading a book on how to create a Word Press site and watching online tutorials.  The hard part is behind us though, and now comes the fun part about designing the way the user will interact with our site.

We hope you enjoy our daily newspaper as much as we did in creating this!