Summer update

Hello friends - here's a short update from the Bergman household. I'm currently on holidays, which is probably why I'm taking the time to blog right now! The summer at work has been pretty busy, so my holidays were quite timely.

Andrea & I successfully returned from our first family vacation with Luke. We went to Clear Lake for 3 nights and enjoyed our time there. It was nice being in a new location - but it was also a lot of work keeping Luke fed & occupied (aka happy!). I'm sure other parents out there can identify. Below are a couple of pics of our time. Luke slept pretty well so we were able to enjoy some reading and a couple of movies after he was in bed.

Just prior to our time in Clear Lake I went on a fishing weekend led by Dean Klippenstein. We went to Grand Rapids with my dad & Woody Cornelson. We had an absolute blast and 3 of us enjoyed the fishing of our lifetime. On Friday night we caught over 80 walleye in about 2.5 hours and then on Saturday we caught over 75 pike as well - many of them having to be thrown back as they were over the 30" length limit. A couple pics are included below.

The shore lunch we enjoyed while fishing for jack

The boys with our killing from Friday night

A bison at Clear Lake (which I failed to

see in person because of a missed turn)

Luke enjoying his time on the playground at Clear Lake

Our little cutie with his new hat!

What a difference a week makes...

Big news on the home front. First off, Luke celebrated the completion of his first year of life last week. It is absolutely amazing how quickly the year has gone by. What a beautiful journey we've been a part of with our little man. He has taught us much...and we know that this will continue as time goes on. Pics of the party with our family will be posted below.


On another very exciting note, Luke has been sleeping much better since this past Tuesday. On Luke's birthday (May 21st) we went to see a homeopath about some of his skin issues (very red & irritated skin behind his knees, around his wrists & ankles, etc). Before we were too far in the homeopath suggested that his skin issues were the symptom of something else. If we could get his stomach a bit healthier (we didn't really identify this as an issue) he would more than likely sleep better. As he sleeps better, his stomach would improve...and in turn, his skin should begin to clear up a bit. Great idea we thought.


Then the homeopath went on to tell us that some behavious modification was in order regarding Luke's sleep patterns. Given that we've felt like we've tried almost everything, we were up for one more plan. Essentially, the plan involved us taking more control of sleep time...with less touch time while trying to get & keep Luke sleeping. The first night (this past Monday) was hard and Luke didn't enjoy the new pattern we were trying to establish. But, we all made it through the first night...and since then, Luke has continued to adapt to this new plan. Needless to say, we are shocked at how quickly he's adapted to the new system. We are very grateful that the new plan has been working because we had no idea what we were going to do with our chaotic night times.


Now, on to the pictures:

First birthday cake - post demolition

Care bear cake - pre-demolition

Getting excited for the party!

Sitting in front of my new car

What to do with all of these presents?

A Change of Seasons

Spring is in the air...and we've been loving it here in the Bergman household. After months of looking out the living room windows with Luke, the beautiful weather of the last few weeks has allowed a number of bike rides, walks and meals outside. Luke seems to enjoy watching the birds fly about the yard, listening to the chirping as they move from feeder to feeder. There has to be something about the fresh air, because his demeanor always improves when we head outside.

In the last week or so the little guy has also had a few more good nights (not without a couple brutal nights in between). We're hoping the new sleeping patterns we've been experiencing continues. As I write this, Luke has been down for 90 minutes during his morning nap with no interventions. This is pretty much a miracle in our books! Here are a few recent shots of us being outside...

Showing off his one tooth (with the one right

beside it on its way)

Enjoying our time at a park in Winnipeg

Hanging out in the tire swing at the

Toews Easter gathering

Another in-house relocation...

As you may have previously read on this blog, our beautiful little son Luke is not a huge fan of sleep. Neither at night...nor during the day. One of the issues we've seen is that he's an incredibly light sleeper and very sensitive to noise. So we picked up a white noise sleep machine, which helped a bit. Given our dry winters, we also picked up a humidifier...which also makes a little noise when the fan is running. We had hoped that both of these units would kill some noise helping Luke to sleep a bit better. Well, things haven't really changed in the last while so we thought we'd try a new approach: moving Luke's bedroom upstairs.

Amy came over this past Friday afternoon to help Andy & I make the transition (and in the meantime, purge a bunch of crap that we didn't need). After it was all said and done, we were both quite pleased with the result. On top of that, Luke's first 2 nights upstairs have been better than what they were when he was downstairs. Below are a few pics of the changes in our household.

This is what the upstairs looked like pre-tranformation

(very cluttered)

This was Luke's bedroom on our main floor
(formerly our master bedroom)

Here is the new bedroom upstairs.

And here is the new office on the main level

This will be a sitting room/office, along with a play

room for Luke.

At 10 months, Luke's first tooth has also started to make it's arrival known. We're hoping that a tooth or two finally coming in combined with the new sleep location help lead to some longer nights!

Some updated photos...

So our beautiful, little son is almost 10 months old. It's been an amazing process watching him develop over the last few weeks. He started bopping around like a seal on ice...and now he's reached a new level of crawling that has him moving all over the house. It's not quite perfected, but it's good enough to get him around. He has also started taking interest in standing beside the couch (and anything else he can get his hands on)...so it looks like he's started training to walk.

Anyway, below are a few updated pics of Lukie. Enjoy!

More than we bargained for...

This past weekend I went ice fishing with my dad & Dean Klippenstein on Lake Winnipeg (north of Selkirk). I hadn't ever really been ice fishing...at least not with someone who knew what they were doing. So needless to say, I was quite excited to get out there.

The day started off quite innocently. We met Dean's uncle Art and another guy that Art picked up. We headed off to find our first spot, and got things started from there. The air temperature was nice, but there was a bit of wind that made it feel a bit nippy. As the day continued we tried a few different spots, until we drilled our last fishing holes around 4pm. This is where the fishing really started to pick up. And that was a good thing...as it had been quite slow for us for a few hours. By this time the wind had picked up and was quite brisk.

At around 5:45 we started to pack up. It was about 6pm when we began our return trip to the shoreline. It had taken us just over 10 minutes to get out to our spot...and we didn't think it would take much more time to get back. Boy were we wrong. It wasn't long before out truck was stuck...being pulled out by Art (Dean's uncle). A minute or two later, we were pulling Art out. And so it went for about 45-50 minutes. Over the course of the afternoon, the path that we had taken onto the lake had been blown in with soft snow and it was virtually impossible to drive on. So we decided to start our own path...and we continued to get stuck.

We were able to get out and get moving, when we saw another truck in some trouble. We stopped to help pull them out (which didn't take too long). At this point we had 3 trucks in our caravan. We once again began to carve out our own path when we got stuck again and a 4th truck that was ahead of us turned around to help us out. We were pulled out, and we began to get going...when we got stuck once again. This time we were really hung up. Shortly after this, the two other trucks behind us got stuck as well. Leaving only one truck that had enough clearance to get through the snow.

Before too long it was decided that we were going to leave Dean & Art's truck on the ice for night...as they were stuck and weren't going to make it to the shore. At this point, I really began to wonder when we were going to get home...and I had figured that a night in Winnipeg was ahead of us - as we'd have no vehicle waiting for us at the shoreline. My dad, Dean, Art, Jaime (the tag along) and myself all hopped into the box of the one truck that was still moving and hung on as the driver pounded through the drifts. Eventually (after a 2 1/2 hour journey) we ended up at the shoreline - safe & sound. We were relieved, but now we needed to figure out where to stay and how Dean & Art were going to get their trucks off the ice.

As we were trying to figure out how to get home, another truck pulled up along side and two brothers jumped out. We asked them where they were going in the city. "South" they said.
"Where specifically?"
"South end of the city...and then way south of the city."
"Really, where?" we asked.
"I'm heading home to Winkler after I drop my brother off at a hotel."
Bingo!

My dad & I ended up catching a ride with these brothers home to Altona. A number of times on the way home I just smiled at the thought of how the day started out so innocently...and became a bit more dangerous or interesting than any of us were expecting. But then again, what's a fishing expedition without a good story to tell?


Here is Dean drilling holes to start the day.

The first catch of the day.


The day's end...a beautiful sunset.

A nice catch to end my day fishing.

A Little more...

And a few more pics for y'all to enjoy. Luke is 8 1/2 months old at the time of shooting.

A Little Something for the Ladies...

This post is dedicated to Luke's most faithful blog follower and girlfriend, Abby. This post (and the next one) is all for you!

An update on life...

So, the holiday season is over. As per usual, the time was full of gatherings and great food. A couple highlights:
- watching Luke open presents and enjoy the wrapping paper (more than anything else)
- watching our families thoroughly enjoy Luke during the festivities
- having breakfast with Andrew B
- hanging out with Dan & Karin (including the annual short court battle)
- going to see Invictus, Up In the Air and Avatar 3D all in one day

The only real lowlight was not being able to stay longer at a number of the parties due to Luke’s early bedtime.

Speaking of which…this brings to the update on where we’re at today. Our son has not been a model sleeper. He rarely goes more than an hour and a half of sleep without needing some kind of intervention. This isn’t good for either Andrea or myself…more specifically for her.

We had a great stretch in November where he was getting a good 4-5 hour sleep before 1am. That changed suddenly and now we’re in a spot where there is no good rhythm (I know, I know – this isn’t anything new for most parents). So to try to help that we are in the midst of a 10-day trial run of sticking with relatively the same schedule each day (Andrea has blogged a bit on how things have been going).

Even though there have been 2 brutal nights, we have noticed some improvements. Luke seems to be falling asleep a little bit easier…and he’s also easier to put back to sleep if he wakes up during the night. Our experience with Luke and his sleeping has reminded me that sometimes you need to celebrate the little things in life…like your son falling back to sleep without you having to pick him up.

So that’s a small picture into where we’re at right now. More updates to come. Here are some more current photos of the little man who runs our household.

Our smiley little guy

Luke's official weigh in earlier today

(21lbs 12oz - 85th percentile)

Luke not really enjoying his first "swimming" experience

(it got better later on)

I woke up one morning during the Christmas break

to find Luke in a new play spot