Man vs Deer

Life always has a way of keeping perspective. Tonight Shawn and Carter were in another car accident. This time a deer tried to play chicken with the Pilot. We all had dinner at Culvers and then Sara and Logan went to the ski hill while Shawn and Carter went home. Going down Cty Rd 50 at about 40 miles per hour a deer came out of no where and hit us. Good thing is Shawn never saw it until they hit - hence they didn't swerve into oncoming traffic. Bad thing is there is a lot of damage: we will need to replace the front bumper, hood, right passenger door, paint on the back passenger door, get a wheel realignment and replacement the front right wheel well. I guess that is why you have insurance. At first it wasn't drivable, but after pulling some of the wheel well casing off it appears ok to drive short distances - not sure we will go on the highway.

Good thing it was the Pilot, I think if it was the BMW the deer would have flipped right up onto the wind shield and who knows what would happen from there.

Lakeville = 11.7" of Snow

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=886527

Snow totals as of 12 p.m. Saturday:

Lakeville: 11.7"

Hutchinson: 11.6"

Zumbrota: 11"

Carver: 10.5"

Chaska: 10.5"

Burnsville: 10.5"

Northfield: 10.2"

Brownton: 10"

Prior Lake: 9.9"

Farmington: 9.5"

Chanhassen: 8.1"

Minneapolis: 8.0"

Our Ski Deamons

The snow has been flying in MN. Carter went skiing for the first time last weekend and did great. Today all (4) of us strapped on our equipment and enjoyed the 10" of new snow - unfortunately fresh snow is more difficult to ski in and Carter had a hard time. Logan is doing great - today he made it through all the gates on the black diamond race hill twice. I thought the kids would be exhausted after skiing, but 30 minutes after being home they announced, "lets go to the health club." Tonight Sara and I have a date night to get some Christmas shopping done while our Friends watch the boys - something tells me they will crash tonight!

Happy Thanks - Christmas!

We just returned from our Mattson Thanksgiving-Christmas in Duluth. All had a good time. The boys enjoyed playing with their cousins (going on hikes in the enchanted woods, visiting the Aquarium, playing "hide-and-go-seek," and making Christmas cookies). Friday night we all went to visit Bentleyville in downtown Duluth - AMAZING light display complete with Santa, free hot chocolate, and cookies).

http://www.bentleyvilleusa.org/

Bentleyville attracts over 200,000 people each year for a light display encompassing over 3 million lights! The event is free and run through volunteers - highly encourage a visit to Duluth to check it out. This year they added a 12-story Christmas tree with over 50,000 lights that is synchronized with various Christmas songs.

Today we are headed out for our first ski day of the year - Carter is primed to test out his new skis. Hopefully the next post will be filled with fun pics from the hill and not from the ER.

Dry as the Sahara

Logan is on day 11! I wish we would have become friends with "Maylem" 15 months ago - it is amazing to watch his transition and he is so PROUD of himself. We are celebrating tonight with a party at "Triple Play Sports" with one of his buddies.

Welcome to winter!

MN went from the high 60s early in the week to 8 inches of snow Saturday morning! Some parts of the city got over a foot. The boys woke up at 6am SUPER excited - we forced them inside until 7am and then they were out playing (per the dark pictures). Grandma closer had a sleep over Saturday night for the kids and Logan spent most of the afternoon shoveling her driveway.

Had to share the torture poor Carter has been going through via his Mom! The really scary thing is that he wanted his "ponnies" kept in his hair all night.

A week of firsts in the Mayfield House

Outside of the first winter colds being passed around our house, we have had a couple BIG things to celebrate this week:

1. Logan has learned to tie his shoes! We have been practicing a lot and it finally clicked! The only person happier than us will be Logan's friend Zach who has become the designated first grade shoe tier in Logan's class. Logan still wears his velcro shoes to school, but maybe next week we will send him with his "big boy shoes."

2. Miracles are happening in our house! Long story made short. We have been struggling getting Logan to be dry through the night for the past several months. We have exhausted everything: limiting fluids past 5pm, waking him up at 1AM to go...nothing worked. He was still wet every morning. The boy sleeps so hard you can vacuum upstairs and he will not wake up. Finally, after calling the doctor and not knowing what else to try, we ordered the "Maylam Bedwetting Alarm." We read many online reviews and learned it had about a 70% success rate - but it takes 6-12 weeks of "training." We figured we should at least try - what else do we have $175 to spend on. Logan was very apprehensive when he found out we ordered it, but as we waited for it in the mail he got more and more excited for his "friend" to arrive. In short, the first 7 days the alarm went off at 3am every morning....and I need to mention this alarm is as loud as a fire alarm. Even Logan shoots straight up and out of bed. Well...the past 4 nights he has been dry! AMAZING! He knows if he makes it 5 nights he gets a special day at "triple play sports" - his favorite place in the world. We will keep you posted.