Farm Fashion

Those of you who know me, or those who have been reading my blog for a while, know I have a bit of a shoe fetish.  While I have come a long way since my uptown days and I can't remember the last time I wore 4-inch heels, I do my best to keep a little bit of my inner fashionista alive living out here on the farm.  

I'm not afraid to admit that these days you'll find me wearing the same oversized cozy sweater day in and day out, with spit-up in my hair because I forget to tie it back, and rotating between three pairs of sweatpants.  I now understand the women who get dolled up to go to Target* because I believe I am turning into one of them.  Any chance I get to get out of my sweatpants and go out in public and I want to throw on some make-up and put on my Sunday best!  So being holed up at home in the middle of winter with my own little "doll" to dress up in whatever I want, only encourages this pent up fashionista in me.

So the other day, I couldn't help getting my baby clad for work out in the vineyard, albeit a ways off.

I mean, honestly, is it even realistic to think that he will be walking when he fits into these boots?

No.  But how can I resist a pair or work boots this size that are just like his daddy's? 

He just has to break them in a bit. And we all know the second he can walk, we'll have him out picking grapes, so I am just getting prepared.


And what's a farm kid without cowboy boots? 

Nevermind that we are raising grapes here, not horses.  

And flannel?

Cowboy boots, flannel...and a farm themed bouncy seat.

Oh, and overalls!  Can't forget the overalls! 

Wardrobe change.

Oh, dear. 

Someone help me...

I am going to dress him in overalls until he's 18. 

And lederhosen.

Overalls and lederhosen.

He's going to hate me.

*Please note these pictures of me were taken before aforementioned "Target run."

For now, I am going to enjoy my time playing dress-up for his life destined to be a cowboy. 

Or a farmer...

Or grapepicker...

Or Chippendale dancer?

Look at that face.  He has no idea the life we have in store for him. 

And can someone explain to me how Aaron and I conceived a seemingly blue-eyed child? 

I swear I have never even met the mailman. 

If all other features weren't pointing towards Aaron, I might be in trouble.  I mean I know they are still changing color and all and there is that whole recessive gene thing...but still. 

What do you think the chances are I can get Aaron to wear an outfit like this?

Hello, Outside World!

I actually went outside for the first time in about three months the other day.  Sadly, that's hardly an exaggeration.  We had our first big snowstorm November 13th and it just kept coming and then in got cold and...well, you know how winter goes.  Between being at the end of my pregnancy and then being home with a newborn, there really never seemed an opportune time to get outside for a bit.

When the temp climbed into the mid-40s the other other day, I decided to climb out from under my rock (where I have spent the last five weeks snuggling my little guy), bundle him up and take a walk outside.  First out to the outbuilding to visit Aaron and see the projects he's been working on all winter.  The man has been busy!  He's been telling me about an air-blast sprayer he's building for the vineyard, but I had no idea how big it was!  He'll be able to use it to spray fungicide on the vines this year.  Instead of buying one for a couple thousand bucks, he made good use of this off-season, put his handy-man skills to work and built one.

Then the three of us walked out to the vineyard.  I can't believe I haven't so much as looked at the vineyard in at least 3 months!  Aaron has done a lot of the pre-pruning and we'll have to spend a few weekends in March doing all the pruning to get the vines ready for bud-break in the spring. 

Anyone want to come help?



Anyone? 

We actually had fun doing it last year!  We picked a warmer weekend to do it and when we were done, I made a bunch of grapevine wreaths!


Although this has been one long winter, I can't believe spring is just around the corner! 

With these warmer temps, we've had a great thaw and can actually see some of our lawn now!  I found things like old dog toys lying around that have been buried all winter, one of my green rubber boots one of the dogs must have stolen off the deck last fall and carried out to the lawn.  But what took the cake were all of the pumpkins and gourds I had surrounding my deck last fall that never got thrown out.  I kept saying I would throw them out once the snow melted after the first storm.  But it never did.  So anyone coming to our house now is greeted by soggy, rotten pumpkins.

And then I caught the dogs eating them today.

Sometimes I feel like I have three children.  As though one baby wasn't enough to keep my hands full, Belle came into the house limping.  After examining her paw, I determined the pain was coming from a BROKEN NAIL on her paw.

Seriously.  A broken nail.  Such a female! 

They'll do anything to get the attention back on them.  Like a few weeks ago when we looked over at them sitting on their dogbed like this...

Completely un-posed.  They did this on their own!  It's as if they collaborated and said, "what can we do that will make us look irresistible? Let's cuddle. Look cute!"

And we fell for it.

They looked so cute and comfy together, we thought maybe, just maybe, if they stayed that way we could stick the baby in the middle of them for a photo that could quite possibly rival Anne Geddes.

Aaaaand...that's as close as we got.  Doggies got way too excited when I got this close, so there was no way I was putting him down and positioning them all for an artistic shot.

But, we tried.

Aaron has spent the last few days at the Minnesota Grape Growers Association (MGGA) Cold Climate Conference.  Since I couldn't go this year, I told him to take good notes for me!  In the meantime, here is my recap from last year.

Eat, Sleep, Poop, Repeat (Plus...our Non-Traditional Nickname)

Hi, remember me?  Sorry, I've taken a brief hiatus from blogging while I've been adjusting to motherhood these past few weeks.  My intentions have been good, it's just taken me a while to hammer this out!  My title about sums up what the last three weeks have been like for us. 

Or, Alexander rather!

I haven't posted for a few reasons:

1.  I find it difficult to type a blog post one handed, as that's about all I've had available for three weeks.  I can write about a paragraph at a time before baby beckons!  The truth is, I started writing this post three days ago and have just been chipping away at it! 

2.  The theme of this blog is supposed to be our "adventures in vineyardland", not just our "adventures in parenthood."  And while it IS the middle of winter and while our growing family IS part of our adventure, I am sensitive about having every post this winter be about the every movement of our adorable baby boy.  Don't get me wrong, I'd love to write about how his precious little sneezes make my heart go pitter-patter (as any proud new mama would), but I am not so delusional to think that all of my grape growing and wine loving readers really want to read about every milestone our little baby hits.  Although many of you out there might!  So I'm doing my best to stifle my urges to gush about our baby too much in this forum while still giving some baby highlight posts amongst my vineyard adventure posts. 

I think we are in for a big surprise this spring.  And I thought we were busy last year!  Now we are adding more vines to tend to and a baby to the mix!  It is going to be one busy year.

So besides the eating, sleeping, and pooping that our Alexander has mostly been doing these first few weeks, here are some highlights since he was born on January 14th.

I'll spare you the details of our birth story...I'll just say that it was long.  As a result of a prolonged labor, I got an infection at the very end of my labor which meant Alexander had to go to the NICU for a few days to get antibiotics as precautionary to make sure no infection spread to him.  Which it didn't and we were so thankful to bring home a healthy boy after just a few days!

This was our first family picture taken just before the nurses swept him away to take him to the NICU.  My tears were tears of joy, mixed with exhaustion and some anxiety, because at that point I didn't know what was going on and I didn't want them to take my baby away!

And this was how we saw our baby for the first two days.  We were able to hold him and I could feed him, but he had to stay hooked to all the wires to keep tabs on his vitals, which remained strong the whole time.

This was our announcement picture.  I was sneaky just posting a picture of his sweet face as I didn't want to unnecessarily alarm everyone with pictures of all his wires without giving an explanation! 

We had lots of family visitors our first few days at home with my side of the family!  Alexander is surrounded by lots of love both near and far and we are excited to introduce him to the Schram side of the family soon.

The dogs have been adjusting well to their new little brother.  They have been very curious and seem to already be developing a protective demeanor.  Every time I let them in from outside, they immediately walk around the house scouting out all the spots the baby could be...the bouncy seat, the swing, the crib.  Once they find him and do some chaperoned sniffing, they settle down and rest, often on the floor in front of the crib if he is sleeping to act as the crib guardians.  It's pretty sweet. 

This picture still scares me!  Look at the comparison of their heads!  Tux could swallow him whole! This was taken when Alexander was only a few days old.  Tux and Belle are loving their new little brother!  Maybe too much!  I'll admit, it has been a struggle keeping the dogs at a comfortable distance from the baby, since they like to get their noses right up in there. Thus the reason the dogs have been spending a lot of time outdoors!

These were some pictures taken around 2 weeks.

He's been a really good sleeper this past week...he even slept 6 straight hours two nights in a row!  Good boy!

And he's been eating like a champ!  The doctor was impressed by his weight gain in just the first two weeks.  Keep it up little fella!

My goofy boys!

Guess who he'll be rooting for this Sunday?  His daddy's team!

Last but not least, we have had a lot of questions about what nickname we are using.  Although Alexander is a great name by itself, it is four syllables and it's realistic to assume it will get shortened...something we gave a lot of thought to before he was born.  So here's the story for those that don't know. 

When we started talking about names, Aaron and I quickly learned that I was partial to more unique names and Aaron partial to more classic names.  I loved the name Axel.  It's unique, without being a made-up name and, in my opinion, extremely masculine! Axel is actually a very old name and more commonly used in some European countries, like Germany.  I pictured a rough and tumble kid named Axel running around the vineyard in his lederhosen or helping daddy with some projects out in the garage. 

As a compromise, Aaron suggested that we name him Alexander and use Axel as a nickname, satisfying his desire for a more traditional official name and my desire for him not to potentially be one of four Alex's in his kindergarten class.  And we both loved the sound and strength of Alexander Schram.  We just wanted to take some time to try out Axel after he was born to make sure it was a suiting nickname for him.  When he came out practically with a mohawk, an edgier nickname seemed warranted!  Naturally, people have assumed we will call him Alex, so I figured now would be a good time to address our nickname intentions.

So if you see me using Alexander and Axel interchangeably in future posts, now you know the story behind our non-traditional nickname.  It's nice having some versatility with a name!

Speaking of names...someone is calling mine!  I better run.  Until the next time my two hands are available again...