The Dude Ranch 1st Birthday Party

A year ago on Martin Luther King Monday, we were bringing our little bundle of joy home from the hospital.  And this weekend, we celebrated his 1st birthday.  I'll admit, a valid concern of mine having a winter baby was that we would have to do all his birthday parties indoors.  Acres and acres of fun to entertain crowds of people outdoors and for the rest of our lives, we'll be celebrating a January birthday...likely always indoors.  It's just as well.  I mean, if he were born in September, poor kid would be stuck with "Grape Picking!" birthday parties for the rest of his life. 

We decided to celebrate with a little party with just my family, since they are all local...

And since just my family meant about 26 people in our cozy little farm house.

We decided to go with a cowboy theme.  This worked out well for my mom and my sister who were headed to the Brad Paisley concert right after the party. 

This was my quick attempt at taking pictures of the party decor before the space was filled

 wall to wall with people.  Cowboy boots, lassos, lemonade in mason jars, Cowboy pizzas from Papa Murphy's...

Fire in the fireplace with all of his monthly pictures taken with his stuffed lion strung across the mantel.  I put them out of order so everyone had to guess how many months he was in each picture.

My little buckaroo was still sleeping when all the party guests showed up.  So when I got him up, stuck a silly hat on his head, and made him stand in front of all his party guests while I took pictures of him, he was a little out of sorts. "Uhhhh...what's going on here?  All these people weren't here when I went to sleep..."

   But, at least he gave me his best cowboy pose.

Since there were 6 kids ages 6 and under and 5 of them were boys, I tried to make it portions of our small space as kid friendly as possible.  Thus, we created a little fort area called "Axel's Dude Ranch" (aka.  "Rowdy kids play here and don't bug the adults")

And then it was cake time!

It was at this point, my sister said, "So is Axel going to take a shower before he opens presents?"  Silly, Mom.  I totally forgot about gift opening!  So, we had to do a quick and intense wash-up before he dove into the presents.

Great-Grandma and Grandpa!  We call them Tutu and Kapuna.  Kapuna will be 89 next week, so we celebrated his birthday too.  I was even able to find a picture of him and his family when he was 2 to put out on the picture display.  That was the youngest picture of him they could find!  Amazing how times have changed.  I think I have taken 5, 682 pictures of Axel just in his first year, so there should be no reason why his grandchildren and great-grandchildren shouldn't be able to find any old pictures of him.

Of course, when he is 89, the year will be 2100!!!

What?!

The best part about being the youngest of 14 cousins...

LOTS of hand-me-down toys!

And people wonder why we need a bigger house...

The birthday boy had fun playing with balloons after everyone left. 

Seriously...entertained for hours...

The foam cowboy hat that never dies. This was a hat Aaron and his groomsmen wore at our wedding reception. 

It's pretty much a family heirloom. 

Oh!  And Aaron made a nice sign that he put outside, but I didn't take a picture of it until later that night.

Actually, I think he just wanted to show off his new toy. 

That deserves a post all its own.  Until next time...

The Bachelor "Wine Maker": This Woman Tells All

Aaron and I watched the premiere of The Bachelor on Monday night.  Yes, we both actually watched and yes, I actually just admitted it. I know, I know...here I just posted about how busy we are and how I just haven't had time to blog, yet, I had time to watch some silly, mindless, fabricated drama TV show....and I took my husband down with me.  What can I say, it was my last night of vacation before returning back to work.

I would almost go as far to say that pigs would have to fly before I could get Aaron to watch any show with me besides The Office or something on the History Channel.  But this season of The Bachelor there was one thing that made it enticing enough for him to actually be able to stand being in the same room with me while it was on TV; The Bachelor, for those of you who didn't tune in, is a winemaker in Sonoma.  So when I asked Aaron to watch it with me, I spun it a different way.

"Hey, do you want to watch a documentary about a winemaker in Sonoma with me tonight?"

I just didn't say it was The Bachelor...and that it was a reality show.

Of course, he spent the entire time narrating with snide comments, but we had a few laughs.  While Ben the Bachelor seems like a pretty nice and intelligent guy, I, especially, got a kick out of the girls.

I think the part that was the most fun for me was that these girls are all pining for a guy who has a few things in common with my husband.  They had footage of Ben the Bachelor out in the vineyard, driving tractor, carrying posts over his shoulder like a manly man, and testing wine out of the barrels.  I know what it is like to be in love with a guy who does those things.  It's pretty hot.

BUT...

Like most people who don't understand what's really involved in the vineyard and wine life, these girls are likely imagining a sophisticated, romantic life, strolling hand-in-hand through the vineyard, swirling wine in a glass while talking to their new fancy friends, and running a winery like it's a cakewalk.

It's not that they can't have those those.  It's just that there are a few other things that go along with it.

So, on one of upcoming episodes of The Bachelor, I'd like to see the Bachelorettes experience ALL of the things that come along with marrying a handsome, young, winemaker.

Like power washing an old barn that used to house chickens (and all the remnants that go along with them) in order to make room for more wine storage...

Or, canceling an entire month of plans and do nothing but pick grapes...and pick grapes.....

...and pick grapes.  Until their backs ache, their knees bleed and their fingers turn purple.

Permanently.

And then carry 30 pound bin after 30 pound bin of grapes and dump them into a grape de-stemmer before it can be made into wine.

I'd like to see one of the Bachelorettes hop on tractor and figure out how to use the post hole digger.

And then basically crawl inside a wine tank and clean it out with special sanitizing spray and make sure there aren't any remnants of grape skins.

I'd like one of the "dates" to be The Bachelor taking the girl out to his vineyard to prune grapevines in the middle of winter.

And then have her clean up after him after he's trudged through the house in muddy boots and dropped his Carharrt jacket that smells like gasoline and fungicide spray on the floor by the front door...

And then go to a dinner party where she listens to him talk about yeast, fermentation and vertical shoot positioning the entire night...


Sorry... were those too close to home?

But really, THOSE are the things these Bachelorettes are in for.

Of course, Ben the Bachelor is probably independently wealthy and has plenty of hired help to do all those things...and maybe his future wife will just sit around swirling a glass of wine in her evening gown.

But, what is the fun in just doing that?

All is Well!

Happy New Year from the Schrams!  

Thanks to the prompting of my sister-in-law, Lisa, I was reminded it has been a while since my last post.  I went back and looked...September 28th?!  Yikes!   I knew it had been a while, but I never intended to neglect this blog for over three months!  I guess time got away from me and I just needed a blogging hiatus and not feel guilty about not giving updates as frequently as I'd like.  As it turns out working full time, being a mom full time, tending to a vineyard, planning an addition, taking care of two big dogs, keeping up with housework, and throw the hullabaloo of the holidays on top of all of that and any "free time" to blog is almost nil.

So I didn't.  This past week, my free time was spent finally getting around to making Axel's baby book, while Aaron took advantage of our unseasonably warm weather and pruned grapevines outside.  I can't believe I took this picture on December 26th!

I realized that in one of my lasts posts, I left you hanging with a teaser about some potentially big news.  We were, at the time, very seriously pursuing buying a house right in front of our property on the lake.  It was a foreclosure and needed quite a bit of work and we figured, "Gosh, we don't have much of anything else going on, so why not find an extremely time consuming project."

If you can't tell, that last line is dripping with sarcasm.

We ended up in a multiple offer situation and, well, we didn't get it.  But as all things usually do, we think it worked out for the best.

Instead, we're now working with an architect to do an addition and remodel on our existing house where we can design it perfectly tailored for us and our "vineyard lifestyle." A place to raise our family, to entertain, to host events, to run our business.  We are very excited about what lies ahead and the plans we have seen so far.  If we can get our plans finalized soon, our goal is to break ground this spring, which we realize will come fast!  We are trying to set the expectation that this entire project will probably take years to complete and of course, will likely end up costing more than we initially budget.  Isn't that how it always works?

Can you believe our little boy is going to be ONE in less than two weeks?  People tell me all the time how fast the time goes and it is absolutely true.  A year ago I was sitting around uncomfortable and impatient, waiting for his big debut and this year, that little guy was WALKING around at Christmas, full of personality.







And he LOVES the doggies.  Even though we converted our entire dining room into a play room full of toys, all he wants to do is hang out on the dog bed with the dogs.  He "pets" them, talks to them, crawls all over them, pulls their ears and pokes them in the eyes, and the dogs are extremely tolerant of him.  Extremely.  They just lie there and sometimes give me a look like, "Really? You're going to let him get away with this?"

We had a wonderful Christmas and all has been well with the Schrams.  While we thought 2011 was an eventful year, I have a feeling 2012 will be no different.  Cheers to another year full of challenges, surprises, excitement, and joy!

Happy New Year!