Hi there!  It’s been a while since I posted, so there is tons to update.  We’ll start with tonight!  We made Great Grandma D’s favorite cookies tonight.  Grandpa, Mommy and Avery had a blast making cookies.  Avery got to pour the dry ingredients into the mixer and he also got to help mold them into balls and roll them in cinnamon.  Impressive that he only ate one ball of dough.  I guess I should have told him not to eat it BEFORE I gave it to him to roll into a ball.  I suppose hind-sight is 20/20.  We were making snicker-doodles (or if you are Avery “sickernoodles”).  He had tons of fun!  We got to make cookies because he ate his dinner so well.  He ate all his zucchini, most of his asparagus and all of his orzo.  Such a good boy (how’s that for making you sick Jessie?!).

Avery is talking a mile-a-minute and getting extremely good at it.  You can understand most of what he says and if he has an audience, he’s a total ham.  He will do ANYthing for a laugh.  He sings songs (Life is a highway, Chain Gang, and Route 66 are his favorites right now). 

Todd and I are trying to buy a house right now as some of you already know.  We had an appointment yesterday with our agent to give him our list of repairs that need to be made after having the inspection last week.  We expect to hear back from them on Wednesday by noon.  So we need everyone to keep their fingers crossed and pray for us…  It’s a nice spacious house.  Two bedrooms and one bath, full basement, finish-able attic and a large deck on the back.  The house has a HUGE yard…I’m talkin’ HUGE.  The lot size is 49.5 by 285!  Huge!!!!  While I can never thank my parents enough for what they have done for us for the past eight months (not to mention the 29 years and 4 months before that), I’m sure they are going to be happy to get there house back.  We are going to miss them terribly, but we will still be less than 2 miles away from them if we get this house.

Fun with Grandpa helping rake leaves

He’s really proud of himself when he uses a spoon “like Ben dooos” (like Ben does)

My big boy using his spoon

He got to take rides back to the woods to dump the leaves

More fun with leaves

Built a train behind Grandma while I was working on Aunt Kaite’s cake. I looked out the window and couldn’t pass up that picture

Another one of the cake

Avery likes his feet

The cake I made for Aunt Katie’s birthday

Avery really likes the new house

Finger lickin’ good!!

Mommy helping Avery form dough into a ball

Grandpa helping Avery make dough into a ball…look at that concentration

Say cheese

“Now we roll it in the sugar

“Really?? I can eat it now?”

“Aaahhhh…that’s fantastic!”

This is how you pose for a ‘eating the cookie’ shot

By the way, Aunt Katie’s cake was my first tiered cake.  I had tons of fun making it for her.  I also think it just screamed Katie!  I will keep everyone updated on the status of our house.  If anyone wants to help us paint if we get it, let me know!

Okay, so I know that it has been an extremely long time since I updated this, soooo…here I am.

We have been very busy since moving down here and here are a few updates…

Avery’s speech…

As most of you are aware, we were really concerned about Avery’s speaking abilities before we moved, as was our doctor, so he sent us to a speech therapist.  We had our first appointment about four days before we moved.  She evaluated Avery’s speaking (or lack there of) and his hearing.  She determined that his hearing was great and that that was not the root of the problem.  She said that he has what is called developmental speech apraxia…dont’ google that yet…it is no longer a concern.  When we moved, he could say about 5-10 words that nobody could understand and was not really making any attempts to try for any more.  I was searching the Internet the other day to find out how many words should be in his vocabulary by now and was shocked to find that by his 3rd birthday in September, he is supposed to be able to say at least 300 words.  I was making a list a few weeks ago of the words that he could say at this point and get this…I stopped counting at 350!!!  He’s added probably another 100 to that list so I think it is safe to say (ha ha) he is right on track and we should not need speech therapy now!  YIPPIE!!  He talks NON-STOP now, I love it!

Normalcy again…

Today is our first day back to normalcy and he is doing really well.  Todd was off the week of Christmas and for New Year’s Day, Grandma was off for two whole weeks and Grandpa was off the day before and after Christmas and for New Year’s too.  Now we are back to just Avery and I at home during the day.  It’s weird how things like people being off work can throw off a schedule (NOT that I was complaining about having family around…at ALL).  He’s back to his regular nap schedule, eating schedule etc.  The cookie craze is coming to an end too.  He really is cute at dinner, turning his sweet little head towards Mommy and saying “cookie pweese” and Mommy responds with a “not until you eat all your ____ (fill in the proper menu item) first” and he responds by putting said food in his mouth and turning back to me and saying “cooookieee pweeeeeseeee”.   And we start all over again until the food is gone from his plate.  Cuz that’s the rule.  Luckily, we are almost out of cookies.  Though, I must add that the other day, he didn’t eat all of his meal and didn’t even throw a fit with he didn’t get cookies.  Such a good little boy.

 Growth…

I was looking at some pictures of him from when we moved down here and I was struck by just how much he has grown in these 4 months.  At our last appointment, he was 35 in tall (and  I’m sure he’s well above 3 feet by now) and just at 25 lbs (and I’m sure he is much more than that now too).  He really has grown like a weed.  When we started getting the cooler weather down here, we went out and got him all new pants and some shirts.  I was baffled to find out that he was already in a 2T pants and 2 and 3T shirts.  Well, two months later and the pants don’t drag the floor anymore and we are having to let out the waistband a little (thank you to whomever invented the adjustable waist band in pants).  I am sure that he won’t fit into any of his summer clothes when that time comes again.  It really is strange that he stayed in 9 month pants for so long and now all of the sudden he jumped into the 2T.  Same with the shirts.  Funny how that works.

Christmas…

It really was nice not to have to drive 360 miles back to Wisconsin in three feet of snow this year on Christmas day.  Last year, Mom, Dad, Emily, Neil, Ben and Sam made the trek to the frozen tundra for Christmas and we got to actually wake up on Christmas morning in our own house and not have to drive.  This year however, there was no driving involved!!!!  We spent Christmas Eve with Todd’s parents and Christmas day at home – mostly.  We went to Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue’s Christmas day and to Emily and Neil’s, but we didn’t have to pack up and drive to Wisconsin, all of our destinations on Christmas day were within 2 miles of home.

He’s awake now, so here goes the pictures.  I hope everyone found the holidays as happy and blessed as we did!  Good luck in 2009!!!

He made such a cute little dalmation.

Hope that brightens some days!

Todd and Avery and I visited Eckert’s Orchard in Belleville for a fun day of picking apples.  Boy did he have fun.

Little tip…if you wanna see the pictures larger, click on them 

What can I say?  He loves cake.

I had two other pages made, but for some reason the site I make them on is not working correctly, so I will try to add those later.  They were from Halloween and the St. Louis Zoo.

 

My computer is not working for some bizzare reason, so I am using Dad’s to update.  And yes, I am aware that it has been WAAAAAAAAAYY too long since I have updated so here is the lowdown:

Our little boy is TWO already…he’s crazy funny…I think he may grow up to be a stunt man.  We had his party and tons of fun.  We went to the zoo, water park, botanical gardens and other random places in the beautiful St. Louis area.  IT IS SO NICE TO BE BACK HOME FINALLY!  It’s late so I will simply post a bunch of bazillion pictures to tide you over until a day when my brain will function better…I know, I know, when in the world will that happen??  Who knows…

And yes, the truck cake and mini “car” cakes were home made by Auntie Emily and Myself.  It was fun to make and I think they went over extremely well.  Mom, Dad and I even made some of the car cupcakes for the Applefest at church…yum!

Fell asleep on Grandpa, mid-walk

“I’ll take a bite”

“And you take a bite”

Just to let everyone know…we made it home safely.  It was a crazy busy few days and I have to give MAJOR thanks to Dad, Neil, Uncle Dan, Ken, Lauriel and Claire for the help in Milwaukee; and Dad, Mom, Neil, Uncle Dan, Aunt Emily, Ben, Sam, Audrey and Caroline and everyone else for all the help provided here!!!  The guys were amazing in Milwaukee.  Within three hours I think, the truck was mostly packed!  I’m impressed!  I haven’t been able to get my computer to work, so I can’t put any pictures on here, but we shall see if we can remedy that soon…

Until then,  thanks to everyone for the well wishes and manual labor!  We will miss everyone up in the frozen tundra, and on the same note, are thrilled to be back with family!  Things turn out kinda funny sometimes don’t they?  Turns out, I moved back home almost five years to the day from moving away.  Funny.  Also, we have officially been here for a week and Mom and Dad haven’t kicked us out on our a**es…yet.

Love to all and goodnight!

Sarah

Would you look at that Emily…I figured it out!!!!!!!!!!!!  Now I just have to work on the header…help?

Okay, so there has been a slight/huge change in plans!  We will not be having Avery’s 2nd Birthday party in Wisconsin, because…WE ARE MOVING HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We will be having Avery’s party in Illinois!  Yippie.

We found out on Wednesday that Todd got a job transfer to Fenton, Mo!!!  Yeah!  We will be temporarily staying with Mom and Dad (thank you very much again!) and then we will find our own place.  Todd’s last day in Pewaukee is August 9th, his first day in Fenton is the 11th!!  Quick like a bunny!  So anyone available to help us move, let me know, we’re gonna need all the help we can find!  It’s funny that five years (almost to the day) ago, I moved to Wisconsin and now I will be moving back home!  SURPRISE!!!

Avery got his hair cut yesterday, so I wanted to post a quick pic of that, but I have to get back to packing now so here ya go…

No more crazy hair…

Here are some shots from our trip to St. Louis last week…

 

And two random pics of the goofy boy!

 

He had breakfast with Bear this morning (feeding him milk and cereal, it was really cute).  The last one is him eating an apple…don’t ask me, I didn’t teach him to eat that way?????

I’m sorry to say, but this post has nothing to do with Avery, but at the same time, everything to do with parenting in general.  I started this post on Tuesday, so it’s taken a couple days to get the time to finish it, but I think you’ll forgive me, we’ve had a lot of living to do…

I have to testify in court tonight.  Todd is taking off work early so that I can get there on time.  To spare the details because the case is still on-going…while I was working, I witnessed a “mother” abusing her children in a store.  I began thinking about what matters today.  To me there is nothing important enough to cause a person to hit her children in public or in private.  I personally don’t ever remember being spanked as a child and I’m SURE I was NEVER hit.  My parents are great parents, they figured out (not the hard way) that there are things you do as parents and things you don’t do as parents.  I think we should all take a moment and think about the things in our lives that we sometimes take for granted and that we should treasure.  My list of things that I thank God for on a daily basis are as follows:

1.  The sound of my son waking up in the morning…even if it isstill dark outside.  When he wakes up and starts babbling and giggling for no reason (or at least not one that I can tell).

2.  The joy on his face when he does something funny.

3.  The sound of his laughter.

4.  The smile on his face.

5.  The absolute awe he gets when he finally figures out how to make those pesky little links fit together.

6.  The look on his face when he is about to do something really funny and knows it.

7.  The excitement he gets when he realizes his “desert” is a banana, or some raspberries, or some other form of wonderfulness.

8.  The sad face he gets when I tell him “no”.

9.  The way he throws himself into my arms when the guys outside scare him by starting their lawnmowers for the day.

10.  The way he snuggles when he is not feeling well.

11.  The annoying way he fusses when he can’t get the cars to stick together in a line even though they have not done it the last million and a half times he tried.

12.  The way he is in his room right now, just waking up from his nap and “talking” with the inflection that only a child has…ow ow..ba ba…da da da da…giggle giggle giggle…bounce bounce bounce…jump jump jump…belly laugh belly laugh belly laugh…etc.

13. The patient way he plays in the bathroom while I take a shower.

14.  The way he peaks his head around the shower curtain to grin at me and let me know he’s still there.

15.  The fact that he has out-grown almost all of his challenges that we faced when he was born.

16.  The way his chest swells with pride when he gets through a level of his game learning letters.

17. The sight of him climbing up on the couch to snuggle in and read a book with Daddy.

18.  The way he goes to his book box and grabs book after book after book for me to read with him because he loves reading that much.

19.  The way he smooshes into his crib when I put him down for a nap, hugs his bear, sticks his little tushie up in the air and falls asleep.

20.  The way he pulls a rubber band out of my hair (cuz for some reason he doesn’t like it when my hair is in a ponytail) and gives be a squeezy hug.

21.  When I put him down for a nap or for bed, he throws his arms around my neck and runs his fingers through the back of my hair.

22.  How much he loves to push his cars around the living room.

23.  How when he sits in front of the open window on a breezy day and laughs when the wind hits his face.

24.  How much he loves to play outside.

25.  How he comes up behind me while I’m sitting on the floor, wraps his arms around me, puts his head down and gives me the biggest squeezy hug you could ever ask for…without prompting.

26.  His messy, sloppy kisses.

27.  The fact that he is in my world, making it better and more exciting and more worthwhile everyday!

Now, that is only 27 of the things that I am thankful for every day, I could come up with thousands…but alas, there is not enough room/time.

I thank God each day for the joy that is my son and how his being makes my world worthwhile.  I am disgusted by how we as people get caught up in our everyday lives and forget to appreciate the little intricacies that should make us stop and giggle like our children.

*UPDATE*

It ended up that I didn’t have to testify in court, she pled guilty and will be dealing with Child Protective Services.  But I still think we should take the time to remember the things that are really important.

So to end this all, I will post some pictures of the miracles in my life.

 

Since it has been SOOO long since I’ve posted I will give you the abbreviated update…

Avery is goofy…duh.  We went down to St. Louis for Memorial Day weekend and had a BLAST!  We got home and everyone got sick, but we are all better now.  And the most impressive thing….

AVERY LEARNED HIS LETTERS!!!!!  He has a laugh and learn laptop that helps him learn his letters and he can pick all of them out!  He’s not even two yet!  I’m so proud!

Also, we are planning on having a 2nd Birthday party for Avery up here in Wisconsin.  So just a fore-warning, we will be having it probably either Labor Day weekend or shortly after.  Make your plans now!

Avery is such a great helper.  Daddy was trying to tighten all the bolts on the table (cuz someone keeps messing with them) and Avery was right there next to him makin’ sure he did it right.

 

Blueberries are a boys best friend.  It’s even more fun/messy when you find your tongue.  He found it the other day.  It’s funny what you can make kids do.  I don’t know how those other two pictures showed up in there too, but I can’t delete them for some reason…?

This was the answer to the question…”Avery what do you want to bring with you to the store?”  Normally he will go an grab a book or a toy, but this time, he reached down and with this “I am the strongest man alive” face/grin, picked up his car.  I would have let him bring it too just because he was so funny, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it into the car with him.  There was another occasion if you remember where he tried to bring his couch with us to the store.  He absolutely knows what funny is.

He has completely turned into this combination of all three stooges in one comedy act.  The other day I was sitting in front of the couch and we were playing together.  He thew a toy, I leaned over (almost laying down on the floor) to get it, he stood up and backed over my legs.  When he landed on the other side of me (on his head mind you) he just laughed like crazy. 

Picture this…a calm spring morning, birds chirping, breeze blowing.  We’re playing on the floor.  He is sitting on one side of the living room while you’re on the other.  He spies you out of the corner of his eye.  You see a little sparkle, a glint you could say, in his eye.  Then, he’s on the move.  He’s up, he’s off, he’s running FULL SPEED to throw himself in your arms for a hug.  And then…about a foot and a half away…he just can’t wait any longer to be in your arms so he leaps.  He takes this superman sized leap, horizontal to the floor arms and legs out and flailing, aiming right for your open arms.  It’s amazing, cuz you think to yourself, “okay I can catch him”.  So, you lean in ready to accept the tackle, and it never fails…you start to panic “I’m not going to catch him, he jumped too soon, he’s gonna land flat on his face and hurt himself!”  You don’t know what to do, so you look into his face, hoping that in some way you can make him realize what is about to happen and miraculously come to a halt mid-air and float gently to the floor, but then all you see is that sweet little face…he is grinning from ear to ear as falls flat on his front, face in the floor about three inches away…Splat!   And at first, you feel bad…”I can’t believe I didn’t catch him, what kind of (insert relation) am I???”  And then the laughter starts.  And then moments later, the realization hits…he never intended to land on you at all.  He will do anythingfor a laugh.  Now, Mom, I know I should have put a disclaimer on that paragraph, cuz I’m sure you are reading this at work like you shouldn’t be and are frantically trying to come up with some excuse, any excuse for your computer to be that funny during work hours, but hey…where’s the fun in that I ask you??  Get back to work!

Spring came and went around here   It was supposed to snow on Monday (it didn’t, Thank God).  Avery and I started our morning walks back up and I am wondering if maybe we jinxed it.  We only got two days of walking in and then it turned rainy and the threat of snow looming around the weather channel. 

The zoo…

Last week Monday it was very nice, so Avery and I went to the Racine Zoo.  It is nothing compared to the St. Louis Zoo, but it was $2 to get in and they had animals, so I can’t complain.  Here are some pictures…

Avery thought it was pretty cool to be that close to a Peacock.  I thought so too.

   

Go figure, Avery made a friend…he always does!  Such a friendly little boy he is.

The game…

A few weekends ago, we got to go to Avery’s first Cubs game with Dave and Penny.  It was fun, but rough.  He woke up at 6:30 (like normal) and then only slept for about a half an hour on the way there.  So basically, he missed his first nap.  We got there at 10:30 to find the brick.  My parents got Todd a brick at Wrigley Field with his and Avery’s name on it.  The two of them will be memorialized in the holy land forever!!  Very cool.  The other cool part is it ended up right next to the statue of Ernie Banks (Todd’s favorite person in the whole world.  I was telling Mom that I think if he could, he would ditch me and marry the Cubs legend if he said yes.)

ANYway…we found the brick and got some pictures…

 

 After finding the brick, we headed into the stadium.  The game started at 12:05, so we found our seats and snuggled in.  Avery was crawling around under our feet and started to try to eat the leftover chips and peanuts from previous games..eww…so I put him in his stroller and headed up the stairs to walk around with him.  We ended up being able to sit in the handicap seats because nobody was sitting there.  The nice older man said we could sit there with Avery’s stroller, but if anyone came to take the seats, we must move immediately!  We agreed like crazy.  So about two minutes after Avery and I moved to the seats, Todd came up to visit…and then it happened…Aramis Ramirez hit a foul ball!  Poor Todd was not there to shove anyone out of the way, try to catch the ball, and let it slip through his fingers to someone else.    BUT…Dave was.  The two of them have tried on NUMEROUS occasions to catch foul balls…with no luck.  Poor boys.  So the ball was hit directly to our original seats (and would have knocked Avery out had we been sitting there, cuz it landed right where Avery was playing…count our blessings!!!  Big time!)  But, Dave came through, he reduced the speed of the ball with his hands and it slipped to the ground, bounced a few times and came back to him.  It was beautiful!  The entire time from the hit of the ball to the moment when Dave retrieved it, Todd, who was still standing up with me, was screaming his bloody head off…”Daaaave  get it Daaaave  oh my God Daaaave geeettt iiiittt! Oh my Godddd Daaaaave catch it catch the ball…Daaaaavecaaaattttcccchhh it!”  I’ve never seen Todd so excited (or heard him scream that loud).  And Dave did.  He brought the ball up to our seats and presented it to Avery.  What a great Uncle Dave he has!! 

VERY funny stuff.

We ended up having to leave about the 5th inning because Avery had just had enough.  He does NOT like to be confined for that long.  But boy was it nice.

The attack of the bird…

Avery and I were having breakfast yesterday.  It was so peacefull, Avery and I laughing back and forth, kitty peacefully sitting on the end of the table by the window watching the world.  Nice.  Then out of nowhere, this bird flew up to the window, kitty started going crazy and Avery was laughing with glee.  Then right about the time kitty jumped up to attack the window, the bird flew into the window, scared kitty and made Avery laugh like CRAZY.  The bird ended up being okay, but kitty lept about thirty feet in the air, Avery jumped about ten feet (a difficult task while strapped into a booster seat) and we all laughed like crazy.  It was very funny!

The day before the game, Avery, Laurial, Claire and I went to the outlet mall in Kenosha to find a raincoat for Avery because it was supposed to rain the whole game (which it didn’t).  We wore the kids out and Claire fell asleep like the instant she was in her seat, but Avery stayed awake the whole way home, just chillin’ in his car seat…

 

Cooking classes…

Avery has become an excellent helper when it comes time to cook lunch or dinner or snack.  When I ask him if he wants to help make (insert meal here), he runs and grabs his step stool, pushes it up to the dishwasher and climbs up to help.

 

Gotta go, he’s awake now…

These are the sunglasses from a build-a-bear he has…

I’ll post more later.

Once again, Aunt Emily has saved the day and made my header for the top of the page…I think she may start charging me soon.

Avery has a girlfriend…

and her name is Claire.  A woman I used to work with has a 13 month old daughter (Claire) and they both came over on Friday to play.  It was nice to have interaction with another kid.  They played very nicely together, it was quite sweet.  I have to say, when Ben and Sam were here for Christmas, Avery kept taking all of their toys away and wouldn’t really share (golly…shocker, he is only one and a half).  When Claire came over, he kept giving her all his toys.  She sat down on the floor and he started piling all of his toys around her.  It was too funny!  We were so busy talking and playing, I only took one picture and one video…here is the picture…

The weather became b-e-a-utiful these past few days so we were able to take Avery outside and enjoy the fresh air.  We found a nice park in Racine, Avery got to run around outside and enjoy the breese through his hair (even though we had just gotten it cut before we went for fun time).  I did however forget the camera.  So we have memories, but none of them are on film.

So after I posted the other day, we decided to make up for lost time at the doctor’s office.  When I put him down for his afternoon nap on Wednesday, he felt a little warm, but you’ve all seen how active he is, I just thought it was from playing hard.  He was moaning throughout his entire nap and when he woke up, he was burning up!  I took his temp and it was 102.6.  I gave him some Motrin and Todd took his temp while I was at work and said that it was down to 98.6.  That’s quite a jump in 3 hours!  Since he got his Chicken Pox Shot on Monday, I just figured it was a reaction. 

Then he woke up at 4 am with a temp of 102.7 again.  We gave him more Motrin and decided to call the doctor in the morning, cuz that’s a pretty high temp for a little guy.  I called the doctor and told them that Todd had been sick, but that Avery had had his shot on Monday, and I wanted to see what they thought.  So they set up an appointment for 3:30 Thursday.  At 3:15, I took his temp and it was 103.7!!!  Yikes! The doctor told me that he was probably having a reaction to the shot and to keep giving him Motrin and Tylenol every three hours until the fever went away.  Thursday was a sad/pitiful day!  My active little bean was just sitting on the couch with me all day, eyes half closed and glazed over, mouth hanging open watching Miss Spider with me (a very cute kids show by the way).  We woke him up that night for Tylenol about 11:30 and that was the last of his fever thank God! 

He is still coughing and has a runny nose, but we are getting better by the day.  He was back to his old busy self on Friday…then Mommy got sick too.  We’re just a bunch of sickos around here, but we are all trying our best to kick it by Wednesday.  So far so good.

Also, Avery melted my heart on Wednesday.  I am finally a person!!!  Lately he has been saying ‘nanananana’ and ‘mamamamamama’ and on Wednesday, I got…hold on to your seats…”mama”.  It’s been a year and a half and I am finally a person!  A wooo-hooo!

Here are some pictures…

 Poor little bean-head  ”Mommy, you finish the biscuit, I just don’t have the strength”

  He likes to wear my coat.  Isn’t this how you work on your computer?

And last, but not least…I went in to get him up from his nap the other day and this is what I found.  Poor bear, didn’t stand a chance.