Monday, December 27, 2010

"Wow, You're Ridiculously Good Looking. Maybe You Could Do That For a Career"

~ Derek Zoolander

Photo's by Danny Vasquez - http://www.dannyvasquezphotography.com/. Check him out - he's awesome! More to come!








Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas

Christmas was a total success and we still have one more get together to go!

Grandma Betsy came over and celebrated with us last Tuesday night and I made a steak dinner by request of Gavin. Not that I tasted the steak, but by the looks of things, it turned out really well!

Christmas Eve we had a small group at our house for a chowder and chili supper. We let the kids open a couple gifts and Gavin went straight for the DS game (he guessed what it was from the shape of the box....time for me to start getting more sneaky!)

Christmas morning was our family present opening. I, ahem, Santa got a little carried away this year. Can I help it that I am super thrifty and bought all my gifts at super deep discounts? Everything I purchased was on clearance, or a daily deal, or some short run special, so everything was at least 50% the usual listed prices. Next year I will need to start a running list, though, so I know when to stop!

The big hits were a train table for Sam, and Kung Zhu stuff for Gavin, and the best thing about these gifts is that they can play together with them. Sam is very fascinated by the Kung Zhu hamsters. And as we speak, he is sitting IN the train table playing, shrieking happily like the little monkey he is.

Christmas Day we spent at my mom's. My cousin's two boys were there, as well as my niece, although she's still too tiny to play with all the big boys. My mom made Super Cousins capes for all the boys and they had a blast running through the house with their capes and masks. Even Eisley had her own little princess of the universe cape. They had so much fun, even though Sam played right through his nap - he was in good spirits. He fell asleep in a matter of minutes upon getting in the car at 5:15 pm, I was hoping he would just sleep through, but he woke up at 7. Fortunately, I was able to get him back down by 9:30 or so - I was worried he would want to party all night!

After 10 days of a cold/cough that got progressively worse (after Sam's has pretty much cleared up) I went to the Dr today and got antibiotics for a sinus infection. I have felt pretty awful the last week, and all the holiday craziness (and skiing) I'm sure didn't help. I'm looking forward to feeling like myself again soon!

I have many pictures to post, as well as all the pictures from our photo shoot. No big plans for New Year's, and in a couple weeks Gavin and I will be skiing in Colorado! Chad will be on his own with Sam for the first time, so if anyone wants to help entertain Sam in the evenings (or bring them home cooked meals - ha!) I'm sure he would welcome the help.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. Make the most of 2010 while it lasts!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Holiday Card

Pictures In Snow Christmas 5x7 folded card
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Thanksgiving Photo's

My cousin Krista and family stayed at our place for a couple nights over Thanksgiving. They live in Illinois and we are lucky to be able to get together a couple times a year. Her oldest is about 6 months older than Gavin and her youngest is 9 months older than Sam. So the house was rowdy with 5 boys aged 6 and under in one place!

This morning cracked me up when I realized they had somehow happened to line up at the counter by order of age:


 Sam
 Dylan
 Aaron
 Gavin
 Nolan


Friday after T-day I took the boys down to Festival of Trees. Sam could not get enough of the train. He rode that thing for at least half an hour.

 Gavin spent most of his tickets at the prize wheel. He was trying so hard to score a coveted Target dog. There were only a few available and he had seen them in the garage as I was collecting prizes for the event. He was so happy when he won it!


Monday, December 13, 2010

If Only Oreo Crops Were Real

This weekend we were driving out to Gavin's soccer game and we passed by a section of Grimes along the highway that had some undeveloped land.

"Mom....look! It looks like they are growing Oreo's on that field!"

The ground was black from dirt that had been tilled....or whatever you do to push all the grass under and make the ground just dirt. On top of the dirt was a thin blanket of snow. It looked exactly like a field growing Oreo's!

Ahhh....how lucky am I to be able to see life through the eye's of a child....

Updates

Sorry, not much in the way of updates going on here. I've been pretty lazy about taking pictures, and everything else is just going pretty smooth.

Gavin: continues to do well in school. Currently finishing up his first season of indoor soccer and will start the second season in January. He would prefer to just stay back and guard the goal, and is a little put off that we are making him play all positions so that he doesn't lose his fire when he gets back to outdoor soccer and he'll have to cover the whole field again. So we are working on that. He is constantly doing things that just surprise me with his creativity. He's been laboring over a picture for a few days now, and kept telling me he was working on a "dot to dot". Well, it's a blank piece of paper, but them he drew a dot pattern, and then connected the dots. It's a very cool little drawing that he's done, and the creating the dots himself seemed so smart! I have been very much on top of vitamins and omega 3's lately, and on the nutrition front, he's eating more of what the rest of us eat, less separate meals of his own. Meal time has become less of a struggle, and his behavior has been really great lately. Vitamins/nutrition/behavior all related? I'm convinced of it. I'm going to wait til the end of the week when I am back in the classroom and see if his teacher has noticed a difference as well. Gavin and I are going to join my uncles skiing in Colorado the second week of January so we are very excited and looking forward to that.

Sam: such a pistol! He seems to be adapting to the new nanny, who started last Thursday, very well. Right now he is going through a phase where he only wants to wear shirts with basketballs on them. Fortunately we have several, but it still warrants a mid-week laundry load. Fingers crossed, sleeping is starting to get better. The last three nights he made it to 4 am or later without waking up, so 7 or 8 hour runs of sleep. When he wakes up, rather than downing a whole bottle, he just drinks a couple ounces and falls back asleep. Hopefully this bodes well for sleeping through the night soon, something Daddy would appreciate before I take Gav to CO! Sam's latest tricks are jumping and getting both feet off the floor and wanting to do the stairs himself. He is also getting very good at feeding himself. He still won't give up his bottle for milk, but I'm not terribly worried. There are worse things to be attached to. He drinks other liquids out of sippy cups, and is getting very good at drinking thick stuff (like smoothies) out of his little Michey Mouse dixie cups.

On the food allergy front: Sam's reaction to dairy seems to be getting worse, so please do not feed him cheese, yogurt, milk, sour cream, butter, mac & cheese, etc. We do give him a few bites of yogurt here and there, but we'll ask that others refrain, because if I don't see it, I don't have a sense of how much he's ingested and if he gets too much it's horrible diapers and throwing up. I tried giving him a little peanut butter a couple weeks ago (he didn't test positive for peanuts but they told us to avoid just in case). The next day he had horrible diapers, but Chad was also feeling a little stomach bug at that time, so I can't say for sure it was the pb. But for now we are continuing to avoid it.

On the drinking front: the not waking 3 times/night does wonders for his fluid intake. We've been able to keep him within the 40 ounces pretty consistently. Hopefully it was just a bad habit that he's growing out of and/or if we keep him busier he doesn't drink out of boredom. We'll still re-test for diabetes at the end of January at his (gasp!) 2 yr appt.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

what the what??

The look on Sam's face here is priceless

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

This is IT!

You will have to wait for our holiday card, but here's just a little taste of the awesomeness you are in for....

That's IT! I want to post all the gorgeous pictures, but you'll just have to wait. Don't think you are on my address list for a card? Email me to make sure we have your address!