Jingle Bells

Christmas may be over, but Ava is still in the spirit.

I must say, this was really cute for the first ten minutes.  By the time we hit 31 minutes Mike and I were ready for her to STOP!

I must say, this whole moving thing is definitely starting to feel real.  We have totally cleared out the play room, taken down all our Christmas decorations (usually we like to leave those up for as long as possible) and our garage is full of mismatched furniture.  We have been working but also relaxing and playing this week.  This is the first time that Mike has had two weeks off since he was in college.  We are getting spoiled with all this Daddy time!  Tomorrow we should have some answers, but for now we are getting ready as best as possible.

As you can see we are packing up the furniture in the play room - wait a second!  Is that a baby on the shelf?  Why yes it is!  I heard him fussing in the play room and I walked in to find him.  I looked all around until I realized he had used the boxes to climb up onto the shelf!  Then he got stuck and had to fuss for help.  He's my little monkey!

Dress up is a huge favorite in our house.  Lately Carter has been a soldier/ninja/doctor while Ava prefers the handy-man princess.

Dad, this is how much Carter loves his new hat from you - he wore it to bed!  Sound asleep with the hat still glued to his head. 

Today Carter asked if I would make waffles for breakfast.  This is a pretty big treat in our house, but since we had no big plans I decided to spoil the kids (plus I had a new recipe using whole wheat/sweetened with honey that I wanted to try.)  So I told Carter, I will make you waffles if you give me a hug and tell me how much you love me.  He walked over, gave me a hug and said "Mom I really like you, most of the time."  That stinker!

By the way, Congratulations to Uncle Jay and Aunt Tiffany who got the keys to their new home today!  We can't wait to come and see it!

  

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  All I can say is we are so amazingly, wonderfully blessed.  Christmas Eve was spent celebrating my birthday with pizza and brownies, making a gingerbread house together, going to mass, and then getting ready for christmas.  We loved having Bo and Grandma join us at church.

We made sure the santa key was outside on the front porch.

By the way, this is just how Carter dresses now.  Every day, he must wear a hoodie with his Emerson camo hat on top.  He added the bandana so he could look like Eddie (the dog.)  Setting fashion trends daily, around here.

The milk and cookies, and veggies for the reindeer were set out as well.

The night of Christmas Eve, Carter and Ava stayed in our bedroom.  They turned their bedroom over to Uncle Patrick.  We put them to bed, and it was quiet for awhile.  About an hour and a half later, we heard Ava yelling.  After going upstairs I find Ava with a dirty diaper and then.......the mess.  She got into a vaseline jar and smeared it all over the wall and all over the television.  She also got into a photo album and pulled out all the pictures with vaseline fingers!! Grrrrr!

But christmas morning came, and as you can see we were very spoiled!  Keep in mind these are presents from Santa, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles.

I recieved a donut maker and we made homemade donuts for christmas morning, delish!  Due to allergies, Carter has never had a donut and I'm pretty sure Ava hasn't either.

Our Christmas Crew:  Meme, Grandpap Bob, Nana, Bo, Dawson, Grandma, Daddy, Ava and Uncle Patrick

We had a wonderful two days with everyone, eating, laughing, talking and spending lots of time together.  Thanks to everyone for all your help this weekend wrangling kids, opening packages and helping in the kitchen.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!  At least that's what I feel like doing right now!

Holidays are approaching!

Heard around the house:

Mommy:  Ava did you hit your brother?
Ava:  No Mommy.  I just whacked him.

Today was one of those days that I'd like to forget.  I packed up the kids with the intention of going grocery shopping.  We are going to have eleven people in our home for christmas eve and christmas day, so plenty of shopping was needed.  The kids were actually well behaved during the long shopping trip, but then came time to check out.  I realized that I left my wallet at the house.  Luckily, they allowed me to leave my groceries, drive home and return for them.  What a crazy nightmare!  I'm starting to believe this particular Kroger is really bad luck.  This is the same store that I locked the kids in the car and we had to call the police!  

But then we came home, ate lunch and took a really long nap together.  All was forgotten and we spent the afternoon hanging out.  Hopefully we will have a better holiday season!  I have to say, I'm a little bit nervous hosting this many people for the holidays.  We have many different eating difficulties including celiacs and diabetes to cater to.  I'm also not the best chef in the world, although I am trying!  I know everyone is really here to see the kids, so everything else will fall into place.  Mike has very few goals for his life, beside to be happy and enjoy life.  But secretly, he wants to have big christmas parties hosted at our house with every possible relative spending time with us.  As we are looking for new homes he will actually veto homes based on the fact that they will not be big enough to host both of our families for christmas.  Oh, and he wants a two story living room so he can put up a huge christmas tree!

Its very surreal to say that we are moving in the new year.  We have very little planned, as we are still working with the company to iron out details.  I'm excited to move, though.  It was time for a change!        

Our Life in Pictures

(Picture from last week, when they went to the pizza birthday party)

These two.  Well, we have been having a HUGE problem with fighting.  Yelling and shoving over who gets to look out the window, who gets to open the door and even because someone was looking at someone else.  So, last Tuesday things were just getting worse and worse.  We were trying to get out the door to preschool, and in less than an hour they got into four little arguments.  I am not proud to say that I totally lost my temper with them, and took their television away for the ENTIRE WEEK.  Believe it or not, we survived with no television from tuesday until friday.  I say "we" because let's be honest, I use television at times when I need a little break.  In particular, that period of time between 5:30-6 when I need to cook and they are getting antsy.  I must say, things have gotten dramatically better since then.  We have talking about being kind to our siblings, but I really think that threat of no television has changed their behavior the most.  Although I'm sure this is not the last time I'll be dealing with this issue. 

Four is Fun

Carter is getting to the fun age where he really enjoys working with me.  During nap time when his brother and sister are sleeping we always spend time together working on different skills.  He was cutting out gingerbread men and then decided to name them.  I asked him to tell me a story about his gingerbread men and this is the result.  This particular day we sat and worked together for over 2 hours!  He suprises me every day, because for a long time I thought he would never sit and cut/color/write longer than 5 minutes!

Daddy is amazing

This girl loves her Daddy.  We had a low key weekend and worked on things around the house.  Ava was having a clingy Daddy weekend and wouldn't even look at me.  Ava took a sweet little nap on her Daddy.

This week, during football time, Ava got it in her head that she was going to play dinosaurs with Daddy.  It was so sweet to hear the dinosaurs talking to each other, poor Mike.  Maybe he'll be able to watch football when everyone is 18.  Probably right around the same time that I get to have floatie free water! 

For those of you who are afraid that Ava is too much fluffy princess and not enough dig in the dirt girl, I think the knees of these pants tell a different story.

This shirt reminds me of Aunt Margie.  Dad used to joke that Margie was the child who added "texture" to his life.  Ava's shirt says "I light up Dad's life."  Boy, is that true in more ways than one.

This picture was from a couple weeks ago, but still cute.  Daddy snuggles on the couch.

Zoo Lights

Tonight was a beautiful evening.  After consulting the forecast this morning, Mike and I called an audible and decided to go to Zoo Lights.  When we arrived at the zoo, the temperature in our van was 58 degrees.  Not bad for December 15th!

Right now Carter's favorite christmas movie is frosty the snowman, although we haven't watched it in a few days (more on that to come.)  But when we arrived at the zoo he saw frosty, got a huge grin on his face and yelled "He is alive!"  He ran up and gave frosty a huge hug.

The kids enjoyed talking to the (puppet) tigers.

Daddy and Roover (she has a band-aid on her nose over a scratch in case you were wondering.)

Reason #58 why I'm becoming old and lame

I start to feel motion sick on the merry go round.  I have to stare at a spot on the floor or straight ahead.  I can't look at the world spinning around, or else I start to feel naseous.  Amusement parks are not in my future.

Are you suprised that Ava liked the pink lights best?

I thought multiple times while we were at the zoo, this may be the last time we are here for awhile.  Which made me kinda sad, because I love this zoo.  It is a little (LOT) hilly, but its such a great zoo for kids. I'm sure you all know that we have spent a lot of time here.  I know I'm going to miss it! 

Some silly little stories to make the grandparents laugh:

• One of Ava's favorite treats this year is candy cans.  No I did not spell that incorrectly, she really calls them candy cans.  Also, yesterday one of Carter's friends from preschool had a birthday party at a pizza restaurant.  They were so kind to let Ava participate and she asked them for a pepper pony pizza.  She had many people laughing at that one!
• Carter has been spotting houses for us, left and right.  Yesterday while we were driving around he spotted a house with a for sale sign and declared he liked it, we should buy that one.  Unfortunately that would make Mike's commute pretty long, so its kind of doubtful.
• Did I mention that baby doc has finally sprouted his top two teeth?  That puts him at a grand total of four teeth.  (Both Ava and Carter had 8 teeth by the time they were one!)

Off to the craziness that is thursday.  Preschool, grocery shopping, present making and wrapping.  It's going to be a busy day!

Little Stories

Lunchtime yesterday, just another crazy meal with these little guys.  All of a sudden I see milk launch across the table and hit my wreath in the center, and it came from Dawson!  Mike and I both responded with a loud "NO!" which of course made him burst into tears.  (He is coming into the stage where he needs the beginnings of discipline, but gets really upset.)  I took his milk sippy cup off him and eventually he settled down.  Then Ava looked at him and said "Santa knows what you did Dawson.  You better be good!"  She is such a silly girl!

But back to Dawson, he is growing into this amazingly fun little boy.  He is started to imitate many nonverbal gestures including nodding yes and no, pointing his finger, wagging his finger, blowing kisses and waving hi.  My favorite is when he starts crawling towards the television and I say his name.  He will look at me and start nodding yes, to see if he can get away with pushing the buttons.  Like I said, the beginnings of discipline are definetely needed!

It is amazing the little memory Carter is starting to develop.  The other day before we went to Pump it up, he was explaining to Ava the snail she would see.  Then he began describing the snail at Bananas.  I couldn't believe that he remembered this, it had been at least a year since we had been there!  

Newport Aquarium

Thanks to the wonderful Uncle Jason and Aunt Tiffany who gave us tickets to the Newport Aqarium!  So we packed up the kids today after nap time and off we went.  The kids had a blast, and walked themselves out.  We also got to see the scuba santa show, which was Carter's favorite part.  Here are the pictures:

Baby Doc was wonderfully well behaved.  He chilled in the backpack carrier the entire time.  I was worried he would have fits because he loves to be down and exploring right now.

Kids at the frog bog

Carter was acting pretty funny today.  Everything was scary to him, he didn't want to look at any of the fish, crabs, or snakes.  They were all too scary.  But he loved the jellyfish, and of course the penguins.

Ava loved the Steelers frog best, of course.

She adored the tunnels.  She was twirling around and around gazing at everything.  What a funny girl!

Ava, after looking at the jellyfish in this tank said "are there people in there?"  We had to explain that the people were actually on the other side of the glass.

We also got to catch the penguin feeding.

This boy laughed and giggled and loved the penguins.

Here is Mike and the kids in front of the Cincy skyline.  The big building in the background was just built by his current workplace.

As if this wasn't enough excitement for one day, we took the kids downtown for pizza and to see the square.  There was a Santa convention handing out candy canes.  Carter with his big baby blues managed to convince one lady to give him about ten candy canes while Mike and I weren't looking!

The Macy's tree and city skyline.

I love christmas time!  We have so much more to do before the big day comes, we still want to visit the zoolights, and maybe see the train exhibit.  I love spending time with my four favorite people in the world!

 

Changes

Well, we have finally made the big decision!  We will be moving to Akron at the beginning of the new year.  I am sad to be leaving good friends, a city that I love and of course my family.  But I believe this is an exciting new adventure for our family.  We have the opportunity to shorten Mike's commute, find a home that better suits our needs and be closer to Grandma, Bo, Uncle Jason and Aunt Tiffany.  As soon as the holidays are over, our life is going to be crazy and hectic.  Do you know the saying "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it?"  This move has been long anticipated by our family, we have been hoping for a shorter commute and a new home.  We've been throwing it out to anyone who would listen, but we've just never been able to make it happen.  But God had something different in mind for us!  We've gotten what we've been hoping for, but with a completely different twist on it than we could have ever imagined!

But back to our little life and the important things that I love to blog about.  Today I took the kids to Pump it up for a chance to jump and bounce out some energy.  I only brought my phone with me, so pardon the quality.

Ava and Dawson enjoyed some playtime together.  I just realized that Ava was sucking on the steering wheel, yuck! 

I was so proud of Ava, she was terrified to climb to the top of the big slide by herself.  Although she did it a couple of times with me following closely behind her while clutching Dawson.  Finally she did it!  But once she got to the top, she was too scared to slide down.  I was afraid I was going to have to drag the baby to the top again.

Enter one big brother.  After sitting there for awhile, I found Carter and asked him to help her.  He went to the top, took her hand, and they both slid down together.  He was so proud that he declared himself the "rescue kid."  He got a big grin on his face when Mike told him he was a "rescue kid" just like firemen and spidermen.  Although not perfect by a long shot, they have a very sweet relationship with each other.  In fact, Mike and I asked them if they would like to share a bedroom in our new house or get seperate rooms.  They both immediately answered that they wanted to share.  They were afraid of being lonely!

 

Santa Brunch

Sunday was the Santa Brunch at the Piqua Country Club.  It is SO much fun and really gets everyone in the christmas spirit.  The food is delicious!  Make your own waffles, bacon, sausage, eggs, whipped cream, hot chocolate, I could go on and on!  Mmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking of it all.  But best of all the kids get to see Santa.  Its a really low pressure situation, they don't have to wait in line and they get to talk to Santa for as long as they would like.  It works perfectly for us!

Carter totally dug Santa and made sure that he knew that he would like cables (DARTS) for his nerf gun and a new nerf gun.

Ava was cautiously excited.  She did not want to sit on his lap, but they did have a little talk.  She would like a new baby.

Nope, this kid was not having it.  I'm probably a bad parent, but I think this picture is hilarious!

Meme thought it was pretty funny too.

This baby ATE.  I'm pretty sure he had at least three-four platefuls of waffles, bacon, and potatoes.

My boys

Thank you Meme and Grandpap Bob for the christmas jammies.  I know it gets me in the spirit!