ethan laughing.

32 Months

My baby girl is 32 months old- I wish I would do these post every month so I could look back and keep track of all of this stuff. I'm going to try. Audrey has grown up so much lately, being so helpful and listening some of the time. This is what is going on lately:

• You are sleeping so much better, maybe once a week you get up and come into our room at 5am, we pull you into the bed and you sleep the rest of the morning in between us, I love it. We still have to leave the light on and the door open, but we have been able to turn the rain/waves sound on and we close the door when we go up to bed.
• You eat great, starting to get picky about some things you used to eat though. You still don't like onions. your favorite right now is macaroni and cheese and pizza- so healthy :)
• You are such a repeator, You told ethan the other day 'do not crumple that paper, ethan I am not going to tell you again, do not crumple that paper.' Something I know I have told you :)
• We have to spell so many words now, you are too smart
• You are terrified of the dogs again, getting in hysteria sometimes over it. I have no idea what happened recently to prompt this.
• You are in timeout mostly for hitting ethan and us. but you go to time out and then apologize.
• You were 100% potty trained for a while and now all of the sudden you are having accidents again. You still sleep in a diaper for naps and nighttime.
• Dressing you is near impossible, you won't wear anything we pick out, I just open the drawer now and let you pick your own outfits out.
• You hate socks and usually have them off before we even get to school. Summer will be so much easier for that.
• You have been refusing to wear a coat now too.

You make us smile everyday and make us very frustrated most days too :) Its all worth it.

13 Months

I can't believe Ethan is 13 months old already and we still haven't gotten his '1 year' picture taken, well I've tried a few times myself but can't seem to get a good one.  Here are some things you are up to now:

• You have a great appetite lately, you may be 20 lbs by now, you are a little thing thats for sure
• You are the pukiest thing I have ever seen. At least 2 times a week you throw up. Today you did twice. You get all worked up crying and then start coughing and end up puking, its just lovely.
• You love it outside and get terribly upset when we bring you inside (then throw up)
• You are walking like a champ, you have even attempted running a few times too.
• you eat all foods now
• You are drinking your whole milk out of a sippy for everything except your last bottle
• You are in size 3 diapers
• You wear 6-9 month pants and 12 month shirts
• But you still fit some 6 month onesies.
• You get up in the night pretty regularly, not every night, but when you do it doesn't surprise me.
• You have two teeth on the bottom and 3-4 on the top, one popped out but its like it went back up in your gums now.
• You hate to be changed.
• You can say ball and if I tell you to go get your ball you know what I mean and go get a ball.
• You adore Audrey but are starting to get annoyed that she constantly steals your toys and pushes you out of the way. You like to chase her and try to get your toys back though.
• You like to pull hair, especially Audreys.
• You put your hands up in the air real tight against your head when you want us to pick you up, its so cute.
• You still prefer Mommy most of the time, but sometimes its Daddy now.
• You love to play in Murphys cage
• Everyone tells us you are 'all boy' you take a lickin and just keep going- and you are climbing everything

He is such a joy and change to the household, I can't wait to see whats ahead with him, I'm hoping its not the ER :)

Survivor: Redemption Island

After week one, I'm afraid Junior got the bad draw...but who knows it could change. I can't believe Rob and Russell are back AGAIN, they MUST be getting paid for this, like guaranteed $100k or something- cause its probably for ratings (which I guess were horrible) but still. I HATE Russell, can't wait to see him GO!

Becky - Andrea & Sarita
Carrie - Natalie & Phillip
Cath - Krista & Matt
Dave - Steve & Russell
Emily - Ralph & David
Faye - Rob & Mike
Junior - Kristina & Francesca
Mike - Ashley & Stephanie
Ryan - Grant & Julie

Dressing yourself

Audrey now insists on what she is going to wear, if i pick something out, she starts crying no! i want another shirt/pants. so i now open the draw and say what do you want to wear. she has boycotted her jeans and i think its because she need help when going the bathroom in jeans. but it makes me sad because she looks so cute in jeans, but i understand. she thinks it's summer too with the short sleeve shirts. its not worth fighting this fight. but i am going to document this so she knows she choose these outfits, not me :)

Princesses and Pirates...

Today we went to another birthday party for one of audreys classmates, when we walked into the place the birthday girl ran up to Audrey gave her a hug and then another little boy bombarded her with another hug and she burst into tears...i was like 'here we go again...' shes not the most social person so I feel like we need to go to these events to get her used to these situations. but I'll admit at the moment I was worried maybe we shouldn't have come.
There was open play time in the slide room and she wouldn't go in, Ethan was more than willing to roam in. She eventually warmed up and had a blast and didn't want to go home. Pheew, I made the right choice.  There were two little boys who were dressed as pirates, it was so adorable, i think Ethan should be a pirate this coming Halloween now. they gave all the girls pink crowns, bracelets and star wands and the boys got eye patches, pirate hats and swords. they were very nice and even gave Ethan a sword and hat. he also LOVED the cupcake as did Audrey. It was an awesome place in the little eclectic museum part of Richmond. 5 stars to this place so sure.

We first got there audrey was pretty timid, notice ethan was NOT

This was the slide area

Musical Instrument time..audrey was sitting on the couch with me, she can be shy sometimes

She warmed up though

Ahoy Mate!

The pirates eating their cupcakes

The princess eating their cupcakes

Ethan loved it :)

New Furniture...New Look

We have had a couch we bought off a work type craigslist for 6 years now. they had advertised it as an IKEA couch, but who knows if it really is. It started to get some rips in the fabric, so I patched them, but then it started to have rips EVERYWHERE...cath told me not to even move it from PA to VA, but we did. It was in the office, and had basically become the dogs bed. Well I had heard that January is the best time to buy furniture so I said to Ryan on Thursday, If we are going to get a new couch we have to do it this month. So yesterday we went to "THE DUMP" its a warehouse type place that is only open friday-sundays, all sales final, they get the overstock of other stores I guess.
So last night after the kids naps we went to and bought not only a new couch, but a Chair and ottoman to match. Ryans favorite thing about it is that it was made in the USA. ha ha
Here are some before and after pictures of the room. I think it looks so nice now.

Before: Looking in

Before: Looking out...thats the new chair

After: looking in

After: Looking out

Happy 1st Birthday Ethan!

We got ethan balloons for his birthday, they were quite a hit

Its my birthday!

I'm how old?

Syracuse won!! What a nice birthday present

I'm loving this cake stuff

I think audrey might love it more though, she's licking the plate clean

Ride 'em cowboy!

hi :)

Jumphouse

Today we took Audrey to her friend Jeremy's third birthday party at a bounce house type place that does birthday parties. I'm guessing you can just go and play at times too. Audrey wasn't acting normal all day- she hardly ate or drank anything and was just generally out of sorts. the party was at 1 - her "normal" nap time. But i really want to go to see what this place was and to see how birthday parties go. Well Audrey fell asleep on our way there (and we were 35 minutes late to begin with) so we had to wake her up when we got there and she was just a bear. She finally warmed up when I went into a bounce house with her. but she only ate 2 bites of pizza and didn't want cake! so with that I knew something is wrong. hopefully tomorrow she is feeling better. We went to bed extra early tonight. I have no idea what could be wrong. she is warm but no fever. I may call the doctor tomorrow to see. Here are some pictures, she did have a few fun moments on the birthday chair and lots of friends from daycare were there.

Ryan trying to talk audrey in going down the big blow up slide, he failed

The big Batman jump house

Audrey and Mommy in a bounce house

Audrey having fun finally

Ethan would have had a blast if we had let him in...but he was too little

Ryan enjoying the blackberry party

Pizza Time

Sitting on the birthday throne with a friend from school

Audrey Sleep habits

3 weeks ago bedtime routine:

We say its bed time, audrey grabs her milk and marches upstairs. We take a bath, get dressed, drink milk, read 3-4 books, always ending with a biscuit book, brush teeth and hair, hugs, tell her to go get bunny foo-foo (her lovey) and cover her up turn off the lights and leave. done.


The last few days (and the WHOLE vacation):

We say its bed time - there are tears and jumping up and down NO!. we finally get upstairs after some coaxing. we take a bath, get dressed, every few minutes "where are we going to go to sleep?" drink milk, read a story, brush teeth and hair, once we start the walk back to the bedroom the tears and screams start. I don't want to sleep in there! Sleep on the floor daddy! I don't want to go to bed! leave the light on! leave the door open!

we tried to let her just cry it out and put the safety thing on the door handle so she couldnt open her bedroom door. we left and went downstairs to watch on the video and she was screaming at the top of her lungs and crying. she left the view of the camera and we hear "i dont want my pajamas!!" then after a minute or two we hear her crying in the hallway. ryan went up and she was down to her diaper and had busted the safety device and got out of the room. ryan thinks she would have chewed her way out if she had to. I don't understand what happened. but i hope we get back to the normal routine REAL quick.

Christmas Whirlwind

well we made it through our trip!

1. Drove 1500 miles
2. Stayed at 4 different houses (kids atleast)
3. Had 4 christmases
4. Drank lots of beer and wine
5. Attempted to ski/snowboard...semi successfully
6. Had 2 birthday parties
7. Took 700 pictures
8. Had one allergic reaction
9. Had one fever
10. Had to sleep on the floor next to audreys pack-n-play 10 nights (and counting)

But it was fun! We had so much fun seeing everyone and people FINALLY got to meet ethan. But I am glad we don't have to do that again anytime soon.

Survivor #8 - FINAL

WOW. i did not want Fabio to win...did he not annoy you? Congrats though Faye!

Becky: Alina & Tyrone (paid)
Carrie: Chase & Jimmy T
Cath: Purple Kelly & Dan (paid)
Dave: Kelly B & Wendy (paid)
Emily: Shannon & Jimmy J (paid)
Faye: Fabio & Jane (paid)
Junior: Sash & Holly (paid)
Mike: NaOnka & Marty (paid)
Ryan: Brenda & Yve (paid)
Sarah: Benry & Jill (paid)

Holiday Open House

The Nester is having her Holiday Tour of Homes this week.. I thought it would be fun to join in this year.

Here are my christmas decorations:

My cute little helper

My wine and nativity scene

My mohawk bread pan and a santa candle

elf on the shelf - Frodo

I have a Santa Theme

The tree and mantle

This is how audrey decorates the tree, all on one limb

My other cute helper