YAY!!!

Check out my sister's blog....

I am so excited to have these people close to home!

My Blogging Assistant

Happy Valentine’s Day

We have had a pretty good Valentine’s Day this year.  It started last night with a lovely dinner with my favorite people.  We had grilled steaks, twice baked potatoes, salad, crescent rolls, and heart-shaped Jell-O Jigglers for dessert.  The Jigglers were definitely a crowd pleaser!

On Valentine’s morning, I made pancakes.  I used a squeeze bottle to make X’s, O’s and hearts out of the pancake batter.  They turned out very cute and Mikayla loved eating them.

This is my attempt to get a picture of the kid’s together in the Valentine’s Day outfits.  Gavin wanted nothing to do with it and Mikayla was being very silly.

Since Jeremy was working, the kids and I went to my Mom’s house to make some sugar cookies.  Mikayla had a lot of fun using her little rolling pin to roll out the dough and using the cookie cutters all by herself.  

Three generations of gals making some cookies.    At first, we were going to let Mikayla put the sugar on the cookies herself, but she was dumping (and I mean dumping!) the sugar on the cookies.  We decided to help her out a little bit with that one.     The hardest thing about letting Mikayla frost the cookies  was keeping her from constantly licking the icing.  We ended up giving her her own cookies that she could do whatever she wanted and she could keep them all for herself.  I guess she could share with anyone that wants cookies iced with licked icing and manhandled sprinkles. ;-)

Gavin kept everyone in line and was our official taste tester after everything was done.

After we finished, Mikayla told me she wanted to lay down on Grandma’s couch and watch a movie.  I guess she knew she was tired.  She is so precious.

Since Jeremy was working a little later than normal, we decided to just order pizza for dinner.  A local pizza chain was making heart-shaped pizza at a great price.  Mikayla thought the heart shaped pizzas looked pretty cool.

Our Valentine’s Day was pretty low key, but I was thankful to spend it with the people that I love.  After all, that' is the whole point, right?

Cheap entertainment

  My silly kids.  I look at these pictures and wonder why we have a playroom full of toys.

LISTEN TO ME!!

Generally speaking, Gavin is a pretty laid back baby.  However, when he wants something he will definitely let you know.   If he wants my attention, he grabs on to my legs and well, you can see for yourself what he does after that… 

Teddy Bear Parade

Well, I guess it is no surprise that I am a bit behind on my blogging.  Last week, Mikayla’s preschool hosted a Teddy Bear Parade.  All of the kids get to dress up in their jammies and pull their teddy bears or other special friends in a float.

Mikayla wanted a WonderPet fly boat for her float – we had a lot of fun making it together. This is Mikayla and her teacher marching around the gym.  She has such a goofy smile.I let Gavin wear his jammies, too – he seemed to like being able to relax and watch the show.

Vaccines and Check-Ups

Well, I decided to be brave this week and take the kids together for their check-ups and vaccinations.   All in all, they did very well.  Gavin weighed 22 lbs 7 oz (25% – he is up a little bit!) and was 32 inches long (75%).  He is doing well developmentally and is a healthy little guy.  He got two vaccines that he was not very happy about, but calmed down pretty quickly afterwards.

Mikayla was quite silly at the doctor’s office (big surprise).   First she had to go pee-pee in a cup, which she was pretty excited to do (don’t ask me why).  They then checked her blood pressure  and did several other little checks on her.   The also did a vision and hearing screen.  She did great on the vision screen, but had a hard time with the hearing test.  I don’t think she has a hearing problem – I just don’t think she fully grasped the directions of the test.  We are going to go back this summer for a follow-up screen.  She weighed 38 lbs (75%) and was 40 inches tall (75%).  I can’t believe how big she is getting!  Poor little Kayla got five vaccines.  I had the option of delaying one of them, but I figured it was just best to get them all over with.   She was NOT happy about those!  Afterwards she said “I do NOT like shots  - they hurt” – the tone she said it in was pretty cute.  She was pretty tearful about that all day.  Her poor little thighs have been pretty sore, too.

Another cherry on the ice cream sundae is that both of the kids STILL have ear infections.  So I get to do another 10 day course of antibiotics with them.  Mikayla is great about medicine, but Gavin is AWFUL!  They are both on Augmentin, which apparently doesn’t taste very good.  We are hoping that Mikayla is able to finish the whole course of Augmentin.  Last time she had it she had a rash about a week in to taking the medication.  The doctor and I weren’t completely convinced that it was a reaction to the medication.  She had taken it before without any problem.  The doctor wanted to try it again since she didn’t respond to the Omnicef.  We are crossing our fingers that we see no rash!

My little man

Doesn’t Gavin look like he belongs in a Polo ad?  He is getting so big!

January 2009 – A review in pictures

Well, since I totally slacked on blogging last month, I thought that I would at least leave you with a picture review of what we did this month.

I had to work on New Years Day, so I decided to spend the night at my mom’s and ring in the New Year with them.  Jeremy was had to be at work very early on New Years,  so I knew he would be going to bed early.  It was nice to have someone to celebrate the night with.

This is a picture of Andrew hugging on a bottle of Martenilli’s.  He is obviously a “lush” in the making.

The things that moms and aunts will do to a child!

On New Years Day, Gavin fell asleep in my Dad’s arms.   For anyone that knows Gavin, this was a truly momentous occasion.  Gavin doesn’t let many people hold him for more than 5 minutes. 

Mikayla had fun painting some pictures that Santa brought her.

Jeremy took this picture of Gavin one night.   He was sporting some serious low-riders.

Mikayla loves hanging out with my Dad.   She can usually con him into turning on “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” or “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” on You-tube.   I guess Mikayla wore out her Papa! This is just a cute picture of Gavin – he is such a happy little boy.

Gavin will often get into the pantry and pull out various canned goods.  He will sometimes pull out the beef broth and tip it up like he is drinking out of it – so weird!

We have had a couple of pretty cold and windy days.  One Friday morning, we met up with Mikayla’s playgroup at an indoor bounce house.  This was the first time we had been there since Gavin was old enough to walk.  He had a great time, running all over the place and jumping in the Toddler Zone.

 

Emily and Andrew stayed an extra two weeks that they had originally planned.  I loved having some extra cuddle time with my favorite nephew!

I can’t remember what Gavin was trying to get, but he was obviously unhappy that he couldn’t reach it.  Do you like how he pushed the stepstool over to try to get whatever it was?

Have I really been this lazy?

I can’t believe that I haven’t posted for nearly an entire month.   Honestly, there hasn’t been much going on around here. 

After Christmas, my sister ended up extending her visit at my Mom’s house for two weeks.  It was so nice to get some extra time with her and my nephew, Andrew.

Mikayla started back to school just after the first of the year, and not a moment too soon!  Our family definitely benefits from the routine that school provides.  Mikayla also does much better behavior-wise when school is in session – I don’t know what we will do this summer.

Mikayla has entered her fourth year of life with a little attitude.  She has become a little sassy and has learned how to lie to me!  I have no idea where she learned how to do that.  Her lie doesn’t last very long though – I can “break” her pretty easily.  With all of the drama that she brings to our lives, she also is a sweet and loving little girl.  She loves to cuddle and will always find an opportunity to say “I love you.” 

Gavin is 15 months old now.  He has gotten quite the little personality.  He has somewhat recently speaking a new “language” to us.  He doesn’t say a lot of words yet – so far, only “da-da”, “ma-ma”, “bye-bye”, “pat-pat” and recently added to the repertoire, “Go!”  He does however, have a very serious babble.   He will look at you and talk in his little language – I know he is saying something, we just don’t understand what it is. 

Both of the kids have their check-ups next week, so I will be able to share their “vital statistics” then.

Our house has also finally recovered from most everyone being sick last week.  Mikayla started with cold symptoms – about 4 days later, she started complaining  that her ear hurt.  I took her to the pediatrician, and of course she had an ear infection.  Thankfully, ear infections don’t phase her much.  She doesn’t have fevers or complain of severe pain – she runs around as if nothing is wrong.  During this time, Gavin started with the cold symptoms, too.  Well, Saturday he was very irritable and thankfully, our pediatrician has Saturday hours and we were able to rush him in.  He too, had an ear infection.  His was pretty bad though, the doctor was worried that his ear drum may burst.  Thankfully, that didn’t happen.   Thanks to Motrin, numbing ear drops and some antibiotics – he was able to rest comfortably for the remainder of the weekend.  Now Jeremy and I have the kids’ colds, but we have been able to avoid the ear infections.  I was looking at my these posts (1 and 2) from almost exactly a year ago – I am putting the kids on Emergen-C next January!