Lullibies

Who needs toys when you can just play Rock Band and Guitar Hero with Dad?!
What a nice soothing activity right before bed :) Yes, I was even talked into playing it for the first time but was only trusted to play Bass guitar. I hate to admit it, but it was kind of fun.

Seven Months

I know, I know it's freezing outside, but I had to snap Kailee's 7 month picture in her onsie to share with you her cute chubby thighs (please also note the sock indentations on her legs)! I LOVE them!!

Mason went on his very first candy cane hunt last Saturday morning! It was FREEZING outside and for some reason I thought it would be inside since they had switched it from park to the elementary school. At least Mason had his hat and gloves! Thankfully it only lasted 15 minutes!! I'm not sure what he liked better...the hot chocolate or running around looking for candy canes!

Since the candy cane hunt only lasted 15 minutes, we decided to head over to Three Cedars to check out their winter wonderland. I thought everything was absolutely beautiful and could have stayed way longer, but Mason was kind of nervous of all of the motion activated deer, snowmen, etc. If it moved, he was afraid of it :(
He did enjoy looking at the Nativity!
On our way home we stopped at the bike shop in South Lyon where we saw Santa and a real reindeer! (sorry all of the pictures are on the good camera that wont upload to my laptop)
What an exciting weekend!

Kailee had her very first teething biscuit today and definitely had a good grip on it! There was no confusion on what to do with it!! However, we did have many tears when I took it away. Praise the Lord that she and Mason are opposite when it comes to eating :)

BLESSED

Tonight Andy and I headed downtown to volunteer with some members of our small group (thanks Caleb, Theresa, Becky & Matt) at the Detroit Rescue Mission. We got there at 4:30pm and helped do a little bit of dinner-prep work. Our duties were then to serve the meal, fill water cups, pass out pie, bread, plastic wear and napkins. Most importantly I think just being there to smile at them and let them know that they are worth our time was the most rewarding job! It was so heart-breaking to see how many residents are there due to their lives falling apart and loosing everything they have whether it be due to the economy or poor decision making; either way still so sad. I came home feeling very blessed! I can't even imagine losing everything. We are SO thankful to have jobs, a home, basic necessities, family and friends who are there to love and support us, and especially thankful for the money we paid the babysitter for the evening!!
I hope we can continue to pour into the lives of people who need it! With Thanksgiving coming this week it has been great to reflect on what I truly am thankful for!

SIX Months

My BIG girl is 6 months old!! I have been packing baby clothes away like crazy lately,she is getting so big SO fast! She is squirming around (not crawling yet), sitting up by herself for brief periods of time and saying "DA-DA"! We are continually working on Mama, but for some reason she doesn't want to say that yet. Her favorite thing is still watching Mason run around the house and she LOVES chewing on anything that she can get into her mouth!

BIG Helper!

BIG helper on the ladder :)

Mason and I tag-teamed to talk Andy into hanging Christmas lights outside (even though we had to promise we won't turn them on until AFTER Thanksgiving)!

Now we just need to talk him into letting us put the decorations up INSIDE!!!

Out of Commission

Last week was pretty rough for all of us! Mason woke up with a really high fever and cough last Saturday. I called his pediatrician on Sunday after a sleepless night and surprisingly they did not even want to see him in the office they just called in an Rx for Tamiflu with all of this Swine Flu hype. Thankfully it did help almost right away and he seemed to improve pretty quick. I unfortunately came down with Bronchitis on Monday and then Kailee was at the doctor on Thursday after she came down with the same high fever, runny nose and cough that Mason had.
Thankfully Andy stayed healthy during all of this (I have no idea how!) and was a huge help. There is nothing harder than having two sick kids when you are sick yourself :(

This week hopefully all will be back to normal-back to preschool and back to work. Kailee is still on the mend, but getting better each day!

Mason is still doing really well with the potty training! I think the fish really helped! Unfortunately we have already had to replace a couple of them but Mason does not seem to be bothered by it. He is enjoying feeding them and watching them swim around.

He definitely keeps us on our toes. The conversations around here have been hilarious! He asks some crazy questions...I need to start writing them all down to share.

Our Newest Additions

A week ago I told Mason that if he started going to the bathroom like a BIG boy then I would buy him 'real' fishies! One thing you have to understand is that we have been trying to get him potty trained for so long that I thought this was just going to be another failed motivational tool (I know, my positivity has been overflowing with this whole potty training ordeal)! When we started this summer we tried all kinds of motivation: first stickers, then M&M's, followed by movies and then the prize system all to no avail (he would tell me he "did not like these things anymore"-oh dear!) I was actually told by my pediatrician to give up for a while and then restart weeks later because he was obviously not ready. So, when we started this back up again I promised Mason if he filled in the reward chart then he could go to the store and pick out 2 fish. Since I was totally convinced that he would walk down the isle getting married in a pull-up since he is too stubborn to be potty-trained (OK, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration) I really did not think that we would end up owning any fish. Well on Thursday he had filled in every square on his sticker chart, so off we went to buy his fish!

Here he is showing the "man-helper" which ones he wanted :)

Just a bit excited! He could not wait to get his hands on everything!

Watching "Nemo and Dorothy" swim around as he explained to them they could not have a snack if they did not eat their dinner!

...and more watching!

Since we almost had a near casualty with them already we had to set some rules:
-NO hands in the fish bowl
-NO sliding the bowl across the counter because we don't want them on the counter
-NO feeding them unless an adult is around

So, even though I did not think we would end up with fish, it is fun to see how much Mason enjoys them! Hopefully I am better with fish than I am with plants :)

Fall Snip-its

Our kiddos! They are such good buddies now that they can interact with each other. Kailee lights up every time Mason goes zooming by, it is so cute to watch! I can no longer put her to bed without Mason kissing her head first and he is the one who "needs" to wake her up in the morning. He has definitely turned into her protector and is such a big helper!! They are both amazing kids!

Kailee started eating cereal now that she is 5 months old!! Although it is time consuming (since we recycle the same bite about 5 times), it has been fun to start this new adventure with her. She on the other hand has made it perfectly clear that we have to feed her the cereal AFTER her bottle because it is just not fast enough when she is really hungry...a concept we have no experience with but love!

Her 5 month picture! Happy as always :) She is rolling over like crazy, scootching around (mainly just in her crib) and is working on sitting up. She is content to just hang out and chew on toys but mostly loves when she has someone to talk to!

Stacy and I took the kids to the Zoo-Boo a couple weekends ago and had a great time! Mason was a bit confused as to why were at the zoo, but not there to see the animals but he sure enjoyed collecting all of the candy. It was chilly, but we were so happy it did not rain!

One of our very close family friends Jodi got married last Friday! She is one of our 'girls night attendees' . Wendi, Jodi, Stacy and myself all get together about once a month to hang out and chat. We are looking forward to our November night out to hear all about Jodi and Eduardo's honeymoon :)

Our fall has just been SO busy! I hope things slow down a bit but with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming I am not holding my breath!!

Basement

We started a project a couple of weeks ago...finishing our basement!! One of my patients who is currently laid off from his carpentry job came in to get his teeth cleaned and he was ready and willing to do any kind of work to help him pay some bills. We have wanted to get our basement done for a while, but just could not afford it so this worked out great for all of us! We worked out a great deal and he got started on it that next week!
Mason loves "helping" when we go down there to paint, clean up, etc. The other night we told him we had to go down to do some work and he ran into his toy room, grabbed his 3 hammers and his hard hat and told us he was ready to work! He has really enjoyed this project!
It is going pretty fast, we had wood floors installed yesterday and our carpet should be installed tomorrow! It will be less than one month from start to finish!! WAY faster than doing it ourselves :)

Noah Luke

Here he is!! SO cute!

My First Nephew Has Arrived!

Congratulations to my sister-in-law Sarah and her husband Marc as they welcomed their little baby BOY into the world today! Noah Luke was 8# 1 oz. She had him via C-section and is recovering from HELLP Syndrome. They expect Sarah to recover and be out of ICU tomorrow. Please pray that she would have no lingering effects of the syndrome so that she can start to enjoy their family of THREE!

We are all anxiously awaiting photos of little Noah. I will share them when I get them!!

A Look Back....

Our handsome little man was born on 9/28/2006 at 10:34 am. He was 8pounds 8ounces and 22 inches long!
The poor baby was SO colicky due to a horrible case of acid reflux. Little did we know that it would land him in the hospital with a feeding tube when he was 6 months old :( He struggled with a food aversion until he was over 1 year old. Looking back, it was only the grace of God that got us all through this very tough time.

Mason at 1 year old. Look at those chubby cheeks! He was much happier once he could get around and see the world. He is still SUPER nosey today!!

At 2 years old he was talking in full sentences! At his 2 year check up his pediatrician said he had a 3 year old vocabulary. Such a smart little guy. His food aversion at this point was a thing of the past!!! Praise God!!

And now...our BIG 3 year old!! So much has changed in the past year! He amazes me each and every day with the things he says, does and understands.
We had so much fun today! He came down the stairs this morning and immediately spotted his present sitting on the kitchen table. I have never seen him come down the stairs that quickly before (Christmas is going to be a lot of fun this year). He started tearing into it and found a bag full of new trains!! He was so excited. The bad news...he could have cared less about breakfast, but eventually he made his way into his chair and crowned himself with his birthday hat. Thankfully he was excited about the muffin (or maybe just the candle) and ate in record timing so that he could get back to playing with his new toys again.

Grandma Char came over to watch Kiki in the afternoon so that we could go out for a special birthday lunch at McDonalds just him and I which included ice cream and all :)

Our neighbors Sarah with her daughter Kaydence and Carrie with her son Noah came by in the afternoon and evening to wish him a happy birthday and shower him with fun gifts.

Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday wishes, phone calls, and presents. It is so hard to believe that he is already 3 years old! He has been such a blessing to our family. I don't know what we would do without him.

Stay tuned for more pictures after we have our family party on Saturday (Thomas the Tank Engine-themed of course)!

Preschool Birthday Party!!!

Mason celebrated his birthday at school last Thursday (a few days early). I must say I was excited to make him brownie bites with frosting to send to preschool and he was SUPER excited to take them and share them with his "new friends". He got to parade around with this birthday hat the whole 2 hours which he thought was really special! I had to laugh because I remember these birthday hats from when I was in elementary school and I never wanted to wear mine, I didn't want it to mess up my hair :)

I'm not sure if you can tell, but Mason is still LOVING school! I do love seeing his huge smile every morning! He cracks me up!

His first ever school project was a tambourine (thankfully it is a quiet one as it only has beans inside of it). In honor of his birthday he also got to bring home the "Share Bag" in which he gets to pick something from home to put in it. We close it up and he has to help me write down three clues for his classmates to guess what is in the bag. (Thanks to aunt Stacy sharing with us her feelings on how many germs are on that bag, we have kept it in the laundry room since Thursday!)

Tomorrow is Mason's actual birthday and even though we are not having our family party until Saturday I think he will be excited when he sees his present on his breakfast chair in the morning :) I cant believe my little boy is turning 3 already!!

A Bitter-Sweet Pediatric Visit

I took Kailee to her 4 month check up today. She now weighs 13lb 8oz and is 24 3/4 in long. She is growing like a very cute weed!! She also had to get 3 shots so my poor baby girl has been crabby the rest of the day :(

While we were there, I asked our pediatrician about Mason and the whole potty training situation. While he usually does pretty good with the pee situation, he had A LOT of accidents last week and did not even care. Also after 4 months of potty training he will only go into the bathroom when he is sent, he has yet to tell me he has to go. So, her suggestion was to give up for a week or two and do NOTHING! After talking with Andy and a couple girlfriends I decided to give it a shot since Mason is moving in the wrong direction anyhow. So for the rest of the day today I did not send him into the bathroom to go and sure enough he did not go himself :( needless to say his pull-up was SOAKED by the time we changed him and he did not care! NOT GOOD! So I am completely frustrated and obviously hoping and praying that this 1-2 weeks of a potty training hiatus will do the trick. He is technically supposed to be trained to go to school, but the secretary said as long as he is in a pull-up and doesn't have a major accident it should be fine.

I love Mason dearly and I keep reminding myself that his strong-willed personality will be great one day, but for now it is giving me a huge headache!!

Our Thursday

I dropped Mason off for his 2nd day of preschool. He jumped right in and started playing with all of the toys. He did ask where I was going, but I just explained to him that he was going to stay with his friends today to play and learn and that I would be back to get him. He just responded "oh, OK mom". I am so thankful that he responds well to new situations!

digging in to NEW toys!
Mason with his name tag on...SO cute. Their mascot this year is DORA!


Today also marks 4 months since Kailee was born! I can't believe how much faster time goes by with the second baby! I am SO thankful that she is such a good girl! She is a great eater and an awesome sleeper! Praise God!! What a happy girl!
SOOO BIG already! She loves sitting up so she can see all of the action! She also likes grabbing for toys, which is why I had to take numerous pictures before one turned out, she kept knocking over the blocks :)

Preschoool :)

Tuesday was Mason's first ever day of school! It was a bit hard to get him out of the house but only because he was being a slow-poke not because he did not want to go. Once we got to the church he jumped out of the car and ran into the building, I think he was a bit excited! We were first greeted by the secretary Chris who is super sweet and then by Mrs. Lach, his new preschool teacher! Our first project was to pick out a sticker that will be used to identify all of his belongings such as his cubby, coat hook, projects, etc for the year. He picked...ELMO! We then handed in all of his paperwork and quickly went to work on a puzzle! We met some new friends and I was very encouraged as I saw him sharing nicely (without having to be reminded)! What a fun first day of preschool!

puzzle time

Ready for school :)
a picture with mom!
so cool with his Thomas backpack!
and his favorite part of preschool is...
the donuts and chocolate milk :)

Tomorrow will be his second day and I wont be staying this time. I am just praying he does not have any accidents (PS-I still HATE potty training)!

Gearing Up!

This week we are gearing up for Preschool! (I am sure there will be a lot of pictures of a cute boy with a backpack on here Tuesday...so check back soon!) He says he is excited about going so hopefully that holds true! Tuesday is going to be more of an orientation/welcoming day so I get to stay with him. I don't know if they do this more for the parents or the kids but either way, I am excited to stay and see what his school days will be like. I will pack my Kleenex ;)

Today at church we held our community picnics where we gear up for the fall small group season to start. I'm excited to say that next Wednesday we will be opening up our home again to young families to study The Prodigal God. I am excited to see what this year holds for our group. Every year we talk about serving and it seems every one's schedules get too busy! So, this year we decided to kick off our season last Wednesday at Gleaners Food Bank in Howell. It was amazing to hear all of the stories that one of the head volunteers shared with us. Some sad, some inspiring, some exciting and of course a lot that were tear jerking! While it was amazing to hear that they used to serve 300 people per month and now they serve 3000, it was sad to think that SO many people need so much help now due to the economy and other circumstances. Thanks to the 11 total people we had serving, we helped to sort, stack, store and stock over 2800 pounds of food in just a short hour and a half. This really inspired me to want to organize a regular schedule for our small group to serve, whether it be at Gleaners or elsewhere!! Even with our busy schedules, that short hour and a half made a difference! So, that is my personal goal...to carve out the time to make a difference somewhere, somehow!

TOP: Kelly, Matt, Christine, Me,Becky, Andy, Matt.
BTM: Lisa, Rob, Brandon, Brian.

Myrtle Beach-Part 2

Our little fish! Mason LOVES swimming!! He started swimming all by himself when we were on vacation. It was so cute to watch him kick his legs super fast to keep his head above water. He thought it was pretty cool that he could do it all on his own-he also learned how to twist himself around in circles to keep himself afloat. Needless to say he slept great every night due to getting great workouts everyday in the pool!

This was our beautiful view from our 14th floor balcony! The sound of the ocean was SO peaceful and relaxing. If it were up to me, we would have had our door wall open all the time to hear the crashing waves, but since it was 93 degrees we had the air conditioner blasting at all times so I could not justify wasting the electricity! Directly below our balcony was the hotel pool which was also a nice view, but nothing beats the beach!

Mason taking a swim at dusk. We let him stay up past his bedtime most nights. He loved the water park and the lazy river! In the lazy river he would just hang out and check every one else out, needing to know what they were doing, what their names were and knowing if they could swim. It did crack me up as I realized that he is such a people watcher just like someone else I know (sorry, I cant help myself..people are so entertaining to me!)

Ahhh, the beach! My favorite place....well used to be until we had kids and now have to lug our whole house there and back (from the 14th floor mind you). Andy and I learned our lesson! The first day we took the stroller (which we had to lift up the stairs, over the bridge and back down the stairs to even get to the sand), and lets just say a whole bunch of other large necessary and yes some unnecessary things to the beach. By the end of the week we were carrying a pretty "light" load. It felt like as soon as we would get to the beach, lather up in sun screen and settle Kailee into our new spot it was lunch time! So, as nice as it was to go to the beach it was also kind of a pain in the rear! Not to mention all of the sand that gets all over everything!

So not that you can tell by his smile, but this is Mason's FAVORITE toy of grandpa Rusty's!!! My dad bought a motorized scooter that he takes to the campgrounds they stay at so that he can motor all around and check out everybody's RV's and the campground itself. Well, it now serves another purpose...to entertain Mason! We could use this as a bribe for just about anything (potty, eating his meals, etc.) He loves, loves, loves going for rides on it! Grandpa's toys are always cooler than his own!! Who knows, the popular thing at this RV park were golf carts with custom rims...maybe Rusty will feel the need to get one of those too :)

We had such a great time, I'm so thankful that we were able to go. I am really looking forward to our Florida trip in April! There we are only a couple steps away from the beach :)

Myrtle Beach-part 1

Kailee and Grandpa Rusty in the drivers seat of the motor home :) She needed a new view after 2 days of riding in the back seat.

Mason did such a great job there AND back! He stayed entertained with his DVD player, coloring books and his trucks. He loved driving them up and down the isle. Of course there was a LOT of snacking going on too :)
While we were there he kept telling us that "he needed to find his home somewhere" and "he needed to sleep in his bed"-apparently he missed his bed and toys!!

Mason watching his "show". Lets just say he watched quite a few of them!

Kailee with her hair blowing in the breeze :) She was such a good girl! I tried to leave her in her car seat as much as possible, even to "auto-feed" as Grandpa Rusty now calls it :)
She would eat, play and sleep every 3 hours and then repeat the cycle. She loved her freedom of being out of her chair as well. She would get so excited and was such a social butterfly when I would get her out.

5 Years!!

Five years ago Andy and I committed to spend the rest of our lives together! We could not have asked for a more perfect day! It was mid-high 70s, the sun was shining, our family and friends were there to support us and of course the food and chocolate fountain were unforgettable as well! Thankfully we had no horror stories, everything fell right into place.

It is amazing to look back at all of our pictures and remember all the little things that are so easy to forget (i.e.-Jenni and my sister-in-law Sarah peeking around the corner while Andy and I saw each other and exchanged gifts before the ceremony, or how little my nieces were). I kinda miss the craziness of planning all of the little details of a wedding. Only 30 more years and then I can help Kailee! It's kinda funny think that we were not even thinking about babies at that point and now we have 2 beautiful kids! A lot can change in 5 years!!

Happy Anniversary honey! You are the best! I could not have asked for a better husband! I Love you!