Grandma

The 

My Grandma had been sick for a long time. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 12 years ago. The three pictures above were from my bridal luncheon where everyone was asked to stand up and say a funny story or memory. When it was her turn, she declined. I understood completely! I wouldn't have wanted to get up and talk in front of anyone either! But after everyone had their turn, she said she wanted to say something. She stood up and told me she was proud of me. It's one of the last memories I have of her where her mind was clear enough to say something like that to me. It's been a very long battle and I'm happy she's now in peace. But I sure to do miss her. She used to mail me newspaper articles to read and cartons of orange tic-tacs. I used to pay her $100/month for my car and she would tell my Grandpa she cashed the check, but she would actually throw the check away. We would go to the mall and she would tell me all the clothes and shoes I picked out looked like they belonged in space. Before we took this picture she said, "hang on, let me tuck in my chins." She was funny, sweet and kind. She had a good heart. 

One of my funniest Grandma stories happened after she had been diagnosed. We were in Omaha visiting for my Grandparents' 50th anniversary and she had left a lot of the planning to my Grandpa because of her memory. We were in the pool swimming, talking and listening to some music. She seemed so relaxed and was really going with the flow. She started humming to a song that was playing and was dancing with her hands (she had a tube around her so all I could see was her hands). I smiled at her because she looked cute, and she turned to me, still dancing and said, "you should see my ass!"

I love you and miss you very much, Grandma. I feel blessed by these memories of you!

15 months

Avery weighs 24 pounds 6 ounces  (75%) and is 32 inches tall  (75%)

Avery wears 12-18 month clothes and size 4 diapers. 

Avery is into EVERYTHING. He is just as busy, if not more, than Ryane was. Which is a lot. He is opening locked cabinets, playing with glass bowls, opening drawers and fishing for goodies. In the time it takes me to put Ryane in her bed, he had already taken out her books from her bookshelf and tossed them all over the floor. He is a mess!!

He is walking!!! He started walking (more than 5-7 steps) at the beginning of January and walks about 50% of the time. 

He can stand up from the middle of the floor with ease. 

He has 12 teeth and is cutting 4 more! All at the same time, poor guy. 

He is starting to talk more and more. He says a lot of new words! Book, ball, balloon, banana (he moved his tongue back and forth on his top lip to say it) , mama, dada, papa, Mimi, please, more, bath, fish, woof, bye bye, 

He still does the sign for water, eat, milk, more, all done and yogurt. 

He sleeps well. He goes to bed at 7 and usually wakes between 7-7:30. 

Avery started to let me rock him again before I put him down in his crib. And now he will get the giggles (especially when I am humming a song to him) and we will both be rocking in the chair giggling at each other. It's the best part of my day! 

He naps 1-2 times per day, depending on if we are home or out. If we are out he will occasionally fall asleep in the car for about 30 minutes in the morning. If we are home he will go down down for a morning nap. He is usually pretty happy even if he doesn't get a morning nap. Even if we are home in the morning, he sometimes just plays in his bed and doesn't sleep. I will start weening him to one nap soon, it looks like!

Avery has always been very ticklish. He laughs even when you wipe off his hands! But he is EXTREMELY ticklish on his head, neck and shoulders! Whenever you try to put a hat, mask, sunglasses, etc on him, he scrunches up his face and raises up his shoulders to his ears. It is hilarious!

Avery is in love with his siblings. And they adore him too. It's fun to see how his relationship is different with each one. With Kaden, he loves to be near him and watch him. He loves when Cam plays with him, and he is still a little nervous around Ryane. But he has started to take toys from her and throw them away from her to make her mad! It's always someone!!

He started to love reading books and likes to pick out the books from his shelf. 

He and Roxy have the best relationship and Roxy tolerated him more than she did with any of the other kids. 

Avery loves looking at the pictures going up the stairs. He points at the kids and I say their names. Then he points at Nic and whispers "dada!"

He still gets very excited when Nic gets him from work. He waits by the garage door and cries if Nic doesn't pick him up right away. 

Avery loves balloons and gets so happy when we have balloons that he can chase around at home. He loves to say "ba-oon!" when he sees one. 

Happy 15 months, cutie boy!

Awesome Award and Principal's Shining Star

Within one week, both my big boys had BIG weeks at school!!

First, on November 6th, Cam got awarded the Awesome award at school for being an awesome student of the week!! We were so proud and I think he was pretty excited when they called his name during the morning assembly! However, he did not want to stand up in front of everyone and once he realized he was standing, he slowly sunk back down to his knees. Too funny!

The next Friday, November 13th, Kaden got awarded the Principal's Shining Star award! His teacher said "Kaden is doing so great at school, he is always eager to learn, help others and brings such joy to our class.  I am so happy to be giving him this well-deserved award!" This award is given to 2 second graders once a month and I was so excited that Kaden was able to receive it!! We all got to sit on stage with him when the principal read why he was getting it. When he saw us he thought maybe he was getting the Awesome award and said he never thought he would get this one! We were extremely proud!!

Love my big boys and how well they are doing this year! 

13 and 14 months

Avery is wearing 12-18 month tops and  bottoms although the bottoms were a little big on him at 13 months. 

He is still wearing a size 4 diaper. 

Avery has 10 teeth at 13 months and 12 teeth at 14 months! I can't believe how quickly he gets teeth and he doesn't get very fussy when teething (he does want to be help more often). 

He sleeps at night 7:00pm -7:00am

Avery naps twice per day when we are home, typically at 10 and 2:30. He sleeps around 1.5-2 hours. If we are out the whole morning, he will either sleep in the car for 30 minutes in the morning or just take one nap when we get home in the afternoon. 

Avery still sleeps with his arm around Garrison. 

He has a few other bears in his crib and he likes to throw them all out during naps. If he throws Garrison over he cries and usually doesn't sleep till we toss Garrison back over. 

At 13 months he nurses once per day, right before bed. I had planned to be done nursing at 14 months but I couldn't bring myself to do it! 

Avery loves to eat. He goes absolutely crazy for bananas! He eats everything that we eat for meals and there is nothing he doesn't like. When he is full (which isn't that often) he usually starts dropping food on the floor. 

Avery no longer takes a bottle when I work.  He just drinks water and milk from sippy cup. He isn't a huge drinking and I try to offer it to him often throughout the day. 

Avery loves to clap and play peekaboo. 

At 13 months, Avery isn't talking much more than he was at 12 months. But he started saying more around 14 months. He also points and makes a question sound ("eh?") where his tone raises like he is asking "what's that?" Sometimes it sounds like he is saying "dat?" 

He pulls himself up to standing on everything and everyone. 

At 13 months he cruises a little bit along the furniture and will go from one object to another if it's close. At 14 months he is starting to stand on his own more purposefully like he's testing it out. He still doesn't love to be standing and if you try to make him stand or walk he bends his knees to go back to the ground. 

He loves to help give Roxy a biscuit when we put her in her crate.  He makes kissing noises like he is trying to call her in to her crate. At 14 months he says crate. 

He can climb the stairs and at 14 months he attempts to go down backwards. 

He climbs and climbs all day. He actually climbed into the tub upstairs and out of the deep garden tub in our bathroom! We put him in the garden tub when we are giving Ryane a shower so he doesn't continuously crawl in there. 

Avery loves when Paw Patrol is on and at 14 months says Paw Patrol (sounds like papa or paw ta)

He still loves to play anywhere that gets him in to trouble such as Roxy's food or water bowl, the pantry (he climbs and stands on whatever he can to reach items on the shelves) and the dishwasher. 

Avery is a busy guy and he rarely plays with toys. He explores and climbs mostly, although he does love to play upstairs in the play kitchen. He also still love to find small objects to put in his mouth!!

He's the happiest guy and he loves his grandparents. He gets especially happy when he is hanging out with Papa! If Papa is holding him and I put out my arms for him, he will not come to me!!

Happy 13 & 14, my sweetest! 

Fall family pictures

My sweet friend, Laura, graciously took our family pictures out at Arbor Hills. It's such a stress hoping that everyone is going to smile {who am I kidding... Look at the camera} but she got sone great shots!!

Ryane is THREE

Ryane turned three on November 12th! And oh my goodness was she ready for her birthday. She had been talking about it for about six weeks!! She talked about wanting to have a birthday party, having a Paw Patrol cake, what friends she wanted to invite, what she wanted to do at her party... Non stop! It was so wonderful to see the look on her face when I went to get her on her birthday. I opened the door and she could see the streamers hanging from the door, and she got the happiest look on her face!!! And when we came down the stairs and she saw all the decorations, she was in heaven. 

Ryane wanted her party at a "jump place." We decided on a place called Kid Mania which is an indoor obstacle course. The kids loved running around and Ryane had a blast. She decided on a last minute cake change and picked a Frozen themed cake. 

Ryane also had a school celebration and got to stand in front of everyone while they sang happy birthday! Then she got to help ring in Shabbat by lighting the candles and saying the prayers. So special!! Kaden NEVER went up there by himself and Cam refused to go up there AT ALL! So it was very fun to see how excited she was about it. She talked about how Suzi and Becky were going to make her a crown so she could go up there. I was so proud of her!!

Happy birthday to the funniest little girl I know. Ryane, you are smart, sassy, hilarious and beautiful. You make me laugh the hardest and I can't get enough of your silly side. You love your family with all your heart. You are bossy, stubborn and you know exactly what you want. I wouldn't change any of that for a second! I hope you had the best birthday and many, many more. 

Halloween

A skeleton zombie. That's what he wanted to be!!

The red Power Ranger- red is his new favorite color.

My pirate. Couldn't get enough of her costume! Plus she was running around saying, "Arrrrr! Shiver me timbers!"

And the pirate's parrot! 

Halloween is starting to get FUN! We had a great block party and the kids had a great time running around with their friends. We all took off trick or treating together but eventually we lost the boys and Nic went racing around to try to find them. Apparently they got tired and stopped at a friend's house to play! Ryane had an absolute blast!! She was so brave going door to door saying trick or treat! After the first house she wanted to stop and eat her candy. She made it all the way around the neighborhood without acting tired. And poor Avery got a little scared in the stroller (maybe because it was dark?) and I held him most of the time. It was like having a baby parrot on my shoulder! So fun!! Can't wait till next year!