What a wonderful Christmas!

Oh goodness we had such a great week! My parents drove from Oklahoma up to our house, leaving Saturday morning and arriving here Sunday evening. Ava was just about beside herself, she was so excited to see them. She ran laps around the house, smiling and singing. Their drive was a bummer, not only bc of distance, but awful amounts of blowing snow. According to the news, there was a 15 car pile up just North of us on the same highway they drove to get here. So glad they made it safe and sound! Here's the snow piled at our house!On Monday morning we (and by "we" I mean mostly Ava and Grandma) built a gingerbread house. They got it all decorated before Ava realized that the decorations were also edible and yummy. She enjoyed some icing before it was all whisked out of reach.On Tuesday Steve had to work but the rest of us packed up for Bayshore mall to see Santa and have lunch. There was no line, thankfully, and we got some fun pictures of them with Santa and then of all of us in front of the Christmas tree. Owen took it like a champ. I placed him in Santa's arms, and Owen just looked at us, wondering what all the fuss was about. He was content and happy as a lark. Ava was not so sure. She was very excited to see him, but kind of froze up with all the pressure of smiling for the camera and telling him what she wanted for Christmas. Much like Ralphie on A Christmas Story. All that aside, she pulled through, told Santa that she wanted a train set, and got her first candy cane. Wow, did she like that candy cane! You can see her chomping on it during the photos afterwards.We then headed off to lunch, which was super yummy, and the fam took some pics of the huge snow piles on the tables outside.That evening, Steve and I had a date night while the grandparents and aunt Laura watched the kiddos! We went to the Pasta Shop in Port Washington for dinner and then took in a movie! It was wonderful! We came back home feeling very refreshed and just in time for me to feed Owen again.
Christmas Eve was another wonderful day! We went to church in the afternoon and managed to get some family photos when we got home. Then we had a yummy dinner (thanks, mom!) and Ava opened one present--wait--I think it turned into 2 presents. She opened some new PJ's from us and some super cute fluffy pink slippers from grandma and grandpa. On Christmas morning, I picked up Ava and we looked over the banister down to the tree and presents. My dad had built the train set and left it out by the tree. Ava peered down at all those presents, asked if Santa were still here, and said, "I want to play with that choo-choo!" And so the morning began, and went on, and on, and on. We are used to rushing through presents on Christmas morning so we can shower, pack up, and head over to our grandma's house for Christmas dinner (which is at 1:00). This year we had nowhere to go, and so we let Ava hang out with each gift as she opened it. It was a slow process. We took a break for breakfast. Then we took a break for lunch. Then we took a break for Ava's afternoon nap. She was wiped out. I believe that the last gift was opened around 7 pm. Wow. It was a really fun day. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast. (They were out of a can--didn't hold a candle to Robyn's homemade cinnamon rolls!) Ava did a lot of dancing with the toys that played music. We got some on video--I'll try to load some up. It was just an all-around relaxing and fun day. Owen also seemed to enjoy his first Christmas. He took turns being held by each of us and admiring his new ornament from Aunt Robyn and Uncle Cory.
On Friday I was a bit sad, bc it was the fam's last full day here! It was a warmer day (high 20's to low 30's), so we played in the snow and got to use the beautiful new sled Papa Cooper sent Ava. Coming inside to a warm house after sledding is such a good feeling. : )
On Saturday morning mom, dad, and Laura packed up the car and started to forever-long drive back to Oklahoma. They spend the night in MO, then stopped off in Tulsa on Sunday to visit family. We were sad to see them go!

snow blower

When Coop got home from his day job he set to work digging us out from the 12 inches we got today. Welcome home, honey! The drifts/piles from city plows were 3-4 feet at the end of the driveway. In this video he's clearing off the back patio.

snow angels

Snow Days

It's super duper snowy these days. We got 10-12 inches last night/early this morning, and it's still going. We're supposed to get a few snow showers on Saturday, and another 3-5 inches on Sunday. Glad the big one already came through, bc my family is driving up from Oklahoma this weekend. Roads are supposed to be fine by the time they arrive on Sunday! Let's hope so! We've been keeping busy as usual. On Saturday Steve took Ava to Tumble Buddies, and Ava loved it. It was her second time to go to gymnastics, and she's a pro at the pike and the straddle. :) After lunch there was sledding, building a snowman, and making snow angels. It was a real heavy, wet snow. Perfect for play. That evening Ava and I went to watch The Nutcracker. She's been watching a recording of it over the past week or so, and she was excited to go watch "real ballerinas" on a real stage. We had a fun mommy-daughter date night. Ava did a great job sitting through the performance. She was proud of the fact that she could sit in her own big seat, but ended up sitting on my lap most of the time for a better view. I could tell she was impressed by the whole experience--she was very attentive and would occasionally turn her face up to look at me and whisper, "I like you, mommy." cute. Steve took our picture before we left the house.

devil tree, round 2

It's baaaack.....
Steve had to move the tree over to hang blinds on the window. Bad decision. Touchy tree no likey moving. Cooper spent forEVER under the tree tonight trying to shim it up. Attempts to buy new tree stand have been a bust--all sold out of the good ones at the depot.

30 seconds of super cuteness

Book Club

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

"At the same time Kanner was documenting his discoveries, another psychiatrist, Hans Asperger, was treating and writing about patients who had nearly the same symptoms, except the children spoke."

Ok, this was actually from page 57. Page 56 only had 4 sentences and a list of citations.

duh, duh, DUHHH...It's FREEZING up here!

Brrr!! It's COLD! And lots of snow! and it doesn't melt between snowfalls! Our mailbox is almost buried after only 3 snow "events!" That's what the dept. of transportation calls snow storms, "snow events." While watching the news tonight, I learned that a small snow storm (less than 4 inches) cost on average $150,000 to "clean up"--salt trucks, etc. If it snows more than 4 inches, the city busts out the plows, and then the average cost for a "snow event" of 4-6 inches is $500,000. If it snows more than 6 inches, it typically costs $650,000 to $750,000. Sheesh! A white Christmas is expensive up here! They said the most expensive snow event last winter was upward of 2 million dollars.
Well, before it got too cold, we went out the day after Thanksgiving to cut down a Christmas tree. Ava helped pick it out, alternating between walking in her snow boots and riding on Steve's shoulders. Owen adorned a big snow suit and was then wedged into the baby carrier so I could haul him around. He slept the whole time, snug as a bug.The place we went didn't have the type of tree I was looking for with soft, long needles. So instead, we got a devil tree with sharp little spikes that slice your hand open when you put up an ornament. Getting it upright in the tree stand was an ordeal to say the least. Turns out the little bracket in the middle of the stand came loose, causing the tree to slip and slide every which way. With Steve on the floor and myself trying to hold up the top without incurring a severe bodily injury, we wrestled the tree for what felt like 17 hours. The tree won, for a while at least. Steve was finally able to work some fix-it-man magic and rig it up somehow. It's almost upright--enough to look good from most of the angles anyway. Putting up the lights was like round 2 of the fiasco--but by this point we were prepared with thick coats and work gloves to protect ourselves. The end result turned out just fine--we are really liking it as it adds such lovely Christmas cheer to our house. But I think the tree is secretly smug inside about laying the smack down on us.

random happenings

On the 18th we took the wee ones to a paint-your-own pottery place to make Christmas ornaments. It's a small little shop filled from floor to ceiling with breakable ceramics, so we thought it would be a good place for a bulky car seat and a feisty two year old. All went well. Ava was thrilled with the whole process and keeps asking for a return visit. Owen looks a bit disgruntled in the pic, but he was actually happy and mellow the whole time. After you paint your pieces the shop fires them for you. I think our ornaments are ready to be picked up, but I haven't made it down that way yet.
On the 20th Ava and I made some Christmas cookies while Owen was snoozing. By "make" I mean that we opened a package of cookie dough, sliced them, and stuck them on a cookie sheet. ha. Ava was in charge of the sprinkles. Not made from scratch, but about as home-made as you're gonna find in our house these days. Ava wasn't eating cookies last Christmas, so here's a pic of her first Christmas cookie. yummy!She also had her first PB&J last week while the Hartke's were visiting. She was an instant fan.On the 24th Ava was sporting one of Steve's long sleeves while helping fold laundry. Actually, it's one of my old rowing long sleeves from the Head of the Charles Regatta and it has the University of Tulsa blade on it! Go TU! Ava's a little coxswain in training! Then for lunch, we decided to picnic on the floor in Ava's tent just to mix it up a little bit--lots of snow outside means I was staying put inside.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Goodness, there's so much to catch up on that I don't know where to start! Maybe I'll start with today and go backwards. For Thanksgiving this year we stayed up in Wisconsin and spent the day with just the four of us. Since it was the first of a 4-day weekend for Steve, we also started the potty training process with Ava today. So we had a very laid-back day of hanging out at home, Ava sitting on her potty chair in the kitchen drinking lots of diluted pear juice and watching the wiggles. We had some success with the process. She was excited about it and she did manage to use the potty for its intended purpose, but also had some accidents along the way. As much as she's liked sitting on the potty chair occasionally over the last 6 months, she's never actually gone there. So I was worried that it would take some time to make that jump, but she actually did pretty well. She also got to have a starburst jelly bean for staying dry and clean (thank you Carrie), and this really got her excited. She's never really had candy before, so there you go. I snapped a pic of her celebrating after her first use of the potty--she was so excited!
We're also trying to help Owen out with his sleep patterns today and tonight, and that's been going better than we expected, but the night is young. We'll see how things progress.
We had all the Thanksgiving must-haves for dinner this evening. It was a very low-key affair. I roasted my first turkey and it turned out pretty tasty, but all the other dishes were super duper easy. Potatoes out of a box, cranberry sauce out of a can, green beans out of the freezer, stuffing straight from the bag, and a store-bought pumpkin pie. and it was wonderful. everything tasted so yummy, and to top it all off, both children were sleeping when Steve and I sat down to eat, so it was perhaps the most relaxing meal we've had in a long, long time. By 6:30 Ava was still sleeping, so we got her up and she also enjoyed turkey and cranberry sauce while Steve started the dishes. She tried some stuffing--she put it in her mouth and spit it right back out. She did, however, enjoy some cherry pie with vanilla bean ice cream on top. Wow. Big day for this girl. She's so much fun. Steve and I are always amazed by her--the things she'll say, ideas she'll share.
Last night Steve put her to bed and I went in to say goodnight. She said, "You lay with me a little bit? I like you, Mommy." I asked her if she had a good day, expecting her to recap the big playground we went to or some fun activity we did, instead she said, "I hold the snow. I want to hold the snow again on Sunday." I was surprised and touched by her answer. She was referring to the brief moment when we got home that afternoon and she walked to the edge of the driveway and felt the snow. She giggled and walked on it, stumbling around with her arms out for balance. Last winter she did not like the snow. She did not want to touch it, walk on it, sled on it, etc. So it caught my attention when she had announced in the car that afternoon, "I want to touch the snow. (repeat 10 times with increasing inflection...) Sure enough, she headed straight for it once I got her out of her car seat. So when I was tucking her in for the night, it became clear that her snow experience was very important to her. It's so neat to see her grow and explore and investigate things, and even more amazing to be reminded that she is her own little person. Her favorite part of the day was not some big activity we planned for her, it was touching the snow on the way into the house.

In other news, the Hartke's came to visit us this week. It was so great to see them and catch up and chat face to face with friends from St.Louis. They braved the drive with 3 kids, ages 4 and under, and one on the way. The drove in late Monday night and left early this morning in order to make their family dinner back in St.Louis this afternoon. That gave us all day Tuesday and Wednesday to catch up. I was a little worried about how Ava would do with the 3 boys staying with us--she's not really mastered the concept of sharing. ha. understatement. But she did ok. She's still not the best at sharing, but we got to practice the concept a lot, with a lot of adult help and coaching. The Hartke boys did a great job putting up with her. They even shared their iron man action figures and tractors. Steve had to go in to work on the days they were here, but managed to get home at a good hour each day and join the party. They kiddos liked playing in the unfinished basement--the dads would take them down there for tricycle riding, pogo stick bouncing, whiffle ball batting and general mayhem. And Jamie and I would sit upstairs and chat, with clacking and hollering drifting up through the floor. : ) Yeah for daddy duty! Dan was able to demonstrate for Ava what a piano and a guitar are actually supposed to sound like. : ) We're so grateful that we got to see them this week!
There's much more I wish I could add, but at this moment, both children are sleeping, and I'm thinking I should make good on that deal and go to bed myself. Maybe more tomorrow! and ooh! We're getting our Christmas tree tomorrow!

My little sister got to come up and visit us the weekend before last. Her timing was great because Steve was out of town for Robyn's wedding. Congrats Robyn & Corey!!! Speaking of which, I heard from Steve that the wedding was absolutely beautiful and perfect (except maybe when the father of the bride slapped the groom at the alter...ha). Beautiful place, beautiful accommodations, and a very beautiful bride!! We love you, Robyn!!
Well, while that was going on in Mexico, Laura was a huge help and sanity keeper for me in Wisconsin, and Ava is totally in love with her. They had a great time reading and singing and playing with a really cool puppet. : )
It was very brave of her to come up this weekend since Owen was at the peak of a night-crying pattern. I think we all pulled through ok, though. We even made it out the door to go to church on Sunday morning despite much crying and hoopla. Way to go, super-aunt Laura!
When it was time for Laura to head back to the airport, Ava gave her a big hug and repeated, "Don't go, Laura! Don't go! Stay with me! Stay with me!" It was such a pitiful scene!
Ava didn't want to lose her dear friend!

3 guesses

Can anyone tell me what famous historical figure my son resembles in this photo? The founder of a major world religion perhaps? any takers?

Cuteness

Last Friday when I went to get Ava out of bed, she had adorned some groovy footwear. She must have had a good time digging in her closet.

Owen keeps growing and growing. At the doc's last week he weighed 10 pounds, 8 ounces already. I think about half that weight is in his cheeks. He sleeps for much longer stretches at night than Ava did at this age, which I'm attributing to his nice weight.


Ava also keeps getting bigger, but likes to climb onto Owen's play mat and bouncy seat and declare that this is where she'll play "when she gets little."
Ava has also made some new games out of playing with the dogs. She likes to chase Lucy around and around in circles, which Lucy actually gets into and proceeds to bark her head off. Callie, on the other hand, is not really into Ava's game of sitting on top of her as a favorite reading spot, but tolerates this as the good bird dog that she is. Poor Callie.

Ava & Owen

Ava gets so excited to hold her little brother. I didn't realize how much it meant to her until I actually let her do it (with a good amount of help). She started to grin ear to ear and giggle with glee. It was very sweet."I like him! I holding him!"

catching up

Sorry for the long delay in new pics Mom, and Happy Anniversary!
So on the 3rd, we borrowed this soothing infant seat from a mommy neighbor friend for Owen. We thought it may help him out in a crying spell and still allow our arms to be free for others tasks at hand. It's success is somewhat hit or miss--but in this instance it worked like a charm. He kind-of looks like an elf between the leaf accessory and the baby-hawk he's got going on with his hair.

On election day it was beautiful and 70 degrees outside, so we packed up for our first visit to the Milwaukee Zoo. It was actually pretty nice. We saw a lot of animals (as opposed to a lot of empty cages) and Owen woke up for lunch. Ava's favorites were the flamingos and the rhino. She's been impersonating both now for a week. While I fed Owen, Ava kept herself busy running up and down a ramp and then running in circles around this gazebo. Where do kids get all that energy?
So we had a very nice day at the zoo. It was so warm all week we also had some long walks to the parks near our neighborhood each morning.

The last pic shows Owen taking in the first presidential election coverage of his lifetime--and what an election it turned out to be.

Lovely Weekend

The Wisconsin Coopers had a very nice weekend! On Friday night Ava once again adorned her Bumblebee costume, Owen dressed up like a pumpkin, and we headed to downtown Cedarburg for trick or treating. This was similar to Kirkwood's Halloween walk, but without the extra activities like the costume contest. Everyone was encouraged to bring their jack-o-lanterns to line the sidewalks--it was very cute. Ava was all business making her way into the different shops.

On Saturday, Steve went to pick up a snow blower that he bought on Craig's list. The owner lived about an hour away on the southwest side of Milwaukee. Then he ran a couple of errands on the way back--so it was just me and the kids almost all morning and part of the afternoon. This is no different than a typical week day, but the fact that it was the weekend bummed me out. Solo duty again! But Coop got home with the snow blower AND a double stroller! So once Ava was up from her nap and the stroller was assembled, we took a nice, long walk through the neighborhood. It's much easier than walking through Kirkwood bc of the nice sidewalks and lack of traffic, but there's nowhere really to walk to--no destinations to speak of. In Kirkwood you could actually get somewhere--like the library or a custard stand or a farmer's market. In our current neck of the woods, you just walk until you're tired of walking and head home. But it really was a nice walk. Plus, Steve and I realized that it was a chance to actually converse without kids interrupting! We got to have a nice little exchange!

On Sunday we tried another church, and we really liked it! The worship was great, the teaching was great, the nursery was great, the cry room was great, and the people were SO nice (and seemingly normal...ha). We saw a family that I already knew from CBS class--it's fun to run into familiar faces. We also saw another Sigma employee there and got to meet him and his wife. In that one morning we were also invited to a couple of different small groups by individual members, AND...duh duh duh!...they have a senior high program that meets Wednesday nights. We got to check out the youth area and hope to visit during senior high over the next couple of weeks. A funny thing about this church is also that the sanctuary looks VERY similar to the activity center at first efree, but with a balcony added. Same wood beams, wood ceiling, etc, so we almost felt like we were at home. Yeah! Much promise!

This pic is Owen showing off his Sunday best.





On Sunday evening we enjoyed another really long walk--it was delightful! Here's Ava in her fleeciness and sporting a bag of veggie booty (mmm...yummy) to take on the walk.
















This afternoon Ava was cheering on her little bro during his tummy time routine. It was a beautiful, 75 degree day (In WI in November!) and we got to spend most of it outside. In fact, we went to a big park in Port Washington with 4 other moms from our block and their kids! It was great fun!Also caught Owen smiling in a picture!