Haircut

So you saw how much Spencer needed a haircut (if you didn't, check my last post here). I didn't really find any place in town that I thought was worth taking him to for a trim, so I bit the bullet and did it myself. I did most of it while he was eating breakfast and finished it up while he was eating lunch. Yes, I had to do it in two "phases" because someone did not like having his hair cut and after nicking his ear at breakfast while he was thrashing, I decided to hold off until he was having lunch to finish the job.

And the results are...

Round 1: After breakfast, (and yes, he is wearing Santa jammies still, but hey they fit and it's been cold here at night!) most of the haircut is done at this point.

Round 2: At lunch I got all the touch ups done and I think he looks more like a little man now-rockin' the faux hawk will do that! He needed a fresher look as he approaches 1 (21 days away!), and I think we accomplished that today:)

New Things

Playroom

The kids now have an area all their own where all the toys can live! We took our treadmill and elliptical out to the garage and finally gave them a corner in our house to play. It was much needed and though I don't have my workout machines at my fingertips, the excitement my kids have for their new space is worth it!

Fashion

I know I couldn't pull an outfit like this off, but a two year old sure can bring prints of leopard, flower, plaid and stripes together and look adorable!

Toilet Paper

Spencer has discovered the wonderment of toilet paper and gets very proud of himself when he makes it all the way to the end of a roll before mommy catches him!

Busted Lip

Well, she's had a few black eyes and multiple bruises, bumps and scratches on the face...but the busted lip was a new one. It lasted the whole week and got pretty huge! Finally about 4 days in, the scab got pulled off and Avery had blood all over her bed. She was pretty proud of this ouchie (she received it after falling outside while helping with gardening)!! Avery even held the princess ice pack on it herself:)

Hairstyle

A combination of food on the hands and hair that's too long = Spencer's take on the "There's Something About Mary" hairstyle! I really need to find a good place to get his haircut! I'd do it myself, but his attention when I try is pretty bad and he needs a good one!

Potty Training Update: Avery is pretty much potty trained!! We couldn't be happier with her progress:) However, she is not poop trained. There is something about the feeling of having to #2 that she just would rather go in a pull-up than on the potty. But, as far as peeing goes, Avery has done wonderful! She'll get up at night and go. She will even tell us when we're out running errands or out of the house that she has to go and will hold it until we can get her to the restroom. It is really nice seeing her so happy with herself for this accomplishment!

Enjoy the Weekend:)

T Minus 1 Month

Happy 11 Months, Spencer!

I can't believe our little miracle is going to be a year old this day next month!

He is truly a blessing in every way.

There was a time we didn't think we'd have Spencer to celebrate this big milestone, but looking at him, you'd never know and we're so very thankful!

Sprinkle, Sprinkle

Sprinkle, sprinkle little rose, this is how my garden grows. Avery loves to "sprinkle" courtesy of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse's Minnie. Minnie sings a "Sprinkle, Sprinkle" song while watering her flowers and now we have our very own little sprinkler:)

Helping daddy plant the flower Aunt Beth and Aunt Cindy sent us...Spencer wasn't so much interested in the planting as he was in exploring his boundaries outside and honing his crawling skills on the new terrain.

Avery decided she needed to add more dirt herself.

One little man that is very proud of his accomplishments outdoors!

Finally, time for some sprinkling:)

This morning when I went in Avery's room to get her up for breakfast (yes, often we have to wake Avery up in the morning...my Spencer, on the other hand, is always up before 8 a.m.!), she reminded me that she needed to sprinkle the flowers outside-so we headed out during Spencer's morning nap to make sure all the plants got lots of sprinkles.

And this weekend...
Spencer fed himself yogurt for the first time:) He didn't really know what to think and since he's really trying to cut his top teeth, he was more interested in chewing on the spoon! We have officially stopped buying baby food around here. Spencer just will not eat it anymore. I've started that worrying, transition stage that I remember going through with Avery. Now, he's testing everything and isn't really that good of an eater unless he's just nibbling on snacks. Pretty soon he'll find his groove with table food, I'm sure...and milk is just around the corner-next month!

His face is a little blurry and Avery's looking down, but I still love this smile. Spencer just lights up whenever he sees or hears his big sister. I see many fights about Spencer never leaving Avery alone in my future, but for now these two are nearly inseparable and I can't get enough of the two of them playing together!

Have a great week:)

Breakfast, Birthday Gift, and a Bonus

BREAKFAST

This is the sunshine I get to have every morning, even when Indiana weather doesn't cooperate:) These are two kids that Love breakfast. Orange juice is the equivalent of coffee/caffeine to start the day-seriously, we have to keep big jugs of the stuff around because Avery would go nuts without it in the morning! Even Mr. Spencer has shown that breakfast is becoming his favorite part of the day too:) He is almost completely off all baby food! He did it himself, not wanting to eat it when it was offered. He only wants to feed himself. Spencer loves pancakes and waffles and cinnamon sugar toast. He also enjoys cheerios and breakfast bars! He is still really in love with formula, but in just over a month he gets to try milk. Spencer's pretty picky with the other two meals of the day and it is so hard to find him stuff that he'll eat, especially since we don't have the cushion of baby food (since he won't eat it). Mostly, it's a texture issue for him. He used to love eating pasta when he first started table food, but he won't eat it now because of the texture...so we're trying to be creative:) He's still a growing machine though and we guess that he's within 5 pounds of Avery (who weighs 26 lbs.)-let's just say it feels the same when carrying them!

BIRTHDAY GIFT

As promised, a picture of my birthday gift. So, three years in a row now I have chosen a kitchen appliance for my birthday. I'm not sure why that is, I think it's because I want to get something more than just I can use and it has happened to be all kitchen stuff. Three years ago all I wanted was a toaster oven-I had never had one before, not even growing up! That thing has turned out to be the most used appliance in our kitchen with two kids around. Last year, I got a new griddle that folds up and also has grill plates. We use that mostly for weekend breakfast. So, this year Artie really wanted one of these Keurig machines. Yeah, I said Artie:) After we stayed in a hotel that had one in the room, he became fascinated with it, and I have to say I started to too. Artie found an incredible deal on a display model at Sam's Club and so now it has joined our kitchen appliance for Steph's birthday family (should that be hyphenated??) Funny thing is, neither Artie or I drink coffee-but this machine also makes tea and hot chocolate-which we do drink:) And since lots of people we know do drink coffee, now we have something that can just make them a cup when they come visit!

BONUS

And here's the bonus picture. Avery all cuddled up with her popcorn and a movie:) She won this as a reward for being an angel at the doctor's office when she had to pay them a visit earlier this week. Last week she had what we thought was a diaper rash. Then she started getting red spots on her tush and down her legs, they looked like chicken pox. We were concerned, but knew that she was up to date on her chicken pox vaccine and that sometimes when her skin gets too dry she gets red spots (she had baby eczema so she has extremely sensitive skin now). All week last week we slathered her with aquaphor, but weren't really seeing a lot of change. Then over the weekend the spots were really spreading and we didn't go anywhere for Easter. I had been watching for a fever, but she wasn't really getting one. Then Monday morning when I got her up and changed her, the rash had gotten much worse and that mommy instinct said, ok she needs to get to the doctor. So I called Artie and let him know what I thought and he called and made her an appointment. Turns out Avery had a bad case of folliculitis, an infection in her hair follicles that had been spreading all over her (by this time they were down her legs, groin area, up to her stomach and on her face). So, thank goodness it supposedly isn't anything serious. It was possibly started when we all had that GI bug and it infected Avery's hair follicles and then continued to spread the last few weeks. By today, the antibiotic seems to be kicking in-phew! So, that night, after going to the doctor and being amazing, Avery got to watch a movie on her dvd player and eat popcorn and she couldn't have been happier! By the way, she was watching Princess and the Frog-good movie if you haven't seen it:)

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Easter

We woke up Easter morning to catch the Easter Bunny just leaving our house...

And this is what was left for the kids.
Hope everyone had a lovely Easter Weekend!

PT and Park Time

That's right, in this house we have been working on the dreaded PT, or Potty Training! We started middle of last week and have been doing pretty well. Avery does a whole lot better if she has no underwear on at all...which is posing quite a problem for being out of the house. I don't know what it is, but if she has "big girl" undies on or her princess pullups (that we wear at nap and bed) then she really doesn't feel the need to head to the potty. As long as she has nothing on, she pretty much makes it every time-even to do #2! It's a bit frustrating, though I'm guessing this is a process. I can't say that I totally love the whole potty training thing because, frankly, I think it's a ton more work than just using diapers. But, Avery is ready and I want her to be trained so she can do fun stuff like dance and go to school sometime soon!

Here we are practicing on the potty! We all scream and do our "potty dance" when she goes. Avery absolutely loves the praise, it's so cute:)

She has been wearing a ton of longer shirts since she's practically running around the house naked. Thank goodness it's been warmer here the last few days! She had daddy's shoes on to go workout with him:)

Good Friday

Artie had the whole day off so we took advantage of the 80+ degree weather and headed to the park! It was gorgeous outside and the kids couldn't have been more excited to be out of the house-I was pretty happy myself:)
Last year, Avery was too scared to cross this bridge. It's the first thing she did when we got there! I can't believe the difference:)

This look on his face is probably due to the fact that he's cursing his big sister's hand-me-downs and hopes people know he's a boy under this feminine stroller. Sorry, buddy, it's still a perfectly good stroller:) Plus, this stroller has been to L.A. and been on stage at the Kodak Theater...it has history!

Spencer did get out of the stroller to swing with Avery. The boy giggled like crazy almost the whole time! He loved it.

This is a really cool slide that made Avery cry last year...this time, we couldn't get her off of it to leave! We had such a great time!

ABC's...here's a 30 second video of Avery singing her ABC's, at the end you see how excited Spencer gets for her when she gets all the way through:)!!

Happy 20th!

Happy 20th Birthday to Private Redwanski, U.S. Army. Currently based at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia.

We know him around here as Uncle Jake.
This guy knows him as his brother, not brother-in-law.
And, to me, he'll always be my little brother-no matter how grown up he gets!
Hope you have a wonderful day and are able to get some time to celebrate (and maybe watch some of the Duke game). Wish we could be together to celebrate, but we're thinking of you and miss you! Love you, Steph, Artie, Avery and Spencer:)

A Reflection of 29 Years

This a picture of me (and my sister) yesterday-March 31, Carol, we have the same b-day!-as I turned 29. I think I'm okay with being in the last year of my twenties. Everyone kept saying, "wow, last year you will be twenty-something," but honestly, I feel older than 29 sometimes! So if I feel older, but I'm really not, then I think I'm ahead of the game:) Plus, I always have Artie two years older than me, so by the time I get to, say 30, he already did it so it doesn't seem as big.

I think I've accomplished a good amount in 29 years. I went to college and then headed on to earn a master's. I taught communication courses to college students until Avery was born. With that, I discovered I loved studying communication, not so much teaching it (though I'm glad I did it and I actually do miss it). I figured out that my dream job would be to be a media expert or correspondent, but since I live in Indiana and am now a stay-at-home mommy, that's unlikely. It's okay because after Spencer was born and we went through (and are still very much trying to cope with that experience) his ordeal, I have discovered something new that I have a passion to do-unfortunately because of technicalities I have to keep it under wraps right now, but I will be shouting it from the rooftops once I can! At 29, I have already been married 6 and 1/2 years and have been with the same guy for 14 of those years:) I also worked for MAC cosmetics as a makeup artist before Avery was born (darn kids, they'll unexpectedly change everything you thought was a sure thing!), this was a huge goal of mine and was the most wonderful job-other than having to be on my feet, in heals, for hours upon hours and having to sell retail. Most people know I'm a huge makeup fanatic. This job was one of the best experiences and I'm glad I got to have it. Arite and I bought our first house and brought both of our kids home to it. This year will bring the selling of that house (god willing) and a goodbye to a home that has been special to us-but geez I will be happy to have more room for toys! There are big changes in store for me this year, my last year before 30.

Thank you to my mom for coming over yesterday to make me a yummy lunch and spend time with the kids so Artie and I could get out together. My sister also made it over for lunch, thank you Cim for taking time away from work to do that:) Picture of my birthday gift to come. Thank you to all for the cards, calls, etc. to make my 29th special!