gobble gobble 2009

Little Mama

We got to meet our baby cousin Mallory Marie Winkelmann at Thanksgiving. She is precious! She is about the size of Avery's baby dolls and Avery wanted to hold her the whole time. She did a pretty good job, but still needs to work on being gentle. Once Mallory gets a little bit bigger, Avery will have another girl to play with on that side of the family.

I am thankful for.....

ice cold diet cokes in the morning, Avery's need to give me a hug as soon as she wakes , my husband's understanding when it comes to my mediocre cooking, seat warmers, my mom's Old Navy card, Austin's love to catch bugs, Must Be Heaven chicken salad, our home where we can visit with friends, wireless internet service in "the country", sharing a glass of wine with my mother-in-law, friendly checkers at HEB, Spanks, the ability to drop off my kids everyday and know that they are going to be taken care of by amazing individuals, my dad's love of sports and sharing them with his family, jeans that fit "right", Texas temperatures, Caleb's random laughter outbursts, my tennis shoes, balloons after check ups at the clinic, my father-in-law's after school stops, the men and women who dedicate their lives so that we may live in a free country, Bunko nights with the girls, date nights with my husband, fall football season, Brenham - no other place I would want to raise my children, get away trips to Jason's and his amazing creations in the kitchen, random acts of kindness, the equal partnership my husband and I have raising our children, twizzlers, friends - too many to mention - love them all, our church family that doesn't mind when our crew gets rowdy during a service, Kelice Maurer - every mother of 3 needs at least one of her, chex mix, the change bucket at my parent's house, time at the beach with Steven & Candice, random emails from friends who are "just checking in", a game of hide and seek with the kids, my mom - she's amazing, fresh flowers, doughy breadsticks, the ability to open my back and front door and let the kids run freely, forgiveness, my coworkers, real buttercream icing, and living in a country where my children have an opportunity to do anything they put their minds to.

I could go on and on, but these things came to mind today. I am truly blessed to live the life I live. I have a great husband, beautiful healthy kids, and am surrounded by an amazing group of family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

We are thankful

Tonight before bed time I asked Austin and Avery what 5 things they were thankful for. Their responses are below:
Avery: family, teachers, blankies, friends at school, and shoes
Austin: family, toys, books, animals and his blanket

Injury report

Caleb bites Avery.












Bite requires boo boo bear & tlc.



Caleb in time out - closing his eyes because he knows he's in trouble.

Randomness

Cowboy & Indian

"I can do it myself"

So, Avery has decided she is not a fan of wearing bows so the other day I was going to put a clip to help hold her hair back. She said "No mama, I will do it myself." This is the result.

Thursday morning margaritas

This morning I was getting dressed for work and as usual, I was behind schedule. The kids were up and about doing their own thing around the house instead of getting dressed like I had asked them to. Austin was in our room watching cartoons, Avery was in Caleb's room stuffing toys into backpacks (a new obsession of hers) and Caleb was in the playroom - or so I thought. I heard him pulling something around and I was pretty sure it was a pull along train that we have. Not sure if it is a boy thing, but tie any object to a cord or rope and Austin & Caleb will pull it around the house for hours. Well, I heard Caleb coming down the hall into our room and when I looked up he was pulling an electrical cord that was attached to the bottom of the blender and in the other had was the lid to the blender top. All I could do was smile. I got to thinking that maybe he was telling me "Chill out, mom. It will be ok if we're late. Just settle down. Have a margarita." I decided against that and Caleb and I put up the blender where it belonged. Never a dull moment in our house!

Our sleeping monster....

When Austin was close to a year old, he had night tremors. I remember them vividly. For about a month he would wake up crying in the middle of the night. When we went to get him in his crib, his eyes would be open, but he was obviously not awake. He would cry and scream and nothing soothed him. If we'd pick him up, he would scream louder and often times push us away. There were nights I remember taking him out into the cold night air in order to wake him up and calme him down. It was like he was a different person when he was having the tremors, and it scarred me for a while until I found out this was fairly common in young kids.
Well, the night time fussing has returned. Austin's not having night tremors, but he does wake crying from dreams and he is down right mean sometimes when we go to try and calm him down. I am not very patient when woken at 2am by his crying. Rubbing his back and talking to him doesn't always work. I am hoping this too is a phase.

Parent/Teacher conference

Today I met with Ms. Jones for my first official parent/teacher conference for Avery & Austin. Don't worry this was scheduled, not a meeting about a problem. They evaluate all the kids in variousdifferent skills and then report it to the parents. Good news is that Avery & Austin are right on track with other kids their age. As I have mentioned before, I am always thinking about the fact that A&A are the youngest in their class w/ August birthdays, but right now they seem to be doing just fine.
I was not suprised to hear Ms. Jones say that Austin was a great kid at school. He is very much a boy.... loves boy things - dirt, blocks, and bugs. He tends to use his left hand for cutting and writing and he enjoys listening to books. His coloring pictures showed that he followed directions but doesn't get too detailed with filling in everything. He had drawn a "self portrait" that was more detailed that I expected considering I have never asked them to draw themselves. They have also been working on writing their name and well lets just say, it's something we need to work on.
Avery does well at school, but like at home, her attention span is a bit short. She wants to be in on the action and likes to stay by Ms. Jones side, especially when other kids are getting one on one attention. She's a leader and a social butterfly. In the classroom, her favorite thing is playing in centers with the magnetic blocks. Her coloring is very complete, most items filled in. She is doing a much better job writing her name, but Ms. Jones said girls take more interest in that early on. Her self portrait showed 4 different "people", not sure who was who...

Never a dull moment....

I usually update the blog when something is "happening" - bday party, family event - or when the kids do something out of the ordinary. I wanted to post a few of the small things that we get to experience day to day.
- A few Sunday's ago I was ironing my pants (on the floor) before church. Of course we were running late and crunched for time. Caleb had found a bottled water and managed to open it. He came up to me and poured the bottle of water on my pants. I guess he had seen me pour water into the iron and he was trying to help. Um.... not quite the help I was looking for.
- Austin loves to play buck n' bull with Wes. We were given a small pair of chaps and he loves to put them on with just his underwear and cowboy hat - yes, it is quite hilarious. He even talks in a twang when he is in the cowboy garb. The other day I took out a pair of athletic pants for him to wear to school and he said, "No mama, I got to wear jeans like a cowboy."
- Speaking of clothes, Avery usually refuses to wear what I take out for her for school at least 3 days of the week. She prefers dresses and jeans over comfy play pants. We have a high maintenance girl on our hands.
- "Yay Yay" is still what Caleb calls Avery and it brings a smile to my face everytime I hear it, especially when he yells it real loud - priceless.
- Caleb has this new thing where he acts like a puppy and pants with his tongue hanging out. He'll go around the house for 30 minutes acting like that?!?
- Some nights after supper and bath, we play school and Miss Macaroni comes to teach the kids. Who is Miss Macaroni? Your's truly, but Miss Macaroni digs through my closet for mismatched hat, scarf, shoes and jewelry. I look pretty hideous, but it makes the kids laugh and so it's worth it.
- Caleb is still quite the daddy's boy. We know he's awake when he yells "da da." During the week when Wes has already left to go to work and I walk in Caleb looks at me and starts to cry "no mama, no" "da da". One morning he was in his bed for a good 15 minutes before he let me take him out. It's getting better. Let's just say he prefers the weekends when Wes is home.

Happy Birthday Aunt Candice!!!

Happy Birthday Candice!!!

Halloween Rewind

Halloween.... so glad it's only a one day event and so glad it only happens once a year. I have never been a big Halloween fan, never been one to go all out and get dressed up in costume, but with our crew the Halloween festivities must go on. The kids had a costume party at school, a Halloween bday party, and then trick-or-treating so at least their costumes got worn more than once. The highlight - the CANDY, too much candy. We have candy, candy, and more candy. Much of that candy has already disappered so that it can be taken to various locations away from our house. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the kitchen garbage bag full that was collected last night.
We tried not to get too worn out Halloween night. We made a few stops at family around town and then we were invited to go door to door trick or treating with a few friends. We went to about 8 houses and that was enough. We were tired, loaded down with candy and daddy was anxious to get home to watch UT football. We ended the night at Mimi's for supper, football and the kids got to run off their sugar high.
Costume pics below!

Wonder Woman

Avery said she wanted to be pretty much every costume idea I suggested. Since I knew Austin was going to be Superman, I thought it would be cute for Avery to be Superwoman..... that is until I threw the idea out to Wes and he reminded me that there was no Superwoman, but there was Wonderwoman. Ah, yes, how could I forget these very important female super hero details? Avery wound up being a pretty cute Wonderwoman and was all about dressing up, all except the long red and white stocking shoes that came her costume. We improvised with black tights and red shoes. Avery loved trick or treating and loved the candy. Her first question Sunday morning was, "can I have a piece of candy? " Um, no.

Superman

When we started looking at magazines back in early September, Austin said he wanted to be Superman and he pretty much stuck with that every time I asked what he wanted to be. So Superman he was... Superman in a costume that was a bit too small, but we will keep that small detail to ourselves. Trick or treating started out with a Superman who woke up on the wrong side of the bed after nap so we had a very grumpy Superman. After a few stops and a few pieces of candy, we went from "I-don't-want-to-trick-or-treat Superman" to "Sugar-high-I-can-fly-Superman" Good times!

Caleb the Lion

How can this lion not make you smile? I loved this costume on Austin and Caleb made me love it even more. Caleb liked trick or treating, but he wasn't a fan of having to wear the costume, especially the head.