More Fall Fun!

We have our camera back! Just in time for some sweeping outside. I foolishly thought I'd get a little work done outside while the kids played, but they wanted to help me instead, so I took pictures. Sure, they wanted to sweep the grass and not the porch, but who am I to look down on a little help?

Carter's surgery went very well. I wish I'd had a camera for that as he was too cute pacing the halls in his little hospital pajamas. It was a quick surgery and recovery, and we were leaving the hospital by 9am and got home in time for his morning nap!

This afternoon, we took the kids to Young's Jersey Dairy. Mark and I went there quite a bit when we were students at Cedarville. There's a petting barn, tractors to play on, and, of course, ice cream.Ava enjoyed her first ice cream cone and was surprisingly adept at eating it. She got a good bit on her face, but that was the extent of her mess... she knows not to waste good ice cream!

Fall is here!

We've been having beautiful fall weather this week - lots of sunshine and cooler temps. Fall has always been my favorite time of year!

The other day, Ava fell outside on the sidewalk and scraped up her knees. We got bandaids and everything seemed okay, especially when our neighbor came outside with his dogs and she got to love on them for a while. Later when we went inside and she noticed the bandaids on her knees, she again turned into an invalid, holding her knees and hobbling around, acting like the simple act of walking was no longer an option for her and crying to be carried. Meanwhile, Mark and I turned away to hide our laughter as we tried to take care of our pathetic hurt girl.

The other day at the grocery store, Ava had her first public meltdown. Ava's favorite parts of grocery shopping are the free cookies at the bakery and helping to put items on the conveyor belt to check out. I never realized just how important these 2 things were until we had a complete meltdown today. She got her cookie, which is the part I always assumed would bring on a meltdown (should they not have any), but when we went to check out, she was too busy playing with some coupons to help put things on the belt. No big deal to me, but I did ask if she wanted to help. She said, "yes," but continued playing with the coupons. When I was finished, I pushed the cart down to the register. She looked up startled and said, "Mommy, I wanted to help!" I told her I was all done and she broke down. Tears. Sobs. The obligatory, "I want my Daddy!" Even the offer of a sticker didn't help! My reaction? Trying not to laugh. Such drama. Thankfully, it wasn't a loud tantrum and most of those witnessing the fit found it as amusing as I did.

Sometimes when she is on the brink of making me crazy and I'm tired and frustrated, she'll say, "Momma, can you smile?" And I always do.

Next Tuesday, Carter will have minor surgery for meatal stenosis. Basically, the skin around his pee hole (this must be the appropriate medical term as this is how the pediatric urologist referred to it multiple times in our consultation!) has grown over, making the hole smaller than it should be. One night when Mark was bathing him, probably 7 or 8 months ago as he was still in the baby bathtub in the sink, he attempted to spray Mark in the face, but instead hit the window over the sink! Mark was quite concerned that it hadn't gone straight, albeit thankful he hadn't gotten it in the face, so we asked our pediatrician about it. His son had the same thing, and it is a fairly routine surgery. It isn't routine for my baby, however, so I'm a little nervous. We will have to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m., and I think that might be the worst part of the ordeal!

Hurricane Ike

I never expected to deal with a hurricane in Ohio, but on Sept. 14, we were hit by a huge windstorm (the remnants of Hurricane Ike) taking down many trees resulting in a widespread power outage in the Dayton area. It was a Sunday and we lost power around 3pm. Thankfully, even though we have woods right behind us, we had no damage from trees and relatively few limbs in the yard, although our neighbor had a tree fall on power lines. We spent most of the week without electricity, which for us also means without water since we're on a well. About this time a week ago, we still were without power when I heard a truck next door. I was giddy when I saw it was from the local power company! Another truck arrived and they proceeded to take care of the tree that had fallen at the house next door. We went to bed still without power, but woke up around midnight and noticed we were back on! Mark and I were so excited we got up and cleaned out our freezer and fridge. I'd saved most things from the fridge, but the freezer was emptied.

Being without electricity wasn't nearly as bad as I would have imagined... especially when we found out our good friends did have power and we were able to get a few hot meals and some showers/baths at their house. The weather was great, so no need for AC, although I didn't let the kids play outside since I knew I couldn't give them baths! We went to an indoor play area at the mall and took some other excursions just to get out of the house. Not horrible, but we are extremely grateful to have the power back.

In other exciting news, Mark has been promoted to General Manager and is at the Chipotle right down the road from our church! Of course, his first day was the day after the storm when the restaurant was one of only a few with power, so it was a crazy start to the new position. He's loving it, though, and is excited about his crew and store.

I don't have many recent pictures as our camera is acting up. Thankfully, it looks like Canon will fix it free of charge. Here is one of Carter, who recently has decided he wants to feed himself with utensils. I know he needs the practice, so from time to time I leave him alone and let him have at it. This is the typical result:

More pics from Maryland!

I got a CD from my Dad with more pics from our trip and we just got a new laptop so I can actually pull pictures off a CD (our desktop is having some issues).

The kids have not been well trained on the importance of sleeping in on vacation... instead they were up around 6am every morning. We'd often end up on the front porch swing and glider and a few mornings, we got to see the farm animals across the road close up (this same morning, a horse came right up to us and as Mark was petting it, I foolishly took a picture which scared the poor thing since it was still dark out and the flash went off).

One day we went to the Land of the Little Horses in Gettysburg. A bunch of the horses are out and about, ready to be fed... or hugged.

There were also wagon rides, tractor rides, swimming, bubbles, and general fun with Nana and Pap. You can check out the web album for more pictures of all that or see them scrolling in the corner. Toward the end of our vacation, my brother arrived with his family. Here's Ava with her cousin Abby. (We had to convince them they'd both fit in the car).We ended the trip with a Cartzendafner family reunion.

Vacation!

We spent the first week of August in MD with my (Amy's) parents. I wanted to post sooner, but was having a problem getting our computer to read the disc I'd burned.

First we headed to Ocean City for a few days. It was the first time either Ava or Carter had seen the beach and both loved it (although Ava would NOT put her bare feet in the sand)! They loved the sand and the water. Here are some pics from our adventure.




We did have some issues with Carter waking up far too early (and once he's up, he's up... and so are we), but the upside is we got to see the beautiful sunrises outside our window!

I have a bunch of other pics from our week in MD that I'll post soon. It was a great time with very few plans - my kind of vacation. We finished up the week with a Cartzendafner family reunion. A fabulous week!

West Virginia, Mountain Mama...

We headed to WV over the weekend to visit the Button side of the family. It's been far too long since we've seen everyone! I'm starting to get a little nervous about our long trip to MD for vacation in a few weeks. I really need to be planning out some car activities to keep the kids happy. Ava does okay, but Carter hits a wall after about 1.5 hours and wants nothing more than to get out of that seat! He'll just have to get over it, I guess :).

Here's some pics from the trip:

Uncle Chris with Mark and the kids.

Ava & Aunt Susan

Uncle Paul with the Ava & Chloe
Poppy with his girls.

Neena & Ava

Carter and cake.

I had one of Aunt Lori and Carter, but she had her tongue sticking out and I thought she may not want that published for public viewing (to be fair, Carter started it).

We really should do this more than once a year!

Carter is 1!

Carter turned 1 on July 3. That year went by quickly! He also took his first steps on his birthday and has been taking some here and there ever since. When I picked him up from the nursery on Sunday after church, several of the ladies were telling me I had to stop him - walking means moving up to the next nursery and they don't want to lose him because he is always good for lots of snuggling.

My parents, my brother and his family, and our good friends came over for a cookout on the 4th to celebrate his birthday. While he wasn't afraid to touch his cake (like Ava was on her 1st birthday), he took a few bites and was done. No messy baby pics for us!

That evening, Ava got to see fireworks... WAY past her bedtime. The park down the road from our house hosts fireworks every year, and every other year, she's slept right through them, but this year, some of the tests they sent up woke her up and scared her, so she sat with her Pap for a while watching tv and then we decided to walk down to the park so she could see what the big booms were.

The next day, we headed to the zoo. Ava's favorite things were the train (she didn't need to ride it for excitement... simply hearing that it was coming and waving to everyone riding was a blast for her!) and the goats. They let you get in the pen with the goats and she was not shy at all. I think she would have enjoyed Young's Jersey Dairy equally as much.

It was a somewhat tiring weekend, but good. Now we're all fighting with runny noses, though. This weekend, we'll be heading down to visit Mark's side of the family. We haven't been for a LONG time, so we can't wait!