Time for an update!

It's been longer than I wanted to take between updates, but Mark was sick for about 3 weeks with the nasty flu that's been going around and our laptop died. Mark's starting to feel better, and our laptop is running again, but we did lose everything on the hard drive. Thankfully, I don't delete the pictures off our camera until I've backed them up on CD, so I don't think we lost many. (I'd deleted some because my memory card was full - oops).

Carter is finally sitting up pretty well, now. His primary mode of moving is still rolling. He continues to be a happy, sweet baby.

A few weeks ago, while I was in the kitchen making dinner or some such thing, Ava was playing on the steps. This is not something I usually allow, but she was playing so nicely, I didn't make her stop. After a while, she called me over. I could hear the pride in her voice and she was beaming as she showed me how she had set up all her friends in a row. I cheered and asked if I could take a picture, which she readily agreed to. I went back to what I was doing and she called out to me a little while later to tell me everyone was sleeping. She wanted me to see, so I walked over to the steps and found even more friends... all sleeping. She was so pleased with herself, neither she nor I could stop smiling.

Later that same evening, she continued her adorable behavior by wanting to put on an apron and walk around with oven mitts. It was a fun evening, and I need those especially on the nights Mark works late and I'm putting the kids to bed by myself. We have a pretty good routine in place for when that happens, but it seems like if one of us falls apart, we all fall apart.

Ava is talking up a storm. I love the way she says certain words or has her own words for things. I get a little sad when she starts using the "right" term for things. A diaper used to be a "d-dup," but lollipop is still "loppipop" and a slide is still a "wee-boom." I'm simply amazed at how much she has to say! (I think she takes after her daddy). She also loves her books and with most of them, you can leave out words or entire lines and she'll fill in where you left off. Several times, I've heard her "reading" to herself - she has more of the books memorized than I realized!

That's about all the excitement at our house. Hope all of you (if there are any!) reading this are doing well. We'd love to hear from you!

A New Year

Well, apparently the real estate market continues to get worse and worse and Mark's hours with the home inspection company went from part-time to none at all, so he is currently pursuing management again at Chipotle (ever since he started back there, they've been pursuing him, so we're glad he has that option!).

All of us except Mark have had colds the past few weeks, but that seems to be standard with toddlers and babies this time of year. I don't have many pictures as I normally would since we've all had snotty noses and it's not a good look on us!

In the past 2 weeks, Ava has started saying, "Love you, Mommy (or Daddy or Carter or Bear)" complete with hug with no sort of prompting on our parts. So precious. We are working on the intensity of hugging when it comes to Carter... she is quite unaware of her own strength. Not that he seems to mind at all - he loves any and all attention he receives from his big sister.

I can tell Ava is anxious for Carter to be able to play with her. She brings him toys (and often shoos him away from things she doesn't want him to touch). He does tend to get into everything already. Even though he's far from crawling, he is a master roller. I can see him spot something across the room and off he goes rolling toward it. Frankly, I'm a little nervous about how much he'll get into when he CAN crawl!

Several times when I've gotten Carter after he's been sleeping, I notice a hand-print on his face. Since he's too young for a pillow, I guess his hand works just fine.
I swear, that is NOT my handprint

Christmas and such

We had a wonderful Christmas, but it's hard to believe we're on to a new year already and it's time to take down the tree (Ava will be very sad) and put away the decorations. Amy's parents came out Christmas Eve and stayed until last Sunday. Ava is now a pro at unwrapping gifts and has had lots of fun playing with her new toys. Carter slept through the present opening, which simply meant Ava got to have a second round of unwrapping since Carter has a way to go on hand-eye coordination. Mom and Dad also spent some days at Amy's brother's house while they were in Ohio. We were able to see a good friend get married on Friday night while Ava and Carter got to have Nana all to themselves for the evening.

Sunday was baby dedication at church after which we were able to spend the day with our good friends (one couple lives in Texas so visits with them are greatly anticipated). There are 6 kids among the 4 couples (and one due in February), so we don't get to actually catch up much, but it's still so good to be together.


Since then Carter has started cereal and Ava has gotten to play in the snow! It's been a busy week!

Catching up...

The past month has been a blur! In addition to a busy holiday season, Mark has needed to pick up an extra job. Due to the slow real estate market, his boss can't afford to keep him full time, so he's rolling burritos at Chipotle again (he was a manager there for a year before taking his current job) to compensate. I finally got out Christmas cards yesterday, which gave me major incentive to post an update. I thought I'd share some pics from the past year.

In April, we were able to get together with Mark's 4 close friends from college - so fun to see how our families have grown!

Feeding the goats at Young's Jersey Dairy.

In July we welcomed Carter!

In September, we were able to visit Amy's parents in Maryland.

Our Family Blog

Since everyone else is doing it, we figured we'd join in, too (okay, not everyone is doing it, but we're definitely not the first with a family blog).

We'll use this to post pictures and keep family and friends updated on our lives... well, mostly what the kids are up to (they're much more interesting). Hopefully, it will allow us to keep in better touch with those people we love, but whom we don't see nearly as often as we'd like.

Most will know the general scoop. We live in Ohio and now have 2 babies! Ava turns 2 this Saturday and Carter joined our family on July 3 (making him 4 months old). I don't think we could have dreamed of better kids.

Ava is funny and friendly and full of life - although I guess most 2-year-olds are. She has a sensitive heart and loves to help with anything you'll let her do. She doesn't seem to know what a stranger is (Picture us at the doctor's for her 2-year check-up. The nurse opens the door and calls for us, and as we gather up our stuff and follow the nurse, we have to wait for Ava as she says "goodbye!" and waves to everyone in the waiting room... and if they ignore her, she gets in their face and increases her volume so as not to be ignored.) She's a riot. She loves the letter "W" and the number "2" and singing songs about her "big girl bed."

Carter is sweet and smiley. He gets loved on a LOT by all of us. He was named for our fathers. Carter is a shortened version of my dad's last name (and my maiden name, of course) and his middle name, Stephen, is Mark's dad's name as well as Mark's middle name. He's started rolling over and scootching around with a vengeance, which was somewhat expected after the dance parties he had in utero.

Mark's doing marketing for a home inspection company, and I'm blessed to stay home with our babies. I must say that I think my previous full-time job was loads easier, but this one is far more rewarding.

That's enough to get us started... don't want to bore everyone already!