The week of Thanks and Thanksgiving

This week was full of family and friends. I am so blessed and so thankful for the many incredible and wonderful people I am constantly surrounded by.

The kids are starting to play together — it's really fun to watch Oliver's reactions to Amelia. He's doing a great job sitting up all by himself. Oliver turned 7 months this week.

Just me and my little girl.

We had Tyler's family Thanksgiving at our house this year so Nanny could join us.
I used to think our kitchen was big until we tried cramming all of us into it!
This is the time it would be nice to have a dining room instead of a play room.

Nanny and a few of her grandkids and great-grandkids.

I needed to stop in at my office and they put Oliver to work.
He loved all the attention.

Thanksgiving at Aunt Tami's house. She was all too happy to see Ian Thomas! They are so funny together.

Kali dressed the kids up in her fatigues. And they got a huge kick out of it.

Ian, Amelia, Addison Allen, Ellie, Nolan Allen and Oliver. Addison and Nolan are one of my best friend's little ones.

Aunt Tami and Oliver — she was trying to keep him warm on an extremely fridged day in Warren.

Beepa took us to see the WWII Veterans Memorial in downtown Warren. That's his "brick" in the foreground. Thank you Beeps for being such an amazing man.

It's about time — family time

I finally have some photos with all of my family together! This makes me so completely happy I can't even explain it. My girlfriend Gilda and I traded our creative services and she took photos of us today.
Thank you Gil! You do AMAZING work! If you want you can visit more of her work at gmapix.com

I spoke too soon

I was talking with my Grandma on Tuesday and made a comment about how surprised I was that Amelia has never had an ear infection ... dumb move! That very same night Amelia said the words, "Mom my ear hurts. It's ouchy." She made it a couple more hours and seemed "normal" but then it came time to lay down and the tears started. The pressure was just building. I took the first shift of sleeping (and I use that word VERY loosely) in our bed with her as she tossed, turned, kicked, fussed, cried, wimpered, tugged and yelled....and Tyler slept on the couch...it was awful. By 2:30am I begged Tyler to switch with me. I had that nervous feeling running through my body and had a fitful sleep on the couch while Tyler endured what I had been going through earlier. I think by 5am they had fallen asleep.

Thank goodness Oliver had a good night's sleep and made it straight through till 6:15!

Amelia woke up and said, "I have boogers in my ear. I can't hear out of it." Something must have ruptured because her hair was all goopy. Tyler took her to the doctor and found out that she has an inner and outer ear infection. Sounds just like my childhood. Amoxicillin, ear drops and children's motrin was the prescription.

I spent the day at home with both kids and thankfully, with the help of my wonderful mother-in-law, I made it through the day. Amelia even took a 3 hour nap and Oliver took 3 naps — a one hour, 25 minute and then an hour and a half nap!!!! It was a breakthrough day. Yippy!

With all this nice weather...

We've made a couple trips to the neighborhood parks.

Notice Amelia's face in a couple of the photos...she kept yelling at me to stop taking pictures — I can't help myself though.


This is Tyler and Amelia rolling down the hill.

Gorgeous. And surly.

Don't bite your mama!

Oliver's first tooth is officially coming in. His bottom, middle-right one is poking through and OH BOY is it sharp! He's shown me that in more ways than one ... Little stinker!

He likes it. Mikey likes it!

Oliver finally ate some food for me today!!! I made fresh green beans and pureed them and he ate them for lunch AND dinner!! I am so happy!

"Meow," said the cat. "Quack, Quack," replied the duck.

Trick or Treat was tonight and Amelia really got into it this year. She walked around the house meowing like a cat and talking to Nietzsche. She is the prettiest kitty I've ever seen.

Neither of the kids slept at school today so Tyler and I thought we were in for a LONG night but everything went surprisingly well. We got the kids dressed and headed out for a quick trip to our local hangout (read "bar") Club 185...not to get drinks but to take pictures in their 1962 photo booth — so cool. I'll scan in those photos and upload them soon. As soon as we got in the car Oliver zonked out — his ducky costume was so warm and cozy! We got back home around 7 and Tyler took Amelia trick or treating while I put the little duck to bed. Tyler said that Amelia used her good manners all night long and said "Trick or Treat" as she opened her bag for candy and then added "thank you" as she walked away. (Last year we couldn't get her to say anything to anyone!) Our little kitty cat was so tired she couldn't wait to crawl into bed. She was asleep by 8:15.

The photo of Tyler and the kids is my new favorite.

Out on the farm

Amelia and I enjoyed another "Amelia and Mommy" day. We went to Leed's family farm in Ostrander — what a phenomenal place! Amelia rode the mini-zip line, jumped on the giant pumpkin, rode the banana bus, scavenged through the corn maze, went down the slides, ate lunch and drank hot chocolate, fed the goats, giggled at the piggies and rode the peddle tractors with me. We had a GREAT time! When we were going through the corn maze she kept calling me "partner" or how it actually came out "part-er-ner"— it was cracking me up.

Tyler stayed home with Oliver and got a ton of chores done — thank you Love!!

THANK YOU PAPA!!!

Our bottom step was crumbling right before our eyes and my dad and Karen graciously offered to come down and help us. Tyler took a sledge hammer to it to get things started and then we rented a cement cutter and jack hammer — boy was that fun! There's NO WAY we could have done this without them!! THANK YOU GUYS.

We let Amelia and Oliver put their little hand prints in the wet cement — she loves seeing her imprint in the step every day.