On the mend

We are finally on the mend from all the sickness.  Grant was nice enough to cough all over the rest of us for 5 days straight so we all ended up with bad colds.  Ava still has a bit of a cough and a runny nose, but overall I would say that we're healthy.  I'm hoping that we stay that way for quite some time.  I forgot how miserable it is to be sick and take care of sick kids all at the same time. 

Big news, Grant is now walking.  By walking I mean make extremely deliberate moves on his feet while navigating slowly across the living room floor with no assistance.  Between, Ava, Daddy, and myself he has quite the cheer squad.  We were all up in Ava's bedroom last week cheering him on.  I stopped for a minute and just soaked up the moment.  Here was our little man excited to be trying something new, and Ava peering over her Daddy's shoulder smiling and cheering him on with the rest of us.  It was just one of those moments that you stop and realize how blessed you are.  We have two happy and healthy children, a roof over our heads, food on the table, good jobs, and family and friends who love and support us.  I don't know how one can't feel blessed and grateful for all of that.

Now that he is on the move he's into more trouble.  He and Ava are complete opposites.  When I told Ava "no" at this age she stopped and listening.  But no, not Grant.  He smiles his little devilish smile and tries to hurry to do it before I can get to him.  His two favorite things...the trash and the toilet.  He got in a fight with the cabinet that holds our trash can this past weekend.  Grant lost!  I was upstairs and heard crying.  Soon  Nate brings him up and says they need a nurse.  The poor little guy scraped up the right side of his face and cut open his top lip.  Of course he was running his hands all over his face so was getting blood everywhere.  He's fine, just looks a little beat up still. 

Ava is still loving preschool.  We had conferences last week with her teacher.  Her teacher loves her and praised her in many ways.  She is very impressed with Ava, and recommended sending her to the 5's class next year.  Unfortunately she doesn't meet the birthday requirements.  That class is 4 days a week, which I know Ava would love.  Our other option would be early entrance to kindergarten, which I don't think we want to do.  I don't feel as though Ava is being academically challenged what so ever at preschool, but she does enjoy it.  They've been working on shapes and colors, which she's known since she was 2.  This winter they'll work on letters, which she's also known for over a year.  I'm hoping that they will work a little with her individually to teach her something new. 

Last weekend we headed to Albert Lea for Nate's cousin's wedding.  It was a beautiful wedding, and it was great to see family and catch up a little bit.  Ava had a great time dancing, and Grant had a great time eating.  They were both champs, but Grant finally gave it up and fell asleep around 8:30 on my shoulder.  By that time Ava was asking to go to sleep so we headed home.  Of course when we got home Grant had a lovely 1 1/2 hour nap in and didn't want to sleep anymore.  Little turkey!!!

One of Ava's many pictures that she takes on my phone on a daily basis.

Two little buddies (sometimes)

Grant was finally starting to feel better.

Nate was making dinner the other night and turned his head.  When he turned back around he asked "what happened to my flat bread".  Ava smiled and said, "I made it into a puzzle piece".  How do you not laugh at that?

Ava playing with her cousin Olivia at the wedding.

Daddy, Beth, and Grant

A family picture where everybody is actually looking at the camera

Ava with Nana

Ava, Nana, Grant, & Boppa at the reception

My little man!

Ava & Daddy

Walking...

Pneumonia. No, Grant is not walking on his own. He has walking pneumonia.  We knew something wasn't right when our babysitter told me that he didn't eat dinner Saturday night and was crying instead of sleeping.  Sunday he seemed ok, but was running a low grade fever.  He was then up at 4:45 Monday morning with a fever of 101.7 and coughing.  So, I called in sick and off to the pediatrician's office we went.  She diagnosed him with walking pneumonia, and said that's she's seen a lot of it in the past couple of weeks.  Poor little man!  He's been on his azithromycin since Monday and has been fever free all day.  He still has an awful cough, but thankfully has been sleeping through the night.  I had to call in sick to stay home with him yesterday as well.  I have to say, I really admire stay at home moms.  I don't know how they do this everyday.  I'm sure that it helps that they can take their kids out (when they don't have a contagious illness).  However, I have to say that I was looking forward to going to work yesterday after being off for a whole week.  I need the change of pace, the adult interaction, and to get out of this house.  Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that I was able to stay home with my baby when he was sick.  However, I'm going a little stir crazy. 

This past weekend was a big weekend.  We helped celebrate Uncle Wes and Aunt  Janna's wedding.  The festivities started with rehearsal on Friday, followed by the dinner.  Grant joined us for both of them.  It was great to see family that we haven't seen in over a year, and introduce them to Grant.  Saturday was the big day.  The weather was beautiful, as was the bride.  Aunt Janna looked stunning.  Ava did a great job being the flowergirl.  She smiled the whole way down the aisle (however, she only looked to one side of the church.  I'm glad it was the side that I was on).  :)  The kids were pretty good during the ceremony.  Some snacks do wonders to keep kids quiet.

After the ceremony I brought Grant home to hang with our sitter while Ava and I went to the reception.  She loved hanging out with Lauryn, Dave, John, & Cheryl.  She sat with them and had dinner since I sat next to Nate.  A huge thanks to them for keeping tabs on her.  It's the first meal that I've gotten to sit down and enjoy for quite awhile.  :)  Ava still had some energy saved up so we stayed for part of the dance.  She told me that was the highlight of her day.  She loved rocking the dance floor.  She was finally ready to crash at 10:00 so I brought her home and then headed back to the reception once again.  Nate and I stayed until everything was wrapped up and then I brought him home to put him to bed.  :)

Sunday morning we were back at the reception site for brunch and gift opening.  Ava had a great time helping open lots of gifts, and Grant got his appetite back and devoured pretty much everything in site.  Sunday afternoon we laid low around the house. 

That was our weekend in a nutshell.  It's back to work for me this weekend, unfortunately on my 12 hr night shifts.  Hopefully Grant will be feeling well again and Ava stays healthy.  Hope that you all had a great weekend!

 

Ava loving her new purse from Uncle Wes and Aunt Janna at the rehearsal dinner

Nate, Mo, & me

Lauryn, Ava, & Dave

Nate and I with Nana

Ava, when they announced her name with the wedding party

The very beautiful and happy bride and groom

Ava rocking the dance floor

Happy Halloween

Our little cowgirl and pirate had a great Halloween.  We started the day going to our ECFE class.  Grant cried and cried for me after I left his classroom so I called back out of the parent meeting.  He was fine once I was back, and we played.  I hate missing the parent portion of ECFE, but it was nice to get some one on one time with him while Ava played with the other kids. 

Daddy got off work a little early so we hit a few houses up for some candy before dinner.  After dinner he took both of the kids out until Grant's ears got to cold and he came back to the house to help me hand out candy.  He stood watch at the door while I passed out the candy.  That is until Ava got home.  Then she was in charge of the candy.  I think that she had just as much fun passing out the candy as she did collecting it.  She would say Happy Halloween to everybody, give them fist fulls of candy, and at one point when there was a big line she says, "all right, next".  It was so fun watching her interact with everybody and be so grown up. 

We now have enough candy to lasts us a whole year and beyond (we kind of bought to much, hence why Ava was handing out fist fulls).  We hope that you had a wonderful and safe Halloween!

Our cowgirl.  Yee Haw!

Our little pirate

Heading out trick-or-treating with Daddy

Our pirate on the look out

"they're coming" (can't wait to clean those windows)

The sweet reward of trick-or-treating