Easter Weekend 2010!

Our Easter weekend started out with a birthday party -- Drew's friend Colten turned 3! Drew loved the dinosaur theme!!



Later that afternoon, we headed to the church in my hometown for an egg hunt. Drew had a great time!


After the egg hunt, we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's to color eggs. At first, every time Drew got even the tiniest drop of egg color on him, we had to be ready to wipe it off, but as you can see, it didn't take long for him to enjoy getting messy. (I'm just glad it was Grandma's house and not ours!!)



Then it was Easter Sunday and while egg hunts and Easter baskets are fun, I always want to make sure that Drew knows the real meaning behind Easter!

My little man :)



Only 1 more week 'til April 15th (had to throw that in)!!!

Drew = 2 Years + 9 Months Old!

Dear Drew - On Thursday, you turned another month old! I just downloaded all of my pictures from the past month and there were 11 whole pictures -- I guess that's what happens during tax season...

The one good thing about working late is I think it makes you like me more!! Whenever I come home, you run to me and give me the biggest hugs! Even when we pick you up at Grandma and Grandpa's on Fridays, you are excited to see me!! Daddy is doing such a great job at picking you up after work and cooking you dinner. I'm looking forward to being home at 5 again and being able to cook and actually eat dinner with my boys (even though I'm not a very good cook!).

On March 4th, you got your third set of ear tubes put in. Here we are that morning:


The doctor said your left ear was pretty bad (cleft side) so hopefully you are hearing better which will help with your speech. Compared to your other three surgeries, this truly was a piece of cake! We got to see you right after surgery and were on the road home shortly after that. You even ate a whole grilled cheese and then slept until we reached our driveway. At home, you played just like nothing had happened!

We've had a few nice days and you've enjoyed playing outside. I can't wait for summer -- I think you are really going to love it this year!!


We had a meeting with the elementary school this week. It sounds like you will be starting "school" in August. It is 4 days a week for about 3 hours, so it's not like you'll be there all day like I had originally thought. It still seems kind of weird that my little boy will be going to the big school, but it's the next step after you turn 3 and no longer qualify for speech through Early Intervention. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it because I've heard such great things about the two speech therapists and they said the whole class is really language based -- maybe that's just what you need to get you talking! We'll find out in May (at yet another meeting) whether you get in for sure. For now, you continue to receive speech therapy from Jaci twice a week. The last couple of weeks, though, you haven't been too cooperative...


That's all for now...just remember how very, very, much I love you :)
oxox, mommy

Drew = 2 Years + 8 Months Old!

Dear Drew - It's the heart of tax season (corporations are due on 3/15!), it's 9:00 at night and I just got home from work (Thursday is my late night since you stay at Grandma's), but I am determined to do your monthly post -- especially since I have been such a bad blogger lately. What I have been doing, though, is keeping a little list of exciting, fun, and new things that have been happening so let's get started!

You aren't eating as good as I would like, but one thing we've found is that you will sometimes eat better if we cut stuff up and let you eat it with a fork. I guess you like using forks!!

[Fun w/Elefun!]


We are working on letter recognition (in conjunction with letter sounds). You are best at saying and recognizing A, B, H, M, O, P, and S. (Vowels and the M/B/P consonants are still what the speech therapists tell us to focus on so that is why we haven't branched out too much.) And while you can make these sounds, you are still struggling with putting them together to make words. (Although momma, pop, up and something that sounds like backpack -- thanks Dora -- are coming along!) Your biggest speech accomplishment this month was you said "bubble!" In the past, bubble and bye-bye have pretty much sounded the same, but this month Jaci got you to change the second syllable and round your lips -- lip rounding is something you had been struggling with so while "bubble" isn't always consistent, it's definitely a step in the right direction! I'm so proud of you and how cooperative you always are with Jaci and with me and daddy when we are doing speech stuff with you!

Before bed, I use to carry you into your bedroom and while holding you, I would say a little prayer. This month we started doing your prayer a little different and it is the cutest thing ever! After reading to you, you take my hand and lead me to your room, get down on your knees, put your hands together, bow your head, and wait for me to do the same. Then I say a little prayer out loud. (Still working on getting you to say Amen!) It is just so sweet!!

You have become a hair twirler! When I read to you, you love to play with my hair. And when we lay you down at night, we can see you on the monitor playing with your own hair! That is until...


...yep, Daddy took you for a haircut and now you have nothing to twirl :( Since I had to work, Daddy took you by himself and it was not a pleasant experience for him! He said you threw a fit and he had to basically hold you down the whole time - yikes! I'll be sure to pack the DVD player (or M&M's) next time!

Your current obsession is with dinosaurs, which is partially due to being introduced to Uncle Colby's old Land Before Time movies! Here you are watching it on YouTube...


You went to Sunday school for the first time on February 7th! You seemed to enjoy it! Unfortunately, we haven't made it back since...because you were sick on the 14th and I was sick on the 21st.

You also attended your first Superbowl party and had so much fun playing with all the kids at Colby and Candice's house! (Yay Saints & Drew Brees!!)


We had our second family movie night -- we watched Up!

We celebrated Nan and Pop's 50th wedding anniversary. Your favorite part -- the red velvet cake! The next day, Aunt Deb and Uncle Steve took you to Addison's 2nd birthday party and you were so excited about the giant Cookie Monster balloon you got to bring home!


Well, another month has gone by, which means you are another month closer to turning 3! I hope I never forget just how much joy your bring to my life -- there is nothing quite like coming home at night to you running toward me and giving me a huge hug. And then I get lots of hugs, kisses, and nose rubs right before bed -- your Eskimo kisses always make me laugh :) I just love you so very much!!!

oxox, mommy

Valentine's Day 2010

And yes, someone got a haircut!

Drew = 2-Years + 7 Months

Dear Drewby-Doo: As of Monday you are now closer to three years old than two -- wow! We have had a fun month -- the holidays; playdates w/Aiden, Colten, and Dalton; playing in the snow; fun at Extreme Sports w/Little Lambs; our first official "movie night;" and a somewhat fun trip to St. Louis!

While I was off work from Christmas until New Years, you were such an angel! We had so much fun playing with all of your new toys and doing some fun art projects.


You were healthy, sleeping wonderfully (as usual) and taking really long naps (i.e. 2.5 to 3 hours!!). You were eating almost anything I put in front of you with no objection and learned that I wasn't kidding when I would say you had to take "just one bite" of something new. You even discovered that you wanted more that "just one" of some things like sugar snap peas! I was loving it! And then I had to go back to work...

On your Tuesdays at school, you have decided that you don't need a nap, which makes Tuesday nights really rough on me and your daddy. You also decided that you would take advantage of no one making you eat the good stuff so one day they told me that for breakfast you had toast and for lunch you had bread and butter.


On Wednesdays at Nan's your trying to pass on your nap too. They got rid of your crib a while ago, but you were sleeping pretty good in your toddler bed. However, you soon discovered the freedom of being able to get up at your leisure so they had us bring the pak-n-play over and as you can see from my below post, you can climb out of that, so naps at Nan's have been virtually nonexistent, which, again, can make Wednesday nights a little rough on me and your daddy! I'm really not sure what to suggest to them!

So far, when you're here, you don't fight your nap and while it hasn't been 3 hours lately, I'll take an hour and a half nap any day over no nap at all!

Something else that has happened this month is you have decided that you sometimes don't like to take a bath. We can usually "talk you into it," but at Grandma's I guess you just flat out don't like her tub anymore! Sorry buddy, but baths aren't optional!


Potty training is still a no-go. I'm not going to rush you, but anytime you're ready, I will be too!! I have the funniest picture of you sitting on the potty, but I'll be nice and not post it :)

You love to run around in circles and it seems like you never get dizzy!?!?

You love your new Hungry Hippo game and always want me and daddy to play along with you.


Love you Drew and can't wait to see what surprises and fun this month holds!
oxox ~ mommy

Searching for Answers and Having Some Fun!

On Sunday, Jon, Drew, and I headed to St. Louis. Drew had an early morning appointment on Monday with the ENT doctor at St. Louis Children's Hospital and an appointment on Tuesday with Mary, his "team" Speech Therapist. So we thought we would head up on Sunday and make a mini-vacation out of it!

We left on Sunday right around nap time and hoped that Drew would take a good nap on the way up there. He slept about 45 minutes of the 2+ hour drive...

After getting checked in, we decided to try the pool out. It was a little cold for me, so I enjoyed the hot tub while Drew played on the pool stairs with Jon.


After swimming, we caught the end of the Colt's game and then headed down to the lobby for "dinner." The hotel we stayed at offered free food so we decided to be cheap and just eat the free chicken strips, meatballs, chili, baked potatoes, etc. So, yeah, the diet was out the window! After eating a bit, Drew headed back up to the food bar with me. When I tried to get him to come back to the table, something clicked and Drew started throwing a huge fit -- I'm talking big tears, piercing screams -- the whole 9 yards! I managed to distract him with the popcorn machine and thought a big bag of popcorn had done the trick so we started heading back to the table. The next thing I knew, Drew was face first on the ground throwing another fit! So Jon had to come get him and take him back to the room while I cleaned off our table. It was actually quite embarrassing, but I guess that's just part of having a 2 year old!!

Later that night, we got a taste of what it might be like when Drew is out of his crib. In the past, when we stayed at a hotel, I had been able to put Drew in his pak-n-play in the bedroom and he would drift right off to sleep with no problems while Jon and I would stay up in the living room and watch TV. This time was different because Drew can now climb out of the pak-n-play! I would lay him down and then we would hear a thump and here would come Drew! We tried to put him back in it a few more times before just giving up. So Drew stayed up and watched the Saints/Vikings game and then we all went and got in bed. Let me just say that I would never make it if Drew slept with us every night! He was all over that bed and he is a noisy sleeper too! He also thought that 6:30 would be a good time to get up, but fortunately I changed his mind pretty quick.

After breakfast, we headed to the hospital. Here we are waiting after I told Drew that the doctor was going to look at his ears - ha!


For some reason, Drew always seems to have lots of ear wax in his ears, and this time was no different so the doctor had to look at his ears under the big microscope and clean them out. This is not fun because he has to be held down and he screams the entire time! After this was done, the doctor said that he suggested new ear tubes because he had fluid in one of them. He actually suggested t-tubes which are suppose to last up to 3 years, but also carry higher odds of the hole in the ear drum remaining open after the tube is gone. He goes on March 4th for this out-patient surgery -- and even though it's out-patient, it still makes me nervous since anesthesia is involved!

After this, it was time to have some fun so we headed to the St. Louis Science Center where they were having a big dinosaur exhibit. Drew was a little unsure of it at first but then he really started enjoying all the HUGE animated dinosaurs! It was pretty neat!!

A little unsure...


...having fun!



Inside the Science Center is a Build-a-Bear Workshop where you could build a dinosaur, which I thought Drew would love! I would show him one of the unstuffed dinosaurs and say, "Do you want this one?" and he would shake his head no. He did this for every.one.I.showed.him! Finally, I just picked one and basically made him make it, which I do think he ended up enjoying! But, while he is a fan of stuffed animals, he's not that crazy about his new T-Rex that I named Max!



One more...overlooking the new Hwy40/I-64 project:


Next it was time to have lunch at one of my all time favorite St. Louis restaurants -- Joanie's! We all enjoyed cheese bread, BBQ Chicken Pizza, and I had a roast beef sandwich (on cheesy garlic bread -- yum!) With Mardi Gras right around the corner, Drew enjoyed all of the decorations and he even got a rubber duckie bead necklace!


One more stop before heading back to our hotel -- my old office building! I hadn't seen most of my former co-workers since December 2004, so it was really fun catching up with them!

Back to the hotel...and Drew feel asleep almost immediately so we cruised around for a while so he would at least get a bit of a nap in. That night it was the same thing -- he wouldn't stay in the pak-n-play so I went and lay (layed/laid?) down with him and he drifted right to sleep. But I will say that after sleeping in the same bed with him for two nights, Jon and I were both exhausted!

Tuesday was speech day and Drew had quite the attitude when we first got there. Mary had these plastic chairs -- a green one and a red one. He pushed the green one up to the table and then he wanted to get the red one too. The problem -- it had a huge stack of papers on it so Mary kept saying, "That one's occupied so let's leave it there." And then all of a sudden, Drew, with the most serious look ever, took his hand and knocked all of Mary's paperwork off the chair! I jumped up and was apologizing because there were papers everywhere! Then he walked over to one of the wooden chairs and knocked it over!! Of course I keep saying, "He's not usually like this!" and I'm sure she was thinking...sure... :) He finally calmed down and she said that she could see some progress from his September session -- nothing major, but definitely progress. The issue is still that he can makes sounds (mainly m, b, p, s, a, and h) but he just can't put the sounds together to make words -- this is why she thinks "motor planning" (i.e. apraxia) may be part of his "puzzle." She is going to discuss Drew's case with some of her other co-workers and possibly even bring in a specialist from another hospital to consult. So for now, we will keep working with Drew on consistently making the sounds he can make and hopefully we'll get some more answers soon.

After that, we took a quick trip to the mall and then we headed home...and we all slept so wonderfully last night -- Jon and I in our bed and Drew in his!!!

Drew's "Crib"

We decided to invest part of Drew's Christmas money into a new bookcase. He LOVES being read to and the two little baskets in the living room just weren't cutting it anymore. The only problem was finding one that would match his furniture, which is "tea stain." Luckily, you can get wood samples from Pottery Barn Kids and the one we ordered matched perfectly!

The bookcase came in the mail yesterday and Jon put it together last night. Because he is such a great husband, he let me sleep in this morning (and sleep in I did -- I didn't get up until 10:30!). When I got up, he already had it in Drew's room with most of his books on it! Of course, I had to do a little rearranging, but I just love it!

I also realized that I didn't have many pictures of Drew's room and since we'll probably be moving him to our spare bedroom (which is bigger) when he turns 3 and graduates to a "big boy bed," I decided to snap away today.

His room is pretty small and Jon and I were laughing today because it is definitely full!! Here is the bookshelf:


And the rest of his room. His crib isn't nearly as cute anymore with out the bumper pads or crib skirt...



I never hung anything over the changing table, but I just got D-R-E-W letters, so maybe that is where we will put them!


And here's something funny...I was looking back to see what pics I had of Drew's nursery from before he was born and I found this one...see if you notice anything odd...


Do you see it? Yep, Drew's name was *almost* Jonah!

Hello 2010!

Dear Drew ~ I am so behind on my blogging! And I can't say it's going to get much better, because my tax season hours will officially begin on February 1st...

Here we are on the last day of 2009!


Me and Daddy went out to eat with our friends and then back to one of their houses. You went and partied at Mama Mary Kay's with her, Grandpa, Grandma, Whitney, Colby, and Uncle Kevin.

On January 2nd, me, you, and daddy had our first movie night. It was so fun -- we watched "Finding Nemo" all snuggled up in our bed!



On January 8th, we went to another Little Lambs play group -- this one was to Extreme Sports. You had a lot of fun, but I think I was more tired that you were afterwards! I also think I will enjoy it more when you are a bit older and I don't have to be one step behind you the whole time!!



Later that day, we played in the snow! I was surprised that you still fit in your snowsuit from last year! You had fun walking around in the snow. But instead of walking normally, you drug your feet everywhere, so it looked like someone had gone skiing in our yard! (Oh, and sorry about that purple scarf, it's all I had!!)





After playing in the freezing cold, you got your first taste of hot chocolate, with marshmallows of course! You loved it :)


On January 9th, Colten and Dalton came up to play and we all went out for pizza. You were amazed with Baby Dalton and loved tickling him!


And finally, just a cute pic from after church on Sunday!!


oxox, mommy :)