Ian at 10 months

As usual time is flying by and Ian is changing every day. He has now learned how to climb the stairs :( which is weird since he still drags himself across the floor. And this morning I found him sitting up in his bed for the first time. He looked a little stunned at his accomplishment but realized it was a good thing after his mama smothered him with praise and giggly neck kisses. He is still a great sleeper and giving me 13 hours a night with two 2 hour naps during the day. And he is such a sweet boy! It's mostly da-da-da-da-da-da all day long but occasionally (i.e. crabby) he'll give me a "mama", although it sounds more like a whimpering, sniffling "maaaaaaa-maaaaaaa!" Here's a few of his favorite things:

his sister

pulling up

peas

pat the bunny

I can't believe we'll be celebrating his first birthday in 6 weeks! Can I just say how thankful I am to have him out of my belly. I am still relishing the stomach sleeping, husband hugging, non-peeing a thousand times a day, freedom from pregnancy. I feel like it was yesterday that I was crying in the shower every morning, praying that God would take away the pain of those last few weeks. And every time that boy flaps his arms like a bird (which is every 5 seconds) I tell Ben, "see...do you see!?!" I'm telling you that there was never a happier woman to arrive at the hospital to deliver her baby. I was dialated to 5cm, walking down that long narrow hallway with my suitcase and a smile on my face. "Hallelujah, I am here to have my baby!" Ok, not sure where that came from. Apparently I'm still healing from the drama of pregnancy. Maybe this will encourage me to start taking the birth control pills from my doctor. But I'll save that for another post.

Babies

Friday night we rented the documentary Babies, and although I was a little skeptical at first it turned out to be really good. Usually I like to watch movies to escape whatever reality I'm currently living in and I was worried that spending two hours watching a movie about babies would sort of erase any free time I was experiencing without my own. But it was funny and fascinating to see the similarities and differences between how babies are raised around the world. I'm not sure if I entirely buy into the premise that they aren't trying to make any sort of statement with the film but I guess with any good art you can kind of do your own interpreting. I would highly recommend the film. As does our cat Stormy.

He has honestly never watched a movie or tv in the two years we've had him but he watched for nearly two whole hours. Maybe it was the numerous cats in the movie or maybe he was terrified that we'd suddenly added to our brood. I'm not sure but I think he breathed a sigh of relief when we turned it off and they all disappeared. I mean he's a patient kitty but there's a limit people!

Male Bonding

It is just too cute to see how much Ian loves his grampa. He lights up when he walks in the room and does his little inchworm to get over to him. It's a good thing the feeling is mutual. :)

Wenzel Farm

Yesterday we took advantage of this GORGEOUS fall weather and went to a "farm" that has a spooky halloween trail. It was probably overkill for our little ones, do you really need the ghost to have a bloody knife?, but once all the gang was together they seemed fine braving it. I'm not really a fan of halloween except for harvesty type things and Ava already has enough trouble going to sleep with her fear of monsters. But it was nice to take a walk on a beautiful sunny day and they had a "pumpkin patch" for a cute photo op. The kids also loved the pirate ship maze and bouncy bridge. Although I think they need to revisit their "great for all ages" advertising.

All the kiddos and a headless Matt:)

Birthday invitation

Ava's Turning 4!

Saturday November 6

sleeping beauty

Ok, I should probably post something about how my daughter has been a perfect angel for over a week now but I'm afraid to jinx it. She is all sweetness with a cherry on top and I'm loving it. I can't even count how many times she's said, "you are the best mommy ever!" I'm a little scared that I'm going to let my guard down and then the she beast will rear it's ugly head but I can't help but do a little gushing over my big girl. We've been dancing in the kitchen and telling extra long stories at night. There have been butterfly kisses and role playing of a certain super Ava who rescues Ian from the evil stormy cat (adorned in bunny ears.) If there were photos of any of these events you would probably say that I made the whole tantrum up. Alas, I have reinstated her birthday celebration (I will post her adorable invitation soon.) and gave her a good spoiling this weekend.

The day started with a trip to Lavender Bleu. This place could not be any cuter if there were bunnies in baskets and butterflies fluttering about. You walk in to the most adorable gift shop and suddenly have the urge to complete your entire Christmas list. Then you wind your way through a garden and into a little tea cottage in the back. There are little tables set up with cute tea inspired decor. Ava received oohs and ahhs from every table and she used her best manners as we ordered our lunch. And she would be having the hot chocolate with extra whipped cream please.

Cleansing her pallet with mango sorbet

Quiche, tomato basil bisque, and herb scone

The ladies

Gummy bears, candy corn, and heart shaped sandwiches...doesn't get much better

Sweet

Silly

It was the best tea I've ever had (and that includes the Ritz and the Penninsula hotel) and I cannot wait to go back again.

After lunch we headed downtown to take Ava to the sleeping beauty ballet. I saw the flyer months ago but wasn't sure she could sit through a 3 hour performance. Then my mom saw an ad for the one hour, one time only, children's performance and we jumped on it. Luckily I got the last three of the $12 tickets and couldn't believe how good the seats were! She loved the whole thing, except probably would have enjoyed a little more of the action scenes as they cut a ton of the show.

But there was a very exciting moment when the evil fairy vanished in a red fire ball and a cloud of smoke. The music was all very familiar and it was so fun to see her face as she watched. After the show the two main dancers even came out and answered questions. When we got home Ava practiced the moves and told Ben all the details of the show. She is extra excited to tell her ballet teacher about her big day. When I was in the waiting room at her ballet class this week I was talking to one of the grandmothers there with her grandaughter and she said that Keith is an amazing instructor and her daughter trained with him. She said she now dances for the Oregon Ballet Theater and is in the sleeping beauty show. So who knows? Maybe Ava will become a ballerina someday and we'll get to see her perform opening night at the Nutcracker. Right now it's just good to have my sweet girl back and dreaming a future for her that does not involve the criminal justice system. :)

We've been Boo'd

Our neighborhood has a fun tradition of sending out their little ghosts to Boo their neighbors. Basically, your doorbell rings and when you answer it there's a bag of halloween treats, a poem, and a big Boo sign on your doorstep. Then you are supposed to make your own Boo sign and do the same thing to your neighbors. And on halloween night you can see all the boo signs in the windows as you trick or treat. It's pretty cute and Ava was more than thrilled to have this happen to her. She slept with her bag of goodies and talks about it every day. We went out on our covert operation last night and I thought she was going to pee her pants with excitement. Life in the suburbs can get pretty exciting, let me tell you. :)

Photo Shoot

We got our family photos back today and I'm so happy with how they turned out! We had really wanted to do them outside but it rained so we relocated to the studio. Our friend from church took them and she's only been doing this for a couple years. I think she's amazing and we only spent about $100 for everything. So hopefully we can get them done again outside in the spring. Here are a few of my favorites.

Things that make me happy #325

Carbon Footprint

You know that guilty feeling when your too lazy to wash the yogurt lid and put it in recycling? My husband has no such ecological convictions. This is what I find in the garbage on a weekly basis.

It probably has something to do with the fact that he didn't take environmental science at Wheaton. My life will never be the same after taking that class. I can't imagine that the professor was older than 30 but she still managed to use her life experience to make me feel guilty for everything from taking a bath to washing my hands too long. I can still hear her voice when I start the shower and then realize I have to pee. "Should I turn the shower off or just try to pee really fast? Maybe I should just pee in the shower. Dangit, now I've just wasted gallons of water trying to decide!" I still get panic attacks thinking about her diagrams of all the dried up fresh water reservoirs and how my children will have to figure out a way to make salt water usable. Whoever that woman is, she deserves some kind of award for her guilt inducing impact on the environment and the thousands of students who come through her doors.

A couple of sickies and Cake

We have had a busy week around here and after staying in our jammies until 4:30, taking a 3 hour nap, and an extended family clean up time I feel ready to play a little catch up. Ava and I have both been feeling pretty crummy with colds that don't want to go away. I finally brought her in to the doctor and after suspecting pneumonia and a few chest ex-rays, turns out she's got temporary asthma. And the albuterol inhaler is like the equivalent of shooting her up with speed so it's been an interesting few days. It's my turn to make an appointment so hopefully I can start feeling better. Ben also had a few days off this week so I could spend some time with my bff :) Amy. It was good for my soul just to chat and spend time with friends and family.

In other news I made the root beer cake from the cookbook "Baked." It was good and got better and better. I would put the recipe here but I'm too lazy and if you google it there are a million other women who have made it and put it on their blog. I do have a picture though, because I'm mean and want you to crave cake right now. Mwaaaaaahhhaaaaaa!!!!!! (that's my evil laugh)

Tantrum

I don't really know if I want to blog about this because I'm not sure I'm fully recovered but yesterday my daughter snapped. I took her to the mall to play with our friends and we had a great time. I even forgot my phone and she pleasantly walked back to the car with me to get it. She held my hand the whole time and I kept thinking what a big girl she was and how good it was to be out with just her. We decided to eat at a more grownup place and again I was wishing I had my camera to record the sweet kids eating so nicely. I should have just called it a day and left but I had promised that I would take her to look at the Disney store. And she was behaving so well. But after 20 minutes of looking at Beauty and The Beast books and trying on Rapunzel's wig it was time to go. I gave her 2 warnings but it didn't matter. She didn't want to leave and so I had to carry her. Finally she made a run for it in Sears. I found her hiding in the closed optical center under a desk and gave her a spanking. Then the wheels really fell off. You might be thinking, "Oh Rebekah it couldn't have been that bad. It was just a 3 year old tantrum." You might have this image in your head:

But let me assure you. This was no average tantrum. I looked into Ava's eyes and they were glazed over. Here are a few highlights.

Me: Ava you need to calm down before you make this much worse for youself.

Ava: I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD! YOU ARE THE WORST MOMMY EVER!

Me: I'm sorry you feel that way. I still love you and need to make sure you don't hurt yourself.

Ava: I HATE YOU! I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE MY MOMMY ANY MORE! I'M GOING TO CUT OFF YOUR HANDS AND THROW THEM IN THE STREET!

I'm pretty sure every person in Sears was giving me a sympathetic look. And I keep eyeing the news to see if they've posted the security camera footage of the event. It was bad. I actually burst out laughing a few times because it was so crazy. I tried to stop myself knowing it would only make things worse but I couldn't help it. At one point I thought her head would start spinning around and green stuff would spew forth. Let me put a more appropriate image into your head.

She bit me, scratched my arms, spit in my face, screamed, kicked, hit, and pulled out clumps of my hair. I finally got her into the car and thanked God for child safety locks. I stood outside, called Ben for reinforcements and did some breathing and counting. It took six spankings to get her buckled in her car seat. I will never forget the look on her face, sweating, whimpering, powerless. It is so easy to see why there are so many screwed up people in the world, because parenting is so hard. I think of all the education, training, and experience I have with her age group, not to mention two amazing parents, and it is still this difficult. So just short of canceling Christmas, she has received every possible consequence and is now on day two of room confinement. I just hope that being consistent will eventually pay off and am realizing that God wants me on my knees with this girl. And a little sad that it took something this terrible to get that through my head.