thanksgiving, gerwig style

this is zoe! i know this b/c they had different clothes on (b/c poor chloe was sick & vomited all over her dress). zoe has learned how to walk! she is very cautious, but seems to love her new independence. chloe is a bit more apprehensive about the whole walking & didn't show off her talent so much (she is sick, so we gave her a break).

here is addy stealing pop pop's roll. i called them 'butt rolls' b/c that's what they looked like when rising (oh, yes, homemade rolls). she's pretty fast when it comes to food snatching... she had pretty much been eating since we got there around 11, so i don't think she was too hungry, but she can't resist, i suppose.

my brother, scott (we call him scotty) with chloe. i believe chloe is holding a knife, yes, but we won't tell anyone. (scotty is an EMT anyway, so i guess he knows what to do if something were to happen with baby & knife).

hhmm, what else to share about that day? we ate brussel sprouts, me for the first time. interesting taste. more bitter than i expected & i'm not such a bitter fan (or a veggie fan, for that matter, but i still eat them). the dessert trifecta (spelling error, there i'm sure) was wonderful...pumpkin & pecan pies & pumpkin roll. yum yum yumminess.

little cleaning lady

the other day i was attempting to vacuum & i only finished half the first floor before someone needed attention. so addy decided to finish for me! she got her little red vacuum out & started in on the carpet in the living room (where i stopped). she pulled toys out of the way, moved the play gym & swing. what a helper! she kept looking at me with a look of 'you should be so proud of me!' and i was!

she actually moved this across the hall, revealing the dust bunnies under & behind...egads. then she became upset when her fake vacuum wouldn't pick the dust bunnies up (i had already vacuumed this area & apparently she wasn't pleased with my work). the picture double below would be the stools that she moved as well.

after a long half hour of vacuuming, addy decided she was too hot....? well, something merited a de-panting! here's a picture of her cute little bottom.

bad dance night

i think this will be a tradition with adeline & millie. dancing. i am a terrible dancer. wes is a terrible dancer...we are awkward & clumsy & have no rhythm...but i've been dancing with addy since she was a wee one, dancing to anything. this morning it's been al green, ani difranco, & the shins.

when i was little we did this thing where we'd turn all the lights off, get a flashlight & move it all around...then someone would get up on the fireplace & dance like crazy. i think i loved it, from what i remember i loved it.

when i moved to columbus with some friends (christine, holli, then jaime & then chloe & kristi) we had a 'bad dance night.' well, it was bad until chloe the dancer arrived, but she was nice enough to dance with us. okay, holli is pretty good & christine isn't as bad as me. but we had fun. so i think we're going to start a bad dance night. close the blinds & curtains, turn the music up, & get moooovin' with the girls. who knows, we may even turn the lights off & get a flashlight out....i'll let you know how it goes.

streaker

we have a streaker in the house (sadly, ladies, it's not wes ;o)...on saturday, adeline woke up at her usual perky 6 a.m....so we did what all great parents do: pretended to be asleep! wes had already changed her diaper & put her back to sleep half an hour earlier, so we knew she didn't have a dirty diaper & that's all we really cared about at that moment. i snuck a peek & saw her walk into our room & look at me closely. i just saw her head, as it was about 1 inch from my face, & she was trying to breath very quietly & said 'shhh' softly to herself. then i hear her walk out & caught a peek of her slinking down the steps. keep in mind that i have terrible eyesight, so i only saw a bleak outline of her without my glasses on. about 10 minutes later, wes decides to get up & investigate the noises addy was making downstairs...he goes down only to find addy stark naked running around the house, joy overflowing with her laughter. a moment i wish would be mine to see, but thankfully i slept in about 15 more minutes. apparently she had taken her pj's off, then her diaper & then even threw her diaper away! at least she's clean...

so what is this about addy waking up so early anyway?! come on! sleep in. she is so not her mama's girl when it comes to sleeping in...i think 9 a.m. seems like a very good time to wake up. it seems she is just so excited to get her day going, to play & learn & tackle new things (i mean literally tackle, not as in 'dive in' or such other wording). & she is now an expert door opener...big ugh...i am envisioning much more lipstick-on-the-carpet moments coming from this new development.

amelia is not sleeping so well since her one night of "sleeping through." she's also spitting up a lot again even with zantac doses & not taking long naps (really, they last about 20 minutes sometimes) & likes to be fed by me, while i'm standing & rocking. why? (my arms may be dislocated at this point). saturday was the best so far, but i think it's b/c we were at my parents' & she was held a lot. speaking of which...driving there & back was HELL. did i say hell? i meant SHEER MISERY. amelia crying her little heart out, addy wanting me to read every book in the universe to her (on the way there, on the way back she cried for 45 minutes), me squeezed in between the car seats trying to keep them both semi-happy & on the ride home, i was also crying out of frustration. it took all of my mama love just to make it on that 90 minute car ride. i have to admit: we have taken both of them out of their car seats this week b/c of crying, on the highway, going 70 miles an hour. what else is there to do? (i have my own nasty opinions about car seat regulations, but i won't go there right now). i'm just glad wes happens to be in the car so i can take them out, b/c if i took them out of their seats by myself while driving on the highway, well that would be very unsafe ;o) honestly... if pulled over by a cop, i had it all planed out; i would've chosen going to jail over the car ride! 'oh really, officer, you want to give us a warning? this is child endangerment...why not take me to the station overnight? yes? wonderful! let me get my purse...'

once we download pictures, we will have some pics from the gerwig thanksgiving. it was yummy, but i will save that for another post, hopefully tomorrow. if not before thanksgiving: happy turkey day! (please wish us luck for our 3 hour car ride wednesday night).

a few christmas thoughts

this year i have been thinking about holiday traditions to start with our family...ways to make it more special for everyone & to not have the focus on gifts (or food, if you're a gerwig!). we have started that by limiting our travel around the holidays, so we have more time to spend with the girls at home & will be able to do things like go to a shelter with food or take gifts to others or such things. this is very important to wes & i that we show adeline & amelia the joy of giving, even if we don't have a lot ourselves (well, compared to our westerville neighbors ;o).

here is a link to a video on youtube from a friend; this is what got me thinking about all of this today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU

our neighbors from boise (chad & amy houck...we have the links to their blogs to the right) are renting out their beautiful house, bought an RV, & he quit his job to start a non-profit to benefit ghana, africa. they are driving around the u.s. gathering support for their non profit that helps to drill wells & such (please read their blogs to get a better idea!). anyway, they sent us an email about a month ago asking for support for a well being drilled beside a school that had also been built. wes & i talked to each other about it & agreed to send money but then totally forgot about it. bummer. it's easy to tell ourselves 'we have a lot going on right now, it's okay to forget...' but it seems that we just keep saying that. i think we need to give ourselves a kick in the pants & become a bit more proactive about things (like giving money when possible, giving our time & prayers when not possible). i guess i just don't want to take advantage of this posh life that we have (compared to some of the rest of the world)...we are very blessed with two healthy daughters, a great job for wes, a house near wes' office (so he can come home at lunch to hang out with everyone a bit more), family who enjoy our company...i'm just feeling compelled to share the love, so to speak...so we should get off our duffs & do something about it! we'll see how it goes...

anyway, does anyone have a holiday family tradition they'd like to share? the gerbicks are shopping for some more... as for my family as a child & teenager, on christmas morning we had the tradition of my dad reading from one of the gospels the story of jesus' birth...it was DREADED by the kids. especially when we read the long one (from luke?) & we sat there looking at all the gifts, giddy, waiting, waiting, waiting. what's funny now is that last year (or was it the year before?), my dad forgot to read & started to pass out gifts & i think all of the 3 gerwig kids said 'what about reading the story?!' apparently it stuck. BTW: i think we will be stealing that one from my family...(& also we will tell our girls that santa claus is not real, but something fun to imagine & pretend....i do not feel the least bit scarred from my childhood knowing that santa wasn't real).

AND...drum roll please... amelia slept through the night last night! HOLY CRAP! she slept from 7:55 until 6:30! i'm not that superstitious, but i know since i posted this, she will most likely wake up 4 times tonight. but still! addy didn't sleep through the night until month 8, so this is just totally unexpected & wonderful. & if this does happen to continue, yes, teething will screw it all up again, but we'll take what we can get when it comes to sleep. yea! yea! hip hip hooray!

mini millie photo shoot

today...amelia, 12 weeks (almost 3 months!)

we are blessed.

oh what a life

i was so determined to get a picture of wes & i on our anniversary...but totally forgot! i just went through all of our pictures of the last 5 years (i am going to attempt to make a picture slide show of our marriage thus far; if i finish it within the next year, i will post it ;o) & have realized that wes & i seem to take less pictures together with each passing year. i guess when holli showed up we were just ready to get out. which we did, yea! since wes' shoes were leaking due to the broken soles, we went to the mall to find him some new shoes. UGH. not b/c we were shopping on our anniversary, which is a bummer, yes, but b/c it was saturday night & we were at the mall. stupid stupid stupid. but, he did find a pair FINALLY that he likes (this has been going on for a few weeks now...he's very picky, this father of my children). but then he wouldn't put them on, even though it was raining & his feet were soaking wet, b/c he wanted to put a shoe-saver-coating on it (i don't know exactly what it's called). he's a funny man, i tell ya.

we were going to revisit the franklin park conservatory--where we got hitched--but it closed at 5 pm. & we left our house at 3:45 & it's $7 to get in...so we decided we'd go when we could take addy & amelia & have a longer time to "spend" exploring. then we went to see "the secret life of bees"...holy crap folks, is that movie intense. i've read the book & really liked it, so i was a bit nervous that the movie wouldn't be as good as the book, as normally seems to happen, but this movie is BETTER than the book. i don't think there was a 5 minute stretch of it that didn't make me cry. but in a good way. it was worth the money. go! see it! we also went to barnum's tavern & had great food, but was very disappointed in their beer selection. why does a 'tavern' have more wine than beer? don't they know beer is better? i guess maybe we are beer snobs b/c wes can make his own, but still...the steak was fantastic, as was the chocolate cake. yum yum.

thank you holli & kristi for watching our kiddos! we appreciate it immensely!

onto the little ladies:
addy is non stop still. it's exhausting just watching her. today addy played in the snow for approximately 4 minutes before she realized that the snow was cold & that it sticks to her gloves & hat. she looks pretty ridiculous in the snow pants, hat, boots, gloves, & coat (sorry, no picture) but then she just longingly looked out the window the rest of the day, wishing she could be outside. i think she'll be like her father in that she could live outside if given the opportunity.

what else is adeline up to? hhmm...raiding the freezer, taking off her pants & diaper, shoving the pacifier in amelia's mouth, hiding, dancing, perfecting her jumping skillllzzz... she also stuck her hand in her poopy diaper for the first time & then started to freak out b/c she realized the brown chunky stuff was her poo, so then she started banging her hands on the futon arm & on her crayons & paper... (i quickly put amelia & the bottle down to wash off the kid before she decided to eat it...that would just be gross). she also has taken to sobbing dramatically when i go to pick her up from the gym day care. she's there 1 hour! you'd think she'd miss me at least a little bit,b ut no! the day care director--who always oogles over addy & even rembered our names after i didn't go for 4 months--suggested that i take her to the community center's toddler time on mondays to 'let her be the social butterfly that she is'... adeline just looked at me desperately , but i didn't have a millie bottle & she was due to eat, so we had to pass. which caused even more dramatic sobbing. but once i said 'at home, you can have a snack,' she was heading for the door. overall, she's just adorable & crazy.

millie is finally enjoying her swing & vibrating seats (although she doesn't like the vibration, she just likes to sit in it, on the table & stares at the chandelier with a big, goofy grin). she's getting a bit better at sitting up...meaning she doesn't flop over immediately. & she's also starting to scrunch her away around her crib. we find her most nights jammed up against the side of the crib...little squirmer! again, we just find her to be simply adorable. her personality is coming through a bit more & it seems (cross your fingers) that maybe she has a more laid-back approach to life. PHEW. two kids with adeline's personality could get dangerous in about 10 years...oh, can't wait for those teenage years.

millie sitting up! (she's leaned up against a cushion)

& here's the snow from yesterday. it didn't stick until the evening, but it snowed for 3 hours straight! huge flakes; it was peaceful...except for the stove sitting on the curb. it was something of a 'purge large household items' in our neighborhood yesterday...2 neighbors had stoves on the curb & another had a bathroom sink & cabinet. so this is a shot of our neighbor, jerry...he's a retired history teacher who loves to use his leaf blower...drives me CRAZY! get out the rake! he will seriously use the leaf blower for hours....anyway. i'll stop, he's really a nice guy other than polluting our lovely little neighborhood with his loud blower... ;o)

& then i'll leave you with a shot of adeline.