to be thankful

thanksgiving was spent with some extended gerbick family near strongsville. wes' grandma gerbick was there...all 94 years of her. here is a picture of her holding her namesake, amelia anne (anne is her name, which is millie's middle name). she really enjoyed holding her & playing with both of the girls.

here is wes' second cousin, david, at the computer helping his granddaughter, maggie (older girl) & addy carve a pumpkin & cut out a snowflake on the computer. this was very exciting times for the little ones!

amelia riding her own personal dog.

millie & mama on thanksgiving. i tried several times to get the 'baby's first thanksgiving' bib on her during a thanksgiving meal...we went to three of them! so i would wash it & have it all ready in the diaper bag...then wes would pull it out in the middle of the night or something like that & use it during a feeding. so she never got to wear that bib on thanksgiving or during a thanksgiving meal. go figure.

i was going to do a little ditty about thankful things, but wes is grumpy this morning & it's now making me grumpy. so i guess i should be thankful that we're at least agreeing to keep the girls home from church (b/c of addy's constant cold & amelia's stuffy nose & constant vomit & some diarrhea...lots of bodily fluids going around here).

the main thing i'm thankful for is wes...he is really the cat's meow when it comes to fathering & being a husband. he always says things like 'i'm too selfish to be a good parent' but that is probably the furthest from the truth. he will give up his sleep in a moment to soothe a crying little lady (whereas i lay in bed for a minute or two praying that jesus' angels will somehow come & soothe the crier back to sleep...hasn't happened yet, but i can still hope!)...he will come home at lunch to spend time with us & sometimes help me get adeline down for a nap...he puts up with my pessimistic attitude & morning grogginess & knows me so well. it's just comforting to be with someone this giving & sweet natured. and he makes great beer. that's always a perk.

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.