Happy Birthday Quentin!

Bringing cookies for my friends at school!

I cannot believe it but we have a three year old on our hands.  It was around 9:30 in the morning that we headed off to the hospital on a Thanksgiving Saturday to have our first born.  We can't believe it's been 3 years already.  He can talk, run, jump, skip, ride a bike, he's lived in two states, taken more plane trips in 3 years than half the population does in a life time and still, I mean still he doesn't sleep through the night.  He hasn't made it one night yet since moving back to the sunshine state.  He's Quinny, baby!  He didn't sleep all that great last night because he was so excited to wake up and have a special birthday breakfast of pancakes, muffins and COOKIES!  We told him he could take the cookies to school. Here is a picture of how excited he was to do that.  He's so cute and can't wait to come home to his Lightning McQueen cake with Tow Mater as his trusty side kick.  And PRESENTS!

A quick side bar to tell you how much he enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner.  He has his plate full of food and mom asks him what he likes best.  His reply, "I like that, I like that, I like that, I like that, I like that and I like that."  He officially pointed to everything on this plate and deemed it his favorite.  So easy to please!



2nd Birthday!



Carrie's parents, Poppa and Nana, flew in last night much delayed due to mechanical issues. They needed a new cockpit seat.  I suppose that's important.  We didn't get back to the house until after 12:30 am so no one got any sleep.  Of course this is our house, so that's par for the course.  We should have more family coming over to help celebrate with cousin Rachel and Aunt Peg with possibly a few more cousins in tow.  Last time Q saw Aunt Peg he would snort like a pig every time someone said her name.  He has a much better grasp of his venacular today from that stage.

 

We're very proud of him.  I am going to post some pictures here of the last year of Q and then I'll add another post with some pictures of the celebration. 



X-mas 2010






Havin' some morning joe






Easter 2011






Halloween 2011

 


Practicing those hops!






At the river, fishing July 2011

  

I will get back to blogging!  I promise.  We moved and then the renters sort of trashed the place.  It wasn't physically damaged with holes and such but they smoked and I mean chiefed em' down like it was an Olympic event.  That has caused us to do an enormous amount of cleaning and painting.  Add children of ages 1 and 3 and you get very little free time.  We painted the master bedroom Sunday and finished around 10:30 pm and then realized we couldn't sleep in the room.  Ha!  Not really thinking things through.  At any rate we'll get back to blogging.  Since being back we've installed an attic floor (storage - hurray!), painted Gavin's room, the master bedroom, the master bath, got the Christmas lights decorated outside, the tree up, done some much needed yard work, went to Disney World (kids are free until age 3 so we snuck that one in by about 10 days) and hung curtains like a real house!  I'll get more posts I promise so check back.  I am committing to a minimum of 2 posts a week for the foreseeable future.  I'll get another one out tomorrow with birthday pics!

hanging with lil' bro



July in Door County, WI 2011

















Gavin's Surgery

I wanted to get a quick update out there so everyone knew the surgery went well.  We had Poppa Steve drive over to our house before the rooster crows arriving just before 6:30 this morning.  We wanted Quinny to keep his routine so they spent the morning together so we could get off to the hospital.  Carrie, Gavin and I arrived around 7 am complete with valet parking.  Wow.  Valet parking at the hospital.  Now we're talking.  We met with all the doctors, anesthesiologist, surgeon and a handful of nurses and got all the questions and answers we needed. 

We got him dressed in his surgery gown complete with Badger red socks.  Gavin was so happy this morning, making me feel ultra guilty. It was just like when we dropped the dog off to get neutered.  The Luckster was so happy to be going for a ride.  Next thing he knows he's half the man he used to be.  Gavin was goofing around, smiling, laughing and entertaining the nurses.  He was hamming it up and then he was on his way.

We said goodbye and they took him back.  We really liked the doctor, Dr. Carpenter.  He was great and everyone we interacted with made sure we were comfortable with everything that was happening and about to happen.  We went back to the waiting room and within 20 minutes it was all over. 

We went to see him and he wasn't crying.  Everyone was preparing us for a very crabby child and shortly after we got back there he started crying for the next 30 minutes or so but it wasn't too bad.  He was really out of it, just groggy.  Everything went fine and 20 minutes after that we were in the car on the way home.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts.  We should have a child that can officially hear!

Happy Birthday Gavin!

Happy first birthday to Gavin!  He celebrated his first with family last weekend and we had a nice “Look Hoo’s turning one” party.  You know complete with hooting owl.  It’s the newest rage.  C’mon you haven’t heard?  You must not be rolling with a posse of one year olds.  We had three great grandparents in attendance (hooty hoo!), all four grandparents, some uncles, cousins and friends.  Both boys had a great time and Quinny scored some gifts as well so he wouldn't get too jealous of the birthday boy.  Gavin was fortunate enough to receive some sweet Badger gear, a sit and scoot that can transfer into a scooter when he gets older, some music, sweet fireman PJs, books, a talking dog, some toys, and a Badger pillow pet.  Too much!  Gavin wanted me to thank everyone for attending and for all the wonder gifts. 

The cake, oh do the boys love the cake.  Quinny loves parties and was talking about digging into the cake weeks before it happened.   You should see him buzz.  We came to the realization this morning that our oldest son might have a problem, a sugar problem.  Here is the morning routine.  Now before you read on remember we’re not judging your parenting.  Well, at least not to your face so keep that in mind.  Quinny gets up between 6:30-7.  Yup, it got dark out and our kids rise and fall asleep with the sun.  I wonder what would happen if we moved to Alaska?  Would the kids sleep 20 hours a day?  Hmmmm.  I hear there are great tax incentives and non-stop Palin entertainment.  “I can see Russia from my hot tub!”  He gets up, hopefully dry, uses the restroom, finds his way to the kitchen, lobbies for a bag of fruit snacks (we generally deny him), gets a juice box, grabs a yogurt and plops into our bed.  He then gets cozy under the blankets, asks politely for Mickey Mouse Club conveniently on at 7 and starts chowing away.  Approximately 5 minutes later he’s a crazy sugar maniac.  It didn’t really dawn on me that it was sugar.  I thought it was simply crazy two year old but this morning we started wondering; is it too much sugar?

We shall see but tomorrow we start to wean him off.  If he gets the chills and starts throwing up due to the tremendous headaches we’ll keep you posted.  “Hi, my name is Quinny and I have a sugar problem.”  Pause for round of applause.  “It all started back when I was two and my parents used sugar to potty train me.  Although, effective, it’s been a lifelong burden of snorting pixi sticks in back alleys, shoving ho-ho’s two at a time in my gullet when no one is looking at the office and occasionally, if it’s really bad, slamming straight sugar packets in my mouth one delicious spoonful at a time.  It was my childhood, my parents.  Oh, my parents…”

Please forgive us son for we know not what we do.  Gavin is headed to surgery.  It’s been on, scheduled, doctor canceled, we bowed out, he got sick, back on again.  So, officially the big day is this Thursday.  Think about our little guy.  I think the procedure itself will go fine and we think he’ll be much better off in the long run.  He’s got a flight coming up and I am hopeful this will make it tolerable.  I’m only concerned about the anesthesia.  He could be allergic or you might get someone that can’t do math and he'll get the wrong dosage.  That’s the only part I think we need to be worried about.  He’s only under for 5-10 minutes so it should be short.  If all goes according to plan we’ll be home by lunch time on Thursday.  We’ll keep you posted.

For his pre-op physical/one year check up he weighed in only a half pound behind big brother Q so he’s going to be a big boy too.  He’s in the 95^th percentile for height.  This family will be a force if they decide to play sports.  They could be on the same varsity teams.  We’ve been practicing catching footballs lately.  We’ve been playing some golf too.  He’s not walking yet but we think before Thanksgiving. He’s moving around a lot and loves getting into mischief.  Oh, to have boys. 

Quinny’s going to the pumpkin patch on a field trip tomorrow so more blogs to follow.  We’ll keep you posted on that, the surgery and a couple of big ticket items.  Cheers.