Avery's 1st Birthday Party

This past Saturday we celebrated Avery's first birthday with a Lemonade Stand birthday party, complete with lemonade, cupcakes, and little (and big) friends.  I came up with the idea after seeing the photography mini sessions our baby photographer did over Labor Day, and thought it would make a perfect concept for a child's birthday party.  It came out better than I even imagined, and I think everyone had a good time--especially the birthday girl who managed to polish off an entire lemonade cupcake in a matter of minutes!

Surprise for Sherry

This past summer I had the chance to celebrate my dear friend Sherry's 40th birthday in New York City.  Her rockstar husband, Allen, stealthly planned a surprise girl's weekend for her and flew Judy and I to the city for a couple of days of fun with the birthday woman.  It was a sweet time for three of us as we marked 15 years of friendship with Sherry's special day.  Plus, we managed to get into a little bit of shopping trouble and ate our way through Manhattan.  What's not to love??

 

Cali-forn-i-a

I'm woefully behind in posting our summer photos and happenings due to the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and a plethora of other social media that steals my time.  So, without further ado, I present to you our end-of-summer fun in California at the Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium of Anaheim and Disneyland with Joe's cousins.  We had a couple of happy but tired kids at the end of this trip...and a newfound interest in "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse."

Happy Birthday, Baby A!

Tomorrow is Avery's first birthday!  This last year has gone by so quickly.  Much more quickly than when we had just Gavin, but life gets busy with one in school and one connected to Mama 27-7. 

I am so proud to be that little girl's mama.  She is the snuggly, happy, joyful, funny, active, curious little girl I dreamed of having.  I love how her eyes light up and how she points her finger at me whenever I walk into a room after being gone for more than a minute.  She's a lover who giggles and showers me--and only me--with multiple kisses (French kisses since she thinks kissing means sticking her tongue on your nose and lips).

She adores her daddy and yells, "Hi, Daddy!" whenever she spots him across the room.  She adores her brother, following him around the house on hands and knees and picking up the crumbs of whatever he leaves behind...a snack, a toy, a shirt...she's just happy to grasp on to something that belongs to "Gab-an." 

Avery gets the giggles just before bed time each night at the antics of Daddy and Gab-an roughhousing on the bed, doing her best to insert herself in the middle of their play.  She and Gavin shout back and forth in one another's faces, and then laugh hysterically.

Avery has a few nicknames...Aves, Avy, Sweetpea, Avy-Baby.  But her brother calls her "Sweetie."  Seriously.  His voice goes up an octave when he talks to her: "Oh, Sweetie.  Put that fork down.  You could get hurt, Sweetie."  It's is the cutest thing.  Ever. 

In fact, Gavin is her protector.  He told us that last night at the church nursery another child was trying to pick her up and he said, "No!  You can't pick up my sister.  She is just little."

This sweet girl does her best to communicate with us by pointing at whatever she wants and shouting.  Fortunately, she has a few words which helps.  Bottle, ball, puppy, doggy, door.  Each one helps us and makes us chuckle over the forceful nature with which she utters each one.

She rarely cries, even when she falls down.  The girl just picks herself up and shows utter determination in reaching her little baby goals.  I can't wait to see how her qualities of determination, perserverence, joy, and good humor serve her as she grows from babyhood to a little girl.

Here's to you, Avy-Baby.  We celebrate you on your first birthday, and we love having you in our family.  You are our joy and you are this Mama's heart.  I love you!

Funny Kids

It's so much fun to watch my kids grow up and begin to comprehend life and the world around them.  Avery is a regular full-sized baby now at nine months and has just begun babbling actual words.  Apart from the dadadada and babababa commonly heard around our house, she pretty clearly repeated, "Hi, Brotha!" and "Ouch!" this past week.  She also laughs at everything and has a constant smile on her face, panting all the while like a little puppy.  Oh, and her best baby tick?  Turn on some tunes and she will jump and down dancing on a lap.  Quite enthusiastically and to the point of hilarity.  She is joy personified, that girl!

Avery's been rocking on her hands and knees for the past month and is now moving from a sitting position to a crawling position, and then trying to push off with her feet.  I wonder if she will bypass forward crawling (she has the backward scoot down) altogether and just begin to pull up and walk.  That girl is mighty strong.

Gavin is in the most delightful four-year-old stage.  So much different than the threes!  He now comprehends the structure and discipline we have put into place for him and has become a much better listener.  We're quite proud of him for the hard work he's put in at OT over the past several months and my heart swells with happiness when I see what a kind, friendly, and thoughtful little boy he has become.  His play group has helped him immensely with interactions with other children and I had fun listening to a conversation between him and another little boy the other day where Gavin asked him, "What do you like about your transformer?"  and "What else do you like about it?"  He is really becoming a great little friend.

I also appreciate Gavin's quick wit, and he makes the family laugh constantly.  The other day I said, "You're a good kid, Gavin."  He replied, "Thanks, Mommy.  You're a good adult."  This phrase is sure to become part of our family lexicon. :)

I love my sweet little people!

Book Review: Stand By Me

I just finished a great book by one of my favorite fiction authors, Neta Jackson. Called Stand By Me, the story centers around many of the characters that I grew to love in Jackson's popular Yada Yada Sisterhood series. I couldn't wait to dig in to this story since Jackson's stories are absorbing and this one was no different--not to mention that it was an easy read on my iPad while feeding a baby!

Stand by Me follows the overlapping stories of two women: Avis Douglass, a seasoned woman of God, and graduate student and new Christian Katherine ("Kat") Davies. As she and her husband contemplate a potential move overseas, Avis' life is complicated by estrangement from her daughter, a leadership shake-up at church, and new neighbors. Similar to Avis, Kat struggles with strained family relationships, but as a brand new Christian and new attendee at Souled Out Church, her unbridled enthusiasm for social issues makes a few waves and rubs Avis the wrong way.

I enjoyed the way Jackson intertwined the stories of these two characters. Since I was already familiar with Avis' character and her portrayal as a strong Christian leader, it was interesting to see her, in this story, portrayed as more falliable--as a woman of God who can also be selfish and stubborn at times, as we all can be. I found Kat's character a wee bit annoying since she was idealistic to a fault and oblivious to social cues, but her compassion made up for this somewhat.

I particularly enjoyed the last few chapters of Stand By Me, where is becomes clear why Avis and Kat's lives intersect. Although there are no real surprises here, a beautiful story of redemption and true friendship unfolds as both women allow God to work in their lives. My only complaint about the story is that is ends rather abruptly and leaves a few loose ends. But perhaps that's the sign of a good book--it left me wanting more.

Thomas Nelson Publishers provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my review.

Kids Are Hard

My stream of consciousness:

Constant whining, brain fried. Mama just wants to sit on the couch with a big glass of wine and a juicy episode of The Good Wife, so I will. Perhaps I would be in better spirits if I could get more than five hours of sleep. Now I'm whining. Thank the Lord that tomorrow is a new day.

Just keeping it real, ladies. Keeping it real.

Therapy, therapy, and more therapy

It's been a while since I've mentioned Gavin's physical therapy and his tip toe walking, but after months of PT and evaluation, we're finally connecting the dots on some of his behaviours. The PT didn't seem to help with the tip toe walking and as we noticed that Gavin's gross and fine motor skills seemed delayed (he couldn't dress himself, draw, or cut with scissors) and that he has trouble "connecting" with other kids, we decided to have him evaluated by a pediatric neurosurgeon. Her recommendation was to start him in occupational therapy for sensory integration issues.

And so we recently began the journey of additional therapy for Gavs. He is going to OT twice weekly and I can say that after six weeks or so that it is beginning to make a difference. We also work with him at home each day to keep him on a sensory diet, and this is also helping. It's been a rough few weeks, though. We've had--and still have--many questions about where this is all going. Do we need to change schools so he gets daily therapy next year? How can we best help him? How do we handle the frequent temper tantrums? How can we distinguish between typical four-year-old behavior and sensory issues? This has all felt overwhelming to me lately.

This past Tuesday morning I was at my breaking point after Gavin has a meltdown when I tried to put a shirt on him for school. A big meltdown, complete with yelling and hitting and scratching me. I found myself near tears most of the morning, asking God to change something, to provide some encouragement to our family and to make things better. He poured out encouragement the very same day in the form of friends visiting from out-of-town. These friends have been going through the exact same situation with their young son, and the details they shared with us are so similar to our situation with Gavin, that we were amazed. We walked away from our dinner with them feeling so very encouraged. The next steps don't seem as daunting today.

And speaking of next steps, Gavin will be joining a supervised play group at his OT's office next week and we are super excited about it! The group will consist of three little boys and they will learn, well, how to play!

Six Month Stats

Our sweet Avie Baby (yes, she now has a family nickname!) recently turned six months old and she is, by all accounts, very healthy. Dr. Shana was impressed with her strength and predicted that she'll be crawling by nine months. However, in the week that has passed since that prediction, the girl has managed to roll over and army crawl backwards across the room, so I'm thinking she might be crawling in the next month. We shall see. All I know is that I was spoiled with Gavin. He didn't crawl until 14 months and was quite content to sit and play with toys. I have to keep my eye on Avery.

Six month stats for the girl: 16 lbs. 4 oz., 25 3/4 inches tall. Of course her head is in the 90th percentile, as is typical with all McGowan littles. Lots of brains.

Avery is beyond delightful in personality and always has a smile on her face and a giggle on her lips. I call her Sunshine Baby since she brings so much joy to our family. We all love her beyond measure!

Happy Birthday, My Big Boy!

In just a matter of hours my baby boy will officially leave toddlerhood for boyhood. Gavin will celebrate his fourth birthday tomorrow, and I can scarcely believe it!

Gavin, you are an amazing boy. Adorable, charming, quirky, curious, disarming, silly, and full of laughter. You ask intelligent questions, count to infinity, love music and have every song on each one of your CD's memorized. You love gardening and digging in the dirt, dancing, and macaroni and cheese.

You're learning to love your baby sister, and it melts my heart when I listen to you talk to her in a baby voice that you think she'll understand and sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider to her. Avery smiles and laughs at you more than anyone else and seems fascinated by your every word.

Gavs, you love your daddy more than anyone else on earth, but you still give me attention and hugs that I love--particularly when you're really excited about something. I love how you hop up and down in glee and say, "I'm so excited, Mommy! Oh, Mommy, thank you!" It's my favorite thing you do.

You also love your stuffed animal friends, Blue Puppy (BP) and Brown Puppy, although I'm not sure why they are going to be sick for your birthday party.

So, happy birthday, sweet pea. I love you, my big boy. May four-years-old be wonderful!

Waiting and waiting and waiting

Jobs, housing...it's all up in the air these days. The husband had several interviews with his front-running company on Monday, lined up back-to-back, and now we are waiting for next steps. He's actually been interviewing with this company since January (I think a total of nine interviews now), and had an incredible schedule this week as he interviewed with key execs. Hopefully I'll have more to reveal by next week, but the latest feedback today is that three different teams plan to bring him in to interview (again!) for specific accounts. So, we are, in reality, making some progress here. The final goal being a job offer sometime this month.

In the meantime, it looks like I'm back on board to work on the Harvest events in Anaheim and L.A. this summer. Yay!

So, the other thing up in the air is our housing situation. I am going to lose my mind in this loft. It all culminates at bedtime when I'm trying to put the baby to bed in our room (WHICH IS NOT FULLY ENCLOSED) and she's crying, and then her brother is crying downstairs because he doesn't want to go to bed. In order to maintain my sanity, we must move. Of course, I've been saying this for a couple of years now, but now I think we're all ready. In fact, Gavin told me today that he is ready to move because our house is too "babyish," whatever that means.

In the midst of these things that seem to be taking forever (all in God's timing, though), we have experienced some big blessings lately. We took a trip to Utah last week to visit my family and had a fabulous time introducing Avery to her cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We also had a refreshing family weekend at our church's annual retreat in Indiana.

Another cool thing we are experiencing is that several families we really love have moved back to the Chicago area in recent months. It's been great to reconnect with them, especially in a city where people move away frequently.

And today is was 81 degrees in March. Definitely a silver lining to the waiting.

Figuring It Out

Gavin is off to his grandparents house for a sleepover and Joe and I are looking forward to a nice 24-hour break from the madness that comes from having two children under age three residing with two adults in a 1,200 square foot loft.

Honestly, I don't know how we've done it this long in this small space, and I won't lie--I can't wait until we move into a house. I realized that my girl is probably sleep deprived most of the time due to the ambient noise in our loft. She doesn't have her own room, so she naps in her swing in the living room or in a pak-and-play in her brother's room when he's not in there. She sleeps at night in our room, after Gavin has gone to bed and the rest of the space is quiet enough for her to rest. I know she's tired because when I was alone with her all day on Monday she slept for 4 1/2 hours! But that girl is a trooper and always has a smile on her face.

The plan is that when Joe gets a job--hopefully sometime in the near future--we will put our place back on the market and start looking for a house to rent until we figure out our next step. I don't think I can handle showing the loft with two littles and their stuff to clean up constantly, so this may be the best way to go. If he gets a job downtown, we may stay in the same city where we currently reside, but just slightly north.

And speaking of jobs, Joe had a great second interview on Monday with a company he's super excited about, so we're praying this is it. The timing would be amazing if it works out since I just finished up the last of my contract jobs today. My stomach is in knots wondering where our next paycheck will come from, but I know that God knows.

Avery

Avery is growing up quickly. Always the sweet little sister, she coos and goos all day long, laughing and flashing her gummy smile. It's unbelievable how easygoing she is, but I suppose that's par for the course with a second child. My prediction is that she'll be very talkative with a loud laugh and a fun personality. She's also extremely social and loves to sit with us at the table while we're eating dinner. She actually makes little shouting noises if we leave her out. Hmmm, I wonder who she takes after...

I took her to see Dr. Shana today for her four month check-up and she is doing great. Nursing like a champ and weighing in at 14 lbs. 8 oz., which is nearly two pounds heavier than Gavin was at this age. She's in the 95th percentile for head radius and 75th percentile for height and weight. All in all, a very healthy looking girl.

I have to say, I adore her.

2011 in Pictures