Winterfest

Saturday night the weather was finally nice--for those of you not from Wisconsin--that means it was above zero!! It was actually around 30 degrees!! Downtown Green Bay was having its Winterfest, so we headed downtown to view the ice sculptures and hopefully take a horse drawn wagon ride. Well, we didn't do the horse ride because the wait was too long due to the train taking forever to go through and the main reason I wanted to go there was to see the illuminated hot air balloons--but it was too windy. So they made a ring of fire with the burners for the balloons. It was ok, but kind of a let down. The kids were really good. The boys were so bundled up they couldn't move.

What can I say--Xavier loves hats!!

Xavier and Brody are both hat boys--Xavier is just easier to get pictures of!!

European Bungee Jumping

My brave little girl had a great day at day care today. It doesn't sound like much, but believe me--it is!! We promised her if she had a great day that she could go to the mall and go bungee jumping. They have this thing set up in the center court and she saw it while shopping with Grandma Nan a few weeks ago. Well, the bribe worked and she had her reward. So even though it was snowing out like crazy, we took the whole family to watch her. As you can tell from the pictures--she had a ball!! She even did a few back flips. They probably let her jump for about 15 minutes. She was pretty tired at the end of those 15 minutes though!! The boys loved watching her and Brody was yelling the whole time. Just not sure what he was saying!!

Well here are some pictures of my little gymnast!! Have a great New Year everyone!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I know it has been forever since I wrote something here--I am so sorry. I can't believe the energy--physical and so much mental!!--that it takes to add another person to our family. Don't get me wrong, it is going very well, but the bickering, the noise, the mess (if I am saying that you know it is bad!!), and then add the holidays on top of it and well, let's just say we are lucky Dan and I haven't checked into Bellin Psych!! :)

The kids continue to be healthy and happy for the most part. Lily would tend to disagree with the happy part because she now has 2 brothers getting into her stuff and she has decided that she would really like to play only with Xavier's toys--of course, when he wants to play with them, so talking about sharing takes up what feels like a large part of our days! Xavier is doing very well. His language skills are improving every day. His vocabulary I think has quadrupled, if not more, since he arrived here. He knows the names of everyone in our extended family--and he and Brody love to look at pictures and name everyone they know. We are still having some problems with the repeating of words, but I think it is getting better--I sure hope it is not because we are getting used to it!! The Birth to 3 Therapists come weekly and they continue to see big improvements with him. It is still to early to be sure, but I think we will be enrolling him in the Head Start program which starts in fall for 3 year olds. I am thinking anything we can do to give him more positive learning experiences is good. But everyone who meets him tells us what a sweet, happy child he is. We are very blessed.

Here are some of the pictures from our Christmas get together last night with my mom, my brother, Eric and his wife, Nicole. My mom brought her dog, and Eric brought their large golden retriever--so we really did have a house full. But it was a lot of fun. We don't get a chance to get together very often. The kids loved having everyone here, and of course, presents are great too. I love the picture of Brody with the microphone--he is a hoot!! It was Lily's present but as soon as he saw it he had to pick it up and start singing "Day-o!!" The Banana Boat song, for those of you not familiar with Brody's obsession with that song. Brody will be getting his own microphone from Grandma Carol and Papa later today.

Have a great Sunday everyone!!

Trick or Treat

What fabulous weather for trick or treating. About 60 degrees and sunny. And not having to push the clocks back yet, still light out. My friend, Lorrie, brought her kids, Alaina and Evan, over for trick or treating. This is the first year we actually went in our own neighborhood. And they made quite the haul!! Lily was a pirate girl--who wanted to be a shark, but the costume didn't fit her so I left Evan wear it!! She would tell people that whole story when they asked her what she was going to be for Halloween. Brody was Roo from Winnie the Pooh, and Xavier was a lion. Lily and Brody both had parties at daycare so they had bags of candy before we even hit the streets. I took Brody and Xavier just to our neighbor, Jean's house. She always gives them something extra special. She was so sweet. She just found out about Xavier the day before but had a bag full of Matchbox cars for him. He was very excited. So after that one stop w/ the whole gang--Brody and Xavier stayed home to pass out candy with Grandma Nan.

The rest of us walked around the corner--into the "fancy" neighborhood! :-) I was shocked at how many cars there were parked there--people bringing their kids to trick or treat there. I was also amazed at the full size candy bars and bags of Skittles. Lily and Evan had to run to every house and see who could get their first. Lily started off wearing her eye patch, but I was so nervous b/c I knew she was having problems seeing, so I was glad when she took it off. We only went to the streets around the corner from us, but that was enough to fill everyone's buckets.

And now, a day later, I think Lily has only eaten 2 pieces of candy and they were gummy cats or something like that. I just wish Dan and I could say the same!! :) Happy Halloween everyone!

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower”

Thursday, Oct. 30th, we all stayed home to get to know Xavier as a family. It was a lot of fun. Very overwhelming. I was telling Dan that I thought the noise level would go up, but didn't think it would triple!! :-) But we are assuming this will be the loudest day, because all 3 of them were just crazy!! Xavier was running everywhere in the house, discovering all of the toys, the cats, the refrigerator, etc. And Lily was right with him being the tour guide and the boss of the toys. Giving him specific instructions on how to use the toys, when they can be used, and much more. Definitely being the big sister. Brody was a little confused as to why this other kid was sitting by his daddy and didn't seem to be leaving. And now 2 days later, still not sure what Brody is thinking, but he can say Xavier's name.

We spent sometime outside playing with the leaves. I am sure Xavier never did that before, and he had a ball jumping in the big pile with Lily. Brody was keeping his distance, he just wanted to swing on the swingset. Xavier really liked the slides, but didn't try the swing until today. He started with squeals of delight as I was pushing him, but quickly turned to squeals of terror. I am guessing he had never been on a swing before, and I am not sure what scared him, but I started over going very slow, and then he got used to going higher and didn't want to stop.

We also took all 3 kids grocery shopping. I have realized that I would never be able to do it all by myself at this point, but Dan and I together did it fine.

Thursday night, Xavier had visitors, when his cousins, Nate and Noah, came over along with Tammy and Dean. They had such a good time and totally wore all the kids out!!

Well, I will add more about Halloween in a little bit. Lily and Xavier are napping, but Brody wants me to dance to an Elmo video for him! It is fun!! :0)

--Teri

They are home!!

We all very sleepily rolled in to Green Bay last night around 12:22am!! Dan and Xavier got a flight out of the San Antonio and arrived in Milwaukee at 9:54pm. Lily had a great week at school and even though it was way after her bedtime, she got to come along. Dan's parents, Dave and Carol, came along as well. Thank goodness, I don't know if I could have stayed awake to drive down there.

Lily was so excited she couldn't stand it, but still was able to fall asleep in the car and we had the hardest time waking her up as we got close to the airport.

Finally we saw them coming off the plane. Xavier had slept most of the flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee and was just waking up. But Lily rushed to greet them.

We had been showing Xavier an album of the family for the past week so he had seen many pictures of all us, but especially Lily and Brody. So he smiled like he knew her.

Thank you all who shared in our journey of bringing our little boy to be part of our family.

“The love of a family is life's greatest blessing”