Fall

Fall is here (I guess it has been for awhile) and I have mixed feelings about it. I hate that fall means the days are shorter. I swear, at 7 pm during the summer I still feel like doing hours worth of fun stuff, but at that time now, I'm ready for bed! There were several times last summer when I took Nicholas to the pool at 7:00 for a swim before his bath! I hate that fall means winter is coming and that it will get colder, and I will have to put away my flop flops for a few months. I hate being cold. Though, the winter in North Carolina is not so bad after growing up in Michigan. At least here it is still sunny and we don't have to deal with much snow at all. It is actually quite comical when it does snow...or even if there is talk of the possibility of snow..because everything shuts down. I'm totally serious. You can still see the blades of grass sticking up through a "snowfall" and school will be cancelled, doctors will close their offices, and you can't find bottled water because everyone will have "stocked up" for the big storm. It is hilarous. Why is it that people buy up all of the water they can find? Do they think their pipes will freeze (in NC???) and they could possibly die of dehydration? It is perplexing to me. Anyway, I digress. Fall is here and we have to put away all of our cute summer clothes and sandels, turn on our heat, and watch way too much tv because it gets dark so early. Boo!

This fall, for the first time, I have decided to think of some good things about fall and focus on that instead of focusing on dreading winter. When I thought about it, I realized that I love fall foods. Sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin bread, stew, chili, cornbread, candy corn, mellowcream pumpkins...yum, yum, yum! I also realized that this is why I am having a hard time losing my baby weight. I keep asking my doctor why the weight isn't just falling off like it did after I had Nicholas...but secretly, I know why. I need to STOP eating!!! The other thing I love about fall is football. I love watching Michigan play (even though they really really stink this year) and I've even gotten into some pro football. This year, I also have the joy of watching Nicholas enjoy the holidays. Tonight is trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and he is so excited. Nicholas is going to be a monkey and Avery is going to be a pea in a pod. The other day, Keith and I put Nicholas in his costume, gave him his pumpkin basket and taught him to say "trick-or-treat" (it comes out more like "truck er tweet"). He's too cute!

So, these are the things I've decided to enjoy about the fall. I think I need to start coming up with a list of things I'll enjoy about winter before too long!

Baby Pictures

So, I was looking at baby pictures of Nicholas the other day and was surprised to see how much he and Avery look alike! This morning, Keith and I looked at pictures of Alaina when she was about the same age, and she and Avery look a lot alike as well. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of Amanda when she was this little. Here are pictures of both Nicholas and Avery at approximately 9 weeks old.

Avery went to the doctor this past week for her two month well baby visit. Her stats are all good and, again, right on track with what Nicholas was at the same age. She weighed 10 lbs. 15 oz. and was 23 inches long. She's still tall and skinny! Here are some birthday pictures and a picture of her sleeping off her Tylenol the night after her shots. She looked so tiny and cute in our huge bed.

As it turns out, Nicholas is quite accident prone. The week before last, he walked through a fire ant mound in the neighbors yard. He ended up with about 80 bites on his feet and ankles. What a scare that gave me! My poor baby was so miserable and I felt absolutely terrible for him. Thankfully, the benadryl we gave him right after it happened gave him some relief and stopped the swelling, and he didn't have more than a local reaction. The pediatrician told us he needed to be seen immediately, so we got to spend several hours in the ER. All is well now (though, I'm strongly considering having him allergy tested for fire ants since I'm so allergic). You can't really see the bites in this picture, but they are there. And yes, I actually found him sleeping like this and he was ticked that I woke him up!

And finally, here are a few picture of Nicholas helping feed Avery (my hope was that if I teach him how to give her a bottle, he can feed her in the car on our long trips home after we drop off the girls with their mom...we'll see how that works out) and him playing in his backyard fort. The boy loves to be outside!