Winter09

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Thanksgiving '09

Thank goodness for holidays - cuz who knows if I'd ever get around to posting anything without them!?! :) We spent a very nice Thanksgiving at Grandpa Pete's this year. He was in a lot of pain, after finding out a couple weeks ago that the cancer that started in his pancreas had spread to other parts of his body, but he put on a very strong face and it was wonderful to be able to spend the day with him. Auntie Mar and Auntie Ronnie prepared a wonderful meal for us, as always, and Auntie Sela and Rella were also in town, so the kids had a great time together. Grandpa and his girls -

Grandma Marcia, Gavin & Pooh -

Auntie Ronnie & Auntie Mar in the kitchen, working their magic -

We also celebrated Eric's birthday that day - 29 again, it's amazing! :)

My little pilgrims, sporting the hats that they made at Debbie's that week - they're such good sports! :)

Gabriella, who's just under 3 months younger than Gavin, has passed him up in height - as evidenced by the back-to-back comparison that I didn't quite catch on film. ;)

Kiddos entertaining themselves -

Me joining in on the movie viewing portion of the evening (I'm the make-shift couch) -

The little girls playing 'Ring Around the Rosie' -

Later that weekend, we went to PINZ (the bowling alley/arcade/laser tag palace just down the street from us) to celebrate Bumpa and Eric's birthdays.

Gavin & Hallie deep in thought about their bowling strategies -


Nana assisting Hallie - I'm pretty sure she ended up with a higher score than me!

Gavin & Anna plotting their next roll -

The 2 pig-tailed princesses -

Hallie showing me a thing or two about the game,and how to properly celebrate -

Gavin with my parents (Nana & Bumpa) -

Not really sure what's going on here - just being a silly boy, I think -

Please keep Eric's dad and his family in your thoughts and prayers. I will try to post updates if anything changes, otherwise watch for a post-Christmas post!

Halloween '09

Is it just me, or has Halloween turned into a month-long celebration?!?! Maybe it was because I bought Gavin's costume in mid-September and he gladly wore it as often as possible, but this year Halloween was definitely longer than the official one-day holiday!

Gavin's SpiderMan obsession continues (and continues to surprise Eric & I since he's never watched an episode of the show - just knows it from the marketing campaigns), so when I saw a SpiderMan muscle costume at Target one day, I just had to bring it home. His reaction to it was just as wonderful as I could have expected! Success! :) So here he is wearing it one of the first times, when we met our friends, the Etshokins, new puppy -

And visiting Auntie Mar & Grandpa - one of our many stops on Halloween:

Hallie is getting really good at making animal noises, so up until the week before Halloween I was searching for a cute, toddler-appropriate kitty costume - which was apparently not meant to be. So then I thought she'd go as Dora, since both kids looooove Dora and Diego these days, but those costumes all consisted of only Dora's purple shorts, orange t-shirt and dark wig - definitely not MN weather appropriate. Sooo... I kept looking, and kept coming back to an adorable Abby Cadabby costume -

she's one of the newer muppets (or more correctly a "fairy in training") on Sesame Street -and she has the same pigtails that Hallie sports more often than not these days! So I finally decided to order it the week before Halloween, only to find that Debbie was having her annual costume party at daycare the following Tuesday. So of course that Abby Cadabby costume wasn't going to arrive in time. Luckily, Hallie has an adorable older cousin, Anna, who at one time dressed up as an adorable duck ("What does a duck say?" "Duck, duck!") and Hallie was able to borrow that costume for the daycare party... but I apparently have no pictures of that. :( But here is as Abby Cadabby:

We bought pumpkins late one night the week before Halloween, intending to carve them that weekend... but the more I thought about it, and realized that I was not going to get any help from Eric, and if Gavin's reaction to the "guts" was anything like it was last year (he was completely appalled) I figured out I was going to be completely on my own in this and opted not to carve them at all. But I heard about it later, when the Sunday after Halloween Gavin ran to me and said "Hey - we never made our Jack O Lanterns!!" I explained that yeah, unfortunately Halloween came and went already and we never had time to carve them and he replied "Well maybe it can be Halloween again tomorrow!" I love his positive outlook, but not that he's now trying to make this into a two-month holiday!! :)

Oh, and another funny thing that the kids started doing in honor of the holiday was "practicing" trick-or-treating. Gavin was usually the instigator, but Hallie happily followed close behind! Gavin would tell me to go in the pantry, and then those two would stand outside, knocking on the door yelling "trick or treat!" - pretty darn cute, and a very sneaky way to get way more candy than I would have otherwise allowed!

Grandma Marcia in her witch costume:

At Great Grandma's :

lol

click on the link for a very important message:

http://kanyelicious.appspot.com/http://gavinhansen.blogspot.com/

August

Here are some pics of the kids looking particularly cute....

Hallie and her new favorite "baby":

Cutie in pigtails:
Gavin posing in the overalls that Eric wore when he was two:

Hallie eating her first tofu "ice cream" cone - she didn't know not to eat the bottom of the cone first!

In the midst of the tofu cone - needless to say, she took a bath right after this!

We're gearing up for Gavin's big birthday on Monday! He knows that he only has to go to sleep and wake up for more times until he's three! Woohoo! :) I took the day off, so if this rain ever stops, we'll probably hit up Como Town again, otherwise we might head out to the Children's Musuem. Should be awesome. ;)

"Stay-cation" Week!

I took the last week in July off, with two goals - #1 was to get Gavin potty-trained, and #2 was to RELAX! I was completely dreading potty-training, because he was completely uninterested in sitting on the potty, and I thought it was going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. In anticipation of this being the week, I had read every article and book that I could find on the topic, and even purchased a "Potty Scotty" doll (which was luckily never needed!) But I'm happy to report that I highly underestimated Gavin's drive and internal motivation! I think there's something to be said about waiting until a kid is ready to potty train, because this couldn't have been any easier! We started on Thursday, when I told him that it was going to be "no pants day" (for him only) that day. He totally bought into it, and ran around in just his t-shirt all day (both inside and outside!). We talked about having to sit on the little potty chair if he had to go, and he was soooo proud of himself when he actually produced something while sitting there. I didn't even have to nag him as much as I thought I would to get him to sit on there multiple times throughout the day. It was only when we put his shorts on and I hadn't asked him to go for a while that he had an accident. And then another. But all very manageable. He wore a Pull-Up to bed that night, but woke up with it completely dry. Day 2 (Friday), we decided to venture out of the house to a friend's house. It was a nearly 40 minute drive, and I should have insisted on him sitting on the potty right when we got there, but he was so excited to play with Jack's toys that he refused to go in the bathroom. Unfortunately, he had another accident while sitting on Jack's bike (luckily, Jack's mom was very understanding!). There were a couple of tiny accidents the next few days, but he got really good at telling me when he needed to go quickly.

On Monday, we had "Mommy and Gavin Day" - I thought it was going to be spent at home, really hammering in the potty-training concepts, but since he had gotten the hang of it so fast, we planned an outing. Brought Hallie to Debbie's house, and Gavin and I headed to Como Town/Zoo. We arrived promptly when they opened at 10 am, and since we were among the first families there, Gavin got to take many solo trips on all of the rides (he measured in at 37" - just enough to clear the 36" height restriction - phew!). I was once again surprised at how independent he's getting - he didn't ask me to ride on any of the rides with him! He did, however, make sure to keep me in his sight and smiled, waved and said "Hi Mommy!" every time he passed me! It was pretty darn adorable! After a while, we headed over to the zoo part and checked out some pretty awesome animals. Gavin seemed to like the monkeys best this trip. Then, of course we had to go through Como Town again on the way out, so we stopped and did about 5 more rides (thank goodness for the unlimited ride wristband!). That evening, after picking Hallie up, we went out to Nana & Bumpa's. We were all swimming, when Gavy said "I have to go potty." I looked at my dad, and he said "Take him over to a tree." So, we did and Gavin successfully peed outdoors for the first time. He ran back to the lake and announced "I peed on a tree - just like a monkey!" Ha!

Tuesday was "Mommy & Hallie Day" but unfortunately, when you have a 2-nap-a-day'er, there isn't a whole lot of flexibility! We woke up and played for a little bit at home, then Hallie went down for her morning nap... I had to wake her in time to make it to brunch with Auntie Marin, Great Grandma and Great Aunt Esther (good times!), and then by the time we were done with that, she was ready for her afternoon nap! Then, as soon as she she (we) woke up from that nap, it was already time to go pick Gavin up again! She kind of got ripped off this time around. Sorry, kiddo - I promise I'll make it up to you! :)

Here is a pic from the day - she got a bag of Cheetos out of the pantry and wheeled them in her little stroller all the way over to me to open them, then wheeled them all the way back into the pantry to enjoy them by herself!

After those fun 2 days, Wednesday was "Mommy Day" - hair appointment and relaxation.... ahhh. See pic below for how it turned out.

That evening we all went over to Nana & Bumpa's again, and after saying goodbye to Daddy, the kids and I slept overnight. It was fun to hang out without feeling rushed to get home, and wonderful (for me) to get a full night's sleep (thanks to Nana & Bumpa, who woke up twice with Hallie!)!

We woke up late on Thursday, and headed to Teddy Bear Park for a couple hours, then out to lunch. And that afternoon we went to a little block-party-type event that our realtor was hosting, and Gavin got to enjoy the bouncy house and his first ever Sno-Cone! Good times all around!

Friday was another busy day - Grandpa Pete was picked out of his BAJ (Born Again Jock) team to throw out the first pitch at the Twins game, so we headed out to the Metrodome for all of the pre-game hoopla! We had to stop at Target that morning to pick up a baseball glove and ball for Gavin, in case we saw any Twins to get autographs from! We had a great time watching Grandpa's buddies play their annual softball game on the outfield prior to the pro game, and Grandpa did a great job throwing out the first pitch. Afterwards, he, Gavin, Eric & Peter got their picture taken with the mascot, T.C. - I think that was the highlight of Gavin's evening! We made it through about 8 innings of baseball, and left with the Twins up 4 - 3. While we were walking out, we heard the Angels score another run, so they ended up going to 11 innings and losing! Glad we didn't try to stay until the end! Oh, and we didn't get any current Twins' autographs, but we got both Roy Smalley and Paul Molitor to sign his ball!

I love this pic of Hal and Grandpa!

We went to the Washington County Fair over the weekend, but not much else! Both kids loved the ferris wheel!

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation - success on both the potty-training (I am so proud of my big boy!) and relaxing fronts! I can't wait to do it again next year! :)

Oh, and here's a couple more random pics from a night at Grandpa's!

Cousins:

Grandpa, Auntie Mar & Aunt Bette:

A "people tower" with Grandpa, Gabriella, Gavin & Uncle Peter!

And all of the kiddos watching Daddy mow one afternoon: