9 months since our last post...maybe we're not as good at this blogging thing as we thought! You might think that we are back after 9 months to announce the birth of a 4th child since that seems to be our track record.
New post = New baby, but we are NOT!
Here is what's happened in the last 9 months with a few pictures:
October meant Halloween and the kids dressed up as Spiderman, a Princess, and a Michigan Cheerleader. They had a lot of fun at various events and trick-or-treating through Grandma and Papa's neighborhood.
November brought Turkey Day and a yummy dinner at Aunt Lee's house.
In December Mason turned 4 and had a bouncy house party and a lot of fun. We celebrated Daddy's birthday too and, of course, Christmas and New Year's Eve.
January...was January...and something fun probably happened, but we can't remember, so here is a cute picture of Maddi and Ava.
In February, Ava turned 1 and spent some time in the hospital recovering from RSV. She also transitioned to a blenderized diet and is no longer eating any kind of formula through her tube and is only "eating" real food that mom and dad blend in our high-tech blender. Mason and Maddi went sledding with some friends and had a blast.
March saw the arrival of Ava's first tooth (but, no good pictures of it).
In April, Maddi turned 3 and had a gymnastics party complete with a Hello Kitty theme and a Hello Kitty cake that mom made all by herself along with ice cream cone cupcakes. Mom somehow left the frosting tip in the sink and it got eaten by the disposal so April also brought a new garbage disposal into our house! We celebrated Easter with some new baskets for Maddi and Ava which were MUCH larger than mom thought they would be, so that means Mason will get a new one next year. The kids went on several egg hunts with both friends and family and collected more than enough candy and toys. Mason started T-ball with dad as one of his coaches and mom ran her first 5K race and the kids completed their first 1K.
In May we celebrated Mother's Day at Kensington park and had a wonderful picnic and saw some cute baby pigs. The adults seemed to enjoy the baby pigs more than the kids - they enjoyed the cute Kids' Cottage and wooden truck. Ava participated in the Mott radio-a-thon and was a featured story on the mott blog! Check it out here: Ava's Story. She also met Mike Hart. Mason and Mom went to Arizona over Memorial Day weekend to visit our new cousin, Sylvia Lucille Button, and Mya, Liam, Aunt Katie, and Uncle Chad. We had so much fun and Mason loved riding on the airplane and was a well-behaved little boy. We fit a year's worth of fun into 4 days - how awesome are we?!
Thus far in June, the kids spent the night at Grandma and Papa's with Aunt Lee (or as Maddi says, Aunt Yee) and went to the beach and water park -they had a FANTASTIC time and we will return to spend Father's Day and our 6 year Anniversary there.
What's Coming Up?!
Well, this month we are finishing up tball and gymnastics for Mason who will start swimming next week. Maddi has opted to continue with gymnastics through the summer instead of swimming. Ava is currently sitting very well (with just a little stability help) and can reach for toys without flopping over. We can carry her on our hips and she is laughing and smiling all the time. She still has 2 teeth on the bottom and we expect more...someday. She is in follow-up mode with most of her doctors and has completed her first MRI and bronch wash. Nothing major out of those results so we are still in the wait-and-see approach to what she will do. A gait trainer is on order for her to use at home. It will be a little purple deluxe walker to help her start to stand and push herself forward. She's super cute in it even if she's crying and we will post pics as soon as we can get it. Her Early On therapy at home is on hiatus for the summer so we are looking forward to enjoying a slower-paced summer.
We hope everyone is doing well and we look forward to doing more regular updates!
