The Tidd's Tidbits

It's a new beginning

2010-04-20T21:09:00.002-04:00

Hey friends and family!

We have something to tell you! Nope, we're not pregnant! We've moved...... to a new place on the web. It's redesigned, more organized, complete with video, pictures, updates on the girls, us and everything about our lives as the Tidds. Please come join us in our new space as this site won't be updated anymore. We'd love to have you! There you'll find an info post on what's new on the site so you can navigate it easier: www.thetiddbits.com.

Love to you all!

GCAI

February flew by!

2010-03-09T08:56:00.002-05:00

All is well at the Tidd house - we're in the midst of changing places for our blog, how it's going to be laid out, new features where Gary and I can talk about how we manage our finances, parenting, house projects, technology and of course, the girls. It'll be a place where if Anna goes into her room, gets her little chair, brings it into Izzy's room in front of her crib where she's found waking up from her nap and Anna saying "hi sweeeetttheart" and pats Izzy's little fuzzy head, I can put that in there without having to update about everyone. Or if Izzy learns how to say "no" and shakes her head while saying no, I can put that in there too. Or if Gary's killing it on the treadmill, shedding some pounds and trimming out his studly body, I can put that on there (or he can if he's feeling prideful that day). Or if I run 2 miles straight and finish a 5k on the treadmill in 47 minutes, something I never ever ever thought I'd say I'd try, let alone do. It'll be more short stories, funny things we don't want to forget, milestone in our debt free lifestyle or a flat tire. It'll be there. So hold tight friends and family, we'll be back bigger and better... hopefully sooner than later. These little girls keep us busy and staying healthy, just the same. So bear with us while we design and build our new site.

The girls are doing well. We have a bought of pneumonia with Izzy last weekend that ended her in the ER, having a hard time breathing. We got a nebulizer and she started to sound a lot better. I called her a gremlin baby the way she was breathing and talking. Poor thing, now she's back to her temper tantrum, cuddly self (oxy-moronic, yes, but true). The woman who cares for our girls during the day says she has red roots somewhere in there. I don't doubt her one bit. Anna's growing a lot. Growing in her height as her jeans no longer need to be rolled up or pinned. Her hair is still thin but growing quite long. Her vocabulary continues to increase daily. We constantly have to remind ourselves that her pronunciation and comprehension of words is high but she's still 2 and still acts 2. Both these girls give us grey hair, but they bring more joy to our lives that we could ever have imagined. Their squishy hugs and dimples, Anna running around yelling "naked baby" after bath and Izzy swaying to the music of her books. We're certainly blessed and try not to forgot that everyday.

The parentals are holding their own, itching for the spring weather to come full force. We're working 2-3 days a week with running on the treadmill or swimming in the pool, continuing our journey of training for the 5k run in May, losing weight and getting fit. I joked at the Dave Ramsey show we went to a couple weeks ago, "Our kids will always think of us as rich and thin!" Hehe. I hope so. Work continues to be busy for both us and side work is a steady stream of projects. So many other things we're working on at the house and in our lives that we can't wait to share about them more in our new blog.

Hope this finds you all well, readying yourself for spring cleaning, gardening and sunshine!

Love,
Gary, Christie, Boog and Squeaky

Isabella's Big Day!

2010-02-09T12:29:00.005-05:00

Isabella turns the Big One!

Miss Izzy had 2 big day's as her birthday fell on hump day. So we sent her off to Miss Michelle's house with yummy cupcakes and a big squishy hug. We made, what we would call her favorite meal, spaghetti and garlic bread. Both the girls scarfed it down and have the red 'stash to prove it. I picked up Itzy Bitz ice cream (those space agey ice cream balls) for dessert and again, in-hailed. Being #2 in the line up, we're filled to the gills with toys and hand me down clothes, so I picked up a few Izzy specific things for her gifts: a scoot around puzzle, small board board, a bucket for all her little treasures and her favorite, sunglasses all of which Anna claimed as her own. :) So for a small birthday celebration, she had a great day!

The big party was partied on Saturday. We kept it simple with pulled pork and beef sandwiches, fruit and jello salad with cupcakes and ice cream to top it off. We decorated in red balloons and giant snowflakes with a teal snowflake cake to share and a her own chocolate cake with red and white frosting which I think she loved. :) She was gifted a whole new wardrobe, some toys and books. She, again, had a great time with all the paper and new exactly how to open presents (Christmas was just a warm up). We had a great time with family and Izzy crashed after her sugar high. What a fun first birthday!

Slacker..... Christmas Part II

2010-02-09T12:07:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's true. I've given myself the title of slacker for the moment, but!... I'm trying to change or really just get back to my more consistent blog posts. Poor Izzy, her life isn't near as chronicled as Anna's has been. Such is the life of a 2nd born I suppose.

Since Christmas is long gone, I'll give a more brief snapshot of the rest of the holiday with the Tidd's. The morning of Christmas we spent in sweatshirts and socks as the power decided to take the holiday off as well. The "big" gifts was a new slide for the basement and a table and chairs for Anna's room. The highlights for Anna was the 6 pack of chapstick and her new monkey watch. Izzy loved her new little duckies. Gary and I decided to get a Wii and not have anything to open on Christmas. I don't mind joint gifts at all, but I missed the excitement of the gift giving, things I found that Gary would like. So next year we'll mix it up a little again. We headed to Gary's parents for the rest of the day where we opened gifts with the family and extended family. It was followed up with a delicious meal! New Years weekend we spent in Chicago with my family. New Year Eve we met up with old friends and had a great time! The next day, we all were in town together and had a great time opening gifts, having Anna help everyone open, Izzy just enjoying all the paper and just having a fun time being together. All in all, Izzy had a great first Christmas and I'm sure the girls will really enjoy Santa following them to Chicago and back and having 2 Christmas'. Who wouldn't!? :)

Christmas 2009 Part 1

2010-01-07T15:42:00.005-05:00

Happy 2010! We had a great, but cold and snowy December. Before I begin, here are the latest pictures of happens around the Tidd House. Izzy was able to experience her first Christmas and seemed to love it. Definitely different having Izzy at almost 1 year old experience the holidays than we did with Anna being just over 2 months old. Anna certainly understood the meaning of presents and that she felt entitled to open almost everyone's gifts whether they liked it or not. She recognized Santa everywhere and loved seeing "mish mish" trees outside and at home.

We spent Christmas in Michigan this year. Christmas Eve we had a mid-day dinner and hoped to go to the early service at church but very icy roads and 2 sleepy girls, kept us from going. Gary and I braved the roads to get to the late service to do nursery. We opened up stockings with Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Sheila. After Anna emptied her stocking, she moved on to the rest of ours helping us unwrap and showed off the goods. We finished up the night watching some of Polar Express on the big screen in the basement. Anna was intrigued for moments at a time, but I think as the years go by, they'll love this tradition. Izzy, of course, snuggled mostly.

Christmas Day we woke up at about 6am to the click of our power going off. Any slightly severe weather seems to knock us out. About 7am found us all in bed realizing that this may be the last year the girls are clueless as to the bounty that lies on the floor below. So we all bundled up in sweatshirts, pants and socks and followed Daddy downstairs with the video camera. Anna was thrilled with the new slide for the basement and then discovered a table and chairs where she remained to open the rest of the gifts. Izzy enjoyed the toys that fit snuggly in her hands and climbing the slide. The most loved things Anna got..... a 6 pack of her very own chapstick. She could have put it on all day if we didn't snag it. Gary and I decided to not do gifts this year and buy a Wii as a joint gift. I really like the Wii so far but I really missed the giving of hunted down treasures and little keepsakes this year. So think we'll figure out a better mixture of next year's festivities. Just as I was thinking "it's starting to get cold in here" I heard a click. The furnace! Thank you Consumers Energy people to coming out on Christmas morning so we can be warm. We promptly got ready to spend the day with Gary's family. We had a wonderful dinner and opened up more gifts.

To Be Continued very soon......

Only 10 more days!

2009-12-16T09:18:00.002-05:00

I'm currently working on our Christmas card and hoping to not break my record of December 21st and getting it finished this weekend and out! Meanwhile, you can check out the latest girly girl photos here and if you want a little more Tidd, check out our video page here.

Hope this finds you filled with peace and joy, with all your cookies baked, presents bought and travel plans arranged!

Love,

Gary, Christie, Anna and Izzy

Where did November go?

2009-12-01T12:42:00.006-05:00

Well, I apologize for my delinquency. For whatever reason, I've put this blog to the back burner but have plans to revive it now and at the start of the new year. Here's a run down of how the Tidd's are fairing this late fall.

Izzy: She is 10.5 months now! We had her 9 month check up where she was over 10 months by then and she tipped the scales at 18 lbs. 2 oz. and about 27" long. She's in the 25% for her weight and height but her head is in the 95%. The first time a Tidd girl got anything in the 95th percentile! She's an eater, she'll eat as long as we give her food. Well in recent days, she starts to sweep her hands rapidly over her food, letting it fall to the floor. We consider that done. She'll eat anything we give her from fish, steak, chicken, broccoli, any fruit and crackers. Almost done with that darn baby food! We thought she'd never have any teeth at this rate, but just last night I felt a little pearly white poking through. I only swept my finger in her mouth because she was doing that "theres something that's different with my mouth b/c my tongue keeps flicking it" movement that I remember Anna doing. So finally, she cut her first tooth as of November 30! For a couple months already she's been standing on her own, more recently walking around furniture and repelling only one step to something else. But last night, yes another milestone, she took her first few unassisted steps! Again, I thought she might lolly-gag and wait till after she turned 1 but she may just beat her sister out with only a week or so to spare in the walking department. She also learned how to climb the stairs last week. I guess I would say, another milestone, but I could have gone awhile yet before she figured that one out.

Story: Gary and Anna were racing their cars down our long hallway from the stairs into the kitchen one night. As with most events not originally featuring Izzy, she found her way over to them near the stairs. Gary and Anna were playing and Gary just so happened to turn to catch Izzy falling from the 3rd stair! What a little stinker! So we let her climb both sets to stairs to declare her victory.

She's becoming quite the character. She'll scream with Anna, jabber on and on by herself or in sister language, she'll race over to snatch the toy of the minute from Anna only to find herself tackled or poked or hit by Anna followed by a trip to timeout stair. Oye. She smiles the biggest goofiest smile and lays her head on your shoulder (awww...!). She whips her head around from side to side so she won't miss a thing. I'll have to snag a video of that someday - too funny! She'll even wave on command now. The whole clapping thing.... nahhh.... She needs tricks to pull out later.

I can't believe in less than 2 months she's going to be 1! What an unexpected surprise she was to us and we can't imagine her not in our family anymore.

Anna: Our little 2 year old. Two. Wow. We have a 2 year old. Where did all that time go? It wasn't that long ago that it was just Gary and I. Now we have 2 kids in less than 2 years! Crazy. Anyway, Ms. Banana is developing so many words, phrases and sentences every day. She says words I didn't even know she knew. And she says them with such clarity! She puts a person (Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Alex, Papa) with a feeling (hurt, fall, read, eat) and a thing (leg, book, chicken). When we're driving down the road, something that happened months ago pops into her head and start rattling off who was there, what happened, what she saw, etc. Her stats are 35" tall and about 25 pounds. Her head is in the 75th percentile and the rest, you guessed it, the 25th. So Gary and Christie make giant headed baby girls. :)

Story: Driving home one day, she said Munga (grandma) hurt leg. Munga fall. I wasn't with when this happened, but a few weeks back they all went out for dinner and Grandma fell outside. And she remembered that. She also remembers that she bit someone. "Bite Jayden. Anna timeout. Anna naughty timeout chair." Not the best thing to recollect but she did. :)

She likes to tattle on Izzy. "Mommy.... Izzy touch." I tell her I'll take care of it and walk over to where Izzy is (by the receiver near the TV) and Anna's going "No no Izzy!" with a firm voice like we do. Oh boy. She loves music and loves to sing. She sings herself but loves it when "Mommy sing Jesus" or "Daddy sing spider" which sounds more like farmer. She sings along or fills in the word. She bops her head to music anywhere and sometimes she gets us all to dance together.

She loves to wear hats, mittens and shoes when they are laying around. She loves "runnin'" around in circles. She still loves reading and the occasional puzzle. She still would rather eat fruit all day long if we let her.

She's had a couple milestones of her own. First, we converted her crib into a big girl bed just over a week ago. The front part of the crib comes off and the little half rail takes it's place. We bought her new sheets and a comforter to go with it. She took to it just fine but doesn't care for all the covers quite yet. We don't think she knows she can get out of bed on her own yet as we haven't heard extra playtime post 8pm but only time will tell. Her second milestone is that we started potty training again. Ding ding ding, round 2. Our daycare provided felt she was very ready and wanted to feel it out last week and she did so well that we continued it over the holiday weekend. She had a few accidents here and there, but overall she's really doing well! No tantrums when we bring her to go potty every half hour, will actually try to go and not just say all done like she had been doing this summer. She's still in diapers for nap and bed but that's fine by us! Our goal is have her completely trained by Christmas! Merry Christmas mom and dad. :)

Parents: We are totally enjoying being parents. We get to see daily what strides they made that day, their new actions or words, being more confident in something they struggled with a week ago, their sicknesses (which is the worst) and their joys. We are blessed with beautiful little girls who keep us moving and keep us wanting to be better parents, a better couple and better individuals.

Our jobs are going well. Certainly very busy all things considered, so for that we are very thankful. We're in the process of cleaning out the basement some more and getting ready for trim and doors hopefully in the next few months. We (well I) am ready for it to feel a little more put together and a place for all of us to be. I have a lot of crafty/home projects I want to work on so maybe with the slow down of side work for the time being, I can fit that in.

We've also both taken to a newer, healthier lifestyle. Back story: Gary went in for his yearly once over with Dr. D. and finally did his bloodwork that he had set up since last year this time. Well it came back with his cholesterol a little high (which runs in his family) and his triglycerides quite high. This kind of hit Gary realizing that maybe what he thought was healthy wasn't so healthy. So when Gary gets something in his head, he runs with it. Literally. :) I've been trying to get him to do some working out or something active for awhile and was always quite tired at night. So with this news, we changed almost instantly. We bought all new food with a ton more fruit and vegetables as snacks instead of packaged anything. We started packing really good hardy sandwiches, baked chips, tons more water and lots of exercise! Gary started working out at Calvin 3 days a week with plans for a family workout on Saturdays. I've been doing a class at GVSU once a week since the semester started but needed more if I was going to drop the weight too. So I started working out at home and I have plans to join the gym very soon to keep up with Gary and his mid-day workouts that I can't do. We're inspired each year by the Biggest Loser but this year really hit us both. For me, being a mom now, things hit me like they never have before and I want to be the fun mom, who plays with her kids and can climb stairs without being winded. I didn't want to be the mom who sat on the couch for her kids to come play near me. For Gary, he knows there are some things that run in his family that need to be addressed now, to stop being so tired at night and to just be more active. So far, Gary's down about 10 pounds from his average weight, but 5 pounds down from when we weighed in first. I'm down 3.5 pounds since our first weigh in and have never known to be this low ever! So we're very excited about what we're doing together, individually and for our family. We're getting ready to start our blog to document our progress and a whole host of other things.

We hope this finds you full from Thanksgiving and thankful for all the many blessings and preparing for the most spirit-filled and joyous time of the year!

Love to all,
Gary, Christie, Anna and Izzy

In the meantime....

2009-11-15T21:22:00.002-05:00

While I whip up a new post, here are some pictures for you to enjoy of the girly girls this fall. Check out the side bar for new videos!

This fall!

Love to you all!

Gary, Christie, Anna and Izzy

She's 2: Two under 3 begins!

2009-10-20T12:55:00.008-04:00

Get all the latest photos here!

Fall is in full swing here in West Michigan. Where did the summer go or even fall for that matter? It's gotten down into the 20's some nights with a fresh layer of frost greeting us the next morning. Needless to say, the orange impatiens I left out front have gone to mush and my tomato plant couldn't take the cold anymore.

We visited the local farm a couple weekends ago to gather the harvest of fresh hot spiced donuts, cold apple cider and our hoard of pumpkins. Earlier in the day, it was beautiful and sunny, somewhat "warm". I dressed Anna in a long sleeved shirt and hooded sweatshirt and soon found out that wasn't the best idea. Soon followed the runny nose and red cheeks, oh yeah, blue lips. I felt like I won the "worst mom of the year" award at that moment. But the trooper that she is, kept plugging away at the coloring pages, hay piles, barrel rides and the "spitty rain" wagon ride to the pumpkin patch. I guess to compensate for my failure in Anna's attire, Izzy sat snuggly in her car seat, warm clothes, sweater and her blankie piled high. We did have an enjoyable time when we were there, just wished we waited a week. :)

This past weekend we celebrated Anna's 2nd birthday! We had a fun little party with family and close friends. Anna was greeted from her nap with 25 people looking at her, so she was a bit shy at first. But soon she saw her loot and was quite happy in helping daddy pick out which one to open next. She made out with a ton of new winter clothes (thank you family!), lots of art supplies/crafty projects and lots of Cars stuff (favorite movie these days). I, as usual, wanted to try something new and a little time consuming for the birthday treat. Enter cake pops!

They took a while to get the hang of but boy were they good and big hit! We had a lot of fun seeing family and friends again and glad they could be a part of Anna's big day.

Miss Isabella is certainly holding her own and making sure she's a part of everything Anna does. She crawls with great speed, pulls herself up on anything (picture getting ready for work and the wee little one holding on to your leg to stand) and certainly loves being in the daddy/Anna wrestling action.

Here's a story of the week. Place: Main floor of our house. Time: After dinner, daddy's gone. Izzy: In the kitchen with me, unloading the dishwasher. Anna: Living room wanting to sit by the table and color. Me: Hears Anna's cries for help (yes, everything to her is dramatic) to sit in her rocking chair by the table with her paper and box of crayons. I go to help her get situated and leave Izzy in the kitchen. This is what I see when I return to the kitchen:

So that's a good visual of Izzy's personality thus far. What a stinker!

For the last few weeks, I've been going to a Kickfit (think Tae Bo but with a bunch of skinny college girls) on Wednesday nights and it's been awesome! I've been so inspired that I've been trying to do one work out at home with Gary! It was fun the one time we did it and hope to make more of a habit doing it. Hehe. :) I was on Weight Watchers for a year and a half before I got pregnant for Anna and lost about 45 pounds. I've been able to maintain that and a little more through both girls and now that we have the pregnancy thing under control, I'm trying to get back to working out more. It's hard doing it on your own so I'm glad I have Gary on board somewhat and my friend and I are doing the class together - one step closer! :)

Our jobs have been crazy busy in the last few weeks - job security! Close to wrapping up some side work - yes, this is really going to happen this time! Yay! Doors and trim, here we come. But over all, we're doing well. No one has been too sick as of yet, we get to wear sweaters (!) and we're moving in to the holiday season (I still would like to know what happened to summer). We can't complain a whole lot - no one would listen anyway. :)

Here's to a wonderful but rainy and cold weekend!
Love to you all,

Gary, Christie, Little One and Wee Little One

Where have we been?!

2009-09-25T16:09:00.003-04:00

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I touched this blog. So sorry followers! We are still alive and kicking, I promise! Here's pictures of late summer fun!

The month of September has come and gone. The Lord gave us a little summer after school was back in session and now we're seeing the leave start changing beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red. The air has a little bit of humidity and little bit of a nip to it. The honeycrisp apples are eaten like candy and the canning of peaches already took place. The making of plans for a trip to the orchard and preparing for Anna's 2nd birthday party are underway. This year has flown by and probably won't stop there.

Nothing terribly exciting going on in the Tidd house. Izzy started full fledged crawling and is everywhere now. We started giving her some table food along with her baby food and is handling it really well (no gagging episodes as we experienced with Anna way too many times). She says "mamamama", "babababa" and "dadadada", but not really putting them with what they are yet. She's taking a lot of mental notes while watching big sister run around the house and gearing up to take over eventually. She continues to be our little cuddle bug as this week she got the flu and stayed home with mom and/or dad for a few days. She enjoyed napping on us and maybe got too used to it as naptime in her own room was a struggle from time to time. She loves being kissed on her cheeks and just melts right into you. Her hair is getting longer and she looks like such a little person now. 8 months old already! Crazy how big she is now - about 16.5 pounds (with wet diaper). Still a peanut by many other baby standards but smart as a whip. :)

Miss Anna still tries to rule the roost with her pleas of "ouchy" even when the said "ouchy" is a week old or barely there or her need to watch "Cars" everyday. It's gotten to the point where Gary and I analyze the movie, like what's the names of the sports cars or was the way McQueen headed back to find Mac actually the right way? Oh my. Well we had such a positive first week of potty training and it ended another week later with Gary and I barely thinking or talking about anything else other than what we were doing wrong that she stopped telling us and just going in her pants or when she was going to pee next. It was the most frustrating things we've gone through as parents (I'd take a screaming infant over PT anyday)! So we asked her if she wanted to go back into diapers and she let a clear "yes". We felt defeated and like failures for awhile. At first she wasn't sure about the diaper again but she soon was fine with it once again. Then she started saying potty again and she'd go! Then we went to not telling us or saying dry when we knew she was pushing. And now we're slowly getting back to her staying potty to us and she's associating going potty with a cookie now, so at least she's starting to get it and doing it! She's also starting to talk is almost sentences, associating what is hers and other people things, being more specific like we have a van and a car, instead of just car or mommy's or daddy's. She sings her ABC's almost fully and such a joy to hear her little voice sing it (note to self, video that!). She likes mommy to sing all the Bible songs in her little lullaby book along with the never ending song of "The Wheels on the Bus". She's starting to say names very clearly, her "s" are very clear and she just started putting the "n" on the end of things that were once a little airy.

The two of them together is only something sisters know. They both get excited when they see each other in the morning. Anna shares her blanket with Izzy from time to time. She wants to help feed and burp her on occasion, too. Izzy follows Anna's every move from stair climbing to hoisting herself up on near her chair. I can only imagine the bond they will create with eachother as the years go on.

We are doing well in our own right. Certainly we are busy with dinner plans, running errands, housework and of course, keeping up with the girly girls, but we are happy, healthy, fed, clothed and warm. What more could you ask for? These girls teach us to slow down sometimes and just cuddle, to involve them in bigger things, to take in their soft baby skin and their little hands and feet, to be better parents, to be a better couple and to love more than you know you can love. It's certainly amazing what happens each day in our family when you look at it, we just have to slow down or stop and take it in because before we know it, they'll be flitting off to college.

I'll post more of what's going on with us soon, but since it's been a month I figured an Anna and Izzy update was the most important. :)

7 Years

2009-08-27T09:07:00.002-04:00

Crazy how long 7 years goes by and yet the thoughts and memories seem like just last week. Crazy how much one can grow, physically, mentally, spiritually in just 7 years. Where once we were young adults or just a teenager trying to make sense of it all to being home owners, parents, college grads and newlyweds.

7 years ago this morning, I got that awaited phone call from dad telling me the Lord took her home that morning. It was about 3 weeks that I knew that phone call would come, but knowing didn't ease the heartache that would follow that day. That now her body would be lowered and her spirit would soar. Not for us to see anymore, but only relive in our memory, in pictures, in stories, in beautiful quilts.

Those feelings I felt that day only sneak in when I least expect it now. Only a handful of times. God has never left our side, from the day we found out it was leukemia to this very day, he has sustained us through the hard times and has given us hope, strength and love despite it all. Hope knowing that we'll all be where she has been celebrating for 7 years and knowing love can be found through brokenness. Strength when thoughts of childbirth and pregnancy are scary because you feel alone or when you wonder how he feels in those moments he feels a need to talk to her. Love in knowing you were loved by her, with all her being, knowing we are still loved, love that's shared and passed down.

Thank you for giving all of us that, mom. Someday, we'll tell you all about it. But for now, know that we're doing awesome.

Love and miss you.

Potty Training Success!

2009-08-24T22:21:00.000-04:00

So I am making and breaking records this year with my blog posting. I typically only post when major events happen in my / our lives. This being my 3rd post of the year means that we have now had 3 major events in our lives to date.

1. Isabella born 1-13-09
2. Frank Hall passes 4-19-09
3. Anna becomes free from the bonds of the diaper! 8-23-09

Yup that’s right Anna is no longer bound by diaper, she is officially a big girl who uses the potty! Christie and I spent the last 3 days in an intensive effort to potty train 22 month old Anna.

A few months back Christie came across a link to an online book titles 3 Day Potty Training. We began to do research at that point to see if the product was what it said it was. We found that the system while similar to some popular methods advertized for free, it had some aspects to it that made Christie and I believe it was worth the money.

After spending 3 days using the method I can assure you that it is worth every cent. My sister who has her bachelor’s in early childhood development read the book (we were allowed to send her a copy of the PDF because she closely assisted us with training Anna today). Her take on the method was that it made a lot of sense and it did not surprise her that the system worked as advertised.

The basic gist of the method is to switch to big girl panties / big boy underwear and never turn back. The system teaches you how to turn accidents into positive learning experiences. By the end of the book the author has taught you how to potty train your toddler by being patient, consistent, loving and wholly devoted to just that task for 3 days.

Saturday morning we got up and changed Anna’s diaper (giving her the last clean diaper she would ever have.). We then got ready for the day, took showers – ate breakfast and began the day late but totally relaxed and ready for the task.

At around 10:00 A.M. or so we got down on Anna’s level, looked her in the ye and told her, “you are going to wear big girl panties now and go potty on the toilet! Anna, you are such a big girl now!”. From there we took off her diaper, put her in panties and never looked back.

We began pumping her with liquids (ok – not pumping, but we had a sippy cup ready and waiting at all times – the more liquid going in – the more opportunities to sit on the potty!). We also began asking her to remember to tell us if she needed to go to the potty, we did so a million times over, to the point where she began to ignore us, but that was the point. We wanted this to be so ingrained in her head that telling us became habit. We also kept asking her if she was dry, each time she answered us we would praise her for being a big girl.

It was not perfect form the start but we had no illusion that it would be. We expected and wanted there to be accidents. The accidents were not a bad thing but a chance to teach Anna how to respond to what her little body was telling her. By 11:30 A.M. we had gone through about 8 pairs of panties, one of daddy’s shirts and mommy’s ankle (Christie rolled her ankle sweeping Anna off to the potty one time – she is fine but it hurt for a while).

Slowly but surely we began to have some success, times where we caught Anna in the act of starting to pee, swept her off to the potty, got down on her level and lovingly teased her about how she made yuck in her panties and how we wanted to do that in the toilet. The more we did this the more Anna began to connect the dots and realize that she needed to let us know when she had to go. Of course there was a reward of 2 M7M’s for going Number 1 in the toilet and 4 M&M’s for going Number 2 in the toilet.

By the end of day 1 we had gone down for a nap and woke up dry, made it into the potty quite a few times and made it in the potty just before bed. This was quite a successful day if you ask me.

Day 2 began with a wet bed in the morning; we did not make it through the night. This was to be expected and we treated this the same as we did with wet panties and it went over just as well. Anna has some resistance to the potty first thing in the morning. We knew not to push her but she began to pee on the potty while sitting on it and crying, when she got the loads of praise everything changed. It was like she remembered form yesterday that going on the potty was a good thing to be rewarded for and from that point we never looked back.

For all of day 2 we went through a total of 5 or 6 pairs of panties, compared to the 15 or so on day 1. She never really verbally let us know she had to go to the potty until the end of day 2, but the body signals were there. I think this success was a combination of Anna connecting the dots and Christie and I being calm and consistent with our methodology. Basically Anna started to learn what to expect and what was expected of her and we began to learn how to read Anna better.

SUCCESS!!! Day 2 ended with Anna verbally telling us she needed to go to the potty and going both Number 1 and Number 2!!! This was a huge milestone for Anna and for us too! We were so proud of her that we made speaker phone calls to all grandparents to be sure they knew how big of a girl Anna was!

Day 3 (Today) was just more of the same success. She began the day with a clean bed in the morning (she got up once in the middle of the night and told us she needed to go to the potty and we got her to the potty first thing in the morning when we got up – she went both times!). Anna came into her own, letting us know when she needed to go to the potty. He continued to go Number 1 a lot and she had another Number 2 – continued Number 2 success if a very encouraging thing for mommy and daddy! We went through 2 pairs of panties today, but neither of them were Anna’s fault, she let us know, we just did not get her there in time.

Day 3 ended with a trip to the restaurant for a dinner out; after 3 days cooped up in the house focusing on potty training we all needed to get out! This was a success once again; she went to the potty 3 different times while we were there! His was just another sign to us that she gets it now and the method worked as it had said it would.

That brings us to now, Anna sleeping soundly in her bed, in big girl panties, another milestone reached! Tomorrow Christie and I head back to work and Aunt Sheila begins her normal schedule with Anna. I am sure some minor setbacks are in order, but again we expect it and are prepared to deal with them.

To anyone who has a toddler to potty train, I cannot say enough how awesome of a method this is! You can get the book at http://www.3daypottytraining.com

Another more standard update form Christie will come again soon!

Love Gary, Christie Anna & Izzy

7th Month: Two under 2

2009-08-20T09:53:00.010-04:00

Well I've tried to type a post out a few times already but I was having a writers block, not that I'm truely a writer but nothing was flowing the way I wanted it to. So here I am for another try. :)

Izzy: This little girl has gotten to be so big in the last month! Just over two weeks ago she started to climb; on us, up onto furniture, onto toys that weren't so stable. That was quite a feet for her and she was so proud of herself! So two weeks ago today (6th) I came home and thought, ya know she's been pulling herself up on things, she's been army crawling for quite some time, lets see if she can sit up on her own. Sure enough, I sat her down and she wobbled a smidge, but she stayed up for a while on her own! I was so excited (and Gary wasn't home!) that she could do this, I told Anna to sit next to her while I got the camera. There Izzy sat all very proud, Anna sitting so very nicely and seemly proud of her sister and I got their first picture not sitting on the couch, not on anyone's lap, but next to each other as sisters. Say it with me, aww.....!

Since then, she's been climbing up onto chairs, our legs, doors, the door of the fridge, her sister and everything she does. So Anna's pay back is shortly coming. She's starting to actually crawl - Gary noticed last night that she was doing it more consistantly. I'll let you know when we're full fledged crawling! Shes almost 16 pounds as of her 6 month appointment, 26" or so long and her head in the 90% percentile (the rest under 40%). So really, we produce giant headed kids. :) She was amazing with her shots, more of a trooper than Anna was and that's saying something! She's onto the 2nd foods and we've been giving her soft thing to try. She loved stuffing, not so much the puffs. Hopefully she's not too picky! She's really evened her temperment out since her first few months of life. She's very happy, has a smile for everyone, sleeps through the night (except when the pipe goes missing) and just loves being around everyone (she doesn't get as mad if you leave her in another room b/c she can come find you now). She's definitely our cuddle baby and we don't mind one bit. :) Her first words would be "mama" and now we have added "baba" and "gaga" to the vocabulary. She seems to be our go to bed early, get up early girl. Hopefully she'll rub off on the rest of us! She's just an absolute joy to have in our family.

Anna: Not only is Izzy getting bigger, but this little one is gaining a vocabulary at great speeds! She definitely tries most words (when she's in the mood) that we ask her to say or as a greeting (like "see you in the morning" is "morning" or "have a good day" is "day" said in the cutest sing songy way). She sings the alphabet song, well some of it, but she knows the tune. She still just as passionate of reading books and doing puzzles as she's been so much so I get new books and puzzles from the library to switch it up along with Aunt Sheila making her a bunch of match games. She loves being outside and likes to take peoples fingers, pull them to her door and says "shoes on" or "Anna's shoes" and "side" to take her out. She's still an avid rock collector as we find stashes in buckets to strollers. She's cut all but one eye tooth and her 2 year molars. I think the 2 year molars are right around the corner b/c we've had some cranky days and lots of biting on fingers and other things.

The biggest news for Anna (and she doesn't so much know it yet) is that we're potty training her this weekend. We found a 3 day potty training system online that has proven successful for many parents, even with kids that have autism have been taught using her system. Now some people may not agree with it or don't think it's necessary to buy this PDF booklet, that's completely fine. To each their own, we've just found things we've read and tried to be very successful with both our girls and Anna is hitting all the cues of being ready. So we're taking Saturday, Sunday and Monday as days to focus on her. The process is all very positive it just involves seeing those cues and staying attentive. So we'll report back and hopefully next week she'll be in these itty bitty Elmo panties and diaper free!

For about 3 weeks now and for another 2, Aunt Sheeya has been watching the girls and have been having an awesome time! Full of art projects, playing outside, learning and just having a great time! We wish she could always watch the girls, but they'll be heading back to their daycare after school starts up again. Thank you Aunt Sheeya!

Gary and Christie: We've done a lot lately, some physically, some financially, some mentally. We've really cleaned out our garage with all the basement stuff (throwing out, 2nd handing them, and putting it back downstairs), painted our "new" 2 drawer filing cabinet a beautiful shade of green apple to match the color scheme (first pattern of navy blue, two shades of turquoise and green) we decided on. We're hoping within the next week to reclaim the garage back and then start tackling the basement!

We've also started doing Dave Ramsey's zero based budget where all of our income is accounted for. We've been doing Dave's "envelope" system for a long time on our bank's website by taking a quarter of the amount for each constant bill and putting in their own account so when the bill comes we don't have to scramble. There are exceptions like gas and electric, but the over/under amount we have in each of those seems to level it out throughout the year. This has helped us tremendously. But we found we made a lot more that we could be saving and didn't really know where it was going. So we started to account for everything like our 3+ month emergency fund, clothes, expected gifts, household items (lightbulbs, a new pillow), etc. If we don't enough in the clothes fund, we wait to buy those items till we have enough. If we don't have enough in groceries, we cut back on buying that pack of steaks till next week. Things like that. So we're saving a little right now, but we're not having to dip into our money market to buy things. Along with all that, we're snowballing all our bills like school loans, car payment and then our mortgage. I'm already over a year ahead in payments on Gary's small school loan, so when that get's paid off, that payment (which already had my small loans weekly amount added in) will go towards the next biggest loan. So we're hoping by the time the girls are in middle school, we'll have everything along with the house paid off (with our current income that is)! We're quite excited. It's these types of things Gary and I will be writing about on our joint blog.

Mentally we're trying to figure out how to simplify our life in terms of living, things in our house, our goals, where we want our side work to get, etc. It's not always very clear cut but each day we talk about these things and see where we can head together, as a couple and as a family. It's so exciting and know God has given us the tools to get to where we're at and will continue to do so.

Pretty heavy stuff, but we're up for the challenge! More pictures and videos to come this weekend (I hope)! :) Here are the picture links from the last post: The Girls and Beaver Island.

Love to you all,
Gary, Christie, George and Bob

Mid-Summer Fun!

2009-08-11T09:19:00.003-04:00

I haven't had a chance to write a blog (been busy and the internet keeps going down on us at home). But here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

Mid summer fun - A:21/I:6

Beaver Island 2009

Love,
GCAI

Changes are a-comin'! Month 6: Two under 2

2009-07-14T15:14:00.003-04:00

Well I had most of a post typed out last week and somehow it didn't save any of it. Bummer. So here we start again. Changes, I say. Are we pregnant again for the 3rd summer in a row?! Heck no. Hehe. Are we moving? Nope and I really don't want to for a long time. Did either of us lose our jobs? Nope, thankfully we're holding our own. It's not that dramatic I suppose, but in the nearer than farther future, we're going to be switching blog locations to a place that may host images and videos a lot easier than this one. It'll be an easy name change, so no worries to my followers. Gary and I are also going to start our own blog featuring things from finances to parenting to product reviews. Pretty much all things that encompass our daily lives. We have a lot of ideas and things that we truely believe in, so what better way than empty our brains than into a blog! I know, it's another thing to add to our never ending lists of projects but we're shifting gears and finalizing other projects in the near future, so stay tuned for that possibly starting up in the fall.

More summer pictures of the girls!

The girly girls are doing well. Miss Izzy is a droolin' machine, saturating a couple bibs a day. She's well on her way to her first tooth. I don't see any yet, but they are workin' their way up! She began her crawling just over 2 weeks ago and today, she's army crawling like a mad fool and getting up on all 4's with the cute little rock babies do - working her way over to wherever Anna is and wanting to eat whatever toy she's playing with. I can imagine those 2 in 2 years whispering secrets and running up and down the stairs, giggling the whole way. Can't wait! We began more solid food this weekend for the Izmeister - squash to start and on to peas! We got a screwed up face the first bite, but after that, loved it! After we get through all the veggies, we'll start fruit. I'm sure she'll love it just as much as Anna does. She's been sleeping good at night but usually cat naps during the day, so that's alright - she doesn't like to miss anything! She's still our little cuddlebug - her morning naps on Sunday are in the arms of mommy or someone else. Love it.

Ms. Anna has an ever expanding vocabulary which now entails parts of the alphabet (jklm), parts of 1-10, calling her clothes "cute", knowing what belongs to her, mommy, daddy and Izzy by pointing at a vehicle (which the van is Anna's), "glasses", "anana" for banana, "flower" and the other day I heard her say one of her friends names Owen, she goes "Ooooowwwwwwehh", so cute! Her poor little mouth is going through a growth spurt again of her 4 eye teeth. We had a few days of Tylenol and hearing "piiiiieee" (which is pipe) for comfort. But one has broken through so hopefully it'll be a little easier on her. She still loves to read her books (especially on the potty and the potty book at that!), her new thing are these 2 little babies that you can put hats and clip on clothing along with feeding them a "ba-ul" (bottle) and putting them to bed. She has 2 and usually shares one with Izzy, so she can eat it of course. She's a great, big sister and loves to make sure Izzy has the same thing she does, like a blankie or book or baby. She loves it when Izzy bats at her face or eats her nose. You can see the bond they are making already.

Mom and dad are doing well. We've hit the beach a couple times now (when summer decided to show up), had a picnic in the park, finishing up some freelance projects and in the midst (still) of putting our basement back together. We're enjoying watching the girls play and grow each day, trying to remember all those little things they do now and will slowly fade away as time goes on, making our marriage even stronger, our financial situation that much better and encouraging each other to be better parents - can't get much better than that! We're headed up to Beaver Island in a couple weeks and we're so excited for this mini-vacation. A long weekend of relaxing (or me finding little projects to work on), swimming and enjoying the beautiful views.

A few updates of the basement

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Gary, Christie, Anna and Izzy

Summer pics!

2009-06-28T15:29:00.001-04:00

Summer is finally here! Here are some pics to enjoy of the girly girls!

It was the summer of..... 2009!

Fifth Month : Two under 2

2009-06-25T11:47:00.002-04:00

First off, I'll post pictures soon, I promise! Maybe tonight. :)

We're in the 5th month of two under 2. Crazy, that Izzy's almost been here for half a year already! We couldn't imagine our family without her anymore. She's scooting, yes scooting, across the floor using her little feet to push her to where she wants to be and she's ony 5 months old! She sometimes gets the hands to work with her feet, but they usually work independently right now. She smiles at you from across the room, dimples and all. She's been on oatmeal for just over a month now and is slowly figuring out how to use her tongue to eat. In a few weeks we'll start introducing veggies - we'll see if she takes to them as well as Anna did. We also did the "cry it out method" about a month ago and it only took a few nights and she's been sleeping through the night ever since! Lovely for mom and dad, for sure. She flails her limbs when she gets excited, loves Grandma Tiemens hair as she giggles from her toes, she rolls all over the place and loves to find all of Anna's puzzle pieces to chew on. Teething for sure. She squeals when she gets to play with Anna (or rolls near her) and just follows her every move. I think Izzy is going to do things even earlier than what Anna did. She's very passionate about her bottle as even when we carry her up the stairs with her bottle in our hand, she grabs it and pulls to to her mouth ready to eat. If she even sees a bottle, she stares at it as if where going to float over to her. So cute. She's certainly a happy baby.

Anna is amazing us each day too. She studies every move we make, like how something opens, what button to push, how to use a napkin or how we say a word. It's like every moment she has, she wants to learn. She say's her ABC's really well, is starting to put 2 words together and has lessoned her "no" and timeouts lately. I'm sure that'll go in waves. She loves taking our finger and walk us over or pull us down or tells us to sit where she wants us. It's so cool that she's starting to really communicate with us and she's remember things we did a few days back. Like last night, she pulled me over to the stairs and patted the step for me to sit down. She brought over a catepillar car. Then I remembered we did that the other night where I rolled it into the kitchen and she'd bring it back to me. Smart girl. Or she's grab our finger only to walk a couple steps and then pull for us to sit down by a puzzle to do with her. Then last night was great! Gary brought out her beanbag chair and she flopped down in it. He picked her and the chair up to drop it back on the floor and she'd giggle. Then she'd said "again"! Hehe, that was awesome. She's having the typical toddler issues with dinner by not always eating something she's like a week ago, so we've been telling her that that's the only food she'll get tonight. She doesn't seem to mind, but we give her a snack a little later and tell her she got on b/c she ate dinner good. So far dad's a lot better at dealing with that than I am. :) I have guilty mom syndrome. She loves being outside, sometimes bringing us her shoes and saying "side" as she walks to the door.

We're trying to enjoy outside when it's not over 90! The sprinklers have been turned on a few times - Anna likes it half the time. Weird. We planted a small veggie/herb garden to see what happens. So far the tomato plant is huge but some of the others have had their leaves eaten. Most of my flowers are planted - still trying to find the time to spray paint my pots again to get the remainder on display. A few new bushes and perennials have been added this year. In the fall, some dividing and transplanting will be in order. We're looking to get some rock for the sides of the house (since the house didn't come with gutters!) yet this summer. We're hoping to finishing painting the basement this weekend (guest room: fresh day, living room: starless night and pure white) so we can start moving stuff back down there... oh, and we can't forget the 52" tv that has to go on the wall. :) We'll just have some little projects to finish up this summer, the rest can wait till fall/winter (can't believe I just said that). In the meantime, we're going to try to get the beach and the lake whenever we can. At the end of July, we're heading up to Beaver Island for what seems may become a yearly event. Fine by me! It's awesome up there.

We're all healthy, cool and thankful for our jobs and life. It's busy at times (well most of the time) but we wouldn't want it any other way! Here's to a wonderful summery weekend!

Love,

Gary, Christie, Anna and the Izmeister

5th month: Two under 2

2009-06-08T09:36:00.002-04:00

We're in the midst of basement refinishing, with the mud and taping finishing up today! It looks great, dirty, but great! We're going to get the spare room painted this week so when the fam comes up this weekend, they'll have a semi-private and clean room to sleep in. With the sale of the truck, the purchase of the longed for TV's and all the special wiring and set up in the living room of the basement, I've decided to decorate the spare room with no direction (except that it'll flow with the colors of the living room and carry the chair rail through the room) from Gary. Not that one or the other gets the ultimate say over room, it just defaulted that Gary put a lot of thought into his networking and surround sound, so I declared the spare room mine. :) So with my cronic blog reading, I've been inspired to do the room in a beachy, coastal decor. Very soft, washed out colors, with all of the accessories repurposed from the thrift store and a homemade headboard. So excited! As with everything with 2 little kiddies, it'll be a process, but at least I have an idea to work with. The living room will have a 3/4 chair rail with the bottom being white with trim to create some dimension and above the chair rail will be a deep shade of navy blue. With all this, built in desks and cabinets (all still to be determined as we keep finding new inspiration for what we realy want to do with our all purpose living room), a living space, plenty of storage for all our crafty, computer, kid and house stuff. Yay!

As for the kiddies, they're doing great! Izzy is getting better with sleeping through the night, but only one time still works for us if that's the way she is. She sleeps like a little frog with her legs on the sides of her as opposed to Anna's method of butt up in the air. Both extremely cute. Izzy started on oatmeal a couple weeks ago and seems to love it! Although she doesn't quite get how to take food off her spoon other than using her tongue like she drinks her bottle, but most of it makes it in her mouth! So we thought Anna was a quick learner, Miss Izzy has figuring out how to use her legs or leg rather to scoot herself closer to whatever she just lost or wants. She's only 4 3/4 months old and she's starting to figure out the whole crawling thing! I'm going to video that this week. She's getting to be a big girl, looking more like a baby than a newborn. Her little giggle and bright smile is always something to brighten up our day. It does go by fast, but I'm glad to still have an itty bitty thing around the house. :)

Anna is growing up more and more each day. She's learning new words every day, seems to know what a sentence is but doesn't have the right words to put it all together yet. She's adding new animal sounds with the latest being a tiger, lion and bear all growling the same way, but so cute. She does a monkey, snake, horse and sheep really well too. She can repeat the alphabet very clearly except for a few letters. She's taken to what sound like singing these days. Love it. She still loves "no" and seems to get frustrated with little kids and tends to bite to get our her frustrations. So immediately mom got the book out "Teeth are not for biting". Hehe. But we found she bites herself and starts bawling. Don't get it. She gets "ouchys" a lot and needs them kissed a lot. So with all that said, we've started working in timeouts and that's seemed to be quite effective. She gives hugs and kisses (when she wants to) very well, helps out with giving Izzy her pipe back, giving her the small Elmo to play with while she plays with crazy Happy Birthday Elmo. :) She likes to play with Izzy, but then it turns into what can I get away with by stepping over Izzy, stepping on Izzy's limbs, ramming her pipe in her mouth and pulling her hair. She doesn't know her own strength but knows that timeouts follow if she continues mauling her poor little sister.

Gary and I had our first kidless weekend (Izzy's first time overnight somewhere else)! We headed to Detroit as neither of us had spent much time over there. We got a river view room in the Marriott, walked the riverwalk, did some shopping, relaxed and hit up a Tiger's game and a great dinner at Detroit Beer Co. A well needed, rejuvinated weekend for the parents while the grandparents and Aunt "She-ya" enjoyed spoiling the girls over the weekend. Back to reality, but excited to start painting the basement and getting ready for family this weekend!

Hope everyone had a wonderful, rain free weekend! Hopefully summer will start soon! I'll post more pictures soon (and maybe find a better way to get pictures up faster)!

Love to you all,
GCAI

Enter Spring: Two under 2

2009-05-22T12:34:00.003-04:00

Spring pics of the Tidd's!

Oh man, have I said before that we're a busy family? We are. With 2 little girls sending my worry up and down with sickness or pain, parents with full time jobs, family and friend get togethers and just life in general, I feel like I forget to breathe sometimes. I know someday I'll look back and wonder where those days went, but in the midst of it all, my head spins sometimes. I really don't mean to start each post speaking like we don't enjoy our life, because we do so much! Despite the busyness, we have such an amazing time together as a family.

Last Monday (5/11), Izzy rolled over that we saw with no help from her back to her tummy. Well Thursday (5/14), she was rolling all over the place, back to front, front to back, she's got it down. Then at G&G Tiemens house, Grandma got her to giggle for the first time on Sunday (5/17)! I knew the time was coming and I was so looking forward to her little giggle. Just as adorable as Anna's and a little deeper than her sister's. What joy she's brought to this family. Her watching your every move, making sure you aren't too far away. Her smile and big blue eyes. Her cute head of hair, that is currently thinning and getting a little lighter. Her love of sleeping on her tummy/side, her contentment of watching TV with daddy and snuggling with mommy in bed. Her needing the touch of mommy and daddy - she loves holding our fingers. Her excitement when big sister plays near or with her - such huge smiles and flaling of limbs. We had her 4 month appointment last night - all is well, even with her cronic spit up problem. Doc said "wouldn't you have something to spit up if all you had was liquids and you laid on your back most of the time?" Point taken - worry somewhat removed. :) She's a whopping 12 pounds, 7 ounces and almost 24" long. Our 2nd little peanut.

Little miss Thang...er...Anna is doing well too. She's quite selective in her food choices these days. She likes things one day, but the next, nope. She'd rather eat fruit (I know that's good) than anything really, but we're trying to break her of eating what's put in front of her. Dad's better at dealing with that than I. She's learning new words daily, even hourly. She can say hi (whomever's on the phone), love you and bye bye on the phone with people. So cute and little human like! Her hair is getting longer, not thicker, so I'm able to do more things with her hair which is fun (and challenging)! She loves digging in the dirt with her shovels, doing puzzles, reading books and exploring everyday. She amazes us and frustrates us in a matter of minutes, but we can't imagine life without her.

Gary and I are still very thankful for our stable jobs, being able to provide for our family, pay off all our lingering baby bills/home improvement bills with our return on top of doing some fun things for us too. We're still working on getting the basement finished, mudding and tapping next week! So this weekend will be basement emptying weekend. Yippee! With all the craziness of life with the girls, we're taking a mom and dad weekend in a few weeks to Detroit. We're looking forward to that!

Hope this find all of you well!

Love,
Dad, Mom, Anna Lynn and Isabella Clara

Sweet Anna and a sleepy Izzy

2009-05-13T10:47:00.003-04:00

Driving to daycare/work this morning, I sneezed. Just me and the girls in the van. Without hesitation, Anna goes "blesss yoouuu.....". Twice. We say that to the girls and to eachother, so it was only time when she would do it back. I thought that was the sweetest thing. Then she smiles with her toothy grin and chubby cheeks. Love it.

Doesn't matter where we are, if she finishes all of her Fruit Loops, we take the last bit off our plate or take the final gulp of milk in our glass, she opens her arms and says "alllll goonne....".

She doesn't do this as often, yet, unprompted, but we say "love you" right to her and she goes, with her lips all pursed "lloooovv yooouuu...." and sometimes with a "too" at the end. So cute.

We drive by two sets of cows each morning and afternoon. The one farm has just a couple cow statues by the road and before I even realized they are there, she goes "cow". And the 2nd farm, before we even see the cows now, the silos high in the sky, she know's there are cows and declares it. I tell her they are eating breakfast or dinner.

Also this morning, Gary was right in front of us as we turned our opposite ways. She knew that was him and said "bye daddy" and waved. What a sweet girl she is (despite our "uh oh" reports from daycare on a couple biting incidents - she gets a little fiesty with the kids sometimes or she's just defending herself).

And our dear sweet little Izzy slept from about 9pm to 6am this morning. I woke up at 6 and said to Gary, she slept through the night! I went to check on her, picked her up and moved her into our room and she stayed sleeping! I know I keep saying this, but maybe we're on to something!

Just wanted to share the joys of the Tidd house for the week. :) Happy Wednesday!

4th month: 2 under 2

2009-05-06T09:49:00.002-04:00

Little Miss Izzy is starting to come into her own these days. We altered her sleeping schedule to go down with Anna and she'll wake up around 2-3am to eat and back down again. We've been putting her in her bouncy seat after she eats, but as of last few nights, she doesn't like it anymore. I think she's too confined and wants a bit more freedom. So now, she sleeps on her side between padded bumper things, as peaceful as can be (except last night when she started to get my cold!). This morning she slept until about 3:30.....are we heading to a full nights sleep? I hope so!

She's really starting to develop her personality too. She's a smiley little girl that absolutely loves to talk up a storm! She might be our "mom, mom, mom.... this is what I did today..... mom, mom, mom..... can I have this." Hehe. She can roll on her side from her back and may have rolled over on to her tummy on her own the other morning. Here's the story: Anna's playing in the living room while we start to get lunches ready for the morning. Izzy's on the floor near Anna (she loves watching her play) with her little rattle around her wrist on her back. We're making lunches and I hear Izzy struggling a little, so I go peak my head around the corner to see Izzy on her tummy, Anna standing next to her, holding the rattle up in the air... that's still attached to Izzy's wrist. Poor Izzy, her little face was in the carpet trying to turn over while Anna just stands there, knowing she's doing something she shouldn't be. So we're not sure if she rolled over and then Anna took the rattle or Anna took the rattle which flipped Izzy over.

She's blowing bubbles and usually wants to stand up rather than be craddled now. Gary and I talked about that last night, how big she's getting already! As much as we're ready for her to be on the same schedule with Anna, we sure do love seeing her little personality come to life and learn all these new things. Her little face is getting fuller (and that really makes her almost no neck disappear - poor girl!). She's eating 6 ounces usually and sometimes with rice cereal, so she'll be our "chunk" as in bigger than Anna but still a peanut.

Anna's testing the waters of what to eat and what not to eat. We had a crying episode the other night at a burger joint in town. We got her a hot dog, which she'd been eating the last week or so, she took one bite and saw our fries. We gave her one. Then we tried reasoning with a 1 year old with take another bite of hotdog and you can have another fry. Nope. Endless crying. A few things stopped her from crying, but it carried on until we got the road where we would turn to go to a furniture store we wanted to check out. Gary decided that we weren't going to let that stop us from going there. More crying. At the store, guess what, she was a perfect angel. Blah. With that, the next morning I heard a lot of rumbles in the tummy of the small child. Someday we'll win the war (prolly not), right now, we're trying to win just one battle once in awhile.

We're know back down to only 2 vehicles at the Tidd house! At the Grandpa Tiemens Car Lot, we sold the beloved blue Dodge Dakota. It spent it's first 10 years of life with Gary and now it's on to be someones beater. Oh well, Gary's happy. This money was already spoken for long ago by getting his coveted flat screen TV's. So money in, money out by the weekend. :)

Well that's the current state of the homestead. We're hanging in their constantly trying to find the balance of life. :)

Hope everyone is having a good mid-week!

Gary, Christie, Boog and Izzy

Another week of two under 2

2009-04-30T08:39:00.002-04:00

Pics of the girls! and The Month by Month

If I could change just one thing right now, I would love love love it if Izzy could sleep until at least 5:30am every morning. She gets up every morning between 3:30 and 4:30. In this instance and I try not to say this too often, but why can't she be like her sister?! That way Gary and I could get some decent sleep to function throughout our next busy day. I'll take the spit up, the teething, hissy fits being thrown b/c she doesn't want to come inside, Cheerios all over the floor for just 1-2 more hours of sleep.

Ok. I'm done whining.

On a happier note, the girls keep growing! Izzy is getting heavier (I know this b/c of the weight of her in the car seat seems to surprise me now and again). She's up to 6 ounces every 4 hours or so. She talks to us a lot - maybe more than Anna did and gives us cute smiles. She still has maintained her curly hair with a tinge of red color. So cute. She's doing really well on her tummy, lifting her head for more than a couple seconds now (she'd rather suck on her hand or arm) and almost ready to roll over from her tummy to her back and her back to her tummy. Genius I tell you! She's still battling a cough, that we treated for 10 days with antibotics but hasn't gone away completely yet, that sometimes she coughs so hard to throws up. Kind of scary but she just doesn't know how to clear her throat or stop coughing without calming her down again. We may visit the ole doctor's office again.

Ms. Anna is extending her vocabulary and motor skills daily. "No" is quite popular but she says "love you" and even tried "love you, too", "ready to go", "bear", "ball", "eye" and a lot more that I can only remember when I run through all that she knows. She knows what a birdy says "tweet tweet", car goes "vroom vroom" and about a quarter of the alphabet in Zoo Phonics (sounds and motions). Some things we don't need to prompt her to do like doggy, cow and ball. She got some small puzzles for Easter and mastered those that day - who knew! So we busted out the puzzles Aunt Sheila got her for Christmas and did really well with those too. She is loving being able to go outside and play on her "side" (slide), collect rocks and rake in the dirt. We got her a scoot around bike (no pedals) and she likes it, but doesn't always get it. Don't think Izzy's the only one reaking havoc - Anna is starting to only eat certain things and will learn that she'll get what we put in front of her or she doesn't eat. Tough love, I know. She drops when she doesn't like something or hits. She's hitting the terrible 2's, still teething and learning how to express herself to us. I know it's all typical and we handle it fairly well.

The 'rents are holding their own. Work is busy for me, show time! Gary's job is going well, too. So for that, we are thankful! We have a nice stream of side business, trying to kick start Blossom Studios and revamp Paper and Ink. Hopefully it'll be a means to an end - for me to stay home! We've (meaning me) started seeds inside and some already had to go back into the earth (peas and beans) as they got too big for their britches and my lack of watering didn't help. But the others are all manageable and eagerly awaiting the outside. I have all the plans in my head ready for the girls bathroom - something a little more girly b/c I know we have girls! Hehe. I'll post pictures of the projects and the room itself once I find the time. With my cronic blog reading, I have many DIY projects I'd love to do, but again, time is the enemy and I have none. So once the girls get on the same schedule, I'll have some more time to work on these things.

Thank you for all your prayers and cards in the passing of Gary's grandpa. It means a lot to us and the family. We're starting a new tradition by having Grandma Tuesday's. On Tuesdays, Gary's picking her up and having dinner at our house, then bring her to the store for groceries and back home again. She enjoys being with family and seeing the girls, so it's a pleasure to do it!

We're also keeping busy with doing fun stuff outside, like taking walks, bike rides, trips to the park, trips to Frederick Meijer Gardens and in the next couple months, the beach! Anna loves being outside and the fresh air doesn't hurt either!

Well, that's us at the moment. :)

Love to all!
Gary, Christie, Boog and Izmeister

Izzy's Videos

2009-04-26T09:17:00.005-04:00

Anna's videos!

2009-04-25T15:27:00.007-04:00

Anna loved to put on Gary's gloves and with a smooch to boot!

Never a dull moment with Uncle Alex - crusin' in the container!

Now it's Anna's turn to pull Uncle Alex!

Our first Easter morning egg hunt!

Stay tuned for Izzy vids soon!

Frank H Hall - June 23 1929 - April 19 2009

2009-04-20T23:18:00.005-04:00

Photos:

Click here to view pics of Grandpa

Obituary:

Click here to view the obituary

A Lasting Impression:

Well here I am again, one of my rare appearances on our blog. Well I say our blog but let’s be honest, it is Christie’s blog chronicling our lives. The reason for this posting is both sad and joyful, sad because I have temporarily lost a very important person in my life, joyful because he is now in the presence of the Lord and he feels no more pain. In the coming paragraphs I hope to be able to paint a picture of my grandfather for those of you who did not know him. For those of you who did know him, I hope this will bring back memories that will not only bring a tear to your eye but a smile to your face.

My grandfather, Frank H Hall began life in Southern Illinois in a small cabin with a dirt floor. There is some debate as to how many brothers and sisters he had but we know for sure that he was at least 1 of 15 siblings born to at least 3 different wives of his father. Both of his parents were of significant Cherokee Indian heritage which could be seen in his features. Grandpa eventually made his way to Grand Rapids when his older brother, the man I knew as Uncle Earl came to town.

Once in Grand Rapids Grandpa attended and finished High School at Union High, joined the Army Air Corps and in 1949 married my Grandmother. After earning several medals during the Korean War he came home to be with his family. I remember grandma saying that my uncle Frank was something like 18 months old by the time they made it home. They lived for a time in Waco Texas but made it back to Grand Rapids which is where they would remain.

They had 4 children, Frank, Dan Ardis (my mother) and Steve. From there they ended up with 8 Grandchildren, Andrea and David born to Frank and his wife Berta, Daniel and Derek born to Dan and his wife Trema, Gary & Sheila born to Ardis and her husband Gary (my parents) and last but not least, Anthony and Jeremy born to Steve and his wife Kris. The family grew even more when they began to have great grandchildren. Connor and Ethan, born to Andrea and her husband Jacob, Ryan and Kylie born to David and his wife Liz, Alex born to Daniel and Anna and Isabella born to Christie and I.

Grandpa was a man of quiet confidence. He was one of those men that led by example and who commanded respect just by his presence. Grandpa never had to say much to get his point across. You knew with just a look whether he was proud of you, disappointed in your actions, happy, sad or mad. Grandpa had the patience of an angel. My mother fondly remembers playing cowboys & Indians in the living room, running and screaming around Grandpa’s chair while he read the paper as if it were dead silent in that room.

Grandpa was a teacher who taught in the same way that he lead, by example. Many of life’s lessons were learned without him uttering a word. Others needed some words applied to them but they were always spoken with a quiet confidence that served to say, “Trust me I know what I am doing”.

Grandpa was known for his ability to fix anything. It did not seem to matter what you brought him he would find a way to fix it. From bracelets to toys, to washing machines, pools or even mopeds, Grandpa could fix them all. Grandpa no doubt honed these skills during his tenure as a member, and eventually Foreman of the maintenance department at Country Fresh Dairy in Grand Rapids.

Grandpa worked for Country Fresh for 39 years and retired when I was 14 years old. I have vivid memories of class trips to the dairy where Grandpa would walk us all around and show us how things worked. The tour would conclude with a free ice cream treat. I would always choose a Nestle’s Crunch Bar.

Retirement was good to Granma & Grandpa. They were able to spend their time doing the things that mattered most to them. These included their church family as well as the family that they had built. Grandma and Grandpa attended what is now known as Grand Rapids First. I always knew it as First Assembly of God. Grandma & Grandpa were saved and born again in the early 80’s. I remember there being a significant change in them at this point in their life. From this point on they became wholly devoted to the Lord and they grew in that faith and devotion every day.

During Grandpa’s final days on this earth we all gathered around his bedside daily. His last words to me were, “I thank the Lord for you and those kids”, referring to my 2 daughters, Anna & Isabella. Christie reflected on the vision of all of my uncles and one of their cousins gathered around Grandpa’s bedside in the living room of their condo in Georgetown. She marveled at 4 big burly men standing around a once large and burly man who has now become frail, weak and small. She commented on how it felt like a torch was being passed on. On further reflection, I had to agree. So my final words to my Grandpa on Sunday were, “It is OK to go Grandpa. You have taught us well, we will take what you have taught us and pass it on. We will Take care of Grandma; there is no need to worry.”

From there Christie, the girls and I went to Church. The entire time during our worship I kept praying that the Lord would take him. Just as the pastor began his sermon, my phone rang and I just knew what it was. Upon exiting the Sanctuary I got the news that I had been preparing myself for, Grandpa was gone. When we got back to his condo, I went to his bedside and thanked him for letting go and thanked the Lord for taking him to a better place.

As a tribute to our Indian heritage, my mother’s Cousin Larry, the son of Grandpa’s brother Earl, posted the following poem to Grandpa’s online guest book.

An Indian Prayer

I give you this one thought to keep,
I'm with you still I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone,
I am with you still,
in each new dawn.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand there at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

Author Unknown
Earl Hall's Tribe
Cherokeeson@sbcglobal.net
Apr 20, 2009 Wayland, MI

Grandpa did not die; he is alive in Christ, watching over us as we continue our Earthly journey. He is now in the place that we all strive to be. Grandpa is alive in us as well, through our memories and our habits and idiosyncrasies’ learned from him. Grandpa has passed the torch to all of us who knew him, it is our turn to teach, lead, guide and love.

Thank you all for your words of prayer and support on Facebook, they are truly appreciated.

Love

Gary, Christie, Anna & Izzy

Ebay Auction

2009-04-14T09:29:00.003-04:00

Our church is doing an Ebay auction to raise money for 3 local charities. There are some really cool items on there like trips, hunting equipment and other items. Gary and I donated a computer package and a graphic design package along with Blossom Studios having a package on there. Check it out and see if there's anything your interested in!

Fairhaven Ministries Ebay Auction

Thanks for looking!

Week 12-13: Two under 2

2009-04-13T21:16:00.005-04:00

Spring is here! (Can I say that so soon?) We're hitting the 50's and 60's this week, so we're well on our way to warmer days. This year wasn't too bad for me anyway, I was in the house most of the winter on maternity leave with the girls. I recommend having babies in winter - good excuse to stay in. :)

For all of you who just like to look at pictures, here's the latest. :)

Spring has Sprung - A:18/I:3 and Updates at the Tidd house

Let's see, what have we been up to... Last Saturday we had a busy day of a baby shower for our friends, Steve and Rebecca. She's having a little girl, Olivia, next month! In our neighborhood, we've set a requirement that all girls should begin and end in vowels (Olivia, Anna, Isabella, Alyssa and Asha) and boys (Ethan) start with a vowel. Too funny! I made my first diaper cake as a gift, which I think turned out pretty darn good.

We rounded out the weekend with church and dinner with Gary's grandparents and parents. His grandpa is doing ok. He's quite weak and tired these days. If you could pray for him and grandma, they'd really appreciate it.

Gary flew out Sunday afternoon for a conference in DC for a few days. He went with a few co-workers and his boss. He went to a bunch of seminars and participated in a panel discussion about making academic offices paperless, making them rely more on technology than paper. He got us all a souvenier and took some camera phone pictures. Alex and Sheila took turns staying with me to help me get out the door on time each morning - thank you! We gladly welcomed him back home Wednesday night.

Friday afternoon we headed to Chicago for an overnight trip. We hadn't seen Ryan and Angela since Christmas and they had yet to meet Izzy, so it was nice to get out there a little earlier. Saturday morning was a shower for my cousin Katie who's getting married in June. I'm glad we were able to make it! I was able to help Katie with her invites (which turned out beautifully!) and have loved watching her bring her dreams to life. Makes me want to redo my wedding day stuff (not the day!). Saturday night we were back in MI to get ready for Easter Sunday.

Sunday started out good with Anna finding her eggs from her bedroom door to her Easter basket in her seat for breakfast. She did good for awhile but got bored after a bit. Soon after breakfast started, Izzy was coughing so hard, she threw up. She's been sick with a cold for awhile but she started not eating well the last few days and coughing. So we called the on-call service and said we were doing all the right things. Monday (this morning) we wanted the doctor to look at her and he gave her the all clear, she just has a cold in her head and her way of clearing her throat is coughing. So hopefully the next few days bring us a more restful Izzy. Poor girl. We did nursery Sunday morning and had lots of beautiful kids with pastely clothes on. Too cute. Dinner was at Grandma and Grandpa's again. We had a nice time where the girls got baskets from G&G Tidd and we were able to help Grandma clean out her fridge and help Grandpa to bed. So needless to say, it was a draining day!

Hopefully the next week will bring us good health, sunny days and new experiences. We're doing well despite minor set backs. We're thankful for our jobs, our little girls, our marriage, our families and for the death and resurrection our Savior!

Hope this find everyone well, getting their gardens ready and planning summer vacations!

Love to you all,

GCAI

Weeks 9-11: Two under 2

2009-04-02T21:29:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the delay! Man, these girls sure keep us on our toes. I'll try not to start out each post with saying how busy we are, but time does fly by! It might be kind of hard to remember all that's gone on in the past few weeks, but I'll see what I can dig up.

Pictures of the girls (I'll get more posted this weekend I hope and send out a new link of pictures):

Anna (17 mo) and Izzy (2 mo)
Month by Month

Izzy: We had her 2 month appointment a couple weeks ago. She was still 10 pounds 2 ounces seeing as we were in just a week prior. She had her first rounds of immunizations and did really well! No fever or sleepless night and didn't cry more than 30 seconds. She's just as much of a trooper as her big sister. She's 22 1/4 inches long, so at the same timeframe her and Anna were about the same length but Izzy's almost 2 pounds heavier at this age than Anna. Izzy's been smiling a lot more when we talk to her, especially when Anna is near her. We try to tell Anna that she loves it when you're around her, that she loves you, making it a positive thing. She does pretty good. She's also become quite a chatty little girl too - especially after her baths. Cooing, trying to find her voice and seems so proud when she does. She's still our little cuddle bug, sleeping the best when being held or at least near someone. I can't wait for the day when she grabs her blankie and just wants to sit on your lap for an hour. She sleeps till 5am most nights, sometimes a little longer. With our doctor's suggestion, we're trying her nighttime bottle with some rice cereal, but she doesn't seem to sleep any longer. Who knows. :) It's so fun to see her develop who she is and to sit back and think of what these 2 are going to be like as sisters. Izzy also had her baptism on March 15. We had a wonderful time with family and fawning over Izzy. :)

Anna: I swear she'll be talking in full sentences in weeks. She tries to say the last word or 2 of everything we say. She repeats "sentences" like she knows what she wants to say, but can't say it yet. It's amazing. On the way home from daycare each day, we practice saying and doing everything she knows and then add in a few extra things. We know what a lot animals say, kitty is our new one, with her cute little "meow". She knows where most of her body parts are from her pigtails and eyes to her knees and "belbows". We practice saying all of her aunts and uncles names (Sheila is "ee-ya", Alex is "ee-esch", Ryan is "ee-yan" and Angela and Libby are difficult yet), grandpa is "papa", grandma is some babble, mommy and daddy said loud and clear, and Izzy is "baby". :) She's said Izzy a couple times, but when we say, say Izzy, she says baby. Too funny. She is learning the joy of a bubble bath, she collects rocks with her neighborhood friends and is a bit on the crabby side yet b/c of teeth and being almost 2 I'd guess. She's certainly growing up and we're just amazed at all she does already. I know she loves her little sister, it's just hard to share the attention sometimes.

Mom and Dad: Gary had a oral surgery last week. He had an infection at the tip of the root where a root canal wouldn't get to it. They had to cut his gum and drill through the bone to get to it. Talk about goosebumps. He's healing up nicely and pain free. Work is going well for him and keeping busy for sure. I'm doing well, working on getting our new business venture, Blossom Studios, up and running. We had a successful craft expo a few weeks ago and have been spreading the word and people are excited! Our prelim website is http://blossomstudios.shutterfly.com and I'm working on an actual site design. So anyone in West Michigan, NW Indiana and south side of Chicago, let us know if your intersted! Work is going well for me - I think we'll make it through the downtimes alright. It seems as we won't struggle for business, just making a profit this year. Which is better than most can say. The basement is on hold I suppose, until we have a free weekend or motivation to move on to the next phase (mudding and taping). We have a room where people can sleep, so that's the main thing we needed for right now. We're ready for spring, to get out for walks, bike rides, trips to the park, gardening and soon after that, the beach! I'm also taking on the venture of starting my own seeds for a garden. Three days in and we already have sprouts!

All in all, we're doing well. We're all happy, healthy and thankful. Please keep Gary's Grandpa Hall in your prayers as he's been in and out of the hospital for dehydration and possible pneumonia. He'll be getting in home care now. Keep Grandma in your prayers as well as she cares for him.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,
Gary, Christie, Anna and Isabella

Some mid-week girly Tidd action

2009-03-24T21:40:00.007-04:00

Anna plays the Wii Anna-style

Anna loves playing on the slide at the mall - we go there just to play now, not just shop!

Izzy doing a little tummy time!

Grandpa taught Anna how to fold her arms - too cute!

Anna found some shipping tubes and decided to get silly.

Week 7 and 8: Two under 2

2009-03-17T09:39:00.007-04:00

Click on the link below to see new pictures!

Pictures! Anna at 17 months and Izzy at 2 months

I didn't think having 2 kids would busy, but from the time we get up to the time we go to bed we're on the move! Since I do these in weeks, I should probably go in chronological order.

The weekend before I went back to work, I decided to try rock climbing at Calvin's new rock wall. I'd never done it before and I usually play it safe and not try those kinds of things. But Alex and Gary talked me in to it, so up I went. I went up about 3/4 of the way and knew that was enough for that day. It was quite intimidating, but I'd try it again. :)

Monday ended my maternity leave, so I made the trek back out to Spring Lake once again. So far, it's been going well in terms of all of us getting out the door with all 7 bags, yes 7. One for Anna, one for Izzy, my purse, my lunch bag, a personal bag, Gary's lunch bag and sometimes a plastic bag or backpack for Gary. That doesn't include a possible doll or blanket that Anna bring with her. I think we've got it down for now. Mornings go as follows: wake up between 5:30 and 6, Gary feeds Izzy while I start getting ready, then we both get ready, wake up Anna, Gary gets Anna ready, I get Izzy ready and finish up myself, Gary brings Anna down to have her "pre-breakfast" of milk and Cheerios he fills lunch bags, I bring Izzy down with any other paraphenalia from upstairs and help finish getting everything ready, finally we usually all walk out the door between 7:10-7:15. Not too shabby for the Tidd's who love to sleep. :)

Izzy's doing great! We had a little scare last week with some blood in her stool, but it ended up being a tear due to her bowel movements changing with having more formula. I'm sure you all wanted to know, but it's what happened. :) So I got that phone call before lunch. Then just before the end of the work day, I get another call from daycare about Anna having a 103 temp. So the next morning, Izzy went in to the doctor, all was good and Anna had a fever due to teething. So she spent the day with Grandpa that day. We found out that Izzy is already 10 pounds 2 ounces. She eats all the time! Anna didn't get to that weight until about 15 weeks and Izzy wasn't quite 9 yet. Can they be anymore different!?

With the temp, I stuck my finger in Anna's mouth to see what else was coming in. Well, we thought it was just 2 molars and the bottom two 2nd teeth. Come to find out, it's all 4 molars and the bottom teeth. No wonder! It took about a day and a half of Tylenol and Motrin to finally break the fever. And let me tell you, she's a joy to be around! Oye. Hehe. It's just a phase.... it's just a phase.... :) On a happier note with Anna, she's really come into her own in the last couple weeks. She will try saying just about anything we ask her to. She says "no" - I know, not good, "door", "kitty", "get down" which sounds more like "gee...doooo", she knows how to make the kitty sound and eats really well with a fork and spoon. She's still a sweetheart of a little girl giving hugs and kisses to us and her sister, she's just going through a rough patch with all these teeth invading her mouth. Poor girl.

Our basement is fully drywalled! It's feeling more and more like a room we'd all spend time in together. Now on to mudding, taping and painting! That was a major project getting to this point. Gary did a lot of wiring to account for his networking and cable needs....err....wants. :) He's very proud of it and it's what he's wanted to do for so long. I know we'll all enjoy it! Our next big project of the week is my craft show this weekend. My friend Jenn and I have collaborated our talents and created Blossom Studios, a photographer and design business. We'll be debuting it this weekend at our church, Fairhaven Ministries, hopefully booking sessions and selling some gifts! If you're in the west Michigan area, it's this Saturday, March 21 from 9-3 in the gym. Come and visit!

Otherwise we're all surviving and so excited that spring is pretty much here! Now comes garage cleaning, veggie garden creating, flower planting and painting! Oh the endless projects. :)

I hope this finds all of you well and gearing up for spring!
Love,
Gary, Christie, Boog and Iz-meister

Late Winter - Early Spring Videos and Pics!

2009-03-05T22:41:00.003-05:00

The wee little one is wide awake!

Anna sharing kisses with Izzy.

Being a little chatty, but soon had enough!

Give it to Uncle Alex to make the child dizzy.

And now for some new pics of our recent happenings:

Month by Month

Anna at 16 Month and Izzy at 1 Month

A little bit of fun

Week Six and Seven (mostly): 2 under 2

2009-03-05T08:47:00.003-05:00

So I'm a little behind on getting up last weeks events, so once again here's a combo post of last week and what's gone on this week.

Izzy: She's doing great! She's starting to smile and talk a lot these days. I remember this phase with Anna, being able to get her to smile at any moment. It was great to start to see her become more of an infant than a newborn and now we can see it with Izzy. She's a cuddler and loves to be held more than left by herself. We call her the needy one but who can resist cuddling up with a little baby? It's probably a little early yet, but I think shes going to keep her blue eyes, maybe a different shade than Anna. Her golden copper hair may remain, but again only time will tell that one. I was born blonde and am now about what Izzy is. She's sleeping through the night most of the time, definitely not as consistant as Anna was at her age. But they are definitely their own person. I think she's between 9 and 10 pounds by now. We go in 2 weeks from today for her first round of shots and see how she's growing. She starts up daycare on Monday as I go back to work. They are very excited to have her - it's nice to know the staff quite well and know your kids are in good, caring hands.

Anna: She's quite the independant soul but has so much love to give. She's starting to try and say so many words now and slowly she's getting there! Juice is her new word this week. She gives hugs and kisses all the time, hugs your legs, smiles real big with her teeth when you have the camera pointed at her, gives "big hugs" and puts her arms around your neck and squeezes, and gives hugs and kisses to Izzy (she gets mad when Izzy doesn't give her her lips to kiss). I'm now having to do her hair some mornings, she brushes her teeth with a big girl toothbrush and lets me help her. The clothes she wears makes her look so big, not to mention when you pick her up and hold her, she's so big! It's amazing how fast they grow in all respects in such a short amount of time. On the other side of things, she's bitten us a few times only to feel the pain in return. So that's quite infrequent. She kicks and puts her arms straight when we're holding her and she doesn't like whatever is going on at the moment. She know's what "come here" means, but only comes when it benefits her. Those cute little faces know a lot more than we know but as we all do it, selective understanding plagues her sometimes. She definitely keeps us on our toes and learning new ways to parent everyday. Despite the frustrating moments, we're so excited to see her learn everyday.

The Parents: I start work back up on Monday after an 8 week maternity leave. This leave has had its trials and tribulations figuring out how to parent 2 girls and how to get Izzy to sleep through the night. But I've also been able to take in a lot of side work and finish up some other projects that needed to be completed. I didn't get paid the last month of my leave, but it's been refreshing not to have to work from home - no deadlines to meet or issues to work through. I would love to stay home with the girls and do all the mommy stuff day in and day out, but bills need to be paid and I'm just thankful I have a job to do such a thing. Someday. Gary's doing well. Keeping busy at work and for that we are thankful as well. We've been trying to come up with a routine to keep up with the house, dinners but also make sure we have time to have fun and do family stuff. So we'll really put that in practice staring next week. With spring coming, hopefully it'll be a smooth transition. We're looking to get some more of the basement done in the next couple weeks. We always have some project going on. :)

I'll post more tomorrow with photos, videos and my newest Blurb book idea!

Goodnight!
GCAI

Weeks Four & Five: 2 under 2

2009-02-21T14:13:00.002-05:00

First of all, I'm not sure if some of the readers don't notice the links to pictures, so here they are, front and center:

The Girls

Well, as you can see, we've been busy. Things have been getting better in a lot of ways. We're really getting to figure Izzy out. She's going to be our cuddle bug, the one who loves to sit on someones lap, just to be close. She doesn't like to be left alone or left out flat on her back. She'll turn her head and watch us walk around and as soon as it's been to long for her to be alone, she'll start crying. If she is already changed and fed, but still crying, we've found the key. A sling. I got a sling a couple weeks ago and that does the trick everytime and still allows us to mulit-task a bit. She loves being put in the fetal position, close to us and bounced. In terms of sleeping at night, we've got that down. Like with Anna, we give her a bath, then feed her and put her to bed (which is still the carseat at this point). She usually goes down when we go to bed and up between 5-7. I can handle that (and soon we'll both be able to handle that as I have 2 weeks left on maternity leave). We've been introducing a bottle a day with formula so she gets used to it all when she starts up at daycare. She does well with it, but I don't think she knows when she's exactly full yet as sometimes it comes back up. During the day, she stays awake from a half hour to a couple hours at a time. I wish it was all without crying, but that's not always the case. When she is just chillin', she's very observant and watches all that's going on around her. Now that she's almost 6 weeks old, she really has more of the Tidd features than the Tiemens features. Anna and Isabella look like sisters, but still look so different from eachother. Not only that, but they have such different personalities. Crazy how we can tell that already! In the last few days, she's really started to smile a lot more - not just when she sleeps with her cute little half smirk. She has the cutest little dimples too - wasn't sure if it was on both sides b/c for so long she only smiled on her right side. Hehe. She's definitely a blessing to our family and we're so excited to see these 2 grow up together. I don't know what a sisterly bond is as I only grew up with my brother (not that it's bad, bud!), but I'm excited for them to have eachother.

Anna is doing well. It's truely been an experience and a joy to be home with her. There have been moments (ok, maybe days) where it's been very trying with her, but I've learned a lot about being a parent with her. She's a big help when Izzy's crying and gives her everything that would comfort her: her pipe, blankets, animals and even books. I know deep down Izzy appreciates it. :) She's learning gentle and getting better at it with her. She doesn't get as angry with me when I have to feed Izzy or pay more attention to her for awhile. Thanks to Aunt Sheila, we've been learning a few baby signs, like please (rubs her tummy), hot (blows 3 times) when we say hot and even when her food is hot, down (points down), dirty pants (pats her butt) - this works only if I say it, but she still knows how to do it and all done (puts her palm up). She knows and loves the Zoophonics book Aunt Sheila book together for her. It has animals, fun sounds and actions. She knows where most of her body parts are. She says "yuck", "da" for dance when we read our I Hope You Dance book and puts her hand up in the air like I do when we read/sing the book. What I've learned and she's enjoyed, is instead of trying to make her play with her toys or read books, is include her in what I'm doing. I commented on Facebook a few weeks ago about what to do with a crabby toddler and one mom commented back to have them help you do laundry, cook/bake and I really thought about that after I about had it. What a difference that makes! Not only did she enjoy being apart of doing big people stuff, I really enjoyed that time I could spend with her and was able to get a few things done around the house. It's so simple and instead of fighting with her to let me finish cleaning, I let her help me sort laundry on our bed, she helped me dust, clean out the pantry and we even baked cookies together yesterday! It's been so much easier being at home with the both of them since then.

Now that I've figured this out (for now anyway), she heads back to daycare full time on Monday as they only allow 6 weeks maternity. I'm looking forward to only have Izzy around only b/c I have some things I'd like to catch up on before I head back to work and she enjoys the attention and socialization daycare brings.

Gary and I are doing well. As you can see from the above, these 2 keep us on our toes. We don't have a ton of free time right now, but we try to make it count when we do. We get out the house b/c it's still winter here in Michigan, even if it's to window shop at the mall. We're very very ready for spring, so we can take walks and let Anna run off some energy! I'm trying to be more proactive on having dinner plans ready so when I go back to work, we don't have to wait so long to make something and eat each night. We'd rather play with Anna for a couple hours than cook and clean before she goes to bed each night. I've been doing a little baking, some much needed cleaning and for the next 2 weeks, some much needed computer work personally and for our side work. Gary's been keeping busy at work with various projects that don't really have an end. Job security is all we care about anyway. :) I head back to work in a couple weeks. Should be another interesting adjustment.

Well the toddler is crying to get up from the nap she didn't take. Oye. :)

Love to you all,
Gary, Christie, Anna and Izzy

2009-02-09T20:59:00.004-05:00

I tried videoing Anna holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear like we do. Instead I ran around the house chasing a toddler. Funny stuff.

She just couldn't stay awake but she managed a few smiles for the camera. Unfortunetly, she threw up right after I videoed this. Poor girl!

Week Three: 2 under 2

2009-02-07T12:32:00.001-05:00

Whew. We made it. Like I said in the last blog, we ended the previous week with Anna throwing up. We left for Chicago on Saturday morning with no flu in sight and had a great weekend. Sunday night, we headed to our neighbors house for a Super Bowl party and kept Anna up pretty late - about 10-10:30. She had a great time and managed a way to "hide" from their large dog, Lucy. She would crouch down on the ground in hopes that she became invisable. It was quite funny.

Monday came and Anna slept until 11:30 till I pretty much woke her up. I got her dressed and brought her downstairs. I put her on the couch b/c she still seemed sleepy, she got mad, got down and fell asleep at my feet for another hour and a half. Once I woke her up, I put her in her highchair to eat lunch. She didn't seem interested in anything I gave her, so I got her out and put her back on the couch. I video taped her b/c she was falling asleep sitting up but she knew the camera was there, so she was trying to smile for the camera at the same time of falling asleep. So funny. Well, I got up to put something away, heard her cough twice and came back to check on her and found that she threw up again. Poor girl. Back to the tub, everything in the wash and the couch cleaned up. After that day, she's been fine. I found out there was a virus going around where you threw up one day, a few days would go by and you'd throw up again and it would be done.

This brings me to Wednesday. Well, Tuesday was filled with a toddler that was feeling just fine and acting quite crabby. I was about done that day. Now on to Wednesday. Gary came home early from work b/c he felt queasy. He slept most of the day and was feeling better towards the end of the night. I wanted to join in the fun and started feeling sick that night. After I fed Izzy that night, I had a date with the toilet. Yuck!

Thursday I wasn't sure how I felt, but as the morning went on, I felt fine again. So I headed out to tear it up at Babies R Us for a few things for Izzy. She loves to be held and we can't hold her all the time, so the next best thing.... a sling! She loves it! She's in the fetal position, being cuddled, close to mom or dad and just hangs out or sleeps in it. Perfect! We also thought she liked white noise, so I bought a noise machine. Not sure if that's helping at all since we found the key to getting Izzy to sleep 5-7 hours at night. Keeping her awake more often! We did that with a purpose the other night and she slept for 8 hours! Last night was 6 hours, but I'll take it! I picked up a few other things too. It was just nice to browse the store and I didn't buy any clothes! Sheila was able to come and take care of Anna while I ran errands. They both had a great time! Unfortunetly, Sheila got the flu we all had only worse. Sorry Sheila!

Last weekend was nice. The weather was beautiful and we were able to give Izzy her first walk outside! Anna also loved getting out of the house. We had our friends, Marc and Nisi over with their 2 kids for dinner. Nisi cooked us all a wonderful meal and the kids had a great time playing! Thanks again, guys!

I believe when Anna was about Izzy's age, I posted about her not pooping. Well, here's one for Izzy. She pooped like a champ when we were first home, now we're going 5-7 days without one! Looks like we need to call the doctor to see if we should give her anything for it. I tried gas drops b/c she farted like a champ, but never pooped. So we might be doing prune juice again!

We're all back to good health again. We're figuring out what to do with Izzy for sleeping and Anna is dealing with having Izzy around a lot better. I'm also figuring out how to prepare for Anna while I can't pay too much attention to her. I'm also learning how to not get so upset with her if she's doing something that may not be the best thing for her to do, but it's not hurting her. Like the other day, I was feeding Izzy, Gary left for awhile and one of the pantry doors was left open. So Anna started to bring me spice bottles, one at a time. At first, I was like, I don't need anymore honey, just leave them alone. Right. They kept coming. Good thing only one was opened a little to allow for some garlic salt to escape. The rest were fine and she had a blast stacking them on each other for 15 minutes! Patience. That's what I've been praying for. It's helped a lot and we had a great day together today.

So at week 3, we're not doing half bad. I do have a bigger respect for stay at home moms of toddlers. They know how to try your patience, but in the same right. It's a challenge to figure out how to deal with them where you both can be happy. :)

Hope everyone enjoyed the balmy weather this weekend, tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer! Oh yeah, pictures! Here's an updated photo album of the girls:

Anna Banana
Baby Bella

Love,
Gary, Christie, Booger and Izzy

Week Two: 2 under 2

2009-01-30T21:49:00.003-05:00

An eventful week, but it's all a blur sometimes. This week we had Izzy's two week check up. She's not quite back to her birth weight (suprising since she loves to eat!) at 7 pounds 14 ounces, 6 ounces shy but grew a 1/2" already. Can you imagine growing a 1/2" a week? We'd all be huge! Funny stuff. Anyway, doctor said she looked great and we see him again at 2 months to start her immunizations. On the other side of things, Anna had her 15 month check up. I could have sworn she'd be at least 25 pounds with how solid I think she is. But she's still 20 pounds and 30" tall. She has wrapped up her immunizations until she starts school as she was a trooper one last time and cried only for a minute or two. Doctor said she's looking great too! She goes back in for a check up at 2 years - 2 years?! Can't believe we're on our way to being two already. She's definitely showing signs of being there.... :)

Izzy is sleeping 6 hours a night like clock work almost. We've held to our "strict" routine of feeding her about every 3 hours (this one will eat all day if I'd let her!), having a bath at 10, feed her and to bed she goes. As she gets older, we'll bath and feed her earlier. We did this with Anna and she did really well with it. Isabella is about as opposite as Anna as one could get. Izzy loves to be held and just have someone around if she's not sleeping, so she's been sleeping in her car seat at night as it cuddles her more than being sprawled out in her bed. She also lets you know when she is unhappy, immediately with her rhythmic squawking almost to the point where she might lose her voice. It's like an alarm. She spends an hour or two at a time wide awake, checking out what's going on, moving her head to the sounds she hears and just being content (when she's fed, dry and in company of course). She has thick, wavy hair that gets really curly after her bath. It's so adorable, like a little fro. Hehe. Her emblical cord fell off at day 8, so it's been nice to have her in the bath rather than a sponge bath. She's a wonderful addition to our family, adding another unique personality to this crazy bunch.

Anna, as suspected, has had some issues not getting all the attention she's used to. When I'm feeding Izzy, she gets frustrated and angry that I can't hold her on my lap and read her a book or get what she wants. She's started to swat at our faces, pinch us and she even bit Gary's chest and my finger. I don't know if she knows what she's doing is wrong or hurtful, but it's hard to discipline sometimes. We're definitely learning the trials and tribulations of parenting with her. It's her age and that her whole world has been changed by this little sister thing. So we continually pray for patience and understanding when we deal with her. On the other side of things, she's learning so much now that I can see her during the day each day. She knows the sounds a dog, duck and cow make. So cute! She knows where her nose, ears, toes, tongue and sometimes teeth are. When you ask her how do you catch snowflakes, she holds out her hands or sticks out her tongue. She says a variation of "socks" along with her hi's and yeah's. She's learned how to give kisses and hugs, but with Izzy in the picture those mostly go to her now when she's feeling in the mood. Her kisses are just like adult kisses, with her lips together making the kissing sound. It's so cute!

Here's a hilarious Anna story! Last night, Gary gave her the little cell phone that came in her purse she got for Christmas. It got misplaced for awhile. She loves it. So I was unloading the dishwasher and Anna was hanging around me with her phone. She walks around with it up to her ear saying "hi" and laughing while walking around. Well last night, she held the phone up to ear using her shoulder like we do so we can use both hands. I tried forever to get a picture or a video of her doing it b/c it was amazing that she picked up on us doing that, but she ran away or stopped doing it before I could get to it. It was great!

I'm doing great physically, feeling back to normal and glad to be me again. I'm below my starting weight pre-Anna, so I'm trying to lost another 21.5 pounds this year! Running and caring for 2 really gives you a work out along with forgetting to eat most of the day. Mentally, some days are more trying than others. I feel like a lot of the day I tell Anna "no" or remove her from places she shouldn't be. I feel horrible, but I know it's her acting out against her current situation. So with that, she's started back a day or 2 at daycare this week and seems to be a good thing for both mom and Anna. She enjoys the socializing and have more attention than what I can give her at home. Then there's Izzy, the squawker, where she'll only stop if you hold her in a certain position or feed her. Ahh... the life of a mom with 2 under 2. I give props to full time stay at home moms - it can be very frustrating at times, especially with 2 so close in age. But Gary and I remain consistent in discipline and attention, along with praying for patience.

Tonight rounded out an eventful week of parenting, with Anna throwing up just before we attempted to head to Chicago and 4-5 more times in the van about 5 minutes from home. Her car seat needed to be stripped down and washed along with clothes, coats and blankets and a good cleaning of the van. So we're home tonight and going to see what the morning brings. I think it was the yogurt I gave her for lunch that may have been bad (eventhough I just bought it). Poor little girl - she's soundly sleeping now and seems to be ok. Nothing better than kicking off the weekend with vomit! Eww....

On that note, it's bath time for Izzy and bedtime for mom and dad shortly. In the meantime, here are some more pictures (they may be new, can't remember from last week). I'll get some videos up soon too.

Izzy and Anna

Have a wonderful weekend!
Love,

GCAI

Week One: 2 under 2

2009-01-23T10:57:00.002-05:00

Well I'm back. Gary did a guest appearance on the blog when Izzy was born and will probably be his last till we have another one..... a long long time from now. So we've got the first week under our belt.

Gary recapped the whole process of me going in the labor and another amazing experience having Isabella. We couldn't have asked for a better hospital to go to, the nursing staff was awesome, my doctor is such a blessing to our family and Gary was the amazing partner that he's always been for me in the hospital. We checked out Wednesday night as the nurses thought we could handle going home a little early as we're old pros now. It was great "sleeping" in our own bed again, but Izzy was getting her nights and days mixed up. We stayed up all night with her, feeding her about every hour thinking that would help. We finally got an hour and half of sleep in the morning and we were off and running with Anna ready to roll at her usual time. The next few nights got a lot better as Izzy woke up once or twice and we were able to get a few hours of sleep in between. Last night (Thursday night) she slept from 12:30 to 6:30, so we're getting there already! Yay!

Isabella is a wonderful baby. From her looks to her mannerisms, she's a lot different than Anna. She can be awake for 1-2 hours at time, just checking things out, looking around. So cool. Then she can sleep for 3-4 hours at a time if we let her. We gave her a pipe (pacifier for all of you who look at me weird when I call it that) in the hospital already as she could eat for hours if you let her. So if she loses her pipe before she's soundly sleeping, she wails. This girl has some lungs. Her features are a bit more petite than Anna's were, her skin color seems to be more on the olive side of things and her hair right now is a beautiful golden brown - thick and wavy! She fills out the newborn clothes a lot more than Anna did - Izzy was almost 2 pounds more than Anna. Crazy. We can't believe we have 2 beautiful girls - they such a blessing to our family.

Anna was doing great when Grandma and Grandpa Tiemens were out. She was able to get the attention she was used to and thought we might miss the jealousy stage of having another person in the house to give her attention. The switch flipped as soon as they left Wednesday afternoon. When I'm trying to feed Isabella, she's gotten angry about not getting something she can see, or when she can't sit on my lap or read her a book. She's starting to pull hair and scratch and bite. In other words, getting closer to the terrible 2's, jealous of the attention we give Isabella, teething, being sick and just being a little girl who doesn't quite know what's going on. We're working through this as parents too, not trying to lose patience and giving her all the love and attention we're able to give her in the meantime teaching her what things are acceptable and what isn't. She's still a sweetheart despite this change. A few days ago, she started to give kisses. I ask her for kisses all the time, but with no result. Then all of a sudden she put together how to kiss. It was the sweetest thing! Especially for daddy coming home to that. She gives hugs when you ask for one. She is a good big sister, bringing Izzy her blanket or hat or sharing her books and animals with her. She even puts her pipe back in her mouth if she loses it. She's also in a phase where she won't eat a lot of things we make for dinner, even if she liked it before. It's a bit trying as we want her to eat, but she'll let us know when she's hungry. Can't win them all. :)

I'm doing great! Feeling good and pretty close to fully recovered. Gary and I were talking and it's just amazing that God made a woman's body to go through all that and then a week or 2 later, feel like yourself again. It's surely amazing. I was ready to be done being pregnant, wanting to be able to bend again, help Gary out with things around the house and just be me again. Now we're in to finding a good routine getting the day started with 2 kids and all of us not in our PJ's till noon. I'm looking forward to getting some things done around the house that have been put off and working on some projects that have been waiting for me for a long time. Hopefully we can cross some things off the list, but we'll take it day by day with these two.

Gary is back at work full time after a week off with me and some half days off after that. Lots of work to catch up on, but he enjoys it for the most part. My parents came out just after Izzy was born to help us get some things done around the house. Dad and Gary got about half the basement insulated and drywalled. You can totally tell the difference in temperature already! Before we didn't even want to be down here, now it's quite tolerable. We have more steps to go, but we have a room at least for people to stay! Gary also did a lot of the wiring down here, along with his very proud accomplishment of his wiring closet. It looks awesome and is exactly what he wanted. And we're able to work down here again and feel somewhat motivated. :) Martha and I cleaned the house, sorted Anna's old clothes for Izzy, made a bunch of dinners for us to throw in the oven or on the stove and they both did the wonderful grandparent thing of spoiling the girls. :)

I'm going to try and do a week by week of what's going on here. Maybe some extras thrown in there if something comes up, but these girls and life in general makes the day go by so fast! Make sure you check out the links below of pictures of what's going on with the Tidd house. If anyone has any advice on parenting 2 under 2 or at least a toddler who isn't used to not getting all the attention, we'd like to hear it!

Isabella Clara's first month

Anna and all her charm

We also want to thank you all for the prayers, kind words, cards, gifts and dinners! We appreciate and value all of you as our family and friends. We hope to return the favor.

Love to you all and enjoy the weekend!

Gary, Christie, Anna and Isabella

Isabella Clara is Here!!!!

2009-01-13T07:15:00.003-05:00

I am pretty sure that this is the only post I have ever made on the blog. Well there is a first time for everything. Christie needs to rest right now so I thought I would do the first post to let people know that Isabella is here!

I got home from work late last night because I had to make a trip to Baby's R Us to get another baby gate and a new baby monitor. When I got home Christie was having contractions. They were not that intense and they were coming at random intervals.

As the night progressed the intensity of the contractions increased and so did their consistency. By 10:00 PM she was having contractions roughly every 7 minutes and they were beginning to bother her enough where she thought we might need to head to the hospital.

We made it on the road by 10:30 PM and it was a good thing that we did. The weather was bad and the roads were very slick. It took us twice as long to get to the hospital as normal and by the time we were settled in our room, Christie was already at 7 cm.

Christie's epidural worked this time and she started to push at 2:28 AM and Isabella was here at 2:41 AM. I was amazed at how fast she pushed Isabella out, it was a record time, 13 minutes.

We just thank God for how His plan comes together! Despite the weather, all the key players made it to the hospital in time, the anesthesiologist got there in time to place in a working epidural and our God send of a doctor, Dr. Dawn DeWitt made it here safely to deliver Isabella.

The coolest thing for me was being able to deliver Isabella and lay her on Christie's tummy. I also got to cut the cord and take the pics right after she was born. It was surely a night to remember and proof once again to Gods everlasting promise and to His awesome plan and design! I feel like the luckiest man on Earth right now!

The link below gives a few photos to check out, I am sure Christie will post more later on, but this is a start anyway.

Isabella's Pics

Until later,

Gary, Christie, Anna & Isabella

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T09:51:00.003-05:00

Another year has begun whether you wanted it to or not. I'm ready for a new year with new challenges and a growing family, along with new goals for the year. I am still with child, due on the 18th and could be induced on the 19th or before, depending on what the doctor says today and my ultrasound this week. As with Anna, I'm done being pregnant. The shots are fine up until I switch to twice a day. These hurt more, create a lot more bruising and hemotoma bumps so I run out of places to get a shot. There's a breaking point, at least for me, in a pregnancy where I'm ready to be me again. Don't get me wrong, the baby aspect of it all is beautiful and amazing and we're so excited to meet this little person, but the end of the pregnancy for me isn't fun.

Anna is doing well. She's still enhancing her little personality each day, some days are more trying than others, but I think she feeds off how our days go which compounds the tears and whining sometimes. She still amazes us with what she figures out, what she remembers and her capabilities. She's in the phase of not wanting to eat what we give her for dinner sometimes. She whips her head away if we bring something to her mouth or she plays with it and it ends up on the floor in her fury. She also knows where the snack cabinet is and even if we look at it, she runs up to it and goes "uh uh" with her hands up in the air so that we can fulfill her need of a cracker in each hand. We're working on teaching her that she can't have a snack anytime she wants. Oye. She says "yeah", "hi", "awww", "this", "da-dee", "dada", "mama" and what sounds like "pup-pee". She understands a lot more, but there's that selective hearing/understanding things she's really grasping on to. She likes to bop to music on occasion, read herself a story, lays with dad on the floor, hugs our legs and knows where everyones nose is when you ask her. The last few weeks we've told her where mommy's baby is and pointed to my tummy. She points sometimes. I point to her tummy and say Anna's baby (while daddy glares at me, hehe) and also where daddy's baby is (a bigger glare from daddy). She knows there's another fun room upstairs and loves to go in and point at all the animals. But otherwise, she's got something coming when the baby does get here. I'm sure it won't take long to want to help and love on the baby, but in the same right, she's a strong little girl who's figured out how to throw and hit too. Should be interesting to say the least!

Our holidays were wonderful, filled with lovely Michigan/Midwest weather, a lot of junk food that was over-indulged on and being surrounded by all those you love. We spent the weekend before Christmas doing our own family (ask Gary why, hehe) Christmas and also with Gary's parents and sister. Then Christmas Eve morning we headed to Chicago to spend Christmas and the most of the week with my family. It was great to see everyone and all be together! New Years was just Gary and I. We dropped Anna off at Grandma and Grandpas, did some shopping and went to a movie. We finished the night at the in-laws watching HGTV and the ball drop. A different New Years, but a nice slow paced one as well.

Gary is doing well. Fully recoved after toe surgery. He had a nice vacation over Christmas and New Years and is back in the swing of things (only to be interupted by baby coming). We're still in the midst of finishing the basement along with getting the baby's room ready and everything else that goes along with every day life. Oh yeah and we have a new addition to our ever growing family - a mini-van! We got a 2006 Silver Chrysler Town and Country Touring mini-van on the 30th. I didn't want it at all, thought I'd go down kicking and screaming, but practicality took over and will admit that I love it. Everything fits fine, it's easy to get Anna in and out, it drives really smooth and it's all automatic! So needless to say, I don't regret it. :)

With all that said, here are more pictures. Sorry I don't really put them in the post anymore, it takes so long! I'll try to be more dilegent about posting pictures and videos more again while on maternity leave.

The painting in the baby's room is done!

Snow Days!

Our Newest Addition (last picture in the bunch)

Happy Holidays from Michigan and Chicago!

Stay tuned for the news of #2! It's not far away. :)

Love to you all,

Gary, Christie and Anna

Anna Stories!

2008-12-16T08:56:00.004-05:00

**Anna watching TV for a brief moment, looking a lot like daddy when he watches TV. Hehe.**

So I usually post about a few weeks in review and how we're doing. With Anna's personality really shining through from time to time, I'll post more stories of Anna that we can't help but find funny. :)

So last weekend, I was in the bathroom on the main floor. I knew Anna was by the Christmas tree and Gary was in the kitchen. I wasn't watching her at the time and all of a sudden she started to bawl! I thought maybe she broke an ornament and it hurt her. I look at her and immediately called Gary to go over and help her. Anna knows she's not supposed to take the ornaments off the tree or really play with anything on there besides some little trees with a bell at the bottom that I showed her. She took off a glass ball ornament and was holding it in her hand. She stood there, with her head down, fumbling the ball in her hands and bawling, like "oh crap, I know I'm not supposed to do that and now mom and dad are going to yell at me. Oh man, I don't know what to do but cry!" We couldn't yell at her b/c she'd had done enough damage to herself with just taking it off the tree. It was too cute!

This was a few weeks ago. So after Anna's bath, we let her run around naked in her room and in the hall way for a few minutes before she get's ready for bed. We'd been letting her do that for some time now and for some reason that night I had this thought "Crazy how she hasn't pooped or even peed on the carpet yet." Thought too soon. That night it was just me and I let her run to her room after her bath while I'll emptied the tub. I had that thought as I left the bathroom and the few short steps I took to her room, I saw her squatting by her toys on the floor. Her cute little naked butt up in the air with a small puddle beneath her and a little surprise coming out her rear. I wasn't mad and didn't really say anything b/c obviously we let her do it and what do we expect?! But I couldn't believe after that split thought I had moments before would I come into her room to find a little present for me to clean up. Too funny.

More to come! Stay tuned. :)

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2008-12-08T09:04:00.005-05:00

This Christmas time is certainly different for us than last year. We talked about it recently, how excited we were that Anna could hold her head up when she was on her tummy and how she could fit her entire body on a big pillow. We look at her this season, with her running around, mesmerized by the Christmas tree, it's lights and the fun little toys hanging from the tree. Amazing how much growing a baby does in 1 year! This year, she'll be able to open her own gifts and possibly enjoy them for about 2 minutes till she's off finding other things to play with. She can enjoy the wonderful food and goodies that Christmas brings, see all the lights and decorations, pointing at them saying "that", watch her eyes light up when we turn the Christmas tree on, playing in the snow in her giant snowsuit and boats - intrigued but unsure. Gary and I are so excited to start new traditions with her and with this little one next year. Going shopping together to find those perfect gifts for the kids, baking cookies at grandma's house, waking up on Christmas morning to see all that Santa brought, going to church, learning more of what this season means, singing Christmas Carols (and learning mommy's love of Christmas music 24/7 if possible). So many things that we can share with our kids that has only just begun! We almost wish they'd get a little bigger already to enjoy these things more, but I know, that time will come and I'll wish for them to be small again, to have all that childlike innocence.

Our biggest gift this year is this new baby that will make our family of 4. Eventhough it was a huge surprise to us, we know that God has given us this little baby for a reason and are so excited to meet this little person! It has been an uneventful pregnancy, so that may be why there's a lack of detail about this one as I've moved along. I popped faster, so I've felt pregnant for awhile now. I've gained a little weight with this one, but only a few more than I did with the 8-10 I did with Anna. My shots are going fine. I'm actually switching over to the heparin shots twice a day in about a week. This will allow me to get an epideral if I were to go into labor, otherwise they won't touch me with the Lovenox shots. I'm hoping it works this time - I know how it feels now, so I don't feel it this time, I'm very much cool with that. :) I'll be induced again, on January 20, if nothing happens by the 18th. I think I like being induced, so I know that I'll be having a baby that day instead of waiting for my water to break. For a planned person, this is ideal. :) Otherwise, baby is doing great. Moving and kicking all the time, so much more than Anna. I've been measuring 2-3 weeks bigger for a couple months, but I did with Anna too. I still think this one will be in the 7 pound range. We'll see, the time is quickly approaching! I've been slowly working on the baby's room and hope to have it finished in the next 2 weeks so it can be clear coated and furniture moved in.

I've enjoyed coming up with new ways to decorate for Christmas, with all the blog reading and inspiration I've seen over the past years, I've done things a little differently. The Christmas shopping was done a lot online, handmade or in short order this year. It seems a little less stressful. The cookie baking with Gary's mom will be this Saturday - we make the classics that Gary grew up with along with a new recipe or 2 that we like to take on. The weekend after that begins the festivities of Christmas! We have a lot to be thankful for, our home, our jobs, financial stability in these tough times, Anna and the new baby, our family and friends, cars that run most of the time, food for each meal, the freedom to celebrate the birth of our Savior with other believers, our health, the good news that Gary's grandpa's test showed that a lot of the cancer is gone or has shrank tremendously and so much more! We should reflect on this more throughout the year instead of just during the holidays. God does provide for us 24/7/365.

Gary and I are doing well. Jobs are good and keeping us busy. Gary's been in charge of the majority of the IT projects for the new arena Calvin has built. So he's been very busy and very proud to be a part of such a big project! We're going to try and take advantage of the free sports tickets Gary can get and see some basketball games this winter. My job is going fine. There are moments of frustration with learning new things, but they get worked through and all seems to be going alright. We've been in the midst of holiday planning, baby preparations and watching the endless snow fall. Gary had toe surgery last week to cure some ingrown toenail issues, so he's been on the road to recovery. I'll spare you the gorry details. :) We were given tickets to go with our friend Jenn to the Grand Rapids Symphony Holiday Pops concert on Saturday. It was an amazing gift and we really enjoyed it! It truly sets the tone for the Christmas season with beautiful music and singing.

Otherwise, all is well at the Tidd house. Anna is getting bigger, making us laugh, be amazed or seeing our parents come out in us with getting after her for something. :)

ENJOY THE NEW PICTURES TOO! Here are some of the crazy girl and some holiday photos.

I hope this finds all of you well, having a stress-free or close to it anyway, Christmas season so far!

Love,

GCA

Time is ticking...

2008-11-25T22:43:00.004-05:00

**This was a post from a couple weeks ago that I never posted, so sorry about the abrupt end. I'll post a new one tonight complete with pictures and videos.**

We're about 8 weeks away from #2 to make an appearance! Crazy how fast this pregnancy has gone. It's different this time b/c the anxiety of all these new things isn't there this time. I had my 32 week check up today. Baby's heartbeat is still in the 140's, measuring about 35 weeks but I had that with Anna. I would imagine this baby is a little bigger than Anna was, but who knows. It's definitely a mover! I thought Anna moved, but this baby does flips all day long. On one hand this pregnancy has gone by so fast, on the other hand I'm ready for it to be done. I popped a lot faster and have felt pregnant a lot longer than I did with Anna..... could this be because I only had 6 months between having Anna and getting pregnant again? :) I'm very thankful for a very uneventful pregnancy and that all looks wonderful, but I'm ready to have my body back and be able to bend again! :) The baby's room is coming along. Hopefully over this long weekend, I'll get the baby's room finished so we can clear coat it and get the furniture in there. Yay! That'll make it feel more real and make me more prepared.

Anna is doing great. She had her 12 month checkup/shot appointment last Thursday. She's a huge 20 pounds 6 ounces. Her height and weight are in the 35% and her head is in the 75%. Hehe. She got her MMR shot, chicken pox shot and 1 of 2 flu shots. She did really well, it was the next day that she got crabby. So we gave her ice cream that night and she went crazy! She was banging her head on the lazyboy, running between Gary and I to get bites and was just running around being goofy. It was hilarious. Otherwise she continues to eat and sleep really well, she loves having books read to her. We've even memorized Dr. Seuss' ABC book! She moved to the middle room at daycare and loves it! She has a lot more room to move, eats at the table sometimes, takes naps on the mat sometimes and does crafts! She's growing up so fast!

Gary and I continue to do well. We had the basement about 40% and the best thing right now is that we were able to move our cars back in the garage! We got rid of a lot of stuff, packed things better and now have brand new shelves to load up with stuff. :) Working on the baby's room, Thanksgiving preparations, buying Christmas gifts, decor and cards and keeping track of Anna is our duties right now. Gary's doing a lot right now as I'm not able to bend very well anymore or do any lifting.

Hope all is well with you!
Love,
GCA

Had to share!

2008-11-17T09:36:00.007-05:00

Last night, while perusing Facebook, a friend from highschool posted about a Britax car seat on sale at Target for $42.99. I couldn't believe it. So I checked it out. Sure enough, the same (different pattern) one we just bought for Anna with $75 off for the bargin price of $225 was on sale at Target for $42.99. On top of that, it qualified for free shipping, so we got a $300, highest rating car seat for the mear price of $45! Who knows if it was a typo or a clearance sale, but we got in just before they were sold out. Hind site, we should have purchased 5 of them and resold them for a huge profit! Dumb hind site. :) Either way, we scored a new seat for our other vehicle for Anna to use now and to be used by #2 in a year. Now that's shopping friends!

New Seat at $45

Anna's seat at $225

UPDATE: Target sent out an email saying the cancelled my order b/c the price was wrong. Well poo on them! Apparently it says they can do that in their help section. Blah.

Pardon the dust!

2008-11-13T08:31:00.002-05:00

Well, we're at 30 weeks. Baby is moving all the over a lot of the day and making me slow down just a bit. We've been in the midst of finishing the basement, one weekend at at time. My dad started by framing it in and my cousin came up last weekend to put in lighting and electric. He has a few little things to finish up, then the heating and cooling guy will come in and put in some vents to keep the basement warm. Next comes insulation, dad coming back up to do dry wall, a mud and taping guy will finish it up and we'll take it from there with carpet, painting, trim work, etc. This is all being done right now to create a new guest room as baby #2 is taking over our current one. So as you can see time is running short with baby getting closer to making it's way into our family.

With all that, I'm getting the baby's room prepped for some painting and other fun things to be installed in it's room. It's a bright shade of sherbert orange (which surprises some of our guests) but will be really nice when all the furniture is in and the elements have been painted on the wall. We felt the same way about Anna's room, but it all worked out really well. The baby's is getting a big tree like Anna's, some critters of various sorts, fun colored mirrors, an alphabet print and some script on the wall. We're going to swap rocking chairs in the room, so Anna will have the small black one and the baby will get the big wooden one (it matches better and we don't use the rocking chair for Anna much anymore). I have to freshen up the changing table with a coat of flat white paint and put together the crib. Anna's getting some mirrors in her room as well ( reusing our IKEA frames from back in the day) painting light blue with clouds. She's already seen the baby's mirrors and loves them. So that'll be cool. Much to do, but I'm finally able to get to it!

We also have some projects to work on for Christmas presents this weekend (more on that after Christmas of course) along with shopping for other family members. I've already started picking up things for Anna and Gary and have ideas for the most of the rest of the family. Which leads me to the Christmas Card. Gotta do that yet. It may be a condensed version this year as most of you read my blog and see our lives more indepth than a card can get, plus there's that time thing. :) Don't worry, it'll still be designed and not store bought. Christmas decor will go up hopefully over Thanksgiving break and we'll see how Anna takes to a trinket filled tree with sparkly lights. She listens pretty well, so hopefully not too many meltdowns of us saying no to her. Hehe. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year so that should be fun - never made a turkey before! But I can't wait for turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie! Maybe I can convince the fam to do some bowling that day - bring out the back home tradition.

I'm excited for the holiday season, I'm already gearing up my Christmas music selection to start up right after the big eatin' day! I'm excited to have Anna start to see what Christmas is, what we do and what it really means. I'm excited to decorate (hopefully with some new things) and to make Christmas cookies. Despite the dreaded snow, I look forward to this season every year. It's so magical and will only become more as our kids get older and create our own traditions and experiences. Making cookies with grandma, heading to Chicago to see if Santa followed us to Grandma and Grandpa Tiemens house, going downtown to see the windows, maybe try out ice skating, making gifts for family, getting gifts for those less fortunate, waking up Christmas morning to see how good they really were that year and going to Church to sing in the kids choirs, to hear the beautiful music that surrounds such an amazing Gift.

The Boog is doing well. She had a rough week with not being quite herself. Very moody and some not so great diapers if you know what I mean. We changed up her diet a little bit and the past couple days she's been in a great mood. So hopefully we're on our way back up. She's probably teething too and that probably is giving her pain, which she turns into clinginess and an upset tummy giving her those lovely diapers. She's starting to chatter more with forming new sounds, saying "hi" when she sees us and when she puts a phone up to her ear. So cute! She's really learning her limitations with us saying no and her not pushing as far. But even when daddy gets stern but a quiet voice with her, the drama turns on! Our little drama queen.

Gary and I are doing well too. Work is going fine - keeping busy as usual. Still working on side work projects of wedding invites, logo design and web design on top of our own projects we would really like to get to. We're enjoying the things in life that make it a little simplier or manageable. These might be frivilous or a no brainer, but a welcomed changed in our house. We purchased a Tivo for a combo birthday gift and love it! We program our shows for the week and when we have a moment, we can watch them and fast forward commercials, rather than trying to be by the TV at the time of the show. This gets us away from watching things that fill space and watch more of our interests. We've also instilled a "clean up all the dishes right after dinner." As some of you know, dishes are one of the jobs we both really despise doing. We got sick of dishes piled up for days, stinking up the house and then spending an hour trying to get them somewhat clean to fill the dishwasher. Now we take 20 minutes to load the dishwasher and clean off the counters. It brings just a little more weight off of our weekend chores. There are others we'd like to become apart of our daily routine like laundry, my "organized piles", filing, cleaning, etc, but slow and steady wins the race, right?

Otherwise all is well in Tiddville. Bracing ourselves for another cold Michigan winter, but thankful we can have heat and the money to pay for it. Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the pictures (finally ones of our painted rooms)!

The Booger
Paint Jobs
Baby #2

Love to all,
GCA

Our baby is One!

2008-10-28T10:28:00.003-04:00

The little booger has turned one! So much has happened in the past year that it seems like so long ago that she was born, but in the same right, it seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home and learning how to be parents. She has certainly changed our lives forever and we couldn't be more happy and excited to be called her parents.

We had a big birthday bash for her at our house. I don't know where we'd put anymore people (or gifts for that matter)! It was a beautiful fall day with the sun shining all day. We had a good hot meal of hot beef, baked beans and fruit salad. Anna, of course, loved the baked beans and Great Grandma helped her finish up the mandarin orange salad. After lunch, we had her open her mound of gifts. I think she got a little overwhelmed with all people watching her and that we kept taking things away so she could open another one. She really just wanted the first few things (especially her babies). The theme seemed to be "farm" with all kinds of toys and books referring to farms. She loved most of the things, but of course, some things scared her and we got those out of sight. :) Then came the cake. She was a bit hesitant at first and just picked at the frosting like a good little girl. Hehe. Then I pulled some of the cake away so she could see that there was more to it. She started to get into it. :) She was wearing/eating the cake along with sharing it, as she does with a lot of her food, with willing recipients. After she seemed to just want to share her cake, we took her upstairs for a chocolate cake bath and down for a well need nap! It was a nice day filled with family and friends. Now what to do with that overflowing pile of dolls, animals and toys..... good thing we're having another one!

Anna has been kind of letting us know she doesn't really need a bottle anymore, so we've taken her off of that a couple weeks ago. My handy dandy Baby Center website told me she doesn't need as much of that anymore as she's getting her nutrients elsewhere, so now we're on to sippy cups of milk, juice and water. She's a really good eater (better than Gary and I in some cases) that she'll eat just about anything we put in front of her. She still doesn't like broccoli.... She loves hamburger meat, corn, bread, condiments (hehe, ketchup, pasta sauce) and any kind of fruit. She still sleeps through the night, an occassional drama session happens when her pipe gets lost or she can't find Mr. Frog or Shudder (her ghost). She loves her bath and likes to put all of her foam numbers and letters on the sides of the tub without being prompted! She also loves the naked run from the bathroom to her room. Hehe. She has the cutest little baby butt! She still rather have things in each hand that match, like 2 blocks, 2 dolls, 2 giant pillows or 2 shoes. I don't know where she got that, but it's funny how she searches for the two items that go together. She loves being read to and she turns the pages faster than we can read! Good thing we're starting to memorize some of her books (I'm a little teapot, You're my little love bug).

She's starting to find her imagination too. The other day, Gary and I were sitting at the dining room table finishing up dinner. We got her down from her highchair and let her roam. Crumbs usually fall on the foot ledge on her chair and she picks them off and hands them to us (or eats them). I took them from her and put them on the table. She continued to pull crumbs but I looked and there wasn't anymore left, but she pretended to pick them up and put them on the table. It was so cool to see that!

She's learning "no" better too or she'll stand right in front of the thing she knows she's not supposed to touch with us just giving her a look. It's not as drama filled as it once was, but let me tell you, when drama does happen, it's a devistating, ear piercing scream cry. It's so over the top, we have to laugh. Then she looks at you with these tear filled, squinty eyes saying I'm so sad, pick me up. Hehe.

Her giggle is great! She loves it when daddy attacks her and we tickle her tummy or feet. It's the best. She's still saying dada, mama, and what sounds like "what's that?" on top of the "eh eh eh" when she wants something. So I got a baby signs book out to see if that'll work for her to express what she wants rather than whine. It might be too late. :)

Here are some pictures from her birthday. One disc has become corrupt and hopefully we can get the rest off this weekend. :( Anna's First Birthday!

Baby #2 is definitely becoming more active and letting me know that the time is getting closer. Speaking of which, we're figuring out placement and what we're going to do in the room yet. I know, cutting it a lot closer this time, but it'll be a little more interactive than just paint on the wall. So everything has to be just so, of course. :) At least the room is painted! Hopefully this weekend will lend itself for the start of doing that. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good. Some days are more tiring than others, but I think I'm doing pretty well. I have my glucose test today. Ugh. I'll probably have to get my blood tested like last time with everything turning out fine, it's just a bit of a pain.... literally. Oh well.

Gary and I are doing well. Trying to find time to fit all of our grand plans in each night and weeknd. Time certainly does fly! We have the basement roughed in, so now on to heating and cooling, electric and a massage go through of our stuff. On top of all our side work we have from websites to wedding invites, we're definitely busy people! But we're managing. :)

I'll try to post some pictures up of our rooms that I've been talking about for weeks and other things. Try, being the key word.

Have a lovely rest of the week!

Love,
GCA

Bang, Boom, Bite!

2008-10-13T08:28:00.002-04:00

The little toddler has been toddling herself into and onto everything these days. In one night, she managed to whack her head 3 times! I'd rather not go into detail on how she did such things so that we won't look like horrible, unsupervising parents, but lets just say it involved a plastic storage bin, a futon and a rocking chair. Man, did I feel horrible! But she managed. Then Saturday brought a trip to the pumpkin patch. Well this year, we actually just picked one out from the picked ones as she doesn't care too much yet about all this stuff. But in the time we were there, she carried around 2 heavy gourds and proceeded to walk too fast down a concrete path and do a summersault resulting in her first scrap on her little head. Her new (and yet another) nickname is Crash needless to say.

She still only has 4 teeth that I'm able to see fully. She's not too cooperative to let me feel around in there, but I'm sure more are on their way as she's drooling all the time. Anyway, I had her in my arms and she was bouncing her face on my shoulder. She then figures out that it's a little soft and she bites me! I was in shock. I should have known it would happen as she bites everything! I firmly told her not to do that, but we'll see how long it is between the next incident.

I thought after the summer was over, things would slow down a bit, but it's simply not true. Every once of the weekend is planned to get as much done around the house or with Anna as humanly possible. We're in the midst of planning Anna's birthday party this weekend, cleaning out the basement of things we don't need, donations, cardboard, etc, and also pushing all of our belongings together so that our basement can get framed up this weekend as well. We're losing our guest bedroom to the new baby, so we're getting the room in the basement set up for that now. With all that, finishing up odds and ends around the house, regular house work, making sure Anna doesn't hurt herself and preparing for another busy weekend. I wish I could see the light at the end, but I don't think so. This may be life for awhile, but in reality, I love it. I love experiencing new things with Anna, I love doing things to our house to make it ours, I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I may get exhausted and can't believe how much there is to do being a homeowner and parents, but it's awesome to have all these things surround me.

Saturday night, Gary, Alex, Sheila, Anna and I walked the Light the Night walk. It was really cool to be a part of such an amazing event and be amongst people who share such similar but different stories. We walked around downtown and let me tell you I was done by the end of the walk. Carrying around a little extra weight did me in. :) Either way, we raised about $400 and hope to do a lot more next year!

Baby #2 and I are doing well, just slowing down and getting bigger. This ones a mover when it's awake, all over, not just in a couple spots like Anna was. I've had to purchase another pair of maternity pants as fall is upon us and I didn't have too many warm clothes with Anna. I'm still feeling good otherwise, just feeling like a big pregnant woman. Gary's been talking to the baby like he did with Anna and is showing her how to do it. She just laughs. She's in for a surprise when this baby comes, but I think she'll be good with it. She's been listening a lot more when we say no, so we'll see. :) I feel bad for this baby as I don't have dozens of posts about the pregnancy to fill up their first year book, but in the same right, it's a good thing that there's a lot less drama with this one. I'm sure he/she will understand and let Anna know. :) According to Baby Center, the baby is almost 2 pounds and about 14 inches long (as long as an english hothouse cucumber).

Otherwise, we're doing well, just busy. Sidework is continuous and on going with new projects every couple weeks it seems. I'm working on redoing the Children's Ministries logos at church. I'm excited to be apart of the growing process this ministry is having and to get more involved with the kids aspect of church. I still owe you pictures of our redone bathrooms and soon the baby's room. I'll get there. :) Work is going well for both of us, keeping busy there. We're excited to have family and friends over this weekend to celebrate Anna's birthday. It's been a great year with her and are looking forward to so many more!

I'll post again soon, I almost promise. :) In the meantime, here are some links of pictures to enjoy!

Anna's 11th Month
Baby Tidd #2
Out & About

Love,
Gary, Christie and Crash

Oh, baby('s)

2008-09-26T08:41:00.006-04:00

We're still alive and well (and busy) here. Our less traveling has turned into errand running, painting and keeping Anna from climbing the stairs. The little girl has found her legs and prefers them mostly to crawling now. We usually encourage her to walk by picking her back up when we're walking around with her. She started out walking around with her little hands and arms in the air like we were holding her hands while she walked. Now she's getting a lot more confident and totting around with toys in her hand or all over the place. It's adorable to see this little half pint wobbling around.

She still has her 4 little teeth and could be teething again, but I can't see anything yet. And for those of you know Anna, she doesn't like her face messed with! Washing her face off after she eats is the most devistating event 4 times a day for this little girl. This past weekend we started to notice a build up of gunk in her eyes and a drippy nose. So bad that for the past few days, she couldn't even open her eyes when she woke up. We felt horrible! So Monday Gary stayed home with her and I called the doctor. They said to just wipe her eyes with a warm cotton swab. She hated that of course! Tuesday seemed worse and we felt terribly guilty for bringing her in to daycare, so Gary stayed home with her and he called the doctor. They saw her and found out she had this horribly contagious eye cold and that she had to be on drops for 24 hours to not be contagious anymore. So I stayed home with her on Wednesday and she finally started to be herself again (not crabby). Yesterday and today she's back at daycare with her friends and she's doing so much better thanks to those eye drops that she loves so much!

She's eating really well, especially when we give her bigger chunks to chew on and pull pieces off of. She loves her cut up fruit most of all. She does really well drinking from a straw and a sippy cup (and from the cup in the tub where she loves the soapy bath water, eww....). She goes in waves of drinking all of bottle, so this may be her way of telling us she's about done with that. Yay!

Otherwise she's babbling more with mama, dada, daddy, yeah, ba ba, but doesn't always know what to associate them with. She loves reading her books and to climb on our laps for us to read and read and read family favorites such as "I See a Tractor" and "I'm a little teapot". :) She plays blocks with daddy as he stacks them and she knocks them all over. She puts things in the seat of her car and takes them out. She climbs the stairs with such speed and is still learning how to get back down. She loves being outside, going for walks with mom and dad and pulling mom's flowers off, handing them to me and taking them back to put them back on the stem. Doesn't quite get the cause and effect on that one. She giggles hard when we tickle her tummy and she loves to attack daddy when he's on the floor. She's an amazing little girl and every day we feel so lucky to have her in our lives.

Baby Tidd #2: This little baby is starting to get bigger and so is mommy! I think I'm popping a lot quicker with this one and feel more pregnant sooner. It's starting to kick quite a bit and felt some hiccups for the first time a few weeks ago. Gary has been able to feel the baby move a little but it'll be soon enough where it'll be a lot more frequent as it starts to run out of room! I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago and all sounded good. The heartrate was in the 140's and I was measuring a couple weeks bigger (I did with Anna too and she turned out to be a peanut!). After this next appointment I start the every other week appointments again. Crazy how fast this one is going! Speaking of fast, we have to get started on the baby's room! We have the color picked out, some of the furniture, but we have to going or I'll be too big to paint everything I want to! Next weekend is looking like another painting weekend. :) And I checked it out - the baby is just over a 1 1/4 pounds and about as long as an ear of corn. This baby is definitely growing!

Mom & Dad: Work is busy for both of us but we're managing. I'm finishing up a 2 week cold/cough thing, Anna followed and now Gary is getting it. Yay. Good thing the weather is going to cool down and we can open windows again! We painted the rails of the outside steps last weekend with the fronts and sides of the stairs to get yet. Hopefully before the snow flies. We've been trying to get some more side work done so when baby comes we don't have to worry about it so much (or at all I hope!).

We're headed to Chicago this weekend to visit with the fam and to see Uncle Wayne "race" in a trailer race where you purchase a junkie car and a well attached trailer. They go around a figure 8 track trying to knock the trailer off other vehicles. We went a couple years ago and had a blast! Hehe. We're also getting things together for Anna's first birthday on the 18th. Exciting!

We hope all is well and enjoy the photos and video of the Boog. :) Have a lovely weekend!

Gary, Christie and Anna

Photos from the photo shoot for Grandma and Grandpa's 50th Annivesary

August Videos!

2008-09-08T22:27:00.005-04:00

Anna intently reads her book.

We're taking our first steps!

The wake behind the Lake Express ferry with an amazing sunset - heading back to Muskegon.

Fall is on it's way!

2008-09-08T21:41:00.004-04:00

I can finally sit here and tell you that the craziness that was the summer is coming to a close. We still have weekends planned away, but not what we did this summer! We wrapped up our "vacations" with a trip on the Lake Express ferry to visit Ryan & Angela in Oostburg, WI. We took the 11pm ride across (yes that's PM) Wednesday night and settled in around 3am. Anna was once again a tropper. She stayed awake till about 12am playing with Mr. Frog in her carseat and eventually crashed. Gary enjoyed the brisk upper deck to and from WI - not me, it was too windy and made my hair all knotty! :)

Thursday we took our time with the day. After Anna's morning nap and lunch, we headed to Kohler to see where Ryan worked and to visit the Kohler Design Center. That was way cool! The bathrooms and kitchens that were set up were only things one could dream up. Someday.... We walked the cute shops and had some amazing fresh gelato at a little parlor. Awesome. We rounded out the day with dinner at the Pizza Ranch. It was really good and intersting to see soup, salad and chicken at a place called the Pizza Ranch. That night we stayed up too late being the immature adults that we can be sometimes. :)

Friday we headed out in the Cavalier (usually only for 4 people, not 4 people, a giant car seat and all that is Anna) to Chicago for Grandma Madany's wake and funeral. It was a nice day to see everyone that she touched in her life and a reunion for the family as they are scattered all over the world. The funeral service was a wonderful testimony of who Grandma was and the legacy she left with Grandpa and her family and friends. We bunked at my Grandma and Grandpa Boss's house as my parents house was booked. Apparently Gary's snoring could shake walls and keep everyone but me up all night (Anna woke up due to a wet diaper that we didn't notice till the 4th or 5th time she cried). He didn't hear the end of that for awhile and I half expect Breathe Right strips in his stocking from some people. :)

Saturday night we hung out at the house and visited with Ryan's dad and step mom. They were out for their first time to their house along with the big Harley rally in Milwaukee. It was a good time. Sunday we headed to church and to Angela's parents for a wonderful dinner. Monday was an afternoon trip to the Sheboygan County Fair for delicious fair food and "site" seeing. Anna enjoyed all the animals up close and personal. We headed back to Milwaukee for a stop at Trader Joe's, dinner and back to the ferry for the 7pm trip back. Its was nice to not have it so late, but we still ended up getting to bed around 12:30 only to get up for work the next morning. :) All in all, it was a great time, did a lot and we all survived the road tripping!

Here are the pictures from the weekend: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56306&l=052dc&id=501622976

**Update on the kiddo's**

Baby #2: We had our 20 week ultrasound on Wednesday. I'm going to get digital files from the hospital and I'll post the pictures then. All looked well, as far as we could tell, with the baby. This one's a squimmer! Anna was easy to get good shots of, this one is all over the place. The heartrate was 149, but most of us feel that this one is a boy. Things are just a little different this time, but still a breeze of a pregnancy! The baby is currently the length of a carrot -- weighs about 3/4 of a pound. (Length: 10 1/2 inches, head to heel.)

Mrs. Booger: Her little personality gets greater and greater everyday. She's learning what no means slowly but surely. She likes to test mom and dad, especially with the stairs. We were letting her climb them until she fell down 1 stair when I wasn't looking and we said that was it. Now she bolts to the bottom, sits on her butt and looks at us while we tell her no. It works usually. :) She's learned how to get on her little scooter thing and scoot herself around going forward now! So cute. She's eating whatever we're eating, drinking more water, juice and a little milk here and there, so we're on our way to less/no baby food. She has 4 teeth, 2 top and 2 bottom now and grinding them! Ahh! That is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. ((shutters)) She's "talking" more than screaming and trying to form words. It's so fun to watch her be so intent on things, to discover new things, to notice mommy and daddy, she's getting so big already! Here's Anna's 10th month album so far: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56305&l=55c5d&id=501622976

Mom & Dad: We are excited to not have any more crazy traveling this year. :) We're moving on to catching up with house projects and neglected side work. We finished our bathroom - the 3rd coat was the charm! It's a beautiful shade of Bear Rug complete with brand spankin' new towels (we were using ones from college days and when we got married). It's awesome! To complete it, Grandpa Boss is building us a custom cabinet for the space between the counter and toilet and a new clock and photo. I'll take pictures this weekend what it looks like right now. We did the mainfloor bathroom this past weekend a bright shade of golden yellow. It's a bit overwhelming with the bare walls right now but with some decor, it'll complete the look. Now onto the staining and painting the front steps and rail (if it'll ever get a chance to dry out!), the baby's room, kids bath and our room. Yeesh. And before #2 arrives, our basement will be somewhat finished! We love to keep busy, can't you tell!? Oye. Work is going fine for the both of us. Gary's in Indy as I write this for a couple days. It wasn't as overwhelming as I thought with Gary gone, but I'm glad it's only 2 days! Otherwise, we're doing well. Both feeling good and liking the little bit cooler weather.

Well that's us in a nutshell for the time being. I'm kind of laying off the posting of pictures as it takes so long and I can just give you the whole album via Facebook which is a lot less time! :)

Have a wonderful rest of the week and I'll be back with more photos soon!

Love,
GCA

Anna Banana and Baby Banana

2008-08-27T10:29:00.003-04:00

A quick update on what's going on with the babes. Anna is still doing great! She is so much fun from the moment we wake her up with her poofy little eyes, fuzzed hair and sheet marks (yes, she still sleeps through the night, now with Mr. Frog) till the time we put her down again at night when she curls up, butt up, with her dear Mr Frog once again. Our we have our moments with her, in which she acts like we tore her little heart out. Tears stream down, mouth wide open with her little tongue flickering as we just tell her no about climbing up on the curio cabinet. We have to laugh b/c she's such a drama queen sometimes and it's so cute to see her little face turn so sour. She will now follow one of us up the stair if she sees us go up there. And she will bolt! As she climbs, she peeks out in between the slats and smiles as she knows she really shouldn't doing that but feels so accomplished at the same time!

She has at least tried every single food we've given her and the latest thing she seems to pick around is broccoli. Yay for dad, boo for me. :) I needed a partner for the broccoli thing. She'll come around.

We've found that she likes to take things in pairs, stuff animals, rings, books, whatever it is, and crawl around with them on the floor, one under each hand. One, it's great that she figured out that she can crawl a little faster with some skidless objects under hands and two, that she can pair 2 like things together without our prompting! It's awesome.

Tiny Tidd #2 is half way there! I'm at 20 weeks this Friday and starting to feel pregnant now. It's the length of a banana (hench the title to my post) and I can certainly tell it's getting bigger.

It's a little more of a struggle to get up and bend over now. I've moved on to a couple maternity clothes, but still use most of my regular clothes yet. At my last appointment, everything looked great and the heart rate was in the 140's. I still say this one's a boy, but at this point, I don't have a clue. I'm feeling flutters more and more and I hope soon to share that with Gary again! Our ultrasound is next Wednesday and we're looking forward to that again. We're not going to find out again as we loved not doing it with Anna. Baby's room will soon be under way after the crazy summer winds down.

We're heading out tonight on the ferry to spend the weekend with Ryan and Angela in Wisconsin and spending a day and a half in Chicago for Grandma Madany's funeral. It'll be a bittersweet, busy weekend but it'll be nice.

Have a lovely Labor Day weekend (I can't believe I'm saying that, summer is almost over)!

GaChAn

Reflection

2008-08-25T20:55:00.003-04:00

August once was a month filled with excitement and birthdays, nothing to deter the celebrations and gathering school supplies. But as we get older, things change. Not only do they change in how we view our birthdays as just another day, but life happens and hits closer to home.

On Sunday, August 24, the Lord took home another wonderful woman. A woman that has only been in our lives for about 4 years but has been a wife for over 50 years, a mother to 6 and dear grandma and great grandma to many. Grandma Madany went home to be with the Lord she served for so many years. She has had some major health issues the last couple years, first a battle with thyroid cancer. She fought through that, then in the last 6 months, pancreatic cancer took hold and the thyroid came back too. After a short delibration with her doctors and with Grandpa, they decided to forgo any more treatment. With most of her family around her, she took her last breath and entered a place we can only dream of.

Wednesday, August 27 will be the 6th anniversary of my mom's passing as well. Time has healed some wounds, but sometimes feels like yesterday. Each year brings reflection of how much has happened and how much has changed since then. Here I sit, 5 years married, in our own home, with a beautiful little girl and another on the way. She didn't see any of that here on earth. I know others have come in to my life that I wouldn't trade because of what happened, but you still have to wonder what would it have been like. We'll never know.

All we'll ever know is that the Lord's will will be done on earth as it is in the place where Grandma Madany and Mom have been rejoicing with their Savior. Ironically, both of these women were born in this month and their birthdays have been replaced with their homecomings in to Heaven. We'll never forget the impact they've had in our lives, long or short.

July/August Videos!

2008-08-19T10:02:00.005-04:00

Alex sandboarding down the dune on Silver Lake. The weekend before was a lot more eventful than this trip, but he couldn't stay up for me to video it. :)

The first time we saw her, she was butt up in the air trying to get her pipe out of the car seat and got stuck. It was hilarious! So we tried to reinact it, but she got too smart for our own good. :)

I've never seen storm clouds like this before, they were incredible!

She was doing some cute stuff, but quit when I starting taping. Oh well. :)

Busy busy busy!

2008-08-18T09:33:00.009-04:00

As the summer continues on, we're still just as busy going here, there and everywhere. I'm ready for a break, but I don't know if there's one in site. So until then, I'll manage and relax when I can.

Baby Tidd #2: I'm still feeling fine (aside from indigestion). With the first pregnancy not that far behind me and the worries that come with the unknown, this pregnancy is a piece of cake. I'm still doing shots which some I don't feel, others I feel too much and a bunch bruises that look like I punched myself in the gut numerous times. I'm not showing yet, but I can definitely start to feel my tummy getting bigger now. The baby is as long as a bell pepper at 18 weeks - about 5 1/2 inches long and 7 ounces. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday and my ultrasound early September, so we're almost half way there already! As soon as the summer slows down, we'll get started on the baby's room and the pictures will be coming once again!

The Booger: Anna had her 9 month check up (she's actually 10 months today) on Thursday. She's a whopping 18 pounds 2 ounces and 28" long. She's a normal size baby and everything looks great on her. I think she's more advanced, a bias and unbias opinion, that most babies her age. She's crawling, fast, everywhere. She can climb stairs easily, but hasn't figured out how to come down yet. So we pretend to roll her down whatever way she tries to go down to show her what would happen. Who knows if thats working... :) She has stranger anxiety right now, doesn't usually smile at everyone right away like she used to, but she'll grow out of that. She's still very social and doesn't miss a thing with those big blue eyes. She's climbing up on furniture and can move all over from there. She's even stood on her own for 5-10 seconds at a time! She loves walking when you hold her fingers, so we're very close to moving to the next stage of craziness! She's eating a lot of table food now and has liked most of it - mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs are the 2 she hasn't cared for so much. But she's not picky - yay! She's drinking from a sippy cup and most of her feedings and we're down to 3 bottles today. She's been not finishing her bottles, so we just kept cutting them out (according to my chart, we're right on track) and she seems to be fine with it. She knows when to wave bye most of the time, it's so cute! She likes to mimic our noises or movements with our mouth and does really well with that! She's so much fun and everyday she seems to get bigger! She's still such a good baby despite her being everywhere all the time. She's keeping us moving, that's for sure!

The Parents: We're keeping busy with life, who isn't, right? Work is going fine for both of us. Gary is ready to go back to school year hours as school starts up in a few weeks. I'm keeping busy with mine, as well. We're still working on large and small side jobs that occupy some time. Still working on painting rooms, keeping up with house stuff and getting ready for baby. I like keeping busy, but on the other hand we both just need to say stop once in awhile and take a break from it all as it's draining on us doing work and not enough of free time/relaxing time/more time with Anna. Balance is a key we need to find yet. :)

Here is a sneak peek at the Tidd Family Photo Shoot with Jenn and a link to see them all!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=52622&l=9937d&id=501622976

This past weekend we were in Chicago for a host of events! Saturday was my birthday but I shared that with a baby shower for a friends in the morning, followed by a photo shoot with my mom's side of the family for my grandparents 50th anniversary. I think that's the first time all 26 of us were together in a long time! I'll post those as soon as we get them back. Then with all this, we planned a surprise 50th birthday party for my dad. With pictures not taking near as long as expected, we had a lot of finagaling to do with dad that was way out of character for all of us, so he had to have known. He knew something was up but won't admit to knowing fully. :) It was a lot of fun with family and friends, having pizza and goodies and getting a lot gag gifts. We were also able to see our friends Andrew and Dana and their baby, Ryan for the first time (and for Andrew and Dana in a couple years!). Ryan and Anna didn't quite know what to do with eachother, but I'm sure as years go by, they'll be good friends. :) So needless to say it was a busy weekend.

Prayer Notes: Grandpa and Grandma Madany have decided to forgo any more treatments for Grandma as her cancer is spreading rapidly throughout her body. She's in a bit of pain and discomfort, but are taking measure to find ways to releave the mental and physical pain. Please pray for peace for the both of them with their decision and with what the future holds. That the Lord's will will be done and know that this life is temporary and she'll be meeting the Lord she's served so dilegently throughout her life and move to that beautiful mansion He's prepared for us. As hard as it is for us to let people here on earth go, we have full faith that they are going to a much better place than here and we'll see them again!

Also we ask for prayers for Gary's Grandpa Hall as they figure out the course of action this week for his cancer treatment. They haven't determined what kind it is yet, but know that it's wrapped around a main artery. So pray for Grandma and Grandpa as they decide where to go next and with all the family that surrounds them in love and support through this difficult time as well.

Finally, Gary and I are participating as walkers this year for the Light the Night walk - a walk to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We ask for your prayers for this wonderful cause to help others who are going through or have gone through battling these blood cancers and if you're able to support them monitarily at: http://www.active.com/donate/ltnMadiso/2363_Christabelle81

Have a wonderful week!

Gary, Christie and Anna

The month's weekends in review

2008-07-31T21:24:00.008-04:00

All is well in the Tidd house. Keeping busy with the busyness of life, that's for sure. Since our Beaver Island vacation, we were able to spend the following weekend with Kelsey and Samantha (our cousins). They were able to enjoy some life in slow motion for the weekend. The pampered themselves, played with Anna and I helped Kelsey get started on her new business venture with a logo, business card and start of a website. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed their company!

The last weekend in July we did a family photo shoot around Grand Haven with our friend, Jenn. It was a lot of fun, Anna cooperated once again with us dragging her around and we got a lot of really nice shots! (I'll post a link for those when I post those).

The following Saturday (last weekend to this past weekend), we spent our week vacation in Silver Lake. My parents rented a cottage (my great great aunt and uncles old place) on the lake for all of us to enjoy. Since this is a very familiar place, I don't have a great adventure timeline to share as I did with Beaver Island. Don't get me wrong, we, well maybe Gary, had some adventures throughout the week and we had a lot of fun! We ate a lot of junk, read books and magazines, tried to plan gardens, went swimming and to the dunes, built campfires and ate lots of smores, went into town for Silver Lake garb (oh the steals at 40% off at the RV park!), went to Pentwater and to Little Sable Point and made sure Anna didn't get to everything that she shouldn't. :) It was nice to sleep in a smidge (if Anna let us), see the beautiful view of the dunes every morning, enjoy the sunshine, catch up on some reading and play some vicious Euchure. :) I have a bunch of pictures, so I'll post a few but add the links to my Facebook albums for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51326&l=01d89&id=501622976
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51328&l=a64ce&id=501622976

We got back home on Saturday afternoon to get back into the swing of things again. It's always wonderful to have a vacation, but it's always nice to come back home again. Libby stayed the weekend with us to check out GVSU's masters program on Monday and to visit with friends. It was nice to have her around for the weekend.
Right now, we're doing work and email catch up and getting ready for the weekend. I have a busy one as Saturday is my birthday, a baby shower for a friend in Chicago and the big Boss picture for Grandma and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary. So lots to do of course!

In regards to prayer, please pray for Gary's Grandpa Hall as we wait for Wednesday to see what the diagnosis is of what kind of cancer he has and what the next steps to take are. Also pray for Grandma Madany (Martha's mom) as she didn't receive good news at the doctor yesterday in regards to her cancer. It's spreading and treatment is limited. Be with both of our families as tough decisions are needed to be made shortly and that there will be peace with their decision. God is the Great Physician for our bodies and for our minds, pray that His will will be done.

I'll post updates of us in another post. This poor 2nd child doesn't have near the updates as Anna's pregnancy did. :( Maybe that's a good thing as things are a bit boring on that front anyway. :) There will still be lots of pictures.

Love to you all,

Gary, Christie and the girl who gets into everything now

Beaver Island Adventure!

2008-07-18T16:36:00.015-04:00

Friday, July 11

3am: Alarm goes off. Groan but realize we're going on a mini-vacation, so it's ok.

3:45am: Out the door, all packed with Anna awake, not sleeping like I want to, meeting mom, dad and Sheila at the Speedway.

4:15am: Arrive at Speedway, get Krispy Kremes and chocolate milk jugs for Gary and I. Gary gets Micky D's.

4:30am: On the road, headed to Charlevoix!

Between 5:30 and 6:30am: We're listening to our book, I start nodding off, so we turn it off b/c I keep missing things. Anna falls asleep shortly after we leave the gas station, by the way.

7:15am: After a beautiful drive through East Jordan, near Charlevoix Lake, we arrive at the Beaver Island Boat Company to await our ferry.

7:30 - 8:15am: Change Anna, feed her her bottle, sit around waiting for Gary and dad to park the cars and to get on the boat.

8:30am: We take off into Lake Michigan on our 2 hour ferry ride to Beaver Island. It was an overcast day, a little wind but a nice day nonetheless. Anna did fine on the boat ride. She didn't quite find her sea legs, so she looked like a drunken sailor trying to stand up on things. She ate and played, and took about an hour nap before we arrived at the harbor. Gary enjoyed being outside taking in the view, I enjoyed the company, a cat nap and Martha Stewart.

10:45am: Arrived at the harbor on Beaver Island. From a distance it's what I expected - a small area with some shops and restaurants and lots of cottages/homes. It was beautiful.

11:00am: Unload our stuff and walk to our first nights lodging. Yes, we walked with a large suitcase, overnight bag, duffle bag, pack-n-play, booster seat, Anna, her car seat and base along with the rest of the families belongings. It was less than a mile, but that was not fun.

11:30am: Arrive at the house Gary's friends own and graciously let us stay. This was a place rich in cherished memories, lots of laughs, history and family. Mismatched furniture, rooms closed off with curtains rather than doors, a wood burning stove for heat and no screens for the summer. A vintage stove and an old way out of tune piano complete the picture (oh yeah, creepy crawlies that didn't sit well with my mother in law and sister in law). The water ran cool, even on hot. We figured out sleeping arrangements and figured out our day.

12:00pm: Head over to Dalwhinnie's for some lunch. A small eat in breakfast, lunch and dinner restaurant with a bakery counter filled with sugary baked goods.

1:00pm: Stopped by the grocery store for some essentials and headed back to the house.

1:15-2pm: Walked the property, took my "Christie pictures" as some of my family call it, full of wildflowers, unidentified metal objects and mossy rocks and trees. Got the Trooper ready for the grand tour of the island.

2:00pm: Loaded in the trooper to begin the adventure of the day. We headed over to the Whiskey Point Lighthouse for some photo opps of the beautiful lighthouse and watery vegetation. Stopped by the gas station (it was $5.49 a gallon, the highest in the country) to put 5 or so gallons in. The guys talked to the lady in the gas station and got a map of places to see. So we got the low down on where to go and started driving. Gary was driving, so we harassed him as we drove right by a few of those highlighted places. Finally we arrived at the Beaver Island lighthouse to climb 52 stairs to the top. This is where it got ugly. Gary's dad took over driving and we were looking for the big tree and the big rock. We felt like we were driving around in circles for hours. We did do a little circle tour but eventually found the big rock (which was very large) and the big birch tree or the Bicentennial Tree of the state. We headed back home, which seemed like it took forever.

6:00pm Arrive back at the house to repack for dinner. We had a nice (and expensive) dinner at Nina's on the lake. Good food, great company.

7:30pm: Back at the house, got Anna ready for bed and we were all sitting around the table in what the Wyman’s refer to as the, “Big House” when my dad found a poem in the living room titled, “Ode to Anna”. Thinking that this might be something cool to read dad brought it into the dining room where we were all hanging out and read it out loud to all of us. I wish that I had the text of the poem with me now to place in the blog, but I did not think that far ahead. In short the poem was about a woman named Anna from Beaver Island who according to the poem was the, “Emerald of Beaver Isle”. The poem talked about her life and death and her wishes for the family to continue on. Upon our return to the mainland I made a point to ask both Matt and Mike about the poem since I was very curious about the history behind it. It turns out that the Anna of Ode to Anna was their grandmother who was born on Beaver Island; their Grandfather met their Grandmother when he was stationed on Beaver Island while working on charting the great lakes. The history of the property then turns out that the, “Big House” was their grandparent’s home, and the, “Small House” was their grandmother’s brother’s house who was from what Mike remembers a lifelong bachelor which is why the small house is so small. How neat is it that we had another Anna back on the property once again, I can’t help but wonder if their grandparents were looking down and smiling?

8:30pm: We wanted ice cream and found that the whole town shuts down around 8. Not a soul in sight. So Gary and I headed back to the house.

10:30pm: We all started to get ready for bed and turned in for the evening.

Saturday, July 12

5:00am: Anna wakes up coughing and seems slightly un-rested, probably because the air in the house felt damp and musty. I hear her coughing so it's time to get up and check on her, in the living room I'm greeted by mom and Sheila also checking on Anna. We put Anna back down and hope for some more sleep.

7:00am: Anna wakes up for good this time so Gary and I get up with her and begin our day. Everyone follows suit shortly there after, some brave a cold shower and the rest get ready for the day.

8:15am: Head out to Dalwhinnie's for some giant full of goodness cinnamon rolls.

9:00am: Take a walk around town. See some people setting up for a small art show, take a picture of a giant hole in a tree and visit mom's friend Terry at the Harborview Motel. Strolled a bit more and went in shops that were open and visited with the locals.

10:00am: Mom talks to Terry and says that with how congested Anna was, we were going to head back that day to the main land and stay in Charlevoix a night because of it. She says she has vouchers she can give out a couple times a summer and she would love for us to use it. So we obliged as we were loving island life, packed up our things from the house and moved into the motel.

10:45am: Sheila stays back with Anna while dad, mom, Gary and I head out to Whiskey Point to see the Poker Run come in. Anna sleeps a bit, eats and plays.

12:00pm: We head back to the motel, regroup for lunch at Daddy Franks for some good ole island deep fried food.

12:45pm: Gary and Anna stay back for a well needed nap for the both of them. Meanwhile, the girls and dad head out to check out the shops and stock up on Beaver Island gear.

3:00pm: We get back to the motel, wake up Gary to head out to the Antique Toy Museum and Marine Historical Society. The toy museum with very kid oriented nickel and dime treasures, along with beads, little toys, games and a strange woman who runs it to boot. She seemed to fit in well. The marine museum was cool. Filled with history of the marine life that once was. The man was very friendly and talkative until..... he asked me what I thought of global warming. Ha. I laughed and said I think it's a big marketing ploy. He said well I think George Bush would agree. After that he wouldn't look or talk to us much more. Apparently he didn't like my answer. With that said and the face of that crazy lady at the toy museum has sign and stickers made that said "This mama's for Obama", I was charting democratic waters. :)

4:15pm: Head back to the motel where mom and Anna are hanging out. We decide to go sit by the pool (the only pool on the island). Anna of course freaked out at first, but soon loved kicking the water. So I brought her in to get her suit on. I gave her to daddy and she loved being in the pool! I went and got my suit on, so we played pass the baby in the pool between Gary, Sheila and I. We swung her around and even dunked her under once. She did awesome, didn't cry once. We had such a good time in the pool. I miss having one or at least a lake to go to! Someday. :)

5:30pm: All of us head in to get ready for dinner. We asked Terry what would be a good place to grab some good food. So we packed ourselves up in the Trooper and went to Stoney Acre Grill, a barn like restaurant with Donnegal Danny's Pub attached. We had a great dinner with great company.

7:00pm: Back at the motel for some R&R. Anna had a bath in the sink, ate and drank some grub and went to bed. She was quite tuckered out from the busy day we had!

8:15pm: Gary, Sheila and I walked up to Daddy Franks again for some ice cream - the only way to end a vacation day. It was a hoppin' place with it being a summer kids hang out. When we approached the counter, we found two high school, we thought, guys running the place. One seemed like a surfer, punk kid and the other a hippie, super happy guy. Gary asked for extra butterscotch on his sundae (after I saw him dump a ton on already), he got it back and said "thanks for hooking a brother up". All this after the bantor between the two of them on how many people were in line, running out of ice cream or hot fudge and various other oddities, he comes back to Gary with "keepen it real for all the gangsters all across the world." Say what? The very last place or person that we thought would say something so old school, so.... Gary. :) It was great.

8:45pm: Return back with 4 sundaes and a flurry enjoyed by all. Upon finishing our sundaes, we chat a bit and turned down Sheila's request of playing games as we were all so very tired from the past 2 days activites.

10:45pm: We start to all turn in for the night.

Sunday, July 13

5:30am: Anna starts to wake up and desparetly needs a diaper change. After waking Sheila up, we get her situated. I bring her into my bed (yes Gary and I slept apart in twin beds, hehe) to see if she'll cuddle with me for a little while. It worked for a while in Anna terms.

6:15am: We get Anna ready for the day and we follow suit. We were all showered and ready to go by 7:30am I think. Crazy!

7:30am: Packed up and headed to where? Dalwhinnie's of course. Again a repeat of a yummy breakfast. We take note that it's a tad bit windy out and hope our boat ride will be ok.

9:30am: After packing up the room, the guys bring our luggage down to the dock, bring back the Trooper and we await to board our ferry to go home.

11:15am: We finally board and notice it's still windy. The winds were out of the west and some knowledgeable guy, ahem no, said the waters should be calmer. Nope. Everyone but Sheila and Anna spent the 95% of the boat ride finding a way not to lose our lunch if you will. For Sheila, the woman behind her gave her the push to lose her lunch along with a dozen other people. Not cool at all. Anna slept the whole way home. :) It was probably the worst boat ride I've been on. But I remained focused on my breathing and ended up in the clear. Gary laid on the floor and the parents sat back and held their own pretty well. An older guy turned white and, pardon the language, ralphed like I've never heard anyone before. That's where self restraint played a big role.

1:45pm: Arrived back in Charlevoix with much enthusiasm to get off that boat! Yeesh. We packed up the cars and got out of dodge. Gary and I visited Matt and his fiance Tammy for a little while, saw their new house and where Matt works. It was nice to see them again.

5:30pm: On the road again, listening to our book where I stayed awake to listen and even drove a bit. :)

7:50pm: (GPS told us when we'd arrive home) Got home after an adventure that we'll never forget!

A new approach

2008-07-17T09:08:00.003-04:00

I might have to do this blog in terms of updates on the family and other adventures. We'll give it a whirl. :)

Baby Tidd #2: I'm at week 14 and all seems to be well in baby land. According to my trusty Baby Center newsletters, it's about 3.5" long and the size of a lemon. I'm still feeling well, no morning sickness or nausea this time. But this time is different as in the last month or so a lot of food I eat doesn't sit well with me. Leads me to believe it's a boy - but that's what I thought last time. :) And for all you curious souls, we aren't going to find out again. We loved finding out at the end, it made all the work so worth it. Sorry Grandmas. :) You can always get us diapers! :) I'm gathering more ideas for the room, haven't put them all together yet. The room will be a sherbert orange, I can tell you that much. I haven't felt any fluttering yet. Some pants are too tight, but I'm by no means showing yet.

Anna the Banana: She will be 9 months on Friday - hard to believe! It's amazing where she started and how far she's come in such a short period of time. She truely is the joy of our lives. We still go in every night to watch her sleep (and for daddy to move her back to the center of her crib to prevent dents in the head or stuck limbs). If one goes in there before the other, we usually find the other one and say "come look at her." She's gotten so big as the first time we put her in there we felt so bad that this crib was swallowing her. Now, she gets stuck in the rails, pulls herself up in the morning so we can get her out. She's amazing. She's crawling everywhere and into a lot of things. She's eating more and more adult food and not gagging near as much anymore (that's a relief to her parents). She becomes clingy closer to bed and just needs you close to play on or climb on. :) She babbles more and more - I hear a few more syllables of words come out every once in awhile. She has 2 teeth on the bottom and is getting better at letting us see them. She still is a trooper with letting mom and dad drag her all over town and on crazy vacations! She rolls with it like no baby I've ever seen. I swear we lucked out with the best baby ever born (Anna if you're reading this later in life, remember that we said this about you. :)).

Mom & Dad: We're boring. We wake up, do our routine, go to work, pick up Anna, come home, eat, play with Anna, do Anna's nightly routine, relax or do other things we have to get done before we head to bed. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. :) Everything is going well for us though - we can't complain at all considering the economy these days. We are truely blessed to have eachother, our jobs, money to pay our bills and great family.

So that's are update on our growing family of soon to be 4. I'm going to post again this week, maybe even today! Gasp. I know.

Love to you all!

Gary, Christie and Anna the Banana

4th of July Bash!

2008-07-14T10:35:00.008-04:00

Last weekend was wonderfully long weekend over the 4th of July holiday! I had a "free day"off from work on Wednesday and the rest of the week we all had off. Wednesday was a mommy/daughter day. We went and visited daddy at work and had lunch with him. Then we headed to Pier One for a little shopping (I carried her around instead of the stoller, makes it a tad bit hard to shop, but I could watch her little hands better this way). And on our way home, the worse storm I had ever been in or seen crowded around us as I drove home. It got really dark, started to pour with visability almost nill and then hail. So I'm trying keep the car in front of me in site so I knew where to drive and at the same time, kept talking to Anna (she wasn't crying or anything) to make sure she knew I was there and maybe for my peace of mind that I was keeping her comfortable. Well we arrived home and I found that she fell asleep! I couldn't believe, but I can b/c she is my daughter and I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime. :) So found that the power was out, there was a river running down the alley and our garbage cans had been blown quite a ways away. Gary stayed at work still the 2nd wave blew over and the power still hadn't come on so we decided to head to Gary's parents for the night. Weak, yes. :) The power came on later that night and all has been well.

Thursday was a crazy cleaning in and out day as we were having my family up for the long weekend along with Gary's family. We wore ourselves right out with all that we did. That night, my family showed up from a long trek through Chicago to Grand Rapids traffic/construction.

Friday was a fun day filled with Allendale based activities, which was wonderful! We hit the pancake breakfast at a local CRC church for breakfast - very good - and it was Anna's first introduction to eggs and pancakes. She gagged most of the time, but she's already coming around with eating adult food so much better! Then we had lunch at the homestead and headed over to the park behind the township hall. They had a chainsaw wood carver, garden tractor pulls (which have their own website to promote such envigorating events) and a decent size car show. Anna had a great time on her first swing ride and sliding with daddy. She loved it! We headed back home for a cookout complete with burgers and porkchops, caramel apple salad and corn on the cob! Then we sat around and chatted for a bit until we packed up and headed back over for fireworks. Anna did great despite it being way past her bedtime. She enjoyed some cotton candy as well. She sat in a dazed state on Grandpa Tiemens lap and watched the fireworks.

Saturday turned out to be a big walking day. We headed to Grand Haven for the day as dad and Martha had never walked the pier before or to Grand Haven at all. We headed to downtown GH for some window shopping and to show them what store my cards are in (The Saltbox) and ending up at The Kirby for some woodfired pizza. From there, we continued down the boardwalk, stopping for some ice cream and finally reaching the end of the pier. We tested the waters once again with Anna and the lake, but again she freaked out and wanted nothing to do with it. We headed home after a long day of walking and being in the beautiful sunshine.

We finished off the weekend with church and a new recipe for dinner - grilled chicken bruchetta - and it was delicious! After everyone left on Sunday, it was too nice out to sit inside so I busted out Anna's new pool. She had the same reaction as the lake at first, but she got used to the colder water and eventually loved it! Daddy joined her and that made it that much better for her! All in all, it was a great weekend.

Love,

Gary, Christie the Boog

Ding Ding Ding..... Round 2!

2008-07-07T10:47:00.010-04:00

I've been such a slacker on the blog front and I apologize, I have great intensions I promise. So much to do, so little time especially with the beautiful weather! I'll update you on the general life of us and next post will be events in the last couple weeks rather than all in one.

So we do have some big news to share with those who don't know already, but Anna is going to be a big sister come this January! It was a bit shocking at first, but with the shock mostly worn off now, we're excited to welcome this wonderful blessing to our family! So here we go with round 2 of updates on the size of the baby in fruit and veggies, doctor's appointments and how I'm feeling. I'm 13 weeks along and feeling great! I haven't had any morning sickness or nausea, just some food aversions and sleepiness, so if this is the way all my pregnancies will be, I'll take it! I do have to do shots again unfortunetly. I started those at week 8, so we're well on our way of being permi-bruised for another 6 months. Gary gives those to me and we're definitely getting this down pat. He's such a wonderful support and partner in all this. I don't know where I'd be without him.

My official due date is January 18. So is Baby Tidd #2 comes on it's due date, Anna and baby will be exactly 15 months apart! Having kids so close together is a bit foreign to Gary and I, since we both have younger siblings 6 years younger than us. But the more and more we tell people, the more and more we find out that they had kids that close or their siblings are all that close and it turns out to be a wonderful thing for both parents and kids. The kids will be close in age where they will be doing similar things at the same time and they turn out to be best friends later in life. So we're excited to see how this will all play out. We just know that the Lord has a plan for us, where as this was a bit different than our plan, that He has the ultimate plan for us. Who can argue with that?! Stay tuned for another baby room design with Christie. Not quite sure on what I'm doing yet, but have some ideas rolling around. :)

We tried to make it special to tell everyone, but Anna wanted to eat the paper.

We did this picture with Anna and had to do it with this one. :)

My drug of choice.... well not choice, but these are my 9 boxes of shots to start.

A week ago last Thursday was my official first appointment. The doctor wasn't able to get the heartbeat with the doppler, so she brought in the ultrasound to make sure all was well (she wanted to make sure b/c of me doing the shots). Saw the baby! Just a wee little thing. It's about the size of a lime. Saw the heart fluttering and all looked good. Gary and Anna were there, so that was a neat experience to have our little family together to see that (eventhough Anna wanted down). We also, once again, realize how much we love our nurse and doctor. We couldn't have found any better people to take care of us. God has certainly provided for us, more than we think we even need. Otherwise, I'm doing well. My pants got a little tighter quicker this time around. :) So that's our exciting news!

On the Anna front. She's growing so much everyday, it's unreal! Where do I begin (since it's been so long...)? :) Last you saw, she was figuring out to pull herself up on furniture. Yeah, we've mastered that. She's been climbing up and popping her little head up on everything. Yesterday, she even climbed the stairs (with Gary and me right there with her). She's figured out how to crawl and nixed the army crawl. She likes to get on her knees to play and she can sit on her butt from crawling. So basically she's amazing. :) Not bias at all. She says mamama and dadada when she's upset or just babbling - we're not sure if she realizes what she's saying yet, but she's getting there. She also sits and talks to herself, figuring out syllables. She's puts 99% of everything in her mouth.... make that 100%. She does sit with books very nicely and trys to turn pages which is cool to watch. All in all, she can entertain herself very well but towards bed time she just likes daddy close to her to play. So cute.

What a good girl, she's already reading on her own. Maybe she could teach Uncle Alex. :)

We're ready to move on to stage 3 foods and finger foods. We've been starting to give her adult food and she's eating more now than gagging on everything. We've tried a lot of things and has liked it all which includes melon, cheerios, sweet potato puffs, crackers and hamburger meat and noodles. We started that about a week ago and she's figured out the release of food in her mouth rather than keeping it in her fingers to dissolve. This will be lovely to get her off baby food and on to our food. Now about that potty training thing.... :)

So she really likes popcicles. :)

She also cut her first tooth finally! We brought her in the same day I went in to get checked out as she had been having crying outbursts at night which is unusual for her and she threw up at daycare the day before. She's quite the fiesty one, so it was hard for the doctor to check her ears as we thought it could be an ear infection. Nothing. So we just gave her Tylenol to help her sleep better and 3 days later, out popped a tooth! I think the one next to it may be coming through too, but she is not cooperative at all for me to look in her mouth.

She absolutely hates it when you wipe her face off, wipe her nose, change her diaper 50% of the time and change her clothes. I think she doesn't like being confined or held down. No one does, but she gets so upset sometimes that it takes a little bit for her to calm down. Then she looks at you with water filled eyes like you ruined her world. It's cute, but trying to change her gets very frustrating when she fights to get off the changing table or roll over. I tell her every night, we have done this every night of your life! Yeesh. Stubborn little thing.

She remained in this pose while I got the camera - she had such a disgusted look on her face, it was too good to pass up!

The post picture of eating with Grandma Tidd. :)

On the flip side, she's a really big ham and she knows it. She does this little crinkle of the nose thing when she's playing around with whomever will watch and knows it's cute and people laugh. I used to do that. :) She giggles when you run around with her and scare her a little and when daddy attacks her on the floor. She'll mimic you with sounds and screams. If you do something to her a few times, she'll lean in so you'll do it again. Now that she scurries across the floor, she'll crawl over to you whether your on the furniture or on the floor and climb you like a mountain.

Anna would like to say thank to her Great Uncle Peter and Great Aunt Yvonne in China for getting her bears (that she'll share with her baby brother or sister) and the adorable outfit!

Great Grandma and Grandpa came for a Saturday visit last weekend. Not enough attention of course (see Grandma's shirt?). Hehe.

Parental front: We're doing well. Back to work after a very long and nice 4th weekend. We sold our old maroon Taurus (so very sad to see it gone) and now have to put that money into fixing our new Taurus b/c the air conditioner unit crapped out on us already! Oye vey. Sometimes it feels like smooth sailing, sometimes it's like smacking a brick wall. Such is life. We're very thankful for all that we do have and can afford to fix, so many people struggle far more than we do.

Stay tuned for another post soon, I promise!

Love to you all!

Gary, Christie and Booger

She's a crawlin'!

2008-06-26T21:59:00.006-04:00

(I wrote this on Thursday, so adjust accordingly.) We've had an eventful past couple weeks with the Booger. Cousin Katie came out a couple weekends ago for a visit. Anna had her first introduction to the Grand Haven Farmer's Market. We picked up a few goodies and took a walk along the boardwalk. We had lunch at the Kirby with our friends Jenn and Abby. Then we took Anna for her first beach experience! She did so well, in the sand anyway. She really didn't try to eat it either! Then we brought her to the water where the mood changed when the cold water and waves washed up on her feet. We're looking forward to more beach trips with her (we'll be a little more prepared this time).

Anna had also, at the time, figured out how to pull herself up on semi-stable objects. Since then, she's learned how to do it like a pro.

We started the week with a transition of daycare locations. I take her and pick her up now, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The set up is different there, but Anna has seemed to adapt just fine. She has become the baby that gets in all the smaller babies faces, rather than the one they try to keep the older ones away from.

Over the course of the last couple weeks, a lot of it this week, she's mastered the "pull herself up on everything" and she still army crawls but we're switching it up with the actual crawl! It's so much fun to see her learn new things - we also know we really have to keep an eye on her. We have a basket of magazines and books on the floor that are mine and Gary's that she seems to gravitate too. We've been trying to teach her "no" (being 8 months, not sure how possible it is to understand that) by pushing her hand away from the basket when she gets there. She wails like we keep breaking her heart over and over again. But we figure we'll keep those things down so she'll learn what's hers and what's ours.

Last night we were upstairs doing laundry and we were playing with her in her room. She has this frog that vibrates and plays music if you push it's back. This is no ordinary vibrating frog. It vibrates hard. And apparently this particular frog scares the crap out of Anna. We didn't realize it as we haven't had it out much yet. So I pushed it to vibrate and set it by her. She acted like this frog was going eat her for dinner. She freaked out! Then she has this beautiful soft lamb that winds up to play soothing music, she freaked out with that too! We have no idea why these 2 animals do it to her b/c she has many other animals that quack or sing. We had to laugh though - her reaction is priceless.

Today was another first for me to experience. I brought her to daycare. Brought her to where she needs to go, gave her kisses, said goodbye and set her down to play. She looked at me and started crying, like are you going to leave me and crawled towards the door. My heart sank. She never did that before. So I picked her up, told her she's ok and stood her up by her saucer. I said goodbye again and waved, she smiled and does her little wave and I left on happier note. She's figuring out a little bit of separation anxiety as she's figuring out her raw emotions.

She's also been waking up once a night a few nights week with wails of crying. We think it's teething and waves of pain come. One night, I went in and gave her her pipe and her little froggy she cuddles up with (oh my goodness, it's so darn cute!), rubbed her back and walked out. She (you'll see a pattern here) wailed like I just left her forever. This is newest thing and she obviously gets results. It's really quite cute and funny to watch b/c she doesn't cry all that much. So it doesn't bother us. :)

Let's see, what else. We're starting to give her finger foods (so far melon and Ritz) so she can start figuring that out. Tonight she did fairly well! She says da-da, ma-ma, ba-ba but doesn't really know what they are. She has moved from making noises with her arm and mouth, to using her fingers and moves them up and down on her mouth to create noise. It's really cute too. :) She does it when she's upset too. I don't know why, but it's funny. She talks, screams, makes noises and likes to be on her knees playing with her basket of toys. She's getting very squrimy if she's in your lap too long and wants to be down. Basically she's all over the place. But she's so much fun and love seeing her figure things out and keeping developing who she is.

Mom and Dad are doing well too. Work is busy for both of us. We "finished" our landscaping for the year. I'll get pictures of that up this weekend. And we added a new member to our family - a lawnmower. It's a beauty, all shiny and red. Not what we wanted to buy right now, but it's all about the homeownership, right? :) We're starting some painting projects too. Another changed is that it was time to cut off 6 years of hair. It was time for a change so here is the before....

Gary and I celebrate our 5th Anniversary this Saturday! What a ride it's been and I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. I planned the evening with a nice dinner and a Whitecaps game! We can't wait. (Here is the after.)

Stay tuned for another post this week with more pictures and more updates!

Love to you all and have a great weekend!

GCA

She's getting so big!

2008-06-11T14:53:00.007-04:00

The Banana is going to be 8 months old very soon! It's hard to believe how much she's learned in a short amount of time. I was going through photos of when she was first born and the clothes we put on her till she was 3 months b/c she was so little and knowing now that those clothes are packed away already and we're on to 9 month clothes!

It seems like each week (sometimes a few times a week!) she comes up with something new to do that leaves Gary and I looking at eachother saying "did you see that?" She has learned how to scooch herself up on to her knees and on a rare ocassion, on to her feet (that was only with dad on the floor). Once she gets on her knees and plays for a few minutes, she starts crying b/c she doesn't know what to do next. Because she doesn't cry all that often, we like to watch her cry. It's so pathetic looking, but so cute! :) She's mastered the army crawl - getting into a lot of things now. Of course being a baby, she wants to eat the littlest things and put the oddest things in her mouth. She's also taken a few crawls a couple days ago! She gets to her hands and knees fine, but plops down to move. We got her doing a few crawl finally (I know I'll regret that later) but she's well on her way to being a full fledged crawler.

She's so much fun with her little personality. She'll mimic you with screams and babble. She looks at you when you call Anna or Booger. We're trying to teach her what no means (a never ending battle to the day we die, we know) with her trying to get into things that aren't hers. She gets very upset when you push her hand away from something she shouldn't have. Stubborn little thing!

We're trying to introduce finger foods as she's learned how to pick things up using her fingers rather than her whole hand. It's gone ok - a bit of gagging and a freaked out mom. She's grabbing the spoon from us when we're feeding, her so we're trying to show her how to eat with a spoon. Yeah, that's going well. :) Dad also let her be as messy as she could be. I think they both had fun with that!

She's sitting up on her own and apparently gets into the sitting position at daycare. We have yet to see it ourselves - maybe that's her big next move to show us. But when we put her into the sitting position, I call it her prison as she just sits there and doesn't know how to get in that position. She doesn't mind for the most part - we usually can't leave her alone long enough for it to bother her.

She's also learned how to clap. It's the cutest thing and she does it a lot! I don't know if she learned it at daycare or at home. We clap a lot with her, so maybe a bit of both. Either way, it's darn cute.

No teeth yet, but we're have a lot more symptoms of them. I keep checking - despite her protesting. We've removed the baby tub from the big tub b/c she can sit on her own now, but it's also so much easier to wash her with out the constraints of the little tub. I don't think she cares either way, as long as she has letters to chew on. We've also started to put her in highchairs in restaurants rather than in her car seat. It gives her a bit more freedom and I think she's appreciative for that. :)

As for the boring parents, we're hoping to finish our darn landscaping this weekend. The weather or other plans have gotten in the way of doing so. So I'm hoping! Then on to painting and other projects. Everything is going well for us otherwise.

Have a great weekend if I don't post again before then! Enjoy the pictures and videos!
Love,

GCA

Warmer weather has arrived

2008-05-25T23:10:00.006-04:00

Lots going on at the Tidd house. As you'll see from the pictures, we've been trying to spend as much time outside as we can. The weather has been beautiful here and I think spring is finally here with summer right around the corner. We've done some landscaping in the front of our house, but I want to have it all finished before I post the pictures. It looks great so far, just need another Saturday to get it all finished.

Anna learning how to do new things all the time and having her first experiences. After a few tries, she has learned that the grass is ok and the she can pull it and try to eat it. She gets a little angry when you put her knees and hands first on the ground, but she's coming around.
A few weekends ago we went to Calvin College's perennial sale and got a few native plants to start my perennial garden. She was able to don her new sun hats. Uncle Alex and Aunt Nicole joined us later for lunch.

Anna finally can touch the ground flat footed in the walker Grandma and Grandpa Tiemens got her for Christmas. Although she only has figured out how to go backward in it, it won't be long till she'll be scooting all over the place and we'll really have to go get some gates. Her hair is also getting a bit longer, more like fuzz standing on end and her mullet has disappeared with the growth of her melon. It's still pretty light, but so was mine and now I'm a lighter brown color. So we'll see! Her eyes have seemed to stay the bright blue too.

Uncle Alex and Aunt Nicole visited all of us througout the school year - this is the result of their last visit before school let out. Anna is wearing her Build-a-Bear outfit, the Pistons jersey. And it fits for goodness sake!
Anna has expanded her pallet to 2nd stage foods. The doctor gave me the ok after the last visit to move her on and she hasn't looked back. She's eating chicken and rice, turkey and rice, chicken noodle, all kinds of mixed fruits and veggies along with oatmeal all with a smile on her face. We've also transitioned her to 4 bottles at 7 oz each from 5 bottles at 6 oz each. She's fine with it.
Anna has really developed her personality in the last few weeks. She's become more independant with her doing her "army crawl" across the floor and getting into the tiniest of things on the floor - like thread, hair, bits of whatever. The video below is when she first started "crawling" - now she cruises a lot quicker.

Needless to say the carpet will have to be vacuumed more often now. She doesn't miss a thing, she'll follow us, our voices or if something falls to the floor, she'll flop over to see where it went. Her vocabulary has reached to "ga ga", "ba ba" and screaming in short bursts. She's starting to mimic us with making those noises, making raspberry noises and the "do it again" with playing with mom and dad. She's figured out how to make sounds with her arm to her mouth and likes it when we put our hands out for her to make a noise and us to make it sound funny. Yesterday we started to figure out how to give kisses - they are open mouthed, sloppy drooly kisses, but amazing little Anna kisses they are. She has also figured out tonight how to clap - she watched us do it and she started doing that tonight. That was great! She giggles all the time, talks to animals and small children in screaming sounds, she is truely amazing and we love seeing her grow everyday.

Since we're trying to do fun, more local things due to the crazy gas prices, we invested in a pack and play to take with us if we're staying late somewhere or just to contain and entertain her. And as with everything else, it's edible. With all our landscaping endevours, we got a wheelbarrow as well. It's worked out wonderful and Anna liked it for about 2 minutes while I tried to take a cute picture.
We tried. Anna doesn't like to be smooshed for too long.

She has the best smile! One morning before work, she was cuddling with Hairy Scary Guy and it was like I caught her red handed - hand up in the air and all. Too funny!
It was time for another photo shoot and she took to it very well! This was a dress that her "Grandma" Carol got for her. And of course I had a sun hat to match. She even sat in the grass without complaining!

We're all doing well here. Anna is obviously doing so many new things each week and we're loving being parents to her. The landscaping is our first project this spring/summer and we've about finished that. We have some other exterior maintanance to do yet and then we'd like to get some other rooms in the house painted and decorated to our tastes and continuing the "decluttering" of our lives we started at the beginning of the year. So far it's going well. Work for me has been crazy busy the last few weeks due to trade show season, but we're wrapping that up this week now. Gary's work has calmed down a bit since school has let out - he now can wear shorts and leave at 4:30 each day! Lucky bum. Our neighborhood is filling up - only one house open now. It's mostly couples our age and a new next door neighbors are empty nesters and wonderful people! So we're looking forward to getting know everyone a bit more this summer. Gary and I are still volunteering for the nursery at church - one Sunday Gary was with 17 - 2 year olds! Hehe. He made it through. We keep Anna in church for the music at the beginning as she seems to really like it and then take her to play with her friends. We're doing through a series right now called "Desperate Households." It's been great so far! It's taking different stages of life or different generations of life and teaching us how to pray for them, how to make relationships stronger, what to work on within ourselves - we've really enjoyed it and have had great conversations about it. Otherwise, we've been camping out at home, getting outside and finding new things to do. We're keeping busy that's for sure!

Well, I'll leave you on that note as it's time to wrap up for the evening. I hope all is well with everyone - sorry I haven't been as on the ball with the blog as of recent, but I'm sure you understand and will try my best to keep it updated more often.

Have a great rest of the week!

Love,

Gary, Christie and the Booger

Bouncy Baby

2008-05-17T23:55:00.004-04:00

Well I can't figure out how to publish videos from our video camera, but I am able to publish ones we take on our digital camera. So for your enjoyment, the bouncy baby. :)

I'll post more tomorrow with another video and pictures. :)

Love to you all!

GCA :)

I know, another post!

2008-05-02T22:57:00.005-04:00

I wanted to do this for Anna's half birthday, but.... well you know the drill. Here's our little girl in each month of her life - I can't believe how much she's changed! So for your enjoyment, the Banana.

Anna at 7 months or so

Anna's birthday!
One Month
Two Months - Christmas
Three Months - one of my favs
Four Months - Baptism
Five Months - Easter
Six Months