Easter 2009

Easter 2009 was extra-special this year - it was Gavin's 1 month birthday! We had a weekend full of celebration. We spent time with family and enjoyed the great spring weather that has finally arrived. Here's a photo of little Gavin as he turned one month old:
We spent the few days prior to Easter with Grandma and Grandpa Reder. They were very sweet to come in and lend us a hand as we continue to adjust to 2 under 2! They sent Erik and I out to dinner on Friday night (our first dinner out together since Gavin arrived!) and they made a wonderful breakfast for us on Saturday morning. Cassidy had the time of her life, as always! Grandma and Grandpa brought some fun Easter treats that kept her very busy. A highlight for her was the container of bubbles - we went outside and blew bubbles and she was in constant giggles as she tried to chase them down on a very windy day. That night, we got out the bubble bath for the first time - what a hit! She was in tears when bathtime had to end. She spent at least 5 minutes whimpering "night-night bubbles..." Gavin spent most of his time eating and sleeping (his usual routine these days), but he had some great awake time with Grandma and Grandpa that included some first real smiles!

On Easter Sunday, the kids got dressed in their Easter outfits and we drove to Clarendon Hills to visit with Grammy and Grandpa Brown, Aunt Mel, Uncle Aaron and our dog-cousin Cooper. We spent some time visiting with friends at church, then enjoyed a wonderful brunch and dinner prepared by Grammy and Grandpa Brown. They even made our dinner milk-free so Cassie could take part - so thoughtful! Cassidy played with Cooper (they're such pals!), had a blast in the patio swing, chased squirrels, and went for an Easter egg hunt. She didn't really get the idea of hunting for eggs, but it was fun to find the treats inside. Gavin slept peacefully in everyone's arms and got funny comments on his preppy Easter clothes. We had a relaxed afternoon - we watched the Master's golf tournament and enjoyed the beautiful weather outside.

A couple videos to share...

Now that Gavin is a full month old, we had fun looking back at the pictures and videos from when he was born. It's hard to believe how quickly babies grow and change! Here is a video of Gavin when he was only a couple days old...


And this is one of our favorite recent videos of Cassidy, being her silly self. Enjoy!

Our new life as a family of four!

Wow, the past 4 weeks have gone by so quickly! I can't believe Gavin is growing so fast - he weighs just over 10 lbs. and he's moved out of his teeny newborn diapers! I already feel like he looks so much bigger than he did in his hospital pictures. He still has his little tuft of light blonde hair and he is showing signs of little dimples on his cheeks! We're working on getting him to sleep longer stretches at night, and a few days ago he did a wonderful 6-hour stretch. Hooray! He is becoming more aware of his surroundings now - he'll stare intently at us as we hold him, give us a smile every now and then, and bat his hands at the toys that hang from his jungle mat. He especially likes to look at his reflection in the little hanging mirror. It's so fun to see him make these great strides literally from one day to the next.

Cassidy is adjusting well to her new role as big sister. She knows Gavin is here to stay and she is starting to have little interactions with him throughout her day. This morning, she knelt down by his bouncy chair (that he was peacefully sleeping in) and said, "Open eyes! Wake up!" She also likes to fix his pacifier when it falls out and she will rock him in his rocking chair for a second or two if she happens to be walking by. She also continues to try and poke at his eyes and tickle his little toes! She laughs when he makes little cooing noises and always lets us know if she hears him crying (Gabin ky-ing!!!).

Since I spend a good chunk of time each day nursing Gavin, Cassidy and Daddy have gotten to spend a lot of quality time together - especially during our first week home from the hospital when Erik had the whole week off from work! They spent a lot of time outside. Favorite activities included swinging on her new bucket tree swing (thanks Grammy and Grandpa Brown!), picking up rocks and sticks in the yard, drawing with sidewalk chalk and going for a bike ride at the lakeshore. Cassie just loves to play outside, no matter the weather. Thankfully it sounds like warmer spring weather is around the corner - we're craving anything over 50 degrees!

We're so grateful for the outpouring of love and support we're received from family and friends over the past 4 weeks! Everyone has been so thoughtful - we've enjoyed all the visitors and the kind thoughts that have arrived in the mail. Thanks to everyone for your well wishes. We are loving our new life as a family of four!

Welcome to the World, Gavin!

We are so happy to introduce our new baby boy!!!

Gavin Thomas Brown was born on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 11:32am. He weighed a healthy 8 lbs., 8 oz. and is 20.5 inches long. We love him dearly and are so happy to add him to our family! Here are a few pictures from the day he was born.


More pictures and stories to come in the days and weeks ahead!

Birthday Weekend at the Hardings!

With Erik away in Austin with the guys last weekend, Cassidy and I headed down to Lafayette, IN for a visit at the Harding's house. We celebrated Steve and Tracy's birthday and had lots of fun spending time with everyone. Cassie loves seeing her cousins, Kelsey and Ethan - they wore her out while I got to be lazy! They played "Jungle Adventure" with their huge bin of plastic jungle animals, built a fort with blankets, pillows, and chairs and brought in flashlights to navigate, ran "laps" around the rooms in their home (a fave activity of Cassidy's), and played with a huge beach ball. Cassie was giggling for the majority of the weekend! Ethan even treated her to some tunes on his guitar, and we also got to see Kelsey play in a couple indoor soccer games. Within hours of our arrival, Cassidy was pulling her cousins around by their pinkies, a sure sign that she had found some great playmates.

Cassie also had fun with Aunt Tracy and Uncle Steve. Tracy was very kind to give Cassidy a bath at night (having trouble handling that one myself with my due date only a week away!) and Cassie loved splashing around with all the toys in their "big girl" bath. She also thought Uncle Steve's goatee felt pretty funny!

Grandma and Grandpa Reder also came down for a visit, and Cassie kept them pretty occupied too! They read stories together, played "horsey"on Grandpa's knee, and had little conversations as Cassie continued to enjoy practicing her new words. And, all were very sweet to endure countless episodes of Cassie's favorite TV show, "The Wonder Pets." Grandma and Grandpa brought a special birthday cake (a family favorite from a Rockford bakery) and Cassie got to help Aunt Tracy and Uncle Steve open their presents. We all had such a fun weekend!

OK, so we've only got 5 days left in our countdown for baby #2! We're so excited to meet him or her! Erik and I enjoyed a nice dinner out last night (luckily we moved across the street from a really sweet 8th grader who loves to baby-sit!) and we had fun chatting about the adventure that lies ahead. We'll have news to share by next Thursday, if not sooner!

Having fun and counting down!

February 2009 has us feeling happily settled! We closed on the sale of our old home and our furniture has been moved in. We feel so blessed that things fell into place the way they have! Now, when we pull up to the driveway, Cassie says "We're home!" It's so nice to see that she's adjusted so well to the move. We hope we can say the same when baby #2 arrives - we'll see her reaction to that very soon!

Over the past few weeks, we've had some great playdates and get-togethers with friends that live in the area. It's been such a nice welcome to the new city! We all have kids that are about the same age, which makes it really fun to get together for some playtime. We had a wonderful dinner over at The Elliott's home in Vernon Hills and another fun night at the Hoffmeister's house, which happens to be just 3 streets away from us! We're so happy to have friends that live nearby, and they've all been so helpful as we seek out things like local doctors, plumbers, etc. They've also introduced us to some new friends, and we look forward to getting to know everyone here even better in the months to come.

We've also had some of our friends from our old neighborhood up to visit. It's about a 20-30 minute drive, depending on traffic...so we appreciate them taking the time to come up! We hope we can continue to have fun playdates and dinners even though we're a little further down the road (or Wii competitions in funny shirts, whatever works!).
[These are pics of Cassie with two of her best guy friends - Owen and Luke! The crazy people in the group photo are our great neighbors from our old home!]

With the weather so cold, we've been spending a lot of time at the local indoor play areas - particularly the Exploratorium in Skokie and the Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview. They are both less than 10 minutes away and offer Cassie an entire morning of playtime! She just loves to run around and explore all of the exhibits - especially the water areas. We've learned to bring a change of clothes!


So...the latest with Miss Cassidy. She is showing a very playful personality these days. Much of her time is spent doing one of the following: playing peek-a-boo/hide and seek, giving or receiving tickles, singing songs, dancing while daddy plays guitar, squirting and splashing in the bath (sometimes squirting daddy!), laying out all of her stuffed animals on the floor and laying down with them for pretend "night-night", wearing hats and playing dress-up, and experimenting with pigtails (actually this is only mommy - we can only get them in if she's really distracted!). She really, really loves music. She has a few different musical toys and rotates through them during playtime. Each evening, we take a 5-minute car ride over to the train station to pick up daddy, and if a song ends while we're driving and the DJ starts chatting, she will literally start crying, actual tears, saying "musiiiic!!!" in this sad little voice - until I can scramble to find a station playing another song. The instant she hears singing or at least an instrument sound, the crying is over and smiles return. So funny to see all her little "quirks" start to emerge. She has also discovered counting and will count anything she sees - the crackers I put on her tray, her toes, her "guys" (stuffed animals), the boats in her bath, pretty much anything. Every once in a while she gets through 1-10 in order - but most often she'll say "1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10!" I've also noticed that whenever she bumps herself (enough to get the whimpers going), she'll say "I'm sorry" as her little lip turns down and quivers. She must have gotten used to me saying "I'm so sorry you bumped your head/toe/elbow, etc.!" and thinks this is just what you say when something hurts. It's so interesting to see how the mind develops! And lastly, we've been working a lot on manners, and she has caught on pretty well with please, thank you and you're welcome. I was prompting her to say it at every appropriate time, and then yesterday I helped her open her fruit snack paper, and she blurted out "Thank you, mama!"

Well we are down to 2 short weeks until Cassidy has a little brother or sister, and we can't wait!!! Our great friends Meg and Rob just welcomed their new little boy, Charlie Vlach - and it sounds like big sister Madeline is adjusting wonderfully. We wish them all the best and can't wait to join them soon!

January 2009 kept us busy!

This entry is the first being written from our new house in Wilmette, IL. We're so happy to be settling into our new home! Moving is always a big undertaking, and when you add in an active toddler, a mom who's due in 6 weeks with baby #2 and a dad who needs a hernia repaired, we made for an interesting bunch. Our moving process was different than some in that we still have our old house on the market, staged with all of our furniture. So moving really only involved bringing over boxes of "stuff" at our leisure. It was actually pretty nice to have time to spread out the process, but we eventually got to the point where we needed to have all of our necessities in one spot - so a couple weeks ago, we made the switch and are so happy to be in our new home - even if the furniture hasn't made it's way yet! (Cassie loves the empty space - she makes tables out of our moving boxes and lines up all of her "guys" in rows on top.) We got a lot of great help from all of our parents, siblings, and neighbors and we're so grateful for that! We have Cassidy's room all set up and the kitchen too, and the rest is easy to be without for a short time. Thankfully, our old home is under contract and we should be fully transitioned within just a few weeks. Hooray!

We've been having so much fun exploring our new city. It's a small town that's only about 5 miles wide, so getting around from place to place is easy and quick. The downtown area is set just off Lake Michigan and has an old-fashioned feel to it, with the train station running right through the middle. Cobblestone streets surround it, with quaint shops like a barber, butcher, flower shop and bakery found on each corner. To me, it feels like I'm taking a step back in time. The village has such great character!

One of the activities we've started up since arriving is gymnastics class for Cassie. It's for 1-2 year-olds. The class begins with everyone sitting in a circle for stretches. Somehow, nearly every other toddler sits patiently and follows the instructor with each stretch. This amazes me. Cassie will sit down with me for a total of about 7 seconds - and then she's immediately up and running towards the foam pit. No amount of bargaining will get her to sit with the class - she's too mesmerized by all the equipment and fun playmats! The teachers all smile and quietly mouth to me "It's ok!" as they see me desperately trying to get her to stay in our circle - they're all very sweet and understanding. After 5 minutes of stretch time, the kids are supposed to line up behind the balance beam and each take a turn greeting their teachers for attendance halfway down the beam. If Cassie gets someone slow in front her, it's bad news, she just jumps off and goes elsewhere. Patience is not her thing at the moment! Once attendance is over, it's open gym time (thank goodness!). The kids can have a turn on the trampoline, the foam pit, and anything else that's within their reach. Cassie loves every second and takes an extra-long nap on gymnastics days!

Since we're on the topic of little Cassidy, I have to mention that in the past few weeks, she seems to have grown up so much! With baby #2 arriving soon, I've tried to start calling Cassie my "big girl" - and she's living up to it, both physically (97th percentile for height, she's really tall) and developmentally. In the past 3 weeks, she has gone from saying only single words to now having full on conversations with us. She will repeat absolutely anything. Last night, I said to her, "OK, all done with your bath!" and she proclaimed, "All done wif my baf!" We're having so much fun chatting with her throughout our days. It provides us with a lot of laughter!

The countdown is certainly on for our next bundle of joy - we just can't wait to meet him or her! Whenever I tell people that we actually have the gender written down on a card in a sealed envelope (courtesy of our ultrasound tech), they can't believe we haven't peeked. But we've stayed strong! Erik never intended to look - he has always wanted that surprise. I was on the fence, and decided to have it written down so the option was there for me to find out if I really wished to. Of course, it would be for my knowledge only - wouldn't have wanted someone accidentally spoiling the surprise for Erik! But in the end, I let the practical side of me slide and decided to get in on the fun of the surprise. We'd be equally thrilled with a boy or a girl of course, so this is the best type of surprise I can imagine! The baby's room is painted sage green (here's a pic of Cassie helping!), and we've pulled out all of the neutral-colored clothes from Cassie's baby wardrobe. We've even got the newborn diapers piled up and ready. So, I think we're as prepared as we can be! I'm ready to speed through the next 6 weeks and meet this little one!

This past weekend has given us some extra time together as a family. Erik finally had that surgery last Thursday (all went perfectly!), so he's been home recuperating for the last 4 days. Cassie has loved having Daddy around - they've been very busy building Lego houses, playing with play-doh, having tickle fights, and reading books together. (The main obstacle is that it hurts Erik to laugh, and Cassidy is constant comedy!) And I've been able to have some extra time to unpack boxes and get organized in the new house. Tonight is Super Bowl Sunday, so we're relaxing on the couch. We've ordered in some deep dish pizza and we're gearing up for the week ahead. It's been a busy month, but a really wonderful one too!