Birthday Par-tay

Remember this post and how I said a little boy was going to be very happy about the birthday party gift certificate?  Well, we finally were able to redeem it yesterday after months of anticipation and it was well worth the wait. :)  Yesterday was Jackson's birthday and we set out to make the day as special as possible.  Here's a recap!

He started off the day with a visit from two of his favorite people, Steve & Lindsay.  They stopped by to bring him a gift and special birthday hugs.

Then it was on to opening up gifts from us.  His big gift was a CARS 2 scooter.... hope the smoke clears so we can get outside and try it out!

Jacks played with his toys while we got ready for his birthday party at the fire station.  It was scheduled from 10am to noon so we had to get going by 9:30am.  All I can say is that they WAY exceeded my expectations.  Fireman Jay, who ran the party, was fantastic.  He had so much patience with the kids and was great at explaining everything.  I feel so blessed that we had the opportunity to have his party there. We have some really neat people in our community.

Fire station tour...

I think Grandpa Steve liked the tour more than the kids :)

On to cake and ice cream....

 

After cake and ice cream was a magic show...

And finally presents...

First Bites

I finally bit the bullet and made Audri some rice cereal tonight.  I know I probably should have done it sooner but to be honest, things have just been busy.  And in the back of my mind, I have the horrible memories of Jackson's issue with rice cereal and our first ER visit due to extreme constipation.  So, I just wasn't that anxious to get her going on foods.  But, I'm not going to wait any longer.  The little thing could stand to beef up a little so foods here we come!

Get ready for a lot of pictures.  My second child will not wonder where the pictures of her are when she's older (plus BJ did a good job of taking them). :)

Smile

Audri girl's first tooth popped through yesterday!! I was trying to get her to smile so I could get a picture of her tooth and... this is what I got.

Maybe next time.

Five Months

Our sweet Audri is five months.  Unfortunately, she rang in five months with her first ever cold and working on her first tooth (or so we think)!  It broke my heart to hear her snort like a pig and have no idea what this sickness thing is all about.  Poor girl... the good thing is we only had a couple rough nights and overall her cute little personality has shown though all her nasty cold symptoms.  As Deanne put it, she'll still give you that great big smile even when she's feeling bad. 

Some other things she is doing at five months...

Rolling from her front to back quite easily which means no more tummy time for her as she just rolls over the minute she lands on her tummy. 

Grabbing for everything in sight (and mostly trying to get everything into her mouth).  We don't see any teeth yet but they can't be far away.

Starting to grow more hair (yay!).  I can't tell what color it will end up being... sometimes it looks blond while other times it looks darker.

Laughing at brother.  Last weekend while we were at Alta, she thought it was hilarious when Jackson would swing and miss the baseball.

Growing out of her six month clothes.  She's so tall that her six month pants are getting too short.  Time to go shopping, again!

Giving kisses.  When we give her kisses, she comes right back at you with an open mouth.  I love it that she loves getting/giving kisses.

Next up... introducing food.  I can't wait to see if she likes baby food as much as her brother did. 

Randomness

Sigh... it's been a long couple of weeks.  It all started the day before Labor Day weekend when BJ had his "we're done having kids" procedure.  It went well... or so we thought.  He had an uncommon complication which led to a lot of down time for him and a lot of mommy only time for our kiddos.  Then Jackson was so kind to give Audri and I his nasty cold last weekend.  We are still trying to recover, especially baby girl.  Poor thing does not know what to think of the stuffy/snotty nose and let me tell you, it has totally thrown her whole schedule for a loop.  Add in horrible wildfire smoke on top of it and we have a lot of hacking going on at our house.  So... we're getting by day by day. 

Here is a picture dump from the last couple weeks:

Labor Day weekend, I took the kids up to Chelan to visit G&G Terry and Aunt Stacey and Randy.  I just love the view from my parents house.

 

He loves his sister (most of the time). :)

 



The Wenatchee Fire Complex has made for quite the show from our house.  There were a couple of nights where BJ and I would watch the flames in awe.

Although the fire is cool to watch, the smell of smoke is getting exhausting.  I hate the constant smell and I especially hate thinking of my kiddos lungs getting polluted with this nasty crap. This is a picture from a window at work last Friday.  Yuck!

Unfortunately, the air inside of work is not much better than outside. I actually wore this mask for a while at work today until I realized it was too hard to eat or drink with it on.  For those of you who know me, I can't go more than a couple of hours without eating or drinking. :)

Because of all the smoke, we decided to get out of town last Saturday morning.  Since we were missing the end of the year camping trip due to illness, we decided going up for the day would be ok.

A picture from the way up... we are starting to see blue skies again!

 

The boys got to play ball and sister and I hung out.

 

 

Apparently all the fresh air wore him out. It was so nice to take a deep breath!

 

Hopefully we will get a reprieve from the smoke soon.  All of our lungs could really use it.