An Unforgettable Holiday Season!
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| Butke Family |
I never in my life, thought I would experience such a mild and warm holiday season (at least in Ohio). Temperatures averaged in the 50's and 60's most of November and December with even some 70's. What a treat!!! We had no measurable snow fall with a green grass Christmas. The cold temps and snow have finally arrived though. My car read 17 degrees once this week while I was picking-up Austin from school! BRRRR!!
Thanksgiving and Christmas didn't feel quite the same this year with the warm temps but that doesn't mean they didn't provide great memories. We had a small (10 adults, 3 kids) Thanksgiving this year at my parents and the babies were not too sure of the food. Normally, they are good eaters but maybe I tried to introduce too many new foods and they just didn't like our traditional spread, maybe next year?? The month between holidays zoomed by and we were home again for Christmas, this time for 3 different family parties. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house with the Keller side who hail from all corners of the planet (Delft-Netherlands, New Hampshire, Texas, Chicago, Columbus and Cleveland) we enjoyed one of our "old" traditional meals of Prime Rib and cream potatoes. Although we had a great meal we definitely missed the relatives that couldn't attend from Colorado, California and Chris across the pond in London! It was a unforgettable night to say the least ;) Christmas Day we spent with Paul's side of the family, Jason and Mira were home from Connecticut and also with Cousin's Debbie and Megan. We enjoyed some very tasty baked ham and King crab legs for dinner. The kids had a field day opening gifts and it was really fun watching all 5 participate. It was the first year I couldn't keep track of who got what so thank you everyone for the generous gifts and maybe next year I might be able to slow them down....hahahahahah, right! The day after Christmas we spent with my mom's side, the Bertsch's who nearly all live in Sandusky with the exception of a couple cousins. My cousin Holly got engaged this fall and bought a house this year, she and her fiance Justin had us all over and it was really great. We ONLY had to be creative to block the babies from getting into EVERYTHING but in the end it all worked out! We blinked and New Year's Eve had arrived and for the 3rd straight year we stayed home and did absolutely nothing. That was fine with me, we aren't super big fans of the overdone hoopla of the holiday, which always ends up being disappointing most of the time. So instead we stayed up with all 3 kids and watched the ball drop all cozy on our bed, HAPPY 2016!!!!
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| Wide awake on New Year's Eve |
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| Opening gifts Christmas Day |
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| Bertsch's being goofy |
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| Our Tree |
There are two toddlers taking over our house! Kelsey has finally taken up walking as her new trick. Toddling here and there like a dainty princess with an occasional tipsy over, while Logan has mastered the art of RUNNING! He is very quick on his feet with short choppy steps and has coined the nickname of "speedy." I already know he's the one who will be racing ME around the block :) The chasing game has begun which wears me out if we are anywhere but home. They are very good listeners though and follow directions well which is one good advantage to the the walking phase. They come when called for a meal, climb the stairs for bed and to take a bath, walk to the changing table for a diaper change and even come to the back door to collect their shoes when it's time to leave. They are also very vocal and try to speak much more than I am used to with Austin. They just might teach him a thing or two. They are able to ask for things they want, although their vocabulary varies. Kelsey says some things(hi,booger,book,ball,Austin,dada) that Logan can't and vise versa(wawa, choo choo, E, M) but they do have a list of mutual words(mama,baby,uh oh,night night,all done,banana,num num)! They are starting to develop attachments to certain items. Kelsey has selected a blanket with ribbon tags along the edge as her favorite, MUST HAVE item for bed along with a pacifier with a stuffed animal attached to it called a "Wubbanub". Logan on the other hand has a train in his hands all the time. He loves Thomas the train just like Austin! Developmentally, they continue to cut teeth, Logan now has 12 which include the 4 molars and Kelsey only has 9, only one of those is a molar. The twins now only take 1 nap a day around 12:30. The span ranges from one hour to three hours and Logan is always up before Kelsey. They have been regularly going to bed about 8:30 but on any given night one of the 3 kids wakes up with terrors and has trouble going back down so one ends up in bed with us for part of the night. We VERY rarely get an uninterrupted night. Although I am not a huge fan of waking up to soothe anyone of the kids, I would rather have them cuddle and sleep with us then for me to be sleep deprived trying to get them back to bed or heaven forbid they wake up the other two. This being said Paul and I rather get more sleep so we allow whomever to sleep with us if they wake and then everyone is happy. God knows that if I am not rested there is no way I can handle all 3 of them plus the baby I watch. This is just one of those things that I didn't think I would do before I became a parent but once I was there was no turning back. Our hearts just cannot handle when the kids cry because they want to be close to us, they are hurting from teething, scared of something or feel sick. Both Paul and I suffer from anxiety and that's something we really hope they don't inherit. If sleeping with us when they need some extra comfort has any chance of them not developing anxiety later in life, then I am allllll for it! Plus, I have really been attached to the fact that they won't be little forever and it's my way of holding on to this phase just a little longer. Soon enough they won't want to cuddle with us and when they do I will welcome the full night's sleep :)
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| Sleeping in on my mom and dad's bed |
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| Lovin her dada |
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| 6 months on Hemangeol |
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| First day of Christmas Break |
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| Everyone playing trains |
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| Tupperware drawer fun at Gigi's |
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| Reeking Havoc |
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| My source of High Blood Pressure |
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| Seats taken |
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| More scheming |
Austin is moving along beautifully in school. He beats to his own drum though, he learns concepts very fast but is still very slow to develop new words and phrases. His largest improvement is using the phrase, "I want" (I want wawa please, I want to eat, I want choo choo- to watch Thomas). Some days I am ecstatic with his progress and others I am frustrated that he just cannot communicate more. He is even becoming more frustrated that he cannot communicate with us and so the end result has been the development of tantrums. As most of you know, tantrums are a very common part of being a toddler. When tantrums start and end is totally dependent on the speed of development of the child. Austin's is coming on late because until now he just didn't care about communicating verbally but now that he wants to and cannot, there is a breakdown in his emotions. The school psychologist really feels it's normal for him to have a hard time and this is how he copes. Tantrums that start closer to age 2 are more common because that is when most children develop speech and the communication breakdown and more independence develops. Austin is just late to the game, as is his whole life!!! In a few short weeks Austin will be turning 4! I might cry, why no other age has bothered me, I am not really sure but 4 is really tugging at my heart strings. He seems so grown up! When Ellee and Drake came to visit during Christmas break, I noticed how tall Austin was getting and that's when I first noticed being sad. Each year of his life has been sooooo fast. I wonder why life has to be this way? Why does life seem forever long when you're a child but far to fast when you are an adult....hmmph?! We will be having a small party this year with just family. Mostly because big parties are too hard for me to handle anymore with the twins. I will enjoy a couple years of family parties before we enter into the parties where he wants his friends invited instead!
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| School/4 year old picture |
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| she adores him |
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| Helping make red sauce |
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| Brother snuggles |
In other news, I had a very busy November with my photography business. I had two very full weekends of picture taking, consisting of 10 sessions and a wedding. It was a true test at how much I can cram in and how long it takes to edit. The majority of the sessions were for Holiday cards so they only last 30 minutes per shoot and because I don't need to provide a ton of finished products (5-10 images) for what the industry terms a "mini session" it made for much quicker editing than a normal session (30-40 images). The weekend of Thanksgiving, I assisted my professional friend as the second shooter at a wedding. Weddings are not exactly my cup of tea. I enjoy being her assistant and second shooter though, it's not nearly as stressful and I can take more time to be creative with the angle of my shots and capturing the details of the wedding. I look forward to working with her more in the future. As for my daycare job, that continues to be going really well and my schedule will soon be changing in February. Lakewood Hospital will be closing it's doors and Leo's mom is being reassigned to a new location. This means more hours for me as my schedule will be M-F 8-5ish. I welcome the extra hours as we have been pretty financially strapped since the twins arrived on the scene. We are eager for me to provide more monetarily for our family. We also hired another sitter for ourselves. We found that only having one was proving to not be as helpful as we would have liked. Chelsea has not been able to work for us on numerous dates that I have requested. We used our new sitter Amy, a 40 something mother of two grown children just this week to FINALLY see the new Star Wars. What a treat that was, the theater closest to our house has been totally remodeled and when doing so they installed over-sized leather reclining chairs for our viewing pleasure and to top if off, this place has a liquor license with a full bar! The kids did wonderfully with Amy and we will definitely be using her much more often! Back in November, we enjoyed a fantastic night out with my mommy friends and their spouses. Friend Michelle had a murder mystery birthday party and we got all decked out in our roaring 20's attire and enjoyed a night of drinks and role playing. I won the category for most money swindled hahaha, quite the opposite of my normal life and also had the most murder accusations (not sure I like that)!
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| Kitty cocktail waitress and Speakeasy Bouncer |
As house projects go, we are sprucing up our basement. It really is one of the last things on our list and is not really pressing so Paul will be taking his time this winter to clean it up. The floor needs to be repainted, the walls resealed, new utility sink and water lines and the half bath redone. Now that we have a garage this allowed us to shuffle some things around for storage and make the basement project even possible. Don't get me wrong, the basement is still chocked full of stuff so we've had to do it in sections. Clearing out an area, fixing it up and then move everything back in and fill that area with another corner's storage pile. It's as tedious as it sounds but it's slowly looking much less dungy. In the meantime, with the storage shuffle, I also made the side room of our 3rd floor into a photo studio. Paul's office is also in the room. I am now able to keep my backdrop equipment setup and ready to go. I used to use our dining room but moving our table and chairs to the side to take photos was one, unprofessional and two, annoying and unreasonable with the kids. Now, I have a semi-permanent floor in place and all my props, backdrops, floors changes and materials are stored in one room for easy ready-to-use accessibility. I am looking forward to taking the next step into turning this into real income. Wish me luck :)
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| Framing for bathroom redo |
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| Studio space, don't judge the wrinkled new backdrop |
