Flashback Friday

Last year on this day, Ace was 7.5 months old. He had just two days prior had his first swimming lesson, he had been standing for a few weeks at this point, a few weeks earlier he signed his first word. He was well on his way! He loved this toy (in fact he still plays with it from time to time.) However, it's legs were removed a few short months after this picture was taken when he started to use it to climb onto it. He was a busy boy then - and he's just as busy now. :)

I couldn't be happier if it was my own news!

One year and 27 days ago, I blogged about optimism and I had faith then that everything would work out just as it should. I wrote then about my friend Lori and her family's who carried that same faith and optimism headstrong through the ordeal of the contested adoption of their son, Matthew. It has been a long and testing thirteen months for their family - and today it is finished. Matthew has been adopted by Lori, Troy, and Garrett - not only in their hearts and souls where he's been since the moment they knew he was growing inside a mother's womb, but in the court system as well. Praise the Lord! As I said - I could not be happier if it was my own news!!! Congratulations family of four!!

A Mess

It began with silence. Mommy upstairs, Ace on the midlevel. I called for him. Nothing, not even feet scurrying... that's when you know something is really going on. No noise and no movement. Bad combo. So I ventured downstairs and I found this....

... for a split second I thought it was lots and lots of vomit and utter dread washed over me. I am sick of vomit! I would have demanded new carpet rather than cleaning it up. What it actually was became clear after that sheer moment of panic: a half of a box of granola. Good stuff too, I was kind of sad it was all over the floor. Upon my arrival (prior to grabbing the camera) in the midst of the sea of granola sat my son with his cheeks stuffed to the brim and we had the following conversation:

Me: Ace what are you doing?
A: (as bits fly out of his overly stuffed mouth) Eatum, Mom
Me: (chocking back laughter) Oh, I see. Do you realize you made quite of a mess?
A: (looking and pointing at his created sea) Mess! Messy! Piggy!
Me: (nearly dying from not laughing) It's not nice to throw food on the floor that is why we use a bowl.
A: (looks at me, looks at the mess, gets up scampers off to his toy pile, rummages, finds a bowl, goes back to the sea of granola) BOWL!

Ace then starts putting the granola into his bowl and I go to find my camera, I'm laughing hysterically because really it's just a little half of a bag of granola. The vacuum will get it. As you can see he had been pretty busy already with terrorizing the midlevel. There was stuff EVERYWHERE. So he got to help clean up so that the vacuum could even find the floor. Everything worked out fine, and then we got Ace something else to eat... because clearly he was hungry.

Wordless Wednesday

Ace at the library earlier this week.
Ace at the library seven months ago.

For more Wordless Wednesday click here

Just Us

Sometimes it is hard to remember life before Ace. I certainly remember more disposable income... we both worked and weren't paying $45 a pop for boxes of diapers. I remember getting more restful sleep. Note I didn't say more sleep. I've never been much of a sleeper. I also faintly recall going away with my husband and getting some time away from the office and everyday life... and Thursday night that is just what we did. Yes, we packed ourselves and Ace up, dropped Ace at his grandparents for his first overnight adventure and we headed to our favorite Northwest spot.

The view from our balcony of the falls

We had the most bizarre April weather that day. Prior to even leaving to head to the lodge we were pelted with slushy hail/snow mix off and on - cycling between black skies with the icy mixture pelting down on us, to bright blue clear skies with the sun shining brightly albeit not warmly. In fact we had to take the back way to the lodge because the DOT had closed the freeway. So as we set out - it was a bit of an adventure for ourselves. Although there wasn't anything too exciting - our drive was uneventful although still weatherful and we made good time. We had a bit of time before we checked in so we went in to town and sat down and did a wine tasting.


After we enjoyed our wine and a delicious late afternoon pre-dinner mouse pie dessert, we headed to check in. The rooms had recently been remodeled and so it was nice to take some time to look around and see what was different from the last time we had been there. The rooms were beautiful as usual. After relaxing for a while we headed out to see the falls. With all the weather it was just beautiful. The sun was shining and it was so nice to just spend some time just Loving Husband and I. We headed from there onto dinner at a local Italian place. Which was delicious.



After dinner we headed back to our room. Loving Husband lit a fire and then we looked at the room service wine menu... HA! No way. So LH left me to enjoy the fire and he went back out to the wine bar we had been at to buy a more reasonably priced wine that we had sampled during our wine tasting. Upon his return we watched a movie - uninterrupted!! - and then around 1am fell asleep... but not before putting out the room service tag for breakfast.

We awoke at 9:30am to room service arriving. Both of us had chosen that time assuming that there's no way we wouldn't be awake yet! Ha! Guess we were both wrong. It was blissful to sleep in so long. After we enjoyed breakfast in bed, we ran a bath in the gianormous tub. We got in... and not 2 seconds after being in the tub - water started leaking from the ceiling... ummm not good. So sadly we got out of the really nice tub and packed up our stuff, called maintenance, and headed to check out. We explained our bath tub experience and our $50 room service bill was comped for our trouble.

It was a wonderful overnight time with my husband. I look forward to being able to do more of these now that Ace is a little older and able to handle being away from us.

Overnight

At the age of nineteen months and a half months (exactly) Ace for the first time stayed overnight away from his parents. There have been many occasions where Ace has stayed away from one of his parents, but never away from both of us. He's had a handful of babysitting adventures, but on Thursday afternoon we dropped Ace off and for nearly 20 hours he stayed in the care of his Gran (Gammie) and Pop Pop (Papa). We all were expecting a rough night and plenty of upsetness - but Ace knows his grandparents now and he loves them. He was excited when we pulled up to their house and began running all around and as far as upsetness went his total was about five minutes worth. Total. Yipee!!!

Ace played in 'his' room, with Bailey, and a great time playing with the grandparents. They went for several walks where Ace picked up a few "poncos" - it's one of his cutest words to date and stands for pine cones. He loves to pick them up and throw them. He also had a blast splashing in puddles. Pop Pop sent the parents a video while we were out - and it was super great to see him having such a great time. Neither Loving Husband and I had much anxiety leaving and weren't really that sad to let him have this overnight - we ourselves were looking forward to our first overnight-alone time in 20 months. We were very thrilled to hear how wonderful he did.

Pop Pop also was given the opportunity, thanks to Ace, to change his first #2 diaper in 23+ years! He's now fully indoctrinated into the world of grandparenting. :) Yes Gammie had to go do the doctor and so Pop Pop and Ace were on their own for a bit. So we appreciate him breaking his impressive record for our son. We really know how much he loves him now. ;-)

Sleep, I'm told was pretty similar to our experience. Drifting off and sleeping for nearly 4ish hours before waking and then the oscillating awake and sleep cycle for another 4 before they brought him to their bed. Apparently the only real sadness for Ace with us being gone was when he woke up in the morning and realized we weren't there - but after five minutes he was back to his happy self and eating his breakfast.

When Loving Husband and I walked in the door, greeted by Pop Pop and Ace - Ace didn't immediately lunge for either of us. LH took him and gave him a hug and Ace continued to hug on him, but not for long - LH set him back down and Ace went back to running all around. In fact I personally did not get a hug until we were leaving about 20 minutes later. And he even threw a small protest when we started to put him in his car seat. He loves his grandparents and didn't want to leave!

We stopped back by yesterday because we had forgotten his shoes and as we pulled up he was squealing with glee. It was great to see that he remembers them so well, loves them so much, and is excited to see them... and once again he had himself a large protest when it was time to say bye-bye. He really does love them - and we are really grateful for their willingness to keep him overnight and risk sleep deprivation so that we could have a great night away! Thank you, Gran and Pop Pop! I think they might even be willing to do it again ;-) after a little bit of sleep!

Flashback Friday

Six years ago, the spring before we were getting married we visited the NW and one of our favorite spots and captured this picture. The falls were beautiful as usual. We try to go back at least once a year to visit. We went there for part of our honeymoon, we've spent two anniversaries there, and several other get-away nights and day trips to visit the falls, including last night on a memorable occassion of leaving Ace overnight with the grandparents for the first time (stay tuned for that post.) It is a wonderful place filled with God's natural beauty and a place that holds many memories for us.