Nana's Visit

My Mom came to California last week to meet her new grandson and visit with Ava and the rest of the family. It was GREAT to have her here and see her with the kids. She really made me feel like I can do this.. heck she handled my sister and I being 10 1/2 months apart... :)

She was a HUGE help with helping me get into a routine. She changed countless poopy diapers... helped with the first bath, and kept Ava busy and happy when I was working on getting the whole nursing thing down with baby Jack.

Grandma even got a name change while she was here. After many conversations on what the kids would "refer to" Grandma and Grandpa as, My dad had settled on GrandDad (much better than GrandBob, his original idea!) and mom was going to keep it simple with sticking with Grandma. Ava, however, had another idea. After a few days of trying to get her to call Grandma by name she began to call her Nana instead! So, that settled that.. Grandma P. is now Nana!

I survived my first full day without her here, but we miss her tons already. We are all looking forward to seeing her over the Holidays if not sooner!

Eek... a Mouse, and I'm not talking about Mickey!

So yesterday morning after Michael went to work, I was nursing Jack and my Mom was reading to Ava in the living room. All was good with the world... until... EEK, my Mom spots a mouse out of the corner of her eye!

Needless to say I am not a happy camper when she tries to tell me without alarming me too much. I am far from a mouse lover.. or even a mouse liker. So I hand Jack off to my mom and climb onto the recliner, feet up of course, thank goodness my Mom is much more calm than I am about the whole situation. After my shrieking stops I decide to IM Michael to see what to do. Of course he is at work and can't do much, but he tries to calm my nerves..

Well we end up calling our neighbor Tony, who is police officer but is home on leave for a few months after injuring his knee, so we thought he should be home. We are very lucky to have such sweet neighbors, as he came right over, and did a mouse inspection for me to try and find the little disease ridden critter! Unfortunately, after lifting couches and marble furniture, looking in closets, etc, there is no site of him! Ack! Tony tries to reassure me that that they are more afraid of us.. yadda, yadda, yadda... but gives me a hug and lets me know if I see it again to call him back, and tells me what kind of traps we should get.

So, the day goes on with no sign of Mickey.. and Michael comes home from work with traps.. and sets them. However bedtime rolled around and he was still loose, and I was not happy about the idea of laying motionless in the dark with the littler guy running a muck. Michael went back to bed before us since he had to work so early, but my mom and decided to stay up a bit longer. We were standing in the kitchen talking and sure enough, out of the corner of my eye, I see the little black dot charge across the living room, and into the closet! I of course start to panic again, run and wake Michael, he comes and sets more traps in the closet.. I place towels under the bedroom doors, and plan to reluctantly settle in with a light on and one eye open.

When Michael's alarm goes off at 5:00am he checked the traps, and sure enough, I could finally exhale .. he caught 'em!!! Whew.... The mouse is gone, but I am sure to continue to hear the jokes from my family and friends about how I "called the cops" for a mouse.

Ava moves to a Big Girl Bed!

Well I knew the day was coming soon when my baby girl would be moving to a big girl bed. We had been thinking we would give her another month or two to get used to her new little brother being here before making the next big change to a big girl bed so that her brother could have her crib when he was ready to move into his own room in 3-4 months. In anticipation of this day we had bought a toddler bed and had put it in her room for her to get used to.

Today our plan changed! Ava was in her bed for her nap, and I happen to glance down at the monitor and see that my baby had one leg swung over the top of the crib and the other leg was about to follow! I sprinted back to her room and was able to get her back in her crib just in time. She attempted this one more time before finally settling down for her nap. However, this was enough of a scare that we decided we better re-evaluate the big girl bed timeline!

After talking with Michael and my Mom we decided that we might as well bite the bullet and move her asap -- tonight will be the first night in her big girl bed... I will update soon on how this transition is going!

Our Family Grows... Welcome Jack!

Well, since this blog began because of the addition of Baby Jack to our family, I thought it was only appropriate to add some of the first photos of Jack here.

The birth of The Childers Chronicles...

Well the arrival of Jack prompted me to start this blog. As many of you know Ava had her own website highlighting all her milestones and journeys. However now with two kids under two years old I decided it would make more sense to do a family blog instead of trying to keep up two kid's websites. So here it is....