Artists

We have gone into the artistic mode in our house! Ethan’s little buddy Jayden got him hooked on drawing, because Jayden loves to draw and create all kinds of things. So ever since Saturday once his homework is finished Ethan stays at the table and draws, draws and draws again! Our fridge is COVERED in drawings and those are only the special ones from today!!! Here is one of the evil things you must do as a parent- sort trough these heaps of very special art and keep only a piece or two otherwise you would have to get a separate storage unit just to store all these papers. So once the little “piles of paper” creators have gone to bed your evil deeds of sorting and throwing away can start. If I would’ve kept all of Ethan’s work just from the time he started pre-K we would have to designate a special room just for boxes of his art and school work. I swear we would have a good portion of rainforest in our house just from all the trees that went into making all that paper! But at the end of each school year I sit down and go trough all his school papers and other random acts of creativity and keep only few very special ones. And at the first sorting there is always quite a pile, so once next year comes around I will go trough all the previous’ years school papers and art and get rid of even more. So I would say that by the time Ethan is in high school I might have only couple of piece of paper versus a huge folder, left from his kindergarten.  So all that being said, back to the point of more recant events in our house- tonight will be the time to get rid of some of the art and put it in the separate bag that will go straight to outside trash bin. That also was a lesson learned, because to see your art ripped apart or folded into tiny pieces in a garbage can can send your offspring into thinking that you do not love them as much as you think you do. But artwork missing from the fridge is easily explainable…thank goodness!

Jack on the other hand is not taking to art very easily he thinks it is way more fun to tease me by putting a crayon in his mouth after mommy telling him not to do that. He is more into practical art these days- throwing food on the floor in many different shapes at amazing speeds, maybe someday it will be a recognizable part of artistic expression but for now it is just a fun game for Jack and never ending chore for me. Although one thing Jack is being expressive is music- he loves to strum Aaron’s guitar and his little xylophone and drum is getting quite the use every day.

Little Boy Jack

Jackson had his one year check-up last week and all went pretty good. He does have eczema and it is all over his body, but we have some good prescription for cases when it gets really bad and itchy other than that we have a new cream to use so we are hoping it will help with all the spots. Also he has slowed down on the growing a LOT. First 7 months he just kept on growing and was in 12 months clothing by then and then it all came to a halt. Mr. Jack is now 21.4 pounds and 28 1/4 inches tall what puts him into 5% for weight and 15% for his length , but he really doesn’t seem that little to me and we don’t really worry about the growth chart numbers anyhow. And it runs in the family to be little so we are good to go.

Jack did get his shots too, but we did split them up, so the next ones are not due until his 15 months appointment. And then there was the blood work!!!!- they took 8 little vials of blood from our little guy and Aaron had to step out of the room, he just couldn’t stand seeing the nurses poke the needle around trying to find Jack’s veins. But the hardest part in all the blood work part for Jackson is to be held down- he has a bit of claustrophobia- inherited from me ;o)

We are still waiting on the test results for his liver enzymes, but since he is healthy and on task or beyond in all his developmental milestones it is not that big of a concern. But we got some answers I will go ahead and blog about those too :o).

New beginnings

We have been in PA for a bout a month now and slowly starting to get used to it. It has been nice catching up with our friends, we have missed them a lot. It is also quite the adjustment not being a military family anymore. Although to be honest with you the hardest is not having Commissary – groceries here are expensive!!!! It has been very nice to have Aaron home all the time. He missed out so much on Ethan growing up and it is time they will never be able to get back, but we are definitely doing a complete turn around with Jack. Aaron has been a complete hands on dad ever since Jack entered this world and even though I still nurse Jack-he is a daddy’s boy, those two are like two pees in a pod.

Also our Ethan is a southern boy, it doesn’t matter that he was born here in PA, growing up in south with no snow has definitely left its mark- poor boy is cold all the time! And he can not last longer than 30 minutes out in the snow. And the whole concept of layering up when you go outside is Chinese to Ethan, no matter what we try to tell him, but that should all come in time, LOL!

 

Jackson Ray Sandidge is 1 year old

WOW, my baby is officially a toddler! He is such a big little boy! He is mastering walking and talking and getting into everything and getting better at all three faster than I can catch up with the idea of him growing up. Since we still haven't recovered our pictures from the old computer that crashed and burned on us I can not upload any pictures to compare the whole timeline of last year, but these ones will show him now- enjoying his cake, walking and loving his new bed. While moving, Jack’s crib got pretty destroyed so we got brave and moved him up to toddler bed and so far no problems, he stays in it for naps and night time and loves it…

I love watching him grow up but at the same time my heart is breaking to loose my little baby.

Finally…

Finally I am updating this blog, it’s been a while! Quite a bit has happened, so I’m not sure where to start. First of all, we finally submitted all the paperwork for the house loan and still have not heard back from the bank, so we are taking it as a good sign, since they told us that they would call if something was not signed right. Our closing date is December 23 and it is the date we plan on moving in. Cutting extremely close to Christmas, but I think we can pull it off, as long as the kid’s rooms are somewhat set up and no boxes in the living room, we will be good to go. But what this move means is that this year we are not going to decorate the house with all the Christmas stuff- makes me a bit sad, but saves extra packing in the long run. Other people will be putting up Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving, while we are going to start packing stuff up.

Also Aaron has his date when he is officially not in the US Army anymore- February 1st, 2010. It is a little bitter sweet for me, since Army does give stability and certainty financially what is quite important in this days economy. But it also takes away so much family time and the stress that comes with deployments is something I do not want to deal with anymore. So we are excited about what the future will bring and are happy to say farewell to the Army.

The boys are doing amazing also. Ethan is a little goober as always, his football season is over and he did amazing this year, he was the smallest and slowest on the team, but never once did he give up or complain about a thing. As always he doing great in school too. One thing he is having trouble with is determining difference between fact and opinion, he got a 0 on a test in it!!!!! But he is a little man who thinks with his heart and if he thinks that something should be the way he thinks it should be than that is a FACT for him. He is just too funny! Also he is absolutely camera shy these days, the minute I pull out the camera, Ethan is gone!  And if I do force him to sit down and let me take a picture, he will not smile for nothing, even with bribing his facial expressions are just silly. So no pictures of Ethan….

And Jackson is a whole other story too. In this time he has managed not only to be a pro at crawling, but also a pro at climbing and standing up. The little monkey loves to stand up so much, that he uses anything to help him up- if it’s more than inch off of ground, he will manage to use that as support and get himself up. He definitely keeps me busy and moving non-stop, because no matter how much child- proofing has been done, he still manages to find something to get in trouble with. Also I took him to doctors just to check out his ears(they were fine) and the doc noticed that he was a little yellow, what I hadn’t noticed at all, but also I see him 24/7. So we’ve done some blood tests and gotten an ultrasound done, what has ruled out all the serous concerns of what could be wrong. But some of his enzymes are sill high and not quite normal, so we are waiting to get an specialty appointment.  I did talk to my mom about it today and finds out my sister has a condition similar to what is going on with Jackson, so maybe he will end up having the same issue. My poor little yellow man!

Hopefully I can get back on track with blogging from now on, LOL

Our wonderful trip to Virginia

This weekend we headed down to Roanoke area in Virginia just to scout out the area, since we are just about 99.9% set on that area once Aaron gets out of the Army. And since now they are telling him that it is only going to be 2-3 months before he is medically discharged, it is time to kick in full gear our area scouting and start looking at some places to live. The house hunt was somewhat successful, we did find a house that we really like and did as much snooping around it as we could. Also we just heard back from the real estate agent with more details, so let’s hope that things continue to progress well.

We stayed with Micah and Antra- Micah is Aaron’s cousin and me and Antra went to high school together in Latvia- and now we are married to cousins, how cool is that?!?!  And it is so exciting to know that we are going to live a lot closer in the very near future. So here are some pictures from our weekend-enjoy!

The men in this family are really into guns, so genetically it did get passed on down to Ethan, he had a blast trying out uncle Warren’s new silencer and trying out to shoot with a scope for the first time. After trying my hand at this silenced shooting business I am really considering giving Aaron a green light to go ahead and get one for himself, it is just so much more fun to shoot with one of those and not worrying about covering ears or just having them ringing after shooting.

Oh the joys of standing

The time has come when Mr. Jack has figured out the whole big business of sitting up all by himself, crawling and standing up. He is only crawling backwards though and can not figure out the forwards way of crawling.

And all this amazing mobility came at once! What joy! So naps are in history now, since it is way more fun to try out all his new skills. I still haven't gotten a picture of him crawling(I really gotta get to that) but today I just couldn't hold back of taking a million pictures of him standing in his crib- it is the cutest thing, he lights up with such pride when he sees me coming in to lay him down once again.

The saddest thing about all these accomplishments - he is getting mobile- one more step away from my tiny helpless infant...