Quick update...

I really was going to get better at this whole, "updating the blog" thing; however, as many of you know, not long after that last post I had to have emergency surgery and have my appendix taken out. It was definitely a crazy time, deciding whether to go the hospital or not, but I did finally convince Cole that I thought something really could be wrong and we should probably have it checked out. Praise God for Uncle Eric who showed up (I swear) at the exact moment Cole called for help. We ended up spending about 6 hours in the ER while the (amazing!) doctors tried to decide the best plan of action. They finally decided that we needed a CT scan, within 30 minutes of the CT scan I was in surgery. I am taking this moment to praise God for His hand during this entire situation. I could feel His presence the entire time, never once fearing for the safety of myself or our baby. We were treated amazingly (and surprisingly) well, with many hands involved in our care I was expecting one person to be a little cranky (at 11pm/1am) however, every one of the medical staff that helped us made us feel that we were important and in good hands.

The surgery went very well and the baby and I survived (always a bonus...)

Then came the fun part of healing, while being I couldn't lift anything until I had my f/u appt with the surgeon one week later. Cole was AMAZING! Thank God for him and for our amazing friends who let us stay with them over the weekend (as we of course were supposed to be at the lake, and our bathroom had been scheduled to be re-done that weekend). With only having one bathroom in the house, we didn't want to post-pone this, so our friends brought us in and helped with everything. I did have some free time, so you would think I would get this thing updated, however, my goal became trying to get all Harry Potter books re-read before the movie comes out in November and uploading all of our photos to Shutterfly and trying to get Oliver a photobook made for his 1st and 2nd year. Needless to say, the uploading of photos is still not complete, but we are almost there! I am currently working on his 1st year photobook, hoping to get it done before his 2nd birthday.

Oliver was so sweet during this entire ordeal. I had three incisions on my belly and they were covered with band-aids, so he of course had to wear band aids on not only his belly, but anywhere else he could put them. I love him!

Now, three weeks later, I (think) am back to normal, energy back, ability to bend over and stand up straight without pain.

I just realized that we are half way through our pregnancy and I haven't even begun to think about getting our house ready. Well, the thoughts been there, but anytime it pops up I push it away. So, we have started cleaning out the office in order to get Oliver's big boy room ready. We got his birthday invites mailed out and are now getting ready to celebrate him turning 2!!

He is such an amazing little boy. I know I say this everytime, but I promise I am amazed everyday at his growth. Absolutely there are moments I feel like banging my head against the wall and looking down at him with the question of, "Was your only purpose on this earth to make me want to do this/ let my mom feel like she is being revenged?" But, it is the moments when he walks up to me and grabs my arm and kisses it or snuggles up next to me (even for 3 seconds) and tells me he loves me that remind that there is no other place I would rather be.

He is now counting to 10 and talking very well. He is starting to use the potty on his own (now if I would just get serious about this whole thing, I think he could be potty trained fairly soon). He has also been repeating EVERYthing we say, which sometimes makes us look at each other and realize that we have to be very careful about what we say. (ie when the little boy down the street was running around with a stick acting like he was trying to kill anything that came in his path I said under my breath "he is a scary boy," Oliver proceeds to SCREAM that sentence over and over...again, praise God his parents were not outside, I don't think I could get the front door open fast enough.)

I promise to have pictures up soon. I've still not uploaded from my camera b/c I'm getting a little overwhelmed with all this photobook business, I think adding more photos to my shutterfly account anytime soon may make it reject me.

Hope all are well. Again, thanks to all of you who were so kind and helpful to us during our 'fun' surgery experience. We are very grateful!

Enjoy the end of summer, we are very much looking forward to fall!!

God bless,
Ashley :)

Electronics and the passing of summer

The longer I delay updating this blog, the worse it is to actually make myself sit down and do it. I've always hated this trait of mine, but unfortunately I have no idea how to change it, well, I'll rephrase that into, "I have chosen not to change this habit of mine."

That being said, let me first apologize to those of you whom have checked this blog to find out about the crazy happenings of the Winblad family and have found the same page sitting her for the past two months. We have been having a very busy summer, filled with the normal happenings of loss of certain electronics and the mis-use of them by some handsome little toddler, causing them to never work again. The first of these being my camera charger; we have absolutely no idea where it is, this being the main reason there are no new photos, and why there will be no new photos on this blog. For the longest time we kept thinking we would find the charger and once we ordered a new one the old one would pop up... however, months passed, no old camera charger popping up and FINALLY we decided to go ahead and order a new one, it should be here this week. That being said I have missed out on some great photo ops with my little man... I always pray I can remember these certain images forever... we'll see how that goes.

The second of the above mentioned items would be my cell phone. Our weekly ritual of walking to the farmer's market and allowing Oliver to play in the fountains turned into the loss of functionality of my phone. Surprisingly, I am not upset at all as I have despised this phone since I bought it, but if you cannot guess how stubborn I am in regards to spending money (only on necessities of course) from the above paragraph, I chose to wait out my 2-year phone contract before spending a. the $50 to replace it w/ insurance or b. spend WAY TOO MUCH MONEY on a new phone sans the contract... the great day is coming, only 8 more days, so I've decided to wait it out and be cell phone-less for the next week.

Now, for updates on Oliver. Words really cannot describe this little boy. We of course think he is the greatest invention, ever, so I will try and be somewhat humble in describing the past two months. He continues to hate the pool, but is doing better in getting in. This causes a problem when the heat index remains above 100 degrees nearly everyday and he wants to play outside... he will play with the water hose for hours on end though, the water company is our new best friend (or shall I say, we are the water company's new best friend?) He continues to love his Mickey Mouse and trains, nothing will come close to Buddy - he is still in hand everywhere we go; now his hands are just full of both Buddy and/or Mickey and/or Nemo, "mater," some Mickey book, or all of the above.

It's hard to look at him and think of him as a baby now. He's speaking in complete sentences, and with this comes the arguing. Case in point, the other day we were opening a gift Uncle Eric brought us back from Chicago, it was a stuffed Penguin. I say, "Oliver look at the penguin Uncle Eric brought you!" Oliver's reply, "no mommy, it's a kitty cat." Ah, the Elston blood flowing through this poor innocent child :)

He continues to love all animals as well as making all of the different sounds, my favorites are the monkey, alligator, rooster, and duck (the latter only because he SCREAMS "quack" as loud as he can everytime... ). He is counting to 5, although sometimes he likes to replace the number 5 with 7... again, they're both numbers, right? He likes to give his Daddy a heart attack by always saying that red is "pink" and choosing to play with the pink car at church. He continues to love to read, and I am actually impressed with how long he will sit and let us read to him. Last Sunday his Sunday school teachers told us they read the "entire nursery library" to him because he wanted to keep reading, this again is one of my favorite traits of his. With this, he has become very curious. "Mommy, what is that?" He now asks this about every sound he hears, I'm still trying to decide of I like this or not... it can go on for hours at a time.

We had a great week of spoiling from "gammie" and poppie this week. Mrs. Bunny was on vacation so Oliver got to have Gammie and poppie stay with him all week long. We are forever greatful and happy that they got to have so much fun together. Now, it's just getting him back into the habit of not getting everything he wants ;)

I can't believe I'm already planning his 2nd birthday... time has just flown by. Could be the lack of sleep, but I really believe it is the fact that I had no idea how amazingly better life could get with the addition of a sweet/ornery little boy with blonde curls. He is the love of our lives and we continue to be thankful for God's amazing blessing of parenthood.

I promise to be better at this (I'm not publicly setting a goal; I have learned one thing from politicians) and will soon have many pictures to share with you all. We have gotten some great photos thanks to Cole, but as you all know that guy is one busy guy and I have no idea how to download the photos from his camera or do any of the editing, so hopefully we'll get those off before the end of 2010.

Many blessings to you all and Happy August!
The Winblad's :)


Just dreaming of cooler weather :)

May Update

Lets face it, I cannot keep this thing updated every week. Kudos to all of you who can, I truly am impressed!

This update will have lots of pictures, as I feel this is really what people want to see, and it allows me to tell our story much easier. This spring we have been very busy. We are so thankful for such wonderful friends and family that allow us to stay entertained.

Quick update on how big our little boy is getting...
Oliver decided a few weeks ago that he was too big for the crib, so he is now in his big boy bed. We simply moved in a twin mattress onto the floor, as we were not expecting to move him out of his crib so quickly, but once he started crawling out of it, he made the decision for us. He's doing pretty well in it. Each night gets better. We do stay in the room with him until he falls asleep. Yes, we understand the "long-term" implications, but we actually look forward to this time reading stories in bed, saying our prayers, and then watching our sweet boy fall to sleep.

Not only is he now sleeping in a big boy bed, but he is also potty training. I try to use this term loosely, simply because I do not like that he is accomplishing all of these tasks much earlier than I could have imagined. He started to tell us a few months back when he had gone to "poop" in his diaper. He continued to do it, so we started to put him on the potty. He then started potty-ing in the potty, so we bought him his own little potty. Yesterday he went all day without a wet diaper b/c he was using his potty all day. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Again, many parents were so thrilled when their baby started crawling and walking, and I'm sure doing this as well; for me it is bittersweet. I was just looking through his baby album this morning and it brought back all these sweet memories of holding him when he was brand new, thinking that time had completely stood still. Now, he is 20 months old and just turning more into a big boy with each passing second. This morning he walked up to me and just hugged me, I picked him up and just wanted to beg God to not let him get any bigger. However, I am always thankful that he is a very healthy boy and pray that God continues to protect him and keep him safe, as I do not want to imagine this life without him in it. He has blessed our lives more than anyone could have imagined. We may lose LOTS of sleep, go out less often, see friends less often, and who knows what else, but these past 20 months have been full of everlasting memories, and very tender moments. Don't get me wrong these past 4-5 months I've called my mom many times asking her how she ever survived, seriously contemplating boarding school (again, please understand my sarcastic humor); but when I look back on these days, all I can think of is how special they are. I know Oliver is going to continue to get big, but for now I can hold onto these moments and praise God for every second.

Now, here is a glimpse of the fun we get to have by having a little boy who loves to be VERY active :) Enjoy!


Cotton Candy!! (This is from our day in Lawrence with our friends Jake, Joanne, and Kevin)


Who doesn't love spun sugar??


Oliver and Jake trying to figure out how to get the bike un-chained from the pole.


These boys LOVE wagon rides!


This boy LOVES my shoes, I should add that Cole was having a heart attack while this was going one. I was impressed how well he was walking in them!!


:)


The beginning of the dinosaur exhibit at Union Station. This was one of the very few dinosaurs/skeletons Oliver would look at before becoming completely terrified.


For you FRIENDS lovers, "I AM A DOCTOR!!"


The train exhibit, that is FREE! and the boys LOVED this much more than the non-free dinosaur exhibit :)


Cole was very impressed with the train exhibit as well! IT's actually very impressive, I think I could have spent all day in there watching them.


He wanted to touch them so bad...


MMMMMMMMMMM Spaghetti and the Crayola Cafe!


Happy MOther's Day!! I LOVE this photo! When you ask Oliver to smile, this is what he does :)


This was the dessert I received for my Mother's Day dinner. After a day of pampering, I came home to grilled steaks, grilled veggies, and this. I have the best boys in the world!


"race 'em!" We have drag races nightly in our home.


He LOVED the corn on the cob


Big boy bed, he actually loves to play in it much more than sleep...


"bunnies" at Deanna Rose Farmstead


:)


Aunt "bista," "Migne," and "Chap" feeding the goats


Mommy and Oliver


"horsie-ride"


Oliver fell and hit the corner of our deck step, thankfully this was the worst of it. Again, I pray every chance I can that God will continue to protect him... I can only do so much ;)


Hahahaha! Oliver is wearing my shirt, we couldn't really get a good picture, but he looked just like a Star Wars character - Eric you can appreciate this.


Sweet, sweet boy


Cole's compost that is FINALLY finished!!


Early morning ride


Our gardens! (I started cantalope and green peppers from seeds in-doors, but am not sure if they're going to make it, I may have to run and get some plants to replace the seedlings here soon.)


First tomatoes!!!


Master Gardner (yes, he is wearing his PJs shirt with his shorts, you have to choose your battles... he wore his Mickey Mouse swimming suit all afternoon yesterday...)

Thanks for letting us share our lives with you. Hope these stores/pictures bring a smile to you today. I have to share the lyrics of the Van Morrison song that kept playing while I was writing this week's blog.

Love to all!
The Winblad's

These are the Days by Van Morrison:
These are the days of the endless summer, these are the days, the time is now
There is no past, there's only future, there's only here, there's only now

Oh your smiling face, your gracious presence...
...These are the days of the by the sparkling river
His timely grace and our treasured find
This is the love of the one great magician, turned the water into wine

These are the days of the endless dancing and the long walks on the summer night
These are the days of the true romancing, when I'm holding you, oh so tight

...

These are the days that we must savour, and we must enjoy as we can
These are the days that will last forever
You've got to hold them in your heart

Mexico!!

So sorry, AGAIN, that this post is so delayed. We have had so much fun these past three weeks. Lots of outside time, planting our plants, wagon rides, dates with friends, and MOST exciting, a trip to Mexico with MorMor, FarFar, Uncle Scott, Aunt Krista, Signe and Chap!

I'm only including Mexico photos in this blog, I promise that I will update much sooner this next time!

A little glimpse of sunny Mexico...


All ready!!


Oliver helping Mommy pack, he is a great little helper!


Oliver's first plane ride(s). He LOVED it, he got to see "planes," "trucks," and "birdies" :) He actually did really well, could even say he's a better flier than mommy...


Plane ride = opportunity to cover yourself in Mickey stickers!


No car seats in Mexico!! (This was actually in the Houston airport, but the kiddos were so excited!!)


Just relaxing after a long day of traveling, we are finally in Mexico!!


Oliver's first site of the ocean. He was a little scared of being near the ocean at first, but as soon as Far Far took him he loved it. (Ah, the magic of grandparents)


:)


They love each other, :)


Sea swept


Oliver liked to play on the play equipment MUCH more than swimming in the pool.


These two are definitely one in the same, very much first children. They had so much fun together on this trip!!


Hands full...


Apparently Mexican carousels are not as scary as American carousels. :)


Definitely went through a lot of hand wipes. Maybe a little too much, Oliver is constantly asking for "wipes" now...


"Migne"


One of the (every) night Oliver didn't want to go to sleep before 10:00, just out walking, playing with Mor Mor.


Thanks to Jamie and Craig, Oliver got to watch Mickey on the plane on the ride home... I think he had more fun playing with the ear phones...

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!!
Next blog will include our play dates with one of our favorite friends, Jake, including our trip today to the dinosaur exhibit. (Oliver was TERRIFIED of the dinosaurs, so we got to spend time in the gift shop) :)
Love to all,
Ashley, Cole and Oliver

Catch up, and Easter!!

Hello!

I'm so sorry it's been so long since our last post. We have had so much fun these past few weeks and have truly enjoyed the warmer weather!! Oliver LOVES to be outside, so we have been making up for some lost time over the crazy winter we had. However, the poor guy has AWFUL allergies and is now recovering from his 5th ear infection :( I do see tubes for his ears in the near future, but hopefully they will bring him much needed relief.

We had a great end of March and a great Easter weekend back home with our family. We spent all day today outside, just realizing we were great about lathering Oliver in sunscreen, but not ourselves... We had a BBQ at the park with some great friends, ice cream with more great friends, and then spent the rest of the day doing yard work.

Here are some pics to sum up our past few weeks. Enjoy :)


No fear... (of injury or discipline...)


Oliver LOVES ice cream, and I don't typically enjoy sharing ice cream, only with my little man.


Open gym! We go to the gym where we take swimming lessons on Friday mornings, they setup all the gymnastic equipment so the kiddos can play on it. Oliver LOVES the trampoline, it got a little dangerous so I put him on the "safe mat." He ran all over it trying to jump... it was fun :)


One of the many toys to play on


Of all the equipment (swings, trampolines, moon walks, etc.) Oliver finds the cones the most enjoyable, I can see he is going to be creative with a slight edge for perfection, ha!


Swimming lessons, this is the only part he enjoys. Sitting outside of the water pouring water on Daddy, this and jumping in. Either way we enjoy it.


Just driving the 'benz, this kid has style.


Wagon rides with favorite friends are the BEST!


We think he's simply the cutest little boy with his blonde curls and his big boy tie :)



My new Mickey Mouse from the Easter Bunny who visited Grammie and Poppie's :)


My boys


Easter Egg Hunt! (One of three...)


Checking out the loot


Looking at the turkeys with Grammie. Oliver can now say "turkey" and "gobble gobble." (Colors and numbers may be important, but the fact that he can name different animals and their sounds might get him into Harvard :)! )


Ornery!


Worn out, but still needed his favorite friends to sleep with on the way home.


We really enjoyed getting to see so many of our friends and family this Easter holiday. We do have lots more pictures, but they are on our other camera so will not get edited for awhile, so for those of you who were there, look for the pics in your email sometime soon.

Lots of love, peace and warm weather!
God bless,
Cole, Ashley, Oliver, Buddy and Mickey