All smiles

Today TJ and I got some quality time while the girls played. He was pretty happy as you can tell....it's amazing what a full belly and same camo will do!

worn out at the end of the day!

Cold and Windy

Yesterday we went to Columbia to get TJ checked out...he has been super stuffy with a nasty gunky eye that has been swollen and has been having a hard time to sleeping. Luckily it was nothing serious - just a nasty cold.

It wasnt a very fun day to be out with it being so cold and windy. On the way home we had the wind, freezing rain and snow to deal with so I decided the perfect way to warm up was to make some cookies. Actually, I think that I was just trying to come up with a reason/excuse to make some cookies because a certain family that I know has been so lucky to have two different batches of cookies here lately! Regardless of the motive my family had no complaints!!

We actually had some dough leftover to make cookies!

Andi making sure she gets all of the chocolate off of her fingers.

Mmm, can you tell she loves cookies?!

Weekend full of birthdays

This past weekend we celebrated Jason and Conner's birthday with lots of good food and fun!

Andi watches as Gina sings "Happy Birthday" to Jason

The Pollards

Andi is enjoying Jason's "birthday cake" dirt pudding!

Grandma helping Andi try on some of mom's old Easter dresses

Conner's 3rd Birthday

Andi taking her turn at the pinata....not nearly as successfull as the Eckler Cousins!

The Schuster Crew- Finally!

Finally after much anticipation my best friend Debbie has started her blog! Check out some really cute pictures of her little man (Cole not you Chris!)

http://the-schuster-crew.blogspot.com/

Fun Random Pictures

This week has had so many ups and downs and has been crazy busy so I am a little behind on posting but I thought that I would put up some of the recent random things happening around our house.......

Andi.... happy until I wanted her to smile for a picture and then this lovely face....

Anything you want me to do...I want Trista right there with me!

While I was trying to clean out Andi's closet she decided that she wanted to put together her own outfit. I was trying to figure out if the skirt fit or not when I heard Andi asking for it and I turned around to see her trying to pull her jeans down so she could try it on. After I helped her get the skirt on she started pointing to the top of the closet and trying to get her tee shirt off. I could not pick out the "right" one so I had to pick her up so she could get her "coat" to put over her tee shirt. After putting the "coat" on and hood up she sat down on the floor and demanded "shoes" and while pointing to her pink tennis shoes. That must have completed the outfit because as soon as I got the shoes on her she got up and ran off to show anyone who would look.

TJ snoozing on the couch

grinning at us before bedtime

big smiles for his "best friend" the teddy bear on the glider

Toddler School

After much debate Andi had her first day of Toddler School today. The Vo-Tech Early Childhood program has it for 10 Fridays from 9-11 for children 12-36 months of age. I took Trista to it last year and this year both girls are going. I knew that Andi wouldnt have a problem, it was me I was worried about!

Travis worked from home today so I left the 2 boys at home when I went to drop the girls off. As we were walking hand in hand (with the girls wearing their backpacks) a lady opened the door for us and told them hi and Andi all of sudden got excited and started running. Well if you have ever seen Andi in her winter coat (Kyle and Gina say it reminds them of the Christmas Story) what happened next wouldnt surprise you....she started running and then fell flat on her forehead and of scraped it up pretty good. She didnt cry but I felt like a horrible mother and about did!! After that we went inside and as I was wondering what I should do, Trista and Andi took off with their helpers to play with the toys. I dont think she even looked back! Of course there were some kids crying and I was a little worried that that might set Andi off too. I observed for a little while (from another room where they couldnt see me) and watched as Andi made herself at home playing with blocks and then joined Trista at the play kitchen area.

When I went to pick them up everyone was in a circle doing the hokey pokey and Andi's helper Cara was holding Andi dancing and Andi looked like she could fall asleep at any moment. She put her down and then Andi (like her uncle Kyle) moved to the middle of the group and proceeded to show off her dance moves. Soon after that Andi's new boyfriend Jake got down to dance with Andi and then everyone went "aww" because they were taking turns hugging and kissing one another :)

I think that Andi had lots of fun because before we could leave she had to tell everyone bye and I think she had to hug everyone too before I pried her away!

1st day and "excited"

Andi showing off her new backpack

Mommy's big girl!

Battle wound- it looks a lot worse in person!


We made it home just in time!

SMILES!!

I was lucky enough today to spend some quality time with TJ while Andi and Trista slept....it totally paid off and made my day!

(of course I didnt get the best pictures because I was trying to get him to smile and take the picture so some of them didnt even have his smile in it..but I thought that this one was pretty cute- especially the little dimple!)

Extra Help Needed

Ahhh! What happened to my sweet little boy? For some reason TJ can not be happy for long that is. Yesterday he was fussy and Andi perfected putting his pacifier in! I just knew that he would fall asleep early last night and sleep like a dream...Wrong! After holding him, bouncing him, putting his pacifier in, feeding him again and again he finally went down around 9 and then back down at 10 and then again at midnight and again around 2:30. Travis had to leave home around 3:30 to go to KS to look at a combine and then TJ decided to be up for the day (still not happy) at 5. Nothing I could do would keep him happy for longer than a couple minutes!

Lucky for me my two "helpers" were coming today. Trista was back from staying with her grandma and Kyle decided to come up for the day!

Everyone was all smiles because TJ was sleeping...for a little while anyways..

Can you tell that they love "uncle Kyle"

Smiles!

TJ smiled at me for the first time! I am even going to write it in his baby book "first smile- Jan 14th) but the truth is I am not sure if it was a "true" smile or just from gas bubbles. I tired to get him to smile at me a second time but before I could even get close to him, my speed demon daughter ran from across the room and got in between my face and TJ's. "TJ, TJ- hiiiiiiiiii! hiiiiii!" I wish I had an audio clip (or even pictures!) so you could hear Andi using her "Im a big kid so I have to have a super high voice when I talk to babies" I am sure that she was imitating me but honestly if was so funny to see her get so excited and so close to TJ. I am not sure if the poor kid will ever smile again!

Big boy!

We had TJ's 1 month checkup at the end of last week and Dr. Weidt checked him out and couldn't find anything wrong with him. She confirmed that he was "perfect" which is just what we think!

He was born at 7 lbs 14 oz

and now weighs 10 lbs 12 oz!!

What a cutie! I cant believe how fast it has gone!

Sick Monday

Yesterday was quite eventful with Andi still not feeling well and not really playing or eating all day long. She finally did eat a little for supper only to get to coughing and have it all come back up. Right about 10 we all decided it was time for bed (even TJ!) We thought that we were really lucky heading to bed so early...little did we know that it was going to be a really long night with Andi getting sick 3 more times in the middle of the night/early morning. That plus TJ wanting some extra attention made for 2 very tired parents.

Andi woke up a little after 7 crying and after a little while I got her back to sleep. She was good until almost 9 and then woke up and had a fever of 101.6 (which stressed me out a little since she never really has had a fever). You could tell that she didn’t feel good because she just wanted me to hold her and wouldn’t eat anything. Dr. Weidt wanted to see both kiddos so we made the trip to Columbia for an afternoon appointment. Of course as soon as we got into the room Andi started chattering and hopping around like a kangaroo and TJ just looked like the perfect sleeping baby...no fever...no symptoms and Dr. Weidt couldn’t find anything wrong. We made the trip back home and wouldn’t you know they both started crying before we got into Macon and stayed that way until almost supper time. Andi since then has become a zombie again and threw up everything that she ate for supper....oh what a day!



Sick? We arent really sick! (at least for the 5 minutes that mommy took these pictures!)

Do you think that I am ornery?!

5 weeks old today

Ben & Angela's Wedding

We attended my cousin Ben and Angela's wedding in Bowling Green this last Saturday. The wedding was beautiful with all of the Christmas decorations still up and the reception was fun even though Andi had not felt well all day. We had lots of fun and as you can tell from the pictures as soon as the music started playing little Andi decided that she felt "lots" better and kept Ben (the groom) to herself most of the night (at least until 8!)

As you can tell I completely forgot to take my camera into the wedding and had to have Travis take these few pictures that I actually have.

Andi before the music started

Andi with Ben after the music had started!

Ben teaching Andi how to twirl

Andi not wanting to let Ben go.

Preston enjoying some wedding cake.

Katie showing Conner how its really done!

Conner's hat was definately the hit of the night...but Aunt Mari did give it back. Quin was just as happy with his pacifier and plastic cup.

1st week back!

Well last Wednesday was my first day back to the "working world". I hadn’t watched Trista for almost a month and I was about to see what all I had missed out on. I was a little nervous about how well Trista and Andi would get along since Andi had been the big sister (and boss) for 4 weeks. Lucky for me the girls played really well together (unless there were baby dolls or baby doll furniture in the room!!) TJ cooperated pretty well too. We had a couple stressful minutes during lunch time when everyone wanted a little extra attention but other than that we had a great 1st day back! As soon as I turned around from taking a picture of TJ, I heard Andi say "cheese" and then of course she had to have me take a picture of Trista too!

We love Curious George!!

Ahh, a sleeping baby :)

I love my brother

Andi "fake kissing" TJ so I will take a picture of her

We laughed at Andi kissing TJ so she could have her picture taken...she evidently thought it was hilarious too!

New Years Eve/ New Years Day

New Years Eve started out great. TJ got up twice during the night and then for some reason Andi decided to sleep in so I got to go back to bed and sleep in. Travis tried to do me a favor by getting up with Andi and letting me sleep a little longer but I woke up to the sound of Andi in the bath tub so I knew something was up. This picture explains it all....

While her dad was watching her (sleeping in her bed while she played with her kitchen set) he woke up to the sound of Andi putting the lid to the vasoline back on and then got an even bigger surprise when she looked up at him!

This is Andi's hair completely dried after her 2nd shampooing. Can you tell she never misses an opportunity to pose with her brother?!

After baths and naps we headed up to my mom and dad's for a night of fun, food and games! Gina and Jason were in MO for one last night so we got to ring in the new years with them and mom and dad. The only one missing was Kyle who chose to go to Dallas and see the bowl game instead of being with his sisters....

TJ 4 weeks old and all decked out for his first new years eve "party"

Gina and gina jr.

Would you believe that Andi wouldnt let papa just hold TJ?

We made it well past midnight (except for Andi) and I was so tired I had to call it a night at 2:30...the others stayed up until after 4!

The next morning came way to early for everyone but we did manage to get up and to Travis' sister Tami's house to watch MU in the Cotton Bowl.

All decked out in our Mizzou gear!

TJ's Christmas present from Uncle Kyle. Isnt he a cutie?

Andi watching over TJ and baby Ally