Sarah in her Dora pajamas

Sean and Sarah playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Jason, Meghan, Sean and Sarah

Aunt Kim and Sarah singing and watching themselves on t.v.

We just had a great visit with my sister and parents who were in town this past weekend. Kim was here to celebrate her 40th birthday in Milwaukee. It was great to be able to be a part of her milestone birthday and to remind her that she's 3 1/2 years older than me. Tee-hee. It was fun to watch Sarah monopolize Kim's time while she was here. She wished Uncle Cleo could've been here, too. I love having her here to visit, but hate to see her go. Of course, I cried as we said good-bye at the airport. While I know she's happy to be with Cleo in Virginia, I miss her terribly. Thank God for free calling after 7 p.m. Thank you US Cellular. :) Now if I could only get her to have a DSL connection to her computer so we can webcam better. It doesn't work real well with her wireless connection for some reason.

Sarah's vocabulary increases every day. It's so amazing to watch that process occur. She knows her letters, counts to 13, knows her colors, says some words in Spanish, and is extremely independent. "Do it myself" is a very common phrase in our house. She had the stomach flu for the first time a week ago. Poor thing. She didn't know what had hit her and was quite upset. It passed through all of us before my family came to stay. So if we had to get it, it came at the right time. Not fun.

Jason's staying busy with school activities and lessons. He's getting ready for solo/ensemble and a couple of jazz festivals coming up in March and April. We're looking forward to going out with Meghan and Bob this weekend to celebrate their February birthdays. It's always a good time when we all can get together.

Better go. The Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice crossover show is on and I haven't started watching. Priorities. :)

Trip to The Cities

Thoroughly enjoying our time with old friends

Roomies!

The reason for our trip up north...the happy couple: Tim and Angie Hoffman

Starting from the front center and going around to the left: Doug and Sue Berg-Williams, Heidi and Eric Songer, Jason, Stacy Julson (Dan was ice-fishing--we really missed him), Paul Budde, Drew Disher, Kim Budde, and Camille Disher.

It was a fabulous wedding and an extremely fun college reunion! Thank you to Tim and Angie for having us share in your special day. Thank you to Kim and Paul for your amazing hospitality. It was wonderful to catch up and spend time together! We are so lucky to have maintained our close friendships with these college friends that mean the world to us. It makes us want to live in The Cities every time we go visit.

Sarah reading a Dora book to her baby doll while we were up in Minnesota.

Thank you Mom and Dad for watching her while we were gone!

Happy 2009 to all of our blog readers!

The Holidays

Sarah playing in the dress Great-Grandma Laura made for Aunt Meghan






Sarah and Grandma Gillette posing for a picture for Grandma's 65th B-day

Sarah and Aunt Meghan admiring the Christmas village

The cousins opening up Sean's gift

Father and daughter on Christmas Eve









Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Whitehead's house






Opening presents Christmas morning

Reading a book with my cousin, Val, her husband, Garry, and daughter, Aida.

Watching for the jack(Snoopy)-in-the box at Great Aunt Ellen and Great Uncle Dick's house where we celebrated with Jason's side of the family.

Cousins: Sean, Sarah, and Gabe (Jason's cousin's son)

Uncle Dick, Aunt Ellen, Nikki, cousin Steve, and Gabe.

The pictures pretty much lay out our holiday season. We had a great time celebrating my mother-in-law's 65th birthday the Saturday before Christmas. The Lane family came up and we enjoyed all of the Christmas decorating at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We went to Iowa for 5 days and enjoyed a lot of relaxation and good food with my folks. The first Christmas Eve service in their new church was wonderful and Sarah enjoyed every minute of the visit. She especially loved playing with her 2nd cousins, once-removed (????), Aida and Cassidy. We really treasure the times we're able to see my cousin, Val and family. What would've made the visit perfect would be if my cousin, Scott and family and my sister Cleo and family could've been there, too. :) We really missed Kim and Cleo's presence at Christmas, but were glad to hear that they had an enjoyable holiday together with his side of the family.

After driving back to Wisconsin in dense fog, we turned around the next day and headed down to Illinois for a fun, belated Christmas get-together with Jason's family. Dick and Ellen always outdo themselves with all of the entertaining details.

We had so much fun watching Sarah experience all that is Christmas. She was constantly pointing out Baby Jesus and Santa wherever we went. We're very thankful for all the blessings in our lives and the time spent with family.

Sarah's two-year pictures

Thanksgiving and Sarah's Birthday

Relaxing downstairs after our big Thanksgiving meal.

The Gillette-Lane Family

The Whitehead-Battle-Gillette Family

Jason and nephew, Sean having fun on the piano.


Uncle Cleo, Aunt Kim, and Sarah



Sarah opening a Geo Tracks toy

Sarah and friends playing in the balls.

Mom and Dad were not expecting to be in this picture. Santa roped us in after Sarah started crying.

We had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Kim, Cleo, Mom, and Dad all got in on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and stayed the week. Kim got the chance to meet up with her Milwaukee friends as well as spend some quality time with her niece. Mom and Dad were so good to help finish projects around the house and help me get ready for the Thanksgiving meal. I had decided to paint the bathroom the week before. Those types of projects always take longer than planned, but we got it done. Dad helped hang up some things around the house so everything looked nice for guests. :) My aunt and uncle drove up from Iowa on Thanksgiving and stayed the night. We ate a lovely meal and just had fun spending time with family. We played a game of dominoes late into the night where we belly-laughed multiple times. After Thanksgiving, we got the house ready for Sarah's family birthday party. The weather was much better for her birthday this year compared to the ice storm last year. Her Grandma and Grandpa Gillette, Aunt Meghan, Uncle Bob, cousin Sean came over. Jason's Aunt Ellen, Uncle Dick, cousin Steve and family (Nikki and son, Gabe) came up from Illinois. The Edmond family joined us, as well. I was a little worried that Sarah was going to have a bad time since she had a cold and hadn't napped. She was a trooper and had a great time playing with her friends and cousins. I wish I could upload video since we have a hilarious video of our nephew, Sean playing the piano with Jason and moving to the music like Ray Charles. It was adorable. It was so fun to watch Sarah with Kim and Cleo. She loved having them around to play with. It was great to have them here for 5 days and we hated to see them go.

After all that hosting, we've been taking it easy this last week and this weekend. I'm not sure I've updated the readers of the blog about Jason's hearing issues. He's been diagnosed with hearing loss after experiencing sound distortion at certain frequencies. He's isolated it to concert A and Bb above middle C for those musicians who are reading. Many factors can contribute to it. His band room is a terrible set-up acoustically in addition to various gigs he's played over the years. It's been very disheartening and he has his good and bad days. When he went in for a follow-up visit to get his musician's earplugs, he met with a different audiologist who was very sympathetic to his situation. She is a former musician and her band director went through something similar. Many of us have heard of tinitus (sp?) where you have a constant ring in your ear. Jason has some of that, but it hasn't affected him the way this distortion has. It's as if the sound is tinny and gives you the sensation you feel when there's feedback on a microphone. There's a machine that is new to the scene which can help desensitize the patient to the tinitus and the doctor thinks it may work for Jason's sound distortion issues. It's very likely that workman's comp. will cover it which is a huge relief since it's $5000. Please keep Jason in your prayers. Those that know him, know that music is his biggest passion aside from his family. It's who he is. This has taken part of the enjoyment away and has made him wonder if he can teach this way for the rest of his career.

Now to something more postitive....

We can't believe Sarah is two. We're so blessed to have her in our lives and marvel at how much of the world she takes in and discovers each day. She's talking more and more and sings constantly. She loves her dolls, books, and playing with her playgroup friends. She is in the 95% for heighth and 90% for weight. She's a solid girl. :) We'd love to give her a brother or sister soon. We've been trying for a year and after 3 failed artificial inseminations, we're taking a break from it for awhile. We try to focus on the fact that we were so lucky to have Sarah and trust in God's plan for our lives. I would love to have another child, but who knows what will be. Only time will tell. Until then, we celebrate Sarah and all the blessings we have in our lives.

I think I'll head upstairs and make some pizza for a nice, cozy Saturday night spent at home.

The Cousins at Apple Hollar

I forgot to post these pictures with the Halloween pics. We met Jason's sister and family down at Apple Hollar off I-94 the weekend before Halloween. My camera had some condensation on it so the pictures are fuzzy. It was a cold day, but a nice time spent with family. Our nephew is so stinkin' cute! They're growing up way too fast. We look forward to seeing them again for Sarah's birthday party after Thanksgiving.

Learning about the life cycle of an apple

Posing for pictures

Seriously....it's not fair to all the other boys that he's that cute! (I'm not a biased aunt here, either. It's just simply fact that he's that adorable!!)

It's a Beautiful Day!

YES WE CAN!!!

Halloween

We had fun getting ready for Halloween. Jason had Thursday and Friday off since it's teacher's convention weekend. Since he goes to the Midwest Clinic every year in Chicago, he decided not to attend the state convention. He usually has musical rehearsal over this weekend, but they're ahead of schedule and didn't need to practice. It's been so nice to have him home and do stuff as a family. The Christmas music started on one of our local stations today. Yikes! 'Tis the season.

Playing in the leaves

Helping Mom and Dad rake

Playing some more

Our little bumblebee with Mom and Dad at the zoo.


With one of her buddies at the zoo

Ready to trick-or-treat

October 15th

It's the middle of October already. We're keeping busy in the Gillette household. Jason finishes the marching band season tomorrow after the Homecoming game, unless the team makes it to the playoffs. He's also starting to rehearse more often for the fall musical, "Little Shop of Horrors". I subbed a few times in September for the Central M.S. band director due to a death in the family. I was glad I could step in and help her out with getting her elementary kids signed up and rehearsing her 7th and 8th grade bands while she was gone. It felt good to teach again. While I love staying home with Sarah, I miss having a little something that's "mine".

We just went down to Iowa over the weekend. Kim and Cleo were back from Virginia. Mom and Dad hosted a nice "meet and greet" reception since many of the Iowa relatives and friends didn't make it down to Jamaica for the wedding and had never met Cleo. It was great to see everyone. The only down side was that it seemed to fly by and I didn't feel like we could really visit with everyone. Sarah and I stayed a few extra days and had a great time with Mom and Dad. We went to a pumpkin farm northwest of Cedar Rapids. Sarah was having so much fun, she could hardly contain herself. She literally ran from one attraction to another and loved watching the cows and chickens up close. She played in the hay and a "corn seed pit" Kids took off their shoes and jumped around in corn. She wasn't too sure about that one. We also went to the Children's Museum in Coralville. She loved playing in the different exhibits. A lot of the exhibits were similar to the Betty Brinn Museum in Milwaukee. Good times.

Sarah continues to take in the world more and more every day. She loves to sing to the "Twinkle Little Star" melody and can't wait for music class on Friday with Ms. D. She's starting to attempt to verbalize more (instead of just grunting)by saying , "please", "one more", "choo-choo". She loves the number 2. Anytime she sees two similar objects, she shouts out "TWO!!" I can't believe we're coming up on her 2nd birthday at the end of November. Time flies!

It was great to see my sister and Cleo last week. We're looking forward to seeing them at Thanksgiving, as well. I don't know when we'll see each other next after that visit. This living far apart stuff isn't fun. :( It does make us treasure the times we can be together.

It's getting late. Better get ready for bed.

Go Obama!

Sarah and a rainbow

Aunt Kim and Sarah playing in Grandma and Grandpa's yard.

Aunt Kim and Uncle Cleo having fun with Sarah

Sarah was so excited to see all of the cows in the pasture at the pumpkin farm.

Sarah playing in the post office at the Children's Museum in Coralville, IA

Sarah and Grandpa playing in the theater at the Children's Museum

Nicci and Sarah on the carousel at the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, IA

Is it September Already?!

Sarah at a friend's birthday party last weekend

The last few weeks of summer flew by and now we're back to the school year routine. Sarah hates to see Jason go to work so early and not be able to play as much. His school year is off to a good start. He's happy to have his co-worker, Matt, back with him this year. Matt is also helping our friend, Kevin, over at Brookfield East this year. Jason is excited about his student teacher this semester. It's always good to start out on a good note.

I'm going try my hand at substitute teaching this year. I'm subbing two days next week for my friend Cynthia whose father is not doing well. I'm glad I'm able to help her out, but wish it was under better circumstances. Subbing will help me keep my resume' updated but also give me a little control over how much time I want to contribute.

Sarah and I have activities set up for the fall. Between playgroup, library tot-time, music class and swim lesson, I think we'll be plenty busy. It's more about getting me out of the house sometimes. :) She's becoming more like a two-year-old all of the time. She gave Jason a run for his money yesterday when she refused to get into the car seat. Who would've thought that a 21-month old could arch her back and exert so much strength as to overpower her own dad. She's taken an interest in potty-training and is starting to say more words and put words together. She's also taken an interest in Thomas the Train. I put the DVD in that came in the box with Thomas and the track I got for her the other day. What a mistake! Now she wants to watch that thing all of the time and those songs will not escape my brain. We had a fun weekend playing outside and running around. I try to savor those unscripted moments with her. It flies by way too fast.

My folks and Kim and Cleo purchased a gps system for Jason and me for our birthdays. Many of you know about our "issues" in the car. This gift will be a great assest to our marriage! I no longer have to be the one to blame for not saying when to turn fast enough or saying when to turn when it's not solicited. Ahhhhhhh. Thank you satellites!

It was an interesting couple of weeks watching both the Democrat and Republican conventions. It's a crazy world out there. While I wish Obama had more executive experience, I'm still behind the Obama/Biden ticket. Doesn't it make you sick to hear people make racist comments? or to say he's not "Christian enough". Who gets to decide that for someone? I like John McCain but don't support his party's platform. I wish we had cable so I could be watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Both shows put such an intelligent, humorous spin on the whole deal.

On that note, I'm off to bed.