Gruber Family Reunion

Well, I'm behind as usual. But, about 2 weeks ago we went to our Gruber Family Reunion in Chicago. We had a wonderful time. There are seven great-grandchildren, 3 sets of twins and Jack. It was so entertaining and fun to watch them play together. We arrived on Thursday and met Aunt Jane and the Grandparents for dinner.

On Friday we did some shopping at the mall and then headed over to Aunt Jackie's and Uncle Rod's. We played basketball and bean-bag toss and had a great dinner. It was so fun to watch all of the kids interact. They are all at such fun ages. They played T-ball and Lego's. David even made us a train with all of the chairs and we all went for a ride. Gabriel and Jack were mostly interested in playing with either the dog, hiking through the "woods" or playing in the ice chest.
Jack was so tired that he was asleep before we even left and slept the entire night.

Saturday morning we got up early and went to a children's amusement park called 'Pirate's Cove'. The kids loved it!! Jonathan says that he can remember going there when he visited Chicago as a child. First stop was the carousel. We all know how much Jack loves the carousel. This was a smaller one than he is used to, but went really fast. Problem number one....parents couldn't ride. Problem number two.....Jack wasn't taking no for an answer and wasn't riding in the little seat. So, horse it was. I was a nervous wreck. But, worries for no reason. He just sat atop that horse and held on tight. Every time he passed I was saying, "hold on tight Jack". And he was. I could see that his little fingertips were white because he was holding on so tight. He rode the carousel about 6-7 times and cried every time that he had to get off. He also did other rides that I really wasn't so sure about. He rode a big slide, a train, paddle boats and more. He loved every minute of it and then took a really long nap. After nap-time we headed over to Aunt Kathy's and Uncle Richard's and had dinner and played on all of the huge playground equipment that is practically in her backyard. The kids also played in the sandbox and rolled down the hill. They all love the miniature picnic table. Again, Jack slept like a rock that night too.

Sunday some of us headed downtown to Wrigley Field for a Cubs game. It's always fun to go to a game and we had a great time even though they lost. : ( Meanwhile, all the Grandmothers and the Aunts and a few cousins were having fun at Aunt Kathy's where they played on the slip-n-slide, went "fishing", dressed up in Uncle Joey's fireman stuff and had lots of yummy treats. I heard that even Aunt Jane took her turn with the slip-n-slide. Uncle Richard and Uncle Rod were there for moral support.

Monday, we had to make our long way back to Alabama after breakfast at Panera Bread. Jack did really good in the car considering it is an eleven-hour trip. However, I think that all of us know every word to 'Shrek' and that we saw all of his other videos at least once. I wish that we got to see everyone more often. I know that all of the children will change so much before we see them again. Cousin Christian made everyone a DVD with pictures and videos which we received yesterday and it was awesome. It will be so nice to show that to Jack in the future. Can't wait til the next reunion!!

To The Moon

So I have felt compelled to share a story. Simply because it was one of the cutest things ever and I will probably be unable to do the story justice in writing. The other day Jack was playing on the patio, as he often does, and it was right at sunset. So then he began to point way up over the house and just ramble in his own crazy language. I think he managed a "what's that?". So of course, we look up and he is pointing right at a big, huge beautiful full moon. He was in total amazement over his discovery. He was so excited about it. So of course we began to tell him that it was "the moon". He is so smart, that during all of this he even called it a "kirkle" (which of course is suppose to be 'circle"). Every since then, he looks for the moon every evening while we are out playing and sometimes during the day when it is kind of hard to explain to a one year old that we can only see it at night. It kinda of comes out as "da boooon" when he says it. The whole episode seems kind of trivial but made me realize that I think sometimes we take for granted some of beautiful things in the world because to us they have 'always' been there. But to a toddler like Jack....it was like it had just been placed there, just for him.

We had a great Father's Day. We got to spend sometime with both Pop and Grandpa. I feel so lucky that Jack has such a great Dad!! I love to watch him and Jonathan play. Jonathan does great with him and Jack loves him. It's pretty funny that if Jack and I are playing outside and Jonathan is not out there, he will go running through the house yelling, "Da-Da?". He continues to do this until Jonathan consents to coming outside. It doesn't take long for Jonathan to consent to most anything Jack wants within reason anyway. It's cute!!

OK, so it has been a really long time since I have blogged. It's not that I don't want to, just that I seem to always be so busy. But, I am going to try to catch you up and try to blog more often. I really should blog every day because Jack does something funny every day.

Jack hasn't even been sick one day since we took him out of daycare. His recent well-baby visit went well and his ears look great. He is still a maniac, more so everyday I think. For example, he has taken to jumping off of the furniture. One guess and I bet you can figure out who taught him that. Sometimes he just face plants the sofa when he jumps from the table. He thinks it is funny. We spend a lot of time outside. He loves to play with his little tikes spray nozzle on the hose. He also loves his pool. Jonathan and Jack decided the other day to move the slide over to the pool. It wasn't long before Jack decided it would be fun to jump from the top of the slide into the pool. Keep in mind that this is a kiddie-pool, 6 inches deep. Part of me wants to stop him from doing things like that out of fear that he will get hurt, but he has so much fun that I can't. He also does pretty good hitting the tee-ball, but you have to clap after he does it.

He has really started talking a lot since the tubes were put in his ears. We can understand lots of things and it's pretty funny. It is even funnier to hear his animal sounds, "moo" is the latest. He is still chasing Oli around. Oli is still a pretty good sport about it.

He is also a dancing machine. Any time that he hears music he starts to dance. It is hillarious. He has even learned how to turn on the stereo himself so that he can dance. He also recently started to laugh out loud at his cartoons. He doesn't watch TV too much, just a little in the mornings and in the car. But he loves Looney Toons, Jungle Book, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc.

I recently looked back through all of his photo albums, starting with when he was born. It is so hard to believe how much he has grown. I remember the day that we had him like it was yesterday. I remember thinking that I didn't know what we were going to do with him and now I don't know what we ever did WITHOUT him.

More pics

That is a picture in his looney toons gown for his surgery.

Catch Up!

OK. So, I'm really behind on the blog. Although we have been really busy and I have good reasons for being so behind, I still feel bad. No worries, I have not abandoned the blog. I am going to do my best to catch you up without going on for pages and pages.

We had a great Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with our Gruber family and Christmas evening with our Jones family. Santa Claus came to deliver stockings at the Gruber's house on Christmas Eve night. Jack wasn't so interested in Santa. As a matter of fact, didn't really want anything to do with him other than the Thomas the Tank ride-on toy that he was carrying. He loved playing with all of the kids at Aunt Angie's on Christmas night. He wanted to play with all of the "big boy toys". He also started to get the hang of opening gifts. He figured out to pull the gift wrap off. And is that picture napping under the tree not too cute?!

So, remember the ear infection from November when we started daycare? Well, it was a persistent little bug. We just got rid of it, hopefully. We continued antibiotics the whole month of December, January and most of February. Just a vicious cycle of fever, earaches, doctor's visits and antibiotics. Then to make matters worse, Jack got a respiratory virus in January called RSV. Not so fun. It landed us in the emergency room one night with a high heart rate and respiratory rate and a low oxygen level. Then, the next morning it got us admitted to the hospital from the doctor's office because of the low oxygen level. So, we spent a couple of days getting IV antibiotics and breathing treatments. As a bonus, we got to bring the treatments home with us for the rest of winter. Jack was a great sport through all of it. It made Jonathan and me really sad to see him so sick, and the rest of the family for that matter. We also ended up with a consult for the ENT specialist. Jack had tubes put in his ears last Friday. We can already tell a difference in him. He feels so much better. We also took him out of daycare. Well, today is his last day. I changed my schedule around a little and we found a sitter to come to the house.

Now let me update you on the fun and new stuff that he is doing. He is truly a monkey. He climbs up on anything that he possibly can. It was a little of a shock the other day when I noticed that he was quiet and found him sitting in the middle of our three feet tall platform bed watching TV. He stands up on all of his ride on toys and his activity tables. He now chases Oli around and thinks that it is pretty funny. He still loves his tent. He has to show it to everyone that comes over. He can climb up on his horse now and he loves to take wagon rides.

It's funny how if you ask him if he is hungry and he drags his high chair over to you. He loves to play outside. The other day he was playing outside and he walked over to me and reached out his little hand to give me something. So, I reached out my hand and took it. It was a piece of bark off of the firewood. I said "thank you". He reached out his other little hand to give me something else. I, thinking it was more of the same, reached out my hand and took what he had to offer. Quite to my surprise it was not more bark. It was dog poop!!! He thought it was hilarious when I threw it and whisked him up to go wash our hands. He is such a little chatter-box. I would love to know what he is actually saying. We are getting pretty good at deciphering his language. We also discovered that he loves hot wings. Even if they are a little spicy. I could go on and on, but I will save more for late. I will do my best not to wait so long for new blogs!