Summer 2010

Oh, where to begin. I'm certainly not going to win any blogger of the year awards this year considering our last post was in April. It's been a fast and fun summer. Our summer began with some exciting news that baby #2 is on the way and due January 16th!!! Shortly after that the fun of first trimester sickness began so June and July were spent swimming and playing with Autumn and promising Nick that I would laugh again come August :). He decided he doesn't particularly like "first trimester Jen".

In July, Nick and Grandpa Latta built Autumn her very own swingset. She was thrilled and kept clapping as they were working, saying "yeah Grandpa, yeah Daddy!"


This summer was SO HOT!!! The only way to survive was to spend lots of time in the water. Here's Autumn in our blow up pool going down the slide head first. She certainly discovered her love of water this year...to the point where Nick and I didn't know whether to be happy or scared at how fearless she is.


Maddie, Jacob and Autumn cooling off in the pool at the Latta Family Gathering at Indian Bear Lodge.


Starting to see a trend here? The next few pics are from 4th of July at Grandma and Grandpa Church's lakehouse. More fun in the sun and pool!

Autumn discovered the Slip-N-Slide!! Nick's cousin Tina had a cookout 4th of July weekend and this kept her entertained for hours. Duke (the dog) had lots of fun chasing her down the slide and jumping over it too.

Cutie pie :)

Can't believe our niece Maddie is already three! Going along with the theme of the summer, she had a pool party. Lots of fun - she's growing up so fast!

Two going on 25....who's ready for some shopping?!?!?

Autumn had her first fair experience this year when we took her to the Ohio State Fair. She loved it, and got to feed goats, llamas and a deer. We were so surprised at how quickly she took to the animals and feeding them. I think she would have slept in that barn with them if she could have.

...And let's not forget the other reason to go to the fair - the food! A proud moment - Autumn's first elephant ear :)

These last two pics are from our Girls weekend with my friends from high school. Getting all of us together in the same place is no easy task, and it was so much fun hanging out with everyone and seeing all the kids. Kind of crazy looking at this picture at all of the kids together (and there's one missing - where's Taylor?)

Autumn Turns 2!

Well Autumn is officially a toddler! We had so much fun celebrating her birthday and Easter over the last few weeks. Unfortunately Autumn was actually sick on her birthday (which fell on Easter) so that day was pretty low key as she wasn't quite herself. For a few days starting on her birthday, we were afraid that a little toddler fairy had come into her room and gave her a crash course in "how to act like a 2 year old", but we were relieved that once she started feeling better she went back to her normal self. We had her party on the 10th and by then she was good to go so we had lots of fun and were so thankful that she was happy and healthy for that.

Here are some pics from March and April so far, including her birthday and Easter.

We went to Toledo in March to spend some time with Nick's family. Autumn saw Brady's underwear and thought they were a hat, so for the next 8 hours this was what she looked like :) Here's a picture of Grandma Church helping her wash her hands.

On April 3rd we went to an Easter egg hunt at the park by our house. Even though Autumn wasn't 100% she still had a great time. I think she makes a pretty cute snail :)

These next three pictures are on Autumn's birthday. We thought it would be fun to let her help bake and decorate her own birthday cake. We really did have fun watching her decorate it and eating it wasn't so bad either - it was very crunchy!

Autumn's masterpiece

One of her birthday gifts from Mom and Dad...a new slide!


...and these are pics from her E-I-E-I-O birthday party on the 10th. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us! Autumn had a great time playing with everyone!

Autumn has spent a lot of time since her party pushing her new Ernie around in her new stroller! She is a little partial to Ernie these days.


The three most important people in our house right now...the pig and cow balloons from her party and Ernie. She said Ernie wanted to have his picture taken with them so she could see it in the camera.

January & February 2010

Wow, it's hard to believe that we're only a month away from Autumn's second birthday. As always the months fly by, but we are very happy that Spring is almost here! We've had the rare experience over the past few months of not traveling. It's been very nice to have some relaxing weekends, and we've even been able to reinstate "no pants Saturdays"! Don't worry, those are just Saturdays where we don't have anywhere to go so Autumn gets to stay in her pj's or run around in her diaper all day. Nick and I still wear pants :)

January was pretty low key, but in February we had some expected and unexpected excitement. On Feb 2nd I ended up having a pretty rough night, which resulted in a quick trip in the ambulance and unexpected gallbladder surgery. The good news is that the recovery was much better than the attack, and I'm feeling back to normal now. On a much more fun note, we celebrated our nephew's first birthday! Jacob turned one on February 12th and we had a blast at his pool party on the 14th!

Other than that we have been enjoying every day with Autumn. She continues to amaze us with the words and activities she picks up on, and we can't wait to see what the next few months bring.



So excited that Kristi, Dan and Callie came to visit us for a day. We had lots of fun playing with the girls and got some good Callie hogging time while Autumn was napping!


Oh boy - our first adventure to see Disney on Ice. Autumn did great for the first half, but got a little restless after that. She just couldn't understand why Mickey and Minnie kept leaving and all these weird princesses kept coming out.


This was her focus during the second half - popcorn! She ate half of the tub and was double fisting it!


Adorable Jacob at his first birthday party. A little swimming, a little cake...its doesn't get better than that!


Autumn loved going down the little water slide. I think we did that about 30 times.


Her latest obsession - hats. She is very particular about the one she wears and often demands that we wear them too (but she has to pick which one we wear). Who's running this show anyway?!

Such a good helper, although I think more cheese ended up in her mouth than on the pizza.

Christmas 2009

Happy New Year everyone! We hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours were. Nick and I were both able to take all of last week off, and it's the most time we've gotten to spend together with Autumn since she was born. We had a great time hanging out with her and were all very sad when we had to get back to reality on Monday morning. Thank you to all of our families who made this a great holiday season. We are grateful for the time together and the gifts. Autumn was very spoiled this year to say the least!

We had such a great time at the Columbus Zoo Wildlights! It was snowing the whole time we were there which was so cool. Autumn loved all the lights and was so excited to drink her hot cocoa out of her new Mickey Mouse thermos. Maybe it was all the sugar from the cocoa, but she just ran around and danced to the Christmas music the whole time.


Our little winter sumo baby sporting her new snowsuit from Grandma and Papa Church. It doesn't do much for her figure but it sure kept her warm while we made snowmen and went to the zoo!


Autumn and Brady going on hour #2 of playing in Brady's new Tunnel Bouncer. They were so worn out they were giddy!


Looking through the pics in Grandma and Papa Church's new calendar.


Autumn loving her new Dream Dazzler gift set that Aunt Sara picked out. A purse, cool sunglasses, a cell phone, money and make-up. What else could a girl ask for (other than maybe a credit card or two)? Oh, and special thanks to Nick for showing Autumn how to apply the make-up. What a good dad...


Brady and Autumn playing with her new tea set. They played so well together all weekend. It was so much fun to watch them interact.


The perfect Christmas - we never had to get out of our pajamas and we both got some quality one on one time coloring with Autumn.




All the excitement of Christmas day was just too much for Jacob. He fell asleep during his lunch - so cute! Someday my sister and Brian will have to explain why he's wearing a pink bib with flowers.


Maddie and Autumn making the snowman sing for the 1,487th time on Christmas. We're going to have to keep our eye on these two during the teenage years... Thanks to our sitter Kathy for letting us borrow it during Christmas break. It even made the trip to Toledo with us and came in handy many times as a bribing tool!


Grandpa Latta pulling the girls in their new sleds!

Must be an inside joke...

All dressed up before Christmas Eve service. I don't think kids get much cuter than this!

Halloween

I realize it's almost Thanksgiving, so I'm sorry that I'm just getting around to our Halloween post. We had a great October and lots of fun celebrating Halloween, especially with the nice weather. Autumn's personality has really come out over the past month, and it's been so much fun to see her eyes light up with all the new things she's learning and becoming aware of. We've also entered the fun world of potty training. It's not something we're really pushing - just trying to introduce her to it. She's done well so far though and has gone both #1 and #2 in the big girl potty a few times. Don't worry - we left those pictures out.

At the moment her biggest obsessions are Mickey Mouse and the Buckeyes (including Brutus). If she's around a TV, she's usually asking for one of them! Oh, and for some reason we thought it would be funny to teach her to say a few words with a British accent. It's hilarious listening to her say "hello". She sounds so smart when she talks like that! I'm sure we'll be paying for therapy down the road, but it's very entertaining!

Here are some pics from October...


We took Autumn on her first hayride at a small farm near our house. They drove us out to a pumpkin patch and Autumn picked out her very own pumpkin.


Very proud of her pumpkin


She was much more into carving pumpkins this year which was lots of fun!





As you can see, Autumn was a bumble bee for Halloween. Due to a little mishap earlier that day her official name became "Autumn - the banged up bumble bee".




That is one full belly!


And just when we thought the Halloween boo boo was healing, she went and got her first black eye! It's been a rough month for accidents!