Dancing to Uncle Rich's Music!

Now that we live within driving distance of our families, Pat has been able to participate in more and more golf tournaments. One of our favorite tournaments is George's Invitational because Uncle Rich's band performs live music during dinner the night before the tournament. Quinn loved the music, too!

Quinn's Second Birthday Party!

Things got extremely busy right around Quinn's birthday this year. His actual birthday, the 22nd, was my last day of school. Since I will not be returning to teaching next year, not only was I responsible for all of the last days of school activities with kids, but I was also responsible for packing up my classroom and making room for next year's class. In addition, my southern family was having a large reunion in Oregon for the first time since I was a baby for the entire week. We had to miss all but one day due to the snow days that extended our school year. I hadn't really planned on doing much of a party for Quinn with all of these other things going on, but not doing anything just didn't sit right with me. So on Thursday, around 9pm, (the day after his birthday, after the southern family had to head home), we officially decided to throw a small party for Quinn on Saturday at my parent's house . Ryan was in town for the reunion, and Grandma Cathy just happened to be visiting Delaney that weekend and so it worked out perfectly. I was so glad that we did something, and grateful for family to celebrate with.

In the back of my mind I knew that I wanted to do something, and so I had purchased a cheap printable "transportation" party kit from Etsy. It made everything so easy, and I love the opportunity to decorate a little!

The real highlight in terms of decor was Pat's train cake! It was a nice hot summery day, so as soon as we put it out on the table it started to melt, but you can get the basic idea from these photos. I loved it and look forward to what Pat will create next year! After all, he's decorated Quinn's cake the past two years, I think it has officially become tradition!

The party!

Quinn loves cake, even though this isn't obvious by his expression here. I actually think that he was more interested in play at the beginning of his party. So, he got to unwrap his gifts and do just that, play!

Quinn got spoiled by all. He's still figuring out the present thing, though. After he opens a gift, he is excited about it and wants to play immediately. I enjoy his enthusiasm, but realize that people probably don't want to sit all day and wait for Quinn to get through his gifts. So, we encouraged him to plow through the unwrapping and play later!

Auntie Lolo and Uncle Matt bought Quinn a Toy Story tent. Toy Story is about Quinn's favorite thing ever at two, and so this was the perfect gift. Thank you!

Thanks for the bubble lawn mower and blocks, Uncle Ryan! Quinn loves them both, and mows our carpet frequently!

This is an incredibly fun jump toy that is nearly fully contained! It is perfection! I look forward to being able to set it up in our own yard on nice days, but for now Grandma and Grandpa are storing it for us. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa for such a fun toy!

Grandma Cathy bought Quinn this adorable first scooter and helmet. Here Quinn is trying to figure it out. It seems to be a fairly intuitive toy, although at this point Quinn prefers to keep both feet up and let us push him around! He's such a busy kid most of the time, I was surprised to see him a little lazy with this awesome toy! Thank you, Grandma Cathy!

Pat and I bought Quinn his first car for his second birthday. We figure now that we've got that out of the way, there will be no expectations once he's a teenager, right?? He seems to love it, but like the scooter, his preference is to be pushed around rather than drive around himself. We're hoping that once he has a little driveway to practice on, he'll get the hang of it and enjoy the ability to move without any help at all!

Thank you to all who helped us celebrate Quinn's birthday, in person or in spirit!

I have to include this photo of Quinn helping Grandpa (or "Papa" as Quinn has named him for now at least) mow the lawn (in his jammies with doggy's help). This was certainly a highlight of Quinn's day, and I'm sure he would have loved to help with the whole lawn. Grandpa didn't go quite as fast with Quinn riding along, though, and so I'm not sure there would have been enough time for Quinn to help much more. :) Thanks for the fun ride, Papa!

Happy 2nd birthday, Quinn Zachary! We love you!!!

Pregnancy, the Second Time Around

Precious babe at 20 weeks

Well, it's hard to believe that I am coming to the end of my second pregnancy. I was officially "full-term" last Wednesday, and am in my 38th week of pregnancy now. It seems like just yesterday we decided to expand our family and cheered with excitement when we saw our first positive pregnancy test. Quinn had no idea what was going on, but he cheered right along with us. This was back in November. My, time has sure flown.

35 weeks

This pregnancy has been much different for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I've had a toddler (in addition to work and basic home responsibilities) to keep me busy and sidetracked. Another major difference though has been choosing to have a midwife this time around. Our current health insurance is with Group Health, who has a preventative medical philosophy. They say that about 80% of their patients choose to use midwifes as long as their pregnancies are healthy. I had a fairly easy pregnancy with Quinn, and hoped for the same the second time around. However, if anything were to go wrong at any point, there would always be OB's around, which gave Pat and me comfort. It felt like the best of both worlds. So far, I have loved my experience with a midwife. However, this has meant that I don't have ultrasounds as frequently as I did with Quinn. I can't even remember how many ultrasounds we had with Quinn because there were so many. This time there have only been two. One in the very beginning to determine a gestational age, and an anatomy ultrasound around 20 weeks where we learned (eventually) that we were being blessed with a daughter this time around. With Quinn I knew exactly how many weeks and days pregnant I was at all times. This time, I have to stop and really think about it. When I sit and reflect on how carefree I have been this pregnancy, I find myself feeling guilty. I want to cherish my children equally, and do not feel that I have done so thus far. However, I trust that once our daughter is born we will soon forget what life was ever like without her, as we did with Quinn.

Since I am technically "full-term" now, I have been visiting my midwife weekly. Last week, when I requested a cervical check, she told me that I was one centimeter dilated, 50% effaced, and at a -2 station (meaning baby has dropped, barely). With Quinn I was dilated three centimeters, equally effaced, and hadn't dropped at all. I stayed that way for a month, and still ultimately had to be induced. So, I realize that none of this information really means much. It just all contributes to the birth story for me, and so I like to know. When she checked me this past week I was two centimeters dilated, still 50% effaced, and at a -1 station (meaning she had dropped a bit more). I can definitely tell a difference in how I feel as she drops. It affects my ease of mobility, and I understand why pregnant women waddle when they walk! I am more uncomfortable at this point in my pregnancy than I ever was with Quinn, but I pray that this means that my body will go into labor naturally. At this point, we just have to wait and see!

I haven't been as excited about my growing body this time around, and so the number of pregnancy pictures that we have are limited. Our friend Will did snap a few of my 35 week belly when he took pictures of Quinn for his two year birthday. We don't have any of Pat and me together this time around, but something is better than nothing, right?

Pat also snapped a few of me at 38 weeks so we could compare this belly with the maternity photos of Quinn (at 38 weeks). We had to try and get brother in there too. He was in a very sweet mood, as you can see.

We should have a baby within the next couple weeks, so stay tuned!

A Typical Evening

This shows a typical evening in the Gillette household, injuries and all. The highlight of Quinn's day is usually after Daddy gets home from work, as is evidenced here.

All Padded Up

And ready for football! Silly boy (and Papa).

Woohoo!

This demonstrates Quinn's excitement about beginning his bedtime routine. He's off to take a bath... I just enjoy hearing him "woohoo!"

Quinn Saying "Quinn" (Ken)

So, I just figured out an incredibly easy way to upload videos to our blog, so this may get ridiculous. It's all for you, Grandma Cathy! Unfortunately, at this time I'm not sure how to adjust the size so please forgive the terrible formatting.

Quinn Turned TWO!

...A month ago, today.

At Quinn's 2-year check-up his stats were as follows:

Height: 35.5 inches (78th percentile)

Weight: 29 pounds (72nd percentile)

Head Circumference: 50.1 centimeters (59th percentile)

He's a growing healthy boy, and we couldn't be more grateful for that!

When I think about Quinn's personality at two, two words come to mind. Independent and gregarious (most of the time, at least).

Quinn likes to figure out how to do things all by himself. Being dependent on others to assist him in meeting his needs is not something that he is interested in, whenever possible. For example, right around Quinn's second birthday (within a day or two) he figured out how to unlock the front door at Grandma and Grandpa's house, thus enabling him to be able to get outside whenever he pleased. This did not please me, naturally, because my child has no sense of fear or natural consequence (i.e. cars). This skill quickly translated to home, where he learned to successfully lock or unlock any of our doors. I had a few sleepless nights, fearing that Quinn would make his way outside while Pat and I slept. You might be wondering why we didn't just put a safety lock on the door at this point? Well, we have latch handles, and safety locks aren't easily available for this kind of door handle, at least not anywhere that I shop. Thankfully, I learned that they do exist (thanks Jamie) and purchased one immediately online. Sleep improved dramatically after the installation, and I don't have to spend rainy days constantly trying to persuade Quinn that playing inside can be fun, too. He is also well versed in moving his little toddler chair around the kitchen to try and find delicious snacks on counters, climbing on anything and everything to reach the valuables that we try and prevent him from touching, etc... Independent.

Quinn is also quite gregarious. As I get older, this trait is something that I admire more and more, for I am becoming quite the opposite. For example, when we take him to a park he loves to watch for a couple of minutes and find an older child, almost always an older boy, who is just a bit braver (i.e. crazier) than him. He will study this child’s behaviors and then attach himself to the child like a leach. He follows the child around and tries to mimic his every behavior. Often times this annoys the older boys, but Quinn doesn’t seem to be clued in to this yet. This social personality of his (and need for structure), is what led Pat and I to make the decision to put him in a half-day "preschool" program twice a week. We figured that with a baby on the way, this would give Quinn some social time that he so desperately craves (and will give me a little bit of one-on-one time with baby). The transition has not been going as smoothly as I would have anticipated though. So, we'll see how long we last... It's hard to justify spending money that we don't NEED to spend when it doesn't seem to be the amazing outlet that we had predicted it would be.

This independent and gregarious child of ours also has a bossy side (I'm afraid he probably got this trait from me). Quinn demonstrates a pretty clear understanding of behaviors that are acceptable or not (in Pat and my eyes) based on his bossiness. For example, if he wants to do something that he knows he shouldn’t, he will direct Pat or me (or whoever is responsible for him at the time) to “go sit”, or “go play", or he will simply go and hide so we can't see what inappropriate thing he is trying to do. This can be anything from sneaking food he knows he shouldn't have to ripping our books off of the shelves. My parenting tends to suffer at this time because I find his directions hilarious, and am also fascinated by what he thinks he’ll be able to get away with. I am working on it.

When safety is an issue (which seems to be much more often than I'm comfortable with), I have an easier time being clear and consistent with my boundaries. Around his birthday, after the door unlocking skill developed, we worked very hard to establish clear boundaries for Quinn (i.e. no going out in the road). Quinn will test these boundaries and walk out to the last piece of grass before touching pavement, and will then cover his eyes as if he doesn't realize that he's moving outside of the acceptable play zone or defined boundary. These kinds of dangerous behaviors are what led us to introduce "time-outs" as a consequence for Quinn. Some days they seem to work well, and other days he just doesn't seem to get it. The best part of time-outs has been the release. Currently when I go to release Quinn from his time out he quickly says “saucy” (sorry), gives me a hug and kiss, and then shouts, “Play? Woohoo!” It's adorable. I know that consistency is key to developing a well-mannered child, and plan to continue to follow through with consequences for Quinn's sake (and my sanity). I must admit that so far Pat is more of the disciplinarian in our family. I would have never guessed that would be the case, but appreciate his strictness and aspire to be the same.

At two, Quinn's favorite place to be is outside. He loves water, running, jumping, sliding, swinging, climbing, and FREEDOM. Outside is his paradise. Sadly, the weather this summer has not cooperated. Quinn isn't deterred by weather, but mommy is. We've had some fun dates at the pool and beach though, and I look forward to many more.

Quinn also loves movies. He is familiar with nearly all of the Pixar titles, and is expanding his repertoire beyond Pixar as well. His newest favorite is Shrek, and he requests it daily. His screen time is not lacking, let's just say that.

Our little munchkin is an extreme animal lover. He learned animal sounds before any basic words, chooses books with animals before anything else, and absolutely loves his pets, Lucy and the cats. Poor Lucy puts up with all of Quinn's "love", and we are so grateful that she is a patient and tolerant pup. The cats don't put up with Quinn at all, and for that reason cats are a magical phenomenon for Quinn that can't be touched. He loves to see the cats and is learning that he needs to be very still if he ever wants them around. This stillness doesn't happen very often though, and consequentially, Quinn rarely spends time with the cats. Lately we've been dog sitting for a friend, and so there have been two pups around. Quinn has been in heaven, and luckily Gizmo ("Momo") is just as tolerant as Lucy.

Quinn's love for books seems to ebb and flow. Sometimes I'll find him sitting with a basket of books and see him read through each one independently, identifying the pictures and/or animal sounds that he knows from each page. Other times when he reads he'll pick one page in each book, say a word or two, and then close the book and say, "all done". I hope that his love of books develops more, but don't want to push him away either.

Our little love also seems to be inheriting his dad's love of sorting. Play nowadays consists mainly of sorting toys, putting toys in a line, moving toys from one spot to another, etc... As the sorting/rearranging takes place, he tends to count in his own special way, leaving out the number two always, and oftentimes just beginning with the number three. Quinn's counting goes something like this, "Wuh, tree, four, fide, sick, seven, eight..." and then random numbers start getting thrown around or he starts back at three. I would think he was unaware of the number two except my aunt was showing him the peace sign around the time of his birthday, trying to get him to say peace, and he responded with "No, two". We had been trying to teach him to respond to the question "How old are you?" with "Two, yahoo!". It happened on occasion, but hasn't translated into a sequential number for counting just yet. He goes through phases that seem to change daily regarding whether or not everything needs to be orderly vs. absolute chaos. Naturally, I prefer the orderly days, and am trying to figure out how to foster that preference.

Quinn is also developing an ever-growing list of comfort items (and learning how to procrastinate during our bedtime routine by adding to his list). Currently, when he goes to bed, the required toys are first and foremost "doggies" (there are two musts, but sometimes he has three), Buzz, Woody, Alien, Saur (dinosaur), Nemo, pillow pets (all three of them), etc... It is absolutely ridiculous, but not worth fighting in Pat and my opinion. Oh, and his binkies. We haven't let go of the binky yet, and I don't plan to take this away prior to his sister's arrival. I dread this transition, but know that the longer we wait the harder the break will probably be.

Thankfully, Quinn has had a growing interest in babies over the past couple of months as well, thanks to his cousin Delaney. Unfortunately, my intuition tells me that this interest will likely take a turn for the worst when there is a baby around 24/7. He has a big brother book that he enjoys reading (or having us read to him) and he picks out himself as big brother in the book and says “Quinn”, and he identifies the baby as either “baby” or his sister’s name. It’s pretty darling. He also requests "babies” on my computer, which means he’s interested in watching you tube videos of babies laughing or babbling. He gets the biggest smile on his face, and sometimes says (with prompting), "so cute!" I have been having a little (okay, a lot), anxiety about how he will adapt from being the center of our universe to having to share our attention as we welcome his sister into the world. I anticipate some rough weeks, but remind myself that siblings are a wonderful gift, and just pray that he and his sister will be the best of friends before we know it.

Quinn's language development has really started to take off in the past few months as well. However, when I see him around his peers I recognize that his speech is simply not as developed. He is starting to be able to express his needs and wants in a way that Pat and I can understand about 70% of the time, and that has been quite helpful. He also tries to mimic anything that we say, and he is showing an interest in knowing what things are called. This has been a huge step for us, and I anticipate his speech will continue to burst in the upcoming months.

A few of Quinn's most common words at two:

"Saucy"=sorry

"Tank-to"=thank-you

"Sucy"=Lucy

"Wook"=Look

"Where'd go?"=Where'd it go?

"Igunnagetchew"=I'm going to get you

"Eeww, yuck!"

I “anything imaginable”= I WANT that (he hasn’t figured out want yet)

...and our personal favorite, hands down: "Iyu you"=I love you.

I could go on and on about all things Quinn, but I think that this summarizes him pretty well at two. It is so fun to watch his little personality develop, and I am so grateful for the light that he brings to our lives.

Quinn, we love you! Happy 2nd birthday!!