Updates about Andrew – Page 8 – Dotzour Family.com

November 3, 2009November 2, 2009

Andrew’s adventure

On Sunday afternoon, Andrew and his aunt Melanie hopped on a plane and flew down to Dallas. Andrew was so very, very excited about his trip. He’d packed his back-pack about three weeks ago. Apparently, he talked about it all the time at preschool. And he showed absolutely zero trepidation or worry. My boy was GUNG HO about his adventure. He’s been in Dallas with Melanie since Sunday, and today Granny is picking him up. He’ll spend the next seven days with her and Grandad. Andrew sure does love his family! So do I:)

As we drove away from the airport, Bryan and I both got kind of misty-eyed thinking about our little guy and his big adventure. There’s a lot of emotion wrapped up in the process of watching your kids grow up. I felt so proud of him, I missed him, and my heart felt kind of exposed just thinking of the wide experiences he will have outside of our lives together.

If parenting is a continual process of letting go, this was a nice little milestone. Hopefully it’ll make it a little easier when he goes to kindergarten and (gasp!) college.

On Sunday afternoon, Sylvia had me and Bryan all to herself, and she LOVED it. We played in the yard and listened to our neighborhood owls hooting from a tree across the street. We played in the leaves and finally raked them all up, we came inside and had a different, quieter three-person dinner. Sylvia reveled in the one-on-one attention. Really, she was basking like a lizard in the sun. I think she’ll enjoy this week too.

LuAnn flies Andrew back home on November 10. So until then, I get to be the mama of just a 20-month-old. So far, it’s loads of fun!

November 1, 2009October 31, 2009

Trick-or-treating

I’m one of those moms who follows my trick-or-treating kids with a camera. It’s just who I am. I’ve come to accept it.

One of the perks, is that I get to share these pictures with you! There’s a whole album here.

Continue reading “Trick-or-treating”

October 31, 2009October 31, 2009

The ghosts of Halloween’s past

I’m uploading pictures from tonight’s trick-or-treating extravaganza. Well, maybe not truly an extravaganza, but I think it felt that way for the kids! After a nice costumed romp in our major leaf piles, we traversed the neighborhood with Alivia, Rayna, Kathy, and Brett. After eight houses, both Andrew and Alivia were suggesting that we stop. It’s so nice to live on a quiet dead-end street. Our kids are the big show in town:)

I just looked back at some of the pictures I’ve taken of Andrew and Alivia (and their baby sisters as they came around), and it’s so cute, I had to share. More Halloween pictures tomorrow!

2003

Back in Ann Arbor, April was a dragon…

2005

Andrew (four months) is a dragon!

Continue reading “The ghosts of Halloween’s past”

October 31, 2009October 28, 2009

Halloween 2009!!!

Andrew has a grand Godzilla costume made with love by his granny. And Sylvia is a blue bunny (from the 1946 story, Bunny Blue). This is the same blue bunny costume that Bryan wore was when he was a babe. Here, for your Halloween enjoyment, are pictures of my kiddos in their Halloween duds. They’re so cute! And I’m so lucky they have a grandma who loves to sew for them!

And now…(watch out!!)…Godzilla.

More photos of kids in costumes (I really held back here in this post!) are available in the photo gallery!

October 30, 2009October 28, 2009

Sibling love

Andrew doesn’t usually like to have his picture taken. Until, suddenly, he does. In the last week, there have been a remarkable number of times that he has requested that I take his picture. Especially when he’s snuggling with Sylvia. I’ve been happy to oblige, and here are some of the results.

Be still my heart.

If you’d like any of these images as you desktop background or as a high resolution image to take to your local tattoo parlor to have permanently emblazoned on your arm, you can get them here (click on “all sizes”)!

October 29, 2009October 28, 2009

Playing in the leaf-strewn yard

You may be tired of looking at pictures of my kids playing in the leaves, but I’m not! So here you go.

Sylvia pushes Poodle around in the stroller.

I cannot keep shoes on this girl! I am so glad that the weather warmed up. It is such a struggle to get her shoes on, and then even when it’s 50 degrees and raining, I turn around and she’s barefoot. She must be related to my mom.

Sylvie sure does like her bike. I love the color! I’m so glad I picked pink. I think of it as lilac:)

The squirrels haven’t eaten this pumpkin. Much. yet.

They have eaten this pumpkin. A lot. It’s gross.

Oh, how do I love our maple tree!? Let me count the ways. As many ways as there are leaves.

Andrew got a fun bubble kit from Bryan’s co-worker, Dawn. He anticipated playing with it for several cold and rainy days, and then he was joyous to finally get to try it out. He had a blast sticking bubbles to leaves.

And I’ll leave you with a pretty picture. Isn’t this a lovely plant?

Happy fall everyone!

October 28, 2009

Melanie is visiting!

I’m typing this up on Wednesday night at 10pm. Bryan is still at work at the office. He’s been working so very hard!!

I just processed hundreds of pictures from Andrew’s preschool Halloween party. Those little kids in costumes are just the cutest. And it’s pretty clear that I’m going to need a new computer soon. I love my laptop, but it’s just not robust enough to handle the photo editing that I’m trying to make it do. I usually have a book next to me to read between clicks…as my computer goes, “Kerchunk, kerchunk…you want me to do what???”

Melanie is flying up from Texas tomorrow, and we’re all so excited for her visit. She’ll be staying with us through the weekend, and then Andrew is going to hop on the plane with her, and together they will fly back to Texas. Then Andrew will be visiting her and then Granny and Grandad until November 10. He talks about his upcoming trip very regularly, and he’s had his backpack packed for weeks. It’s safe to say that he loves his family, and he loves Texas. It’s warm there, you know!

We’ve had a stretch of amazing weather. The weekend was stunning. Gorgeous color, lots of sunshine. Ahhh, beautiful autumn warms the soul. Bryan had a two-day chess tournament over the weekend. Since it was held in downtown Madison, the kids and I spent both days down at Terry’s condo, and we got to see Bryan between matches. Bryan had an intense day on Saturday, losing two of three games, and then on Sunday, he ended up winning both games, and rarely have I seen my boy so fired up about a challenge. From my perspective, chess is a lot like rock climbing. You’re trying to find a path to your goal…you’re trying to think out risks…you’re calculating dozens or hundreds of possibilities in hopes of finding the optimal trail. It can be exhilarating and demanding and exhausting. That might be where the similarities end 🙂 Since he pulled out three wins, Bryan won his class for the tournament. And he brought home Michael’s sundays to celebrate!

Andrew spent the weekend expanding his horizons too. On Saturday, Terry took him to a silent movie at Overture Center. When I was little, Terry took me and the kids (that’s Michael, Maretta, and Joe) to many, many silent movies through Duck Soup Cinema. Andrew really enjoyed seeing Buster Keaton play Sherlock Jr. He brought home a balloon hippo that we’ve been playing with for the past several days.

Andrew and I went to a theater last year to see The Tail of Despereaux, but this is his second movie in a theater. I like knowing that he has had such limited exposure to popular culture!! I’m sure Sherlock Jr. was very popular back in 1924.

Then on Sunday, Andrew went to his second play (his first being A Christmas Carol). Terry took him to see the musical Little Women. Terry reported that Andrew did very, very well. The play ended up being 2 hours and 40 minutes, which is a bit too long for a four-year-old. Andrew got kind of wiggly after about two hours. Terry said that they quietly flamed the actors by breathing Godzilla fire to pass the time. But when they came home, Andrew talked animatedly about how much he enjoyed it! He said that the story reminded him a little of Cinderella.

I did a photo session this evening with a little girl who is so cute it’s nearly unreasonable. Instead of cleaning up the house (sorry Mel!), I think I’ll look at those pictures now.

Toodles!

October 27, 2009October 22, 2009

Fun with friends

We’ve gotten to see quite a bit of Eli and Celia these past weeks. And it’s been lovely. They’re such wonderful kids, and I love to watch them all play together.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a few pictures of some kiddos enjoying the world and each other…

And on another morning…

Beware the jaguars!

October 25, 2009October 22, 2009

Art supply box

For Andrew’s fourth birthday, Bryan’s mom made him a special box filled with great art supplies. It’s compact, but it contains about any fun art supply you can think of. And Andrew loves it because it’s special for him.

Last week, I did a by-pass surgery on our ailing art supply drawer. We have a large buffet drawer filled with art supplies, but it’s been dumped out and pawed through so many times that any order or reason have fled and left chaos in their wake. Simply put, you could hardly open or close it. So I cleaned it out and re-organized it, and in the process, I also did a little re-organizing of Andrew’s art box.

Since then, he’s been just smitten with his art projects. It’s funny how when you pull out a toy and shine it up a bit that it can take on such a new life. Andrew’s been enjoying his art box more than ever, and I can often find him (in his room with the door closed for privacy) working hard on stencils or collages or pipe-cleaner creations.

Granny, thanks so much for such a great present. Your boy sure is enjoying it!

October 18, 2009October 17, 2009

BEWARE: Monsters below

While we haven’t watched Godzilla movies since June, the monsters still feature prominently in Andrew’s play-time universe. He loves to watch clips of the movies on YouTube on Terry’s iPhone, and he regularly requests that I look up pictures of his monsters using Google images.

Here’s Andrew, sporting his cool Godzilla hat and mitten costume (made by his amazing granny).

Here’s Sylvia wearing some hand-colored Mothra wings (also by Granny). For those of you not familiar with Mothra, she’s a giant month who (temporarily) defeats Godzilla to protect her egg. According to Andrew, she’s very good.

You’ll know for sure that Mothra is good because Andrew is smiling sweetly in the photo below. “That’s because she’s sooo nice.”

King Ghidora on the other hand…not nice. Also, he has three heads. Andrew was rapidly waving his head from side to side when I took this picture. When I inquired why he said, “Because then maybe in the picture it will look like I have three heads too!”

This guy below isn’t technically a monster. It’s a frilled lizard. But it’s part of the monster gang.

Oooo. Even without a toy, Andrew is still terrifying! Someone, help!!! Save me from my son!! I fear I shall be devoured!

That boy!

Aaak! Godzilla himself!

But really, he’s just sweet:)