Mother's Day

Here's pictures of my Mother's Day card and my gift! I love you boys!

I Spent the Day with Curious George

Yesterday my friend RaQuelle watched Avery so Travis and I could go out for my birthday. RaQuelle's little girl, Sienna is just a day older than Avery, so they have a great time together.

We already knew Avery was related (closely!) with Curious George, but because RaQuelle's escapades with Avery were so extraordinary, she did a write up for me of her experience.

I promise reading it all is worth your time, it's very funny!

I Spent the Day with Curious George

Today we spent the day with one of Sienna’s friends, Avery Hunsaker. He is a great kid but by the end of the night his new nickname became Curious George. Our evening began when Curious George arrived at our house and soon went into Sienna’s room to find some toys to play with. He ran into her room with his arms stretched out and ran straight to the glass princess globe that was sitting on her shelf. I was about two steps behind him and quickly got that put up high before any damage was done. He then ran to Sienna’s framed pictures sitting on her small dresser. So my next task was to do a ten second sweep of everything in Sienna’s room and then it was free for Curious George to play in. Although Curious George soon got bored in Sienna’s room since all the interesting things were put up high. His next task was to discover the kitchen. He ran into the kitchen pulled everything off the bottom of the fridge, including Sienna’s pictures and toy magnets and then he grabbed and opened the oven door. I was about two steps behind to hurry and clean up the fridge mess and get the oven door shut. I quickly decided it was time to take Curious George on a real adventure, the mall.

We drove to the mall in the pouring rain so I decide that the best solution was to undo their seat belts while I was still in the car and then walk out and open their doors and let them out. Bad idea! From undoing Curious George’s seat belt to the five seconds it took me to get out and open his door he had already jumped in the drivers seat and was trying to pull the shift into reverse. I did a quick leap to the front seat and got Curious George and we all hurried inside.

Now going to the mall with my daughter Sienna and Curious George was no easy task but I thought I was up for the challenge. Little did I know what was in store for me. After we ate dinner we headed to potty barn kids where the two kids could play. Sienna soon had to use the bathroom so we quickly found the bathroom. I got Sienna situated on the toilet just when the lights went out, pitch black. I soon realized this was Curious George’s doing and turned the lights back on. After a couple of off and on with the lights Curious George got bored and then moved on to the toilet paper role. He spun it like crazy and the toilet paper went flying all over. I was trying to find a balance between helping my daughter who has just recently become potty trained and still needed assistance and getting Curious George to hold still in the bathroom. I was definitely loosing on the getting Curious George to hold still, that soon became very apparent. I was trying so hard to hurry and get out of the bathroom that I forgot to flush the toilet and just started washing Sienna’s hands and then I saw from the corner of my eye Curious George’s next discovery, the plunger. And boy was he doing a good job with it! It soon became apparent that our adventure at the mall needed to come to a close, quickly. We got the bathroom cleaned up and packed up to leave.

Curious George was pretty tired after all those adventures and seemed to have enjoyed his evening. As for me, I was pretty excited to think I had probably lost 10 pounds chasing Curious George around. Let’s just say we probably will both sleep well tonight and dream of our next adventures together.


After all that, really, THANK YOU RaQuelle!!!

Avery's First Emergency Room Visit

Earlier this week Avery managed to get a hold of a cassette tape case (so random, I know) and somehow pinched his finger in it just right so that it sliced the pad open in a big flap. We were actually getting ready to go at the time to take him to his 18 mo. check-up and figured they could just take care of it there. No such luck. What kind of doctor's office doesn't keep any sutures, at least for just in case?! So off to the Emergency Room.
What a nightmare. After a LOOONNNGGG wait, they finally took us back. The brilliant resident thought a topical anesthetic would be enough (Travis was saying yeah right) and sure enough, after having to wait another 30 minutes for the topical to take effect, it wasn't gonna cut it by half. Of course, Avery missed his nap for all this and spent the 3 hours waiting being miserable, and, of course, that meant he managed to fall asleep literally minutes before they came back in to check on the topical!
So Avery had some local injected and here's some shots of the sutures being put in and the lengths Travis and 2 helpers went to to keep Avery distracted (the bubbles were key!):
Here's what his finger looked like today (4 days later) and I've added the red line where the slice was:
Avery may be all bandaged up - but he's still ready to play on the playground by the day after the incident:

My cake! My beautiful cake!

Apparently, when your child becomes strong enough to open the fridge by himself, you can't leave beautiful cakes where he can reach... Happy Mother's Day indeed... :)

Avery's First Haircut

Today Avery got his "rat tail" cut off! 17 and a half months old for his first haircut. Since we didn't think he had much to do, but the rat tail really needed to go, we decided to do it ourselves.

The before:
No more rat tail!
The final results:
And a handsome boy!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Look at this fabulous cake my honey made me for Mother's Day! It's a 2 layer angel food cake with cool whip for filling and frosting and all the strawberries. There's even cut up strawberries mixed with the cool whip for the filling between layers! SOOO Yummy! Thank you honey!! I love you!

First Thanksgiving in the Midwest

For our first Thanksgiving in the Midwest, we decided to head to Ohio for a visit with my Uncle Del, Aunt Darla and my cousins.

They have a beautiful new property!

Sarah with a sleeping Avery

Cameron, Jenna, Sarah, Del, MaKenna, Darla and Julia

And, for good measure, the Cabe's display the famous Travis Monkey Face.

Thank you for having us - we had a great time!

Avery's First Steps!

The quality's not great and there is no sound, but here's some video of Avery's first steps. He'd actually been taking a few steps here and there for a while, and earlier that day had managed I think about 5 steps in a row, so we were trying to show Daddy how well Avery was doing. Thanks for your help being the bribe Kristel!

Milwaukee Zoo

Yesterday we went to the Milwaukee Zoo for the first time with our new friends RaQuelle and her little girl Sienna who is just a day older than Avery.


The lion was right by the glass!

Of course, of the several pictures I take the one with the bad angle on the flash is the one where the lion looks like he wants to eat Sienna!

This jaguar was stalking the kids!

Elephants!

So much fun, thanks for inviting us RaQuelle!

Evergreen Aviation Museum

Yesterday, as a last hurrah with the family before we leave for Milwaukee, we went to the Evergreen Aviation Museum, home of the Spruce Goose (the giant wood plane Howard Hughes, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the Aviator, flew just the one time just above the water for a short distance). The museum is pretty much built around the plane. You just can't believe how big it it!
And afterwords we had a BBQ of course!

Here's everyone on the deck to the entrance of the Spruce Goose - Ben, DeAnna, Megan, Molly, Bobbi, Angela, Cheryl, Brittany, Damon, Josh, Kevin, Katrina, Jon, me, Avery and Travis:
Avery loved playing in the airplanes and helicopters:
They even had some his size:
Good fun!

Packing Avery

As we've worked on packing for the move to Milwaukee, Avery has really enjoyed the new "toys all over the house...
He's packed and ready to go!
Climbing Mt. Boxes:

Jeep Ridin' and a Smooth Hat

Avery is just a couple days shy of 5 months here.
My Mom loves this picture.

Meet Avery Owen

Here he is, Avery Owen Hunsaker!
Born Wed. Dec. 1, 2004 at 6:16am (13 days overdue! I was scheduled the very next day to be induced!)
8 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches


First bath


with greasy mom


Day 2


Day 3 time to go home! Mmm, what's that, oooh, finger...


HEY, give me back that finger!


So here's the story:
Pregnant women typically go through a nesting phase, often in the time before the baby is going to be born. I don't think I really did that. Then, Tue. Nov. 30th, 12 days after my due date, I just could not go to sleep. (Meanwhile, I've been dilated to a 4 since 2 weeks before my due date and still Avery waited). Finally, I got out of bed at midnight determined to make some bread in the bread machine to be ready when Travis got up for work in the morning. I think this was my last moment nesting instinct. I got back to bed after 1am and figure I fell asleep about 1:30am.

At 3:10am I woke up with a pain. It was a contraction and I had one every 10 minutes after that. On the fourth contraction at 3:40 Travis finally woke up. He helped me time them from there and slowly they got longer and more frequent. I remember being told that (especially with the first pregnancy) the contractions needed to be 1 minute long and coming every 5 minutes and they need to be that regular for an hour before you even think about coming in. We weren't quite that regular yet when suddenly I had a contraction that just didn't stop. As far as I'm concerned, contractions can be gotten through because you know you just have to hold out a little longer and that one will be over. So when I had a contraction and a minute went by with no let up, and then two minutes, it was really getting unbearable waiting for it to end. That contraction lasted a solid TEN minutes. It was unbelievable. After that the contractions only lasted a minute a piece, but there were coming every TWO minutes. Minute on, minute off. Oh, crap, it's time to go! Having only a minute respite between contractions made getting out of the house so stilted. Get my pants and socks on. Okay stop. Hobble to the front door. Okay stop. Hobble to the car. Okay stop. Get in the car and GO GO GO!

I was delivering out in Silverton, OR which was about a 35 minute drive on a typical, traffic cooperates day-time drive. Assuming that amount of time, we were at the 10 minute mark crossing over I-5 when I could feel Avery coming out! Instead of getting to push, I had to put all my energy into holding that sucker in. Here he makes me wait 13 days after his due date, and now he doesn't want to give me any time to get to the hospital! So it's a good thing it was way early in the morning and no traffic so Travis could blow lights and drive ~80 miles an hour or Avery would have been delivered on the street. Seriously. If that had taken place during the day, there is no possible way we would have made it.

So we get to the hospital and I think the nurses can see from my condition that they don't need to stop me in a check up room, they took me straight back to a labor/delivery/recovery room. Except then the idiot nurses wanted me to take a urine sample. Are you kidding me? But they insisted and I said fine, because I didn't have the energy to argue. I had to have help into the room and upon starting to squat a big chunk of the amniotic sac fell out. What?! Ugh. I guess with delivery it disengages and in my case it decided to slip out, but my water still hadn't broken. So the idiot nurses decide I don't have to pee after all. They check me and discovery I'm dilated to a 10. One nurse looks at the other, saying, "she's already a 10, what do we do?" Seriously, did you just say that in front of me?!!!? The other nurse said to call an ER doc immediately. Well, no, duh, I've been trying to tell you he's coming out. So the ER doc comes and breaks my bag of waters that's been hanging disgustingly out of me. And then my regular doc showed up. Props to him for getting to the hospital in only 10 minutes from being called! He was just in time to catch too. Well, not quite. I was still frozen in the hold-him-in-at-all-costs mode from the drive that the Dr. had to coax me into pushing instead of holding. "Laurie, he's right there, it's okay to push now." Three pushes later and I had a little Avery Owen. We had only been in the hospital for about 15 minutes. And obviously I had zero opportunity for any drugs. So from the start at 3:10am to a 6:16am delivery, it was great having a short labor. However, I do not recommend the stress of possibly not making it to the hospital. I do not recommend 10 minute long contractions. Also, no drugs=a lot of pain.

And most importantly, I do not recommend fighting the natural course of labor and delivery. Holding against the contractions like that and trying to hold Avery in was incredibly detrimental to my recovery. First deliveries are typically harder recoveries than later deliveries because it's such a systemic shock that first time, but I used so much energy in fighting it that I was absolutely wasted for days. I'm adding this last part of the story after I've had Carson and Emmett too, so I can compare the recovery to them. It was a phenomenal difference. Only a few hours after Carson and Emmett I could shower no problem on my own. It took a lot longer for me to have enough energy after Avery to even get myself to the bathroom without help and fear of fainting.

So after only about an hour and a half of sleep, I delivered Avery and then family showed up, so it was a while before I got to sleep. Eventually we had to kick people out so I could nap. Remember the bread I set the bread machine to make? I was not happy about missing my fresh bread, so I made my mother-in-law pick it up and bring it to the hospital with her (or else!)

So that's the story of Mr. A and how he wanted come in his own time but when he decided it was time, look out, here he comes!

At the coast

Yesterday we went to the coast. Cape Lookout to be precise. Travis' sister Angela and her fiance needed engagement pictures. This same trip produced the pictures I've used for our blog, which can be seen in their entirety from the right side column of the blog.

Yesterday I was only 4 days from my due date and I've been walking around dilated to a 4 for a while - we thought some exercise on the beach might move things along (or maybe in that condition it was stupid to go so far from the hospital...) but no luck anyway. Here's some pictures:

Yes, that's me in all my bulky off-center-of-gravity pregnant self trying to navigate the rocks...

Shane and Angela, Ben, me, Travis handling Piper, and Megan:

30 Weeks!

I'm 30 weeks today! We're due with a boy (Avery) on November 18th!