Monday, August 23, 2010

From Easter to Summer...

Ok, once again it has been a while since our last post.....please forgive us, and thanks for keeping up with us.  We are doing well and enjoying our summer.  Savannah is doing extremely well and is keeping me busy.  I wish I had half of the energy she has, it amazes me how she can just go, go, go.  She loves to read books, run and is climbing on everything in site.  In fact, just this past Saturday I went out to run some errands and left Patrick in charge, apparently I left a cup of water on the counter ledge which just so happens to have a couch beneath it...well Patrick left the room and a minute later heard a loud bang.  Patrick came back to find Savannah soaked...she had climbed up the couch and grabbed the cup (of course it was a full cup of water) and soaked herself and the couch.  Patrick's first reaction was to grab the camera- so now we have pictures to remember this incident.  At least the mess was cleaned up by the time I got home. 

So here is what we have been up to.  We had our annual March of Dimes, March for Babies event in April in memory of little Patrick (as well as to honor other little babies born pre-mature), our team name this year was "Lil' Patrick and Friends".  It was a big success, we had a bigger team this year so we set a team goal of $10,000- we raised $9,323!! We came in 3rd place again in the Family Team division (we came in 3rd place last year).  We were very happy with our efforts and look forward to doing it again next year.  Thank you to all that supported us!! This year we were asked by the March of Dimes to be an ambassador family, which means we are asked to speak at MOD events and participate in some of their other events throughout the year.  We shared our personal story at the annual "kick-off" luncheon to a crowd of 250 or so and although it was emotional we were honored to have the opportunity to share our story.  We will also be participating in a few more March of Dimes events toward the end of this year.

We purchased annual passes to Busch Gardens so we could bring Savannah to the new Sesame Street area for little kids and she absolutely loves it.  We have had the ability to go several times and each time Savannah leaves with a smile on her face.  They have great rides for the little ones as well as a water park-which is very refreshing given our HOT summer.  The last time we went Patrick's sister Rebecca and his mom went with us and we got to the park nice and early and Savannah got to meet Elmo and Big Bird- I thought she might be a little nervous about these big characters, but she loved them.  For Memorial Day week-end we went to the beach to visit my Aunt and Uncle at their amazing condo, I wasn't sure how Savannah would do with the beach and the water...but she loved it-except she didn't like getting sand on her hands.  At first I didn't put her jelly shoes on her but she let me know right away that she really wanted her shoes on....once her shoes were on she was very happy on the beach.  She was not afraid of the water at all, in fact she would run towards the waves as they came crashing in.  It was a great day. 

As most of you know, we bought a house back in January of 2009.  When we bought the house we didn't take much notice of the yard, well a year and a half later we noticed that 95% of the yard was WEEDS!! Our previous house had a beautiful yard (the sod was new when Patrick purchased the house) and together Patrick and I (along with my mom) updated the landscaping and it was beautiful and Patrick took such pride in maintaining it.  Back to our current house, our yard was anything but beautiful (in fact, I thought it looked like a house that would be in the foreclosure process-YUCK).  So, we took the plunge ($$) and had new sod put in as well as some new landscaping...Savannah now has a playarea in the backyard and Patrick is back to enjoying mowing and maintaining a nice yard....I think our neighbors are happy too.  We also expanded on where we planted the Magnolia for little Patrick and that now includes about 10 Hibiscus as well as another type of flower that attracts butterflies.  It is nice to walk outside and see anywhere from 3-5 butterflies flying around the Magnolia.  Patrick likes to say that Savannah has her play area and that the garden around the magnolia is Little Patrick's play area and the butterflies always remind us of Little Patrick.

Savannah's 2nd birthday is quickly approaching and that is definitely hard to believe.  The first two years have flown by and Savannah has made such amazing strides.  She has a vocabulary of about 40 words and knows the majority of her major body parts.  She continues to WOW us with how quickly she picks words and sounds up.  She may even be saying some full sentences in the next week or two.  We'll see.

Until next time.....Take Care and live life to the fullest....
Love,
April

8/7/10- The water incident.

Savannah's new play-area

May 30, 2010 @ the beach


Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Savannah's first Easter egg hunt & more

Well, it has been a while since we updated our blog so I will attempt to catch us up.

Our last post was Nov. 30th and that was little Patrick's first angel-versary. We spent the day together as a family and celebrated our little boy. We planted a beautiful magnolia tree (this is little Patrick's tree) and have plans to make that area of our yard more of a garden/oasis and maybe put an angel statue as well. Some people have asked if we buried little Patrick's ashes with the tree, we did not. We have his ashes in a beautiful urn placed on our mantle which happens to be Savannah's play room/family room.

We celebrated Christmas with the Emrich's, Kruck's & Chatterton's and did our normal mad dash to visit as many people as possible. Savannah just took in all the commotion. Chris, Laurie & Aidan came home for the holidays as well as Rebecca. Savannah did have a New Year's resolution this year "no more bottles in 2010 & beyond" so Savannah had her last bottle of milk New Year's eve night and that was that, no more bottles!! YEAH SAVANNAH ;)

After the Christmas holidays I started watching a little girl (at our house) 3 days a week. Her name is Carsyn and she is 2 months younger than Savannah. I have enjoyed watching Savannah & Carsyn's friendship blossom, at first they didn't seem to care about each other but now they have a great time playing and learning how to share. Now when they see each other their faces light up.

Savannah started walking at 15 months, around Feb. 10th. We have video of her walking, however for some reason the blog will not upload the video (the video is on Facebook for those of you on Facebook)....I will try to post some other videos later. Savannah is a "toe" walker, meaning she looks like she has on invisible high heels. It amazes me how she can walk on her toes, her little calves are developing fast. Of course, I asked her pediatrician about this toe-walking and he assured me she will grow out of it. She can walk flat footed and at times she does, but when she wants to really move she goes up on her toes and off she goes.

We just celebrated Easter, this was Savannah's 2nd Easter however last year she was so little. We woke up early so we could attend 7:30 A.M mass with Patrick's' parents. After mass we had breakfast with Patrick's parents at their house, yummy french toast. We then headed home so Savannah could nap and then headed to my Buddy's (my maternal grandfather) for our Easter celebration with my family (Patrick's parents also came over). At Buddy's we had a big gathering and that is where Savannah participated in her very first Easter egg hunt. It was so fun to see her walk around and pick up the eggs (plastic eggs), of course had to shake each one to make sure something was inside and then she would place or throw them in her basket. It was a beautiful day in Tampa and we enjoyed spending the day celebrating Jesus' resurrection and the wonderful family we have.

Here are some links to some of the pictures I have posted on Facebook:

Pictures from 11/9/09-1/7/10:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51596&id=1300783496&l=51dea4370e

Savannah's first birthday party (part 2):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51610&id=1300783496&l=a656aff669

Pictures from 1/10/10-2/19/10:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54622&id=1300783496&l=74e0911aa9

Pictures from 2/20/10-4/2/10:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=59004&id=1300783496&l=001d9ce589

Pictures from Easter:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=59575&id=1300783496&l=42b83563e8

Love,
April