Update on Sawyer

I wanted to post an update on what Sawyer has been up to lately.  I have been home with Sawyer for a little over two months and have seen so many wonderful changes in him.  He talks so much more now.  In fact at home he is constantly talking, now if we could only understand him. . .  Actually he is getting much better at communicating, but he gets frustrated when he can't express what he is thinking.

He calls himself "Tow" for "Sawyer" and wants to hear the "Tow Tong" which is the "Sawyer Song" every night or Row Row Row your Boat.  He won't let me sing him hymns anymore.  But of course it is amazing he still lets me sing to him with my tone deaf vocals.  He still loves his blankie and paci, but keeps all his other favorite tokens of the day on the rug in front of the kitchen sink.  It is always fun to see what are his treasures of the day.  Lately it has been a box of tea, flashlight, drill, screwdriver, and some rhinestones.

He loves loves loves tools and necklaces.  He is pretty quiet and serious around other kids and loves to try to figure things out.  He is always working on something.

He loves craft projects, but not so much balls right now.  He is an excellent swimmer and can nearly swim on his own now.  We spent a lot of time at the pool and lake this summer.  He shows absolutely no fear in the water and will jump in even from a high height.

  

He is pretty easy going until he hears the words "no".  He is very rule conscious and rarely disobeys us, but if we do have to tell him "no" over something, there will be some serious crying.  It is mainly because he hates the thought of us being upset with him.  He takes it very personally from Clint.  He is a sensitive human being and his feelings get hurt easily.  That is not a trait either Clint or myself has so we are learning to navigate it.  In other words, there is a lot of crying in our house.

He still likes to read books, but he is not as obsessed as he was a few months ago.  He loves to help mommy or daddy in whatever we are doing.  He actually does pretty good.  He made an entire pizza the other day with homemade pizza dough all by himself.  I just told him what to do at each step.  

He also decided this summer (at 21 months) he was ready to be potty trained.   He was fully trained when we left for Colorado, but because we didn't have a toilet in Colorado, it created some #2 anxiety.  So we kind of do a hybrid of big boy underwear and diapers.  It is working just fine for now.  I can't take any credit, because he pretty much has potty trained himself.  We recently switched to all cloth since we really only use diapers at nap, bedtime, or ask for one to take care of some #2 business. 

Funny story though, we were at Clint's bosses house a few nights ago.  We let Sawyer urinate on the grass a lot of the time and he started yelling "tee tee grass" just as Clint's boss started to give a little speech.  At the top of his lungs he was yelling.  So Clint and I grabbed him and ran to the car.  We were able to compromise and he happily "tee tee'd on the tire". 

He hasn't had a haircut yet.  He has very thin coarse hair and I am afraid that once I cut it, the boy will have a buzz cut for the next 18 years.  I am trying to hang on to the little baby wisp as long as possible.  

I absolutely love having all this time with him.  I can hardly wait until he wakes up in the morning or from nap time to hang out.   He has been such a fun blessing in our lives I can't wait to add a little brother to the mix. 

Here are some of Sawyer's other favorite things. 

Driving the boat.  In fact he is obsessed with boats, trains, bikes, and airplanes.

Playing with his cousins.  He loves loves loves his cousins, especially Ellie.

Heidi, they are best friends.  Heidi is loving all the attention he gives her.

His cell phone, or anything like daddy's.  Mommy has no possessions in our house according to Sawyer.  Everything is Daddy's.  This morning he told me I was using Daddy's scissors when they were in fact my own.  Hmm.

Montana - July 15th-July 18th

Some of our good friends, Josh and Sam, tied the knot this summer.  Clint and I decided make the trek and have a little baby moon while we were at it.  We left Sawyer with Grammy and Grandpa and flew up to Bozeman, MT.  I had never been to Montana before and was blown away by its beauty.  We had a great trip hanging out with family friends and enjoying eachother.

The wedding was in a beautiful field of wild flowers.

Here are the guys at the wedding.  The groom, Josh, is in the leather vest.  We loved his wedding attire.

 

While we were up north, we decided to take a day trip to Yellowstone.  Clint and I have a life goal of hitting all the National Parks.  We collect patches at each park and Clint has a jean jacket that we sew them to.  As the jean jacket will someday make a comeback, we think this is the coolest idea ever.

This was our favorite spot in Yellowstone.  A secluded beach on Lake Yellowstone.  We couldn't get over how big and diverse the park was.

Clint is relaxing in the sand by the lake.

We saw a lot of wildlife in the park.  This guy was so close to our car we could have touched him.

I am standing in the Yellowstone River.  On this trip I was 23 weeks pregnant and just starting to show.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It was breathtaking.

And of course we couldn't leave without seeing "Old Faithful".

Colorado 2010 - Part 2

Now our cabin is about as remote as you can get in the Lower 48. It is at 11,000 feet, no electricity and running water comes form a stream. Paradise. It has a mountain view on three sides and no matter what window you look out of, there is not another sign of human life out there. The closest grocery store is 36 miles away and the nearest cell phone signal is 8 miles away, on a good day. Now I understand this is not for everyone, but it is for us Aicheles’.

Now if I am going to keep on bragging, Clint, Doug and the Blomquist crew did the most incredible job building the place. It is more beautiful than I could ever imagine. All the logs came from the surrounding forest. Clint cut them down and peeled them all himself (with some help of course). Clint and I got to plan everything out. It is also important to remember that every bit of supplies has to be carried up a 2 mile, precarious, four wheel drive road (if you can even call it a road).

Here are some pictures of the cabin. We have a lot of work to do. It is a lifelong project.

This is the view from the upstairs loft (master bedroom). It is a shot of the continental divide.

Sawyer is sitting on the future home of the outhouse. I will get a toilet inside, but Clint has warned me it is for nighttime use only.

Clint is pointing to the back side of the mountain that our cabin is on.

Colorado 2010 - Part 1

At the end of June we packed up our gear and household necessities and headed to Colorado for ten days. We decided to travel light this year.

This year was our first year to stay at “our” cabin. We arrived to the cabin with 2 inches of sawdust covering everything. This place was still 100% a construction site. We immediately got to work to get it livable. With the help of our friend Ty, Clint got a lot of trash loaded up and taken to the dump.

My first requirement of Clint was that every princess needs a throne. This is what I got.

Next year I should have a flusher though. Hallelujah!

Sawyer and Clint wasted no time getting running water to the cabin. Our water will come from a fresh water mountain spring. We just had a hose outside for the week we were there, but when it first started spraying, it was a site for sore eyes.

I spent most of my week sweeping up sawdust . I did a lot of dishes and dirty clothes the old fashion way. I don’t know how women do it without their “handmaidens” (dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer).

Clint worked really hard and got all the plumbing done. Next summer we hope to be able to install the sinks, bathtub and toilet.

The Aichele family motto is to work hard so you can play hard. We had a lot of fun too with family, friends, and enjoying the outdoors. Sawyer was pretty simple. His favorite thing to do was to throw rocks.

Clint took me on a date to Crested Butte for my birthday. We returned from our little adventure with more birthday celebrations. Sawyer also loved the fireworks show that Clint put on for Fourth of July. We had a big mountain party.

We did get in one pretty good hike. It is one of my favorites and it takes through wild flowers to a beautiful, isolated mountain lake. It was pretty tough on this pregnant lady though.

Our week of “roughing it” wasn’t too tough though because we were able to use Clint’s parents cabin as much as possible. Sawyer played in the dirt so much is was a life saver to be able to give him a bath.

We had a great week and the sad part is we don’t get to spend more time up there. Unfortunately we will have to wait until next year.

Father's Day 2010

This was our house on Father's Day.






These guys are two peas in a pod. I am so fortunate for my boys to have such an amazing father. When I found out that I was going to be outnumbered 3 to 1, I declared myself "the princess". I plan to incorporate a lot more pink into everyone's life.

This week was a busy week for me. Clint's birthday was Wednesday and Father's Day was Sunday. Clint loves to celebrate himself. I know that sounds bad, but my wonderful husband is really a selfless guy, except this one week a year and my life becomes very challenging. Let say this week involved homemade macaroni and cheese, corndogs, stuffed crust pizza, bass pro shop, Mexican food, guy movies, beer, mixed drinks, fishing, and many things per request. If I every hear "but it's my birthday week" again I don't know what I am going to do.

If you haven’t already heard . . .

We are having a BOY!!!!

I am sure it is not a big surprise to anyone. It wasn’t to Clint and me. We have been calling this baby “little bub” for a while now. But we are thrilled. We really want our kids to be best friends and I think it helps to have siblings of the same sex. I have been blessed with my sisters and I know Clint feels the same way about his brother, well most of the time. : ) Still nothing to really show on the belly. I am 18 weeks now and baby K.B. has been on the move. I will let you imagine what that stands for. Ok, so I will tell you. Kenny Bear. Sawyer’s favorite character from his favorite book. When we don’t call #2 “little bub” we call him “Kenny Bear”. We read this particular book a lot.

And no blog post would be complete without a picture. Here is one of Sawyer. I got a new camera, a Canon EOS 50D so I probably will be posting more pictures. Sorry.

More exciting news!

So we have more changes going on in out lives. Namely, I quit my job. There are several reasons I quit my job. We have been talking, thinking, praying about this a long time. See the list below:

1. Sawyer was really struggling in daycare. He is so sensitive and calm.
2. I did not enjoy my job enough to consider hiring a nanny.
3. As Clint says everyday “Our child is too brilliant to chew on plastic all day.”
4. Clint needs the opportunity to really get his career jump started by working more than just 8.5 hours/day (which was all he could with the 2 parent working daycare scenario).
5. We have always lived off of one salary (thanks grad school) so we wouldn’t have to make any living adjustments for me to quit.
6. I loved my old job and want to be an engineer and it didn’t seem like an option in Bartlesville. Eventually I will start looking for an engineering job in Tulsa part-time.
7. My VP doesn’t allow personal leave or part-time so I would have to put baby #2 in daycare or with a nanny way too early. (We were able to keep Sawyer out of daycare until he was a year old).
8. So if I was going to have to quit in November why not enjoy some time with Sawyer (and work on my tan). – Here’s where the reasons start getting shallow.
9. I would like to get my house remodeled before I get too fat with baby #2.
10. I don’t want to get too fat so I want more time to work out.
11. Clint would like to find time to go to the gym and get in better shape, but as with reason #4 he hasn’t had time. (I have been going to the gym over lunch. It will be sad to give that up.)
12. We really do feel like Sawyer is bright and want to provide him with a good foundation.
13. I love summer and want to play outside.
14. I want to make friends.
15. I don’t want my weekends to be stressed running errands getting ready for the week.
16. I want more quality time with my husband.
17. I want to have more time to spend in prayer. I am afraid I am going to really need it with my new career choice.
18. And lastly I have always dreamed of being a trophy wife. But that takes a lot of work.

Now there are some challenges. I am not the stay-at-home-mom type. I know for a fact that working is easier than staying at home. I need large quantities of social interaction. I do plan on finding part time work ASAP. I can’t drink because I am pregnant. My husband expects me to make his breakfast now. Ha! Speaking of husband he has no idea of how much attention he will now have to give me. We don’t have TV (and don’t plan on getting it) so I will be at home with a toddler without TV. I really do plan on completely remodeling the house, while pregnant, with a toddler running around (we have only gotten one room done in the past year – but we are close to finishing two more). I might qualify for an HGTV show. So there you have it. My blog may go downhill as I will be probably posting more about my super exciting life.

But since most people don't read this, but look at the pictures so here you go. Sawyer wants to be just like Daddy, in everything. If he hears Daddy mowing the lawn he has to break out his mini lawn mower. So cute.