Fletcher's Nursery

My sweet baby fox.  Here is your nursery.  

I think it's my favorite.  Something about it just feels right.

I love that its collected, not decorated.  I rummaged through antique stores, estate sales, Etsy shops and the far corners of our home to gather items for a thoughtful, warm space for you to come home to.

It turned out to be the softest, most peaceful place in our house and I love to just be with you in it.

From the little wooden sewing drawers that hold your books...to the authentic army cot that your Boobo slept on during his youth (that technically belongs to your Uncle Michael ;)...to the small wooden duck that was a gift brought to us all the way from Slovakia...every item in your room could be a story.

My dear friend, Amy, took this picture on Fletcher Street in Chicago and had a canvas made. It's the welcome sign on the door to your room.  It makes me smile every time I walk passed it.

I made the cornices above your windows out of foam board, batting, fabric and hot glue.  A lot of hot glue.  I like that they hide the blackout shades hung behind them.

Lolli made this sweet horse especially for you, personalized with your name and birthday.  It goes perfectly in your room.

Your brothers love to sit at the table and read or color while I rock you to sleep.

I bought this little plant when you were barely the size of a pea.  It's been living happily in your nursery for many, many months. 

Each piece of furniture in the room is second (or third or fourth) hand.  I sanded and painted (with a mask on :) and tightened screws and gave these forgotten pieces a new purpose.

Your crib sits in what used to be a closet and really opens up the room.

This room was a labor of love and I wouldn't change a thing. I know you're not aware of all of the decor and details, but you really do love your nursery.  It's one of the brightest rooms in the house, so when I open all of the blinds and let the sun shine in you get quiet and look around.

Fletcher in his favorite, softest blanket made by his Mimi.

You blink slowly and take it all in.  You love the contrast in the herringbone rug and watching the small crocheted horses on the mobile as they go around to the music.  You won't remember these early days but the time spent together in your nursery are some of my most precious with you so far.

{Before pics when it was Sullivan's nursery.}

"Happy, happy, happy."

Sullivan Michael @ 27 months

I've described Sullivan many times as my quiet, introspective guy.  Although these are qualities that I absolutely adore about my sweet Sully I've been worried about his speech for awhile.  

He doesn't really have an interest in impressing anyone with his words (he's not a chatter box like Mr. Max), so when you ask him to say something or repeat a word, he'll often just smile instead.   I know he understands every word that we say, but I wonder what's on his mind.  I want to hear his gentle voice more often and let him tell me for himself who he is and what he likes. 

 For instance, I know his favorite color is orange.  It's the color he always picks when we're coloring or using play dough or picking out cookies with sprinkles.  But he's never told me its his favorite color.  I have a video of Max when he's 22 months old telling me "I like blue. Blue is my best!"  Watching it recently made me wonder what words are inside Sully that might not be getting out due to some sort of barrier rather than simply being an attribute of a quieter disposition.

So I decided to have him evaluated by Missouri First Steps just to see if there was anything we could do to encourage him to speak up more.  A specialist came to the house and brought toys for Sullivan to play with.  She gave him directions, which he followed well.  She showed him flash cards of animals, but she would call the animal by the wrong name to see if Sullivan would correct her.  It was cute because she'd hold up a picture of a horse and say "This is a pig"...Sully would giggle, shake his head and say "noooooooo...horsie".  He thought it was so funny.

The therapist gave me some great ideas of ways to help him expand on what he already knows.  And how to encourage him to ask for what he wants before I start naming options that he can just say "yes" or "no" to.  Other than that she thinks he's on track for his age and that being soft spoken is just part of his demeanor.  She said there's no reason to worry and she didn't see any reason for any sort of speech therapy.

Although I can't wait to learn more about my son from his own words, I've decided to relax and let him do things at his own pace.  One of his favorite things to say is "happy, happy, happy..." when he's having fun.  He says it more to himself than to anyone specifically.  After the speech/language therapist left I watched him walk around the house with an armful of toys singing "happy, happy, happy, happy" with pleasant little smile on his face.

There are a lot of things I can't wait to hear from him, but for now, I think he's said all I need to know.

                    

 **Update:  Since the visit from the therapist in early November, Sullivan's speech has taken off.  He went from speaking 1-2 words at a time to speaking many full sentences now.  My favorite things he says are "I love you too, Momma" and "I hold Baby Fletcher?".  I don't know if its because he's a "big brother" now or maybe I'm treating him more like a big kid now that Fletcher is here.  Or maybe something just clicked inside him.  Whatever the reason, it's so awesome to witness his progress and hear what's on his mind more and more each day.  So proud of you Soul Man :)

Hello, 2014.

2013 was a good, good year for our family.  

We celebrated the good fortune of our year with some of our dearest friends and our kiddos with a little party at home.

But first we celebrated "Irish New Years" at O'Dowd's early in the evening.  The bar inside was packed but we found a good spot on the heated rooftop patio.

We had a babysitter for a few hours so we left the boys with some party hats, noise makers and instructions to be in jammies by the time we got home :)  

While we were gone they worked on their New Years resolutions with Carley.  We came home to these sweet notes around the dinner table.

With the boys running around at our feet we cooked a ridiculous dinner of cheese and chocolate fondue.

We're very lucky to have friends who love our kids to pieces.

We squeezed Fletch into this dapper little outfit. 

First New Year's Eve!

We squeezed quite a bit of fun into the final hours of 2013.  

Can't wait to see what the new year has in store for us.

A Christmas Story {In Photos}

Christmas was extra fun this year.  Everything was a little more special...and a little more hectic...with three :)

On Christmas Eve the anticipation of opening gifts was almost too much to handle.  So I let them open their Christmas slippers and their homemade gifts to each other.

 Batman and Superman slippers!

Max was convinced they would make him run faster, so he took off before I got a picture of the two of them together.  You can see the blur of him taking off below...

 They were so proud of the gifts that they made and wrapped themselves.  As Sullivan opened the GeoBoard Max made for him he kept whispering "Oh wow...oh wow..." He really really liked it :)

 And Max loved stomping around in his elephant stilts.

They also had worked on a gift especially for Fletcher earlier in the week. A "time capsule" to keep all of his day-you-were-born memorabilia.

  Serious business.

Inside it we put the front page of the newspaper from 11-12-13, his hospital hat, foot prints and wristband, a picture of the sunrise from our labor room window and two drawings of Fletcher from the boys with messages to him that they came up with on their own and I wrote down for them.

 They gave it to Fletcher when we got home from our Christmas Eve festivities.

Christmas Eve at Lolli & Boobo's...  

It's not easy getting a good picture of everyone!  I love Max and Annabelle in these pictures though...

Sullivan loved playing with the little town. 

Max took this photo of Lolli and Boobo all by himself!

 After we left the Christmas Eve festivities we drove through the streets in our neighborhood to see the luminary lights.

When we got home we had to leave out cookies for Santa.  And smother littlest brother with kisses...:)

And then Santa came!

They each receive three gifts each, just like Jesus did on the night he was born.  And then one big shared gift and stockings.  The shared gift for all three of them was a large floor piano and the book "The Three Brothers".

 Fletcher's three gifts:  An Andy Warhol Colors book, push horse and a robot sensory block.

In his stocking he got a fox rattle, wooden whistle (he loves the sound!), a hide-and-seek bird and a Bill Murray onesie :)

Sullivan's three gifts: A sleeping bag w/walkie talkie, a dart game and a light box.

In his stocking he got an Animated Music DVD, electric toothbrush, Nursery Rhyme game, an Automoblox car and a Chicago BEARS sweater.

Max's three gifts: Sleeping bag w/walkie talkie, skateboard/scooter and a Yo Gabba Gabba record.

In his stocking he got a table top ping pong game, an "Under-appreciated Animals" matching game, electric toothbrush an Automoblox car and a "Where the Wild Things Are" sweatshirt.

I also made the big boys a homemade gift.  Sully got train rocks and Max got story rocks (you make up a story given the images on the rocks)

Everything was a hit.  They were so happy.

Until I made Sullivan try on his BEARS vest and called him mini-Mike Ditka :)  He always wants a "Cago Bears shirt" to wear because Max has one, so I thought he'd love this.  Turns out he does not. 

Santa was very good to me this year too.  He brought me emerald earrings, a new Kindle Fire and a Soda Stream (for my carbonation addiction) and a plane ticket to Ireland. But my favorite thing was this bracelet from Fletcher.  Now I have something engraved from all my boys with their name/birthday.

Lastly we had Christmas dinner at the Murray's.

The kids love being surrounded by their big cousins...and MORE presents.  I wish I had a picture of the mini Lakers jersey Sean, Lisa and the boys got for Fletcher...it's SO hilarious.  If you've seen the movie "Fletch" you know why this gift is so awesome :)

We really had an amazing Christmas and this isn't even a small sample of all the fun and hundreds of pictures I took.  I might need to do a follow up post of the celebrating we did when my brother was in town prior to Christmas and our gingerbread house decorating and the adorable wooden kitchen that Lolli and Boobo got for the boys.  Christmas is exhausting, isn't it?!  I love it, but thankful that it only comes once a year :)

{Christmas 2012}

{Christmas 2011}

{Christmas 2010}