My Date Night with Will

Last week I had the chance to go on a date with my son. I know that I can go out with him anywhere or anytime, but our local
Chick-fil-a was having a Mother-Son Date Knight. For Will this was perfect! He loves knights right now and Chick-fil-a is his favorite restaurant, so it was a win-win for him.

I have to say, Chick-fil-a really went all out. The restaurant was decorated like a castle. They had a photographer. They even had tablecloths and candles on the tables and they took our order from the table and served our food on plates. They went through a lot to make our night special. And it really was. When we left, Will told me thank you and that he had a lot of fun.



Well buddy, I had fun too! I had fun getting to talk to you. I had fun riding in the car with just you. I had fun just watching you enjoy yourself. You are special, you are my little knight, and for me it was a night that I will cherish for a long time!

More Family!

Luke, Adriana, Will and Chloe. The girls are cousins on the Duggan(Mike's mom) side of the family.

About a year ago, Will started understanding the concept of family. First, we taught him about grandparents and their how they relate to us. Then we started teaching him about our brothers and sisters. Once we mastered all of this, we started talking about cousins. Ask Will who his cousins are and he will tell you Tate, Caleb and Jake. They are our nephews and the ones that he plays with when we go home to visit family. He had it down pat.

But over the past month and a half we have gone to two different family events on both sides of the family. And it is at these events that Will has met even more cousins. (Ok, they are actually 2nd cousins, but how do you explain that to a 3 year old? ) Anywho...for my social little boy, this revelation has been awesome! He now knows about his cousins in Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. He adores his cousins and loves the fact that he has even more to love and play with!

So...here are some more cousin pics. I do need to admit that I have no pics from of our sweet cousins in Florida. When we went for my Grandmother's wedding, I forgot my camera.:(

Will, Luke and Caleb and Grandma Fessler

Tate, Will and Luke

Will, Luke and Jake

A fun day out!

This past Saturday we took the boys down to watch the College of Charleston women's basketball team play. We have a good friend at church who is one of the assistant coaches. She scheduled Mike to do a devotion for the team before the game and got us tickets to watch the game as well.
We had told Will all week that we were going. He could not wait! We have a small basketball goal in our playroom and Will and Luke play all the time. But neither had ever been to a game.
By the time we got there, Will was fascinated. He loved everything and surprisingly, sat very still and quiet for the entire first half!
Luke also sat quietly and was very interested in everything happening on the court. He ended up falling asleep during the second half, and Will was more interested in going up and down the stairs and watching the game from the upper level.
The girls did not win, but our boys sure had a good time. Will has even asked when we are going back. Thanks Coach Kaye for a fun day out with our family!

Luke at 18 months

I know I updated on Luke not too long ago, but we just went to the doctor last week for his official 18 month check-up. According to the doctor he is healthy as a horse and growing like a weed. He weighs about 23 pounds and is about 2 and 1/2 feet tall.

Since the last update I gave, Luke has been talking up a storm. We can't keep him quiet! Other than more(his favorite word), he has learned dog and knows that it says woof. He also knows fish and points them out anywhere he sees them. He is trying to say other words as well, but right now they are still coming out as gibberish. He so wants to talk and I have a feeling that it is coming anyway!

He loves to dance and does this really funny hand motion whenever he hears music. He squeals with delight whenever he sees Mickey Mouse on tv and he can point him out in books.

Speaking of books, Luke is still very much into reading, which if you know me, then you know that makes my heart smile. Being a children's librarian by trade, I desperately want my boys to desire to read. Right now, they both do. They can't get enough and they look forward to our weekly trip to the library. Luke makes me smile when he wants to read. He will get a book and come and plop down in your lap whether you are busy or not. Right now he likes any kind of lift-the-flap books.

Luke also loves to play cars and basketball. He hasn't figured out how to make a car sound so he likes to make the fly around like an airplane while he makes a flying sound. Whatever works, right!

One thing we have noticed is that Luke favors his left hand. Whenever he plays basketball in the playroom, he constantly uses that left hand. I'm not sure how long this will last, but it would be neat. Will is all right handed. Maybe we can have a southpaw pitcher in the family, just like his daddy!:)

Oh, Luke! You make us laugh daily! We love you so much
Sweet brothers!

Fessler Boys Update

Giving each other a high five. It is one of Luke's favorite things to do!

I was watching my boys play today and thinking about how much they have changed in the past couple of weeks. I wish I had the time to sit and write down everything or even take pictures of everything that they are doing. But, part of the joy of being a mommy is that you don't have time for those things because you are busy with your kiddos. So, I have to settle for the random blog post that I get to write every couple of weeks. Oh, how I hope that I don't forget anything important.

So...first up is Will.

This child is seriously one of the most polite, sweet, compassionate kids I know. Some of the time. Just today I watched him take his brother by the hand and lead him to me to put on his shoes. I had called Luke a couple of times and Luke did not come. Will took upon himself to be the big brother and help Luke. After I thanked Will he said "Don't worry mommy! I just needed to help Lukie!" He will gently walk up to Luke and give him a hug or even a kiss. He is constantly telling us the he loves us, and each and every time it melts my heart. If something is wrong, he always wants to know and will even try and console us. Oh, he is such a sweet boy!

He loves to say grown-up phrases when we ask him questions. If we ask him if he wants to go to Target her will say "Sure, that sounds good" or think about it and say "Yes, I can do that". He loves to play with his friends and he loves to pray for his friends. I'm pretty sure that Jack, Caia and Kenni, our good friends 2 houses down, are some blessed kids with all the prayers we send up on their behalf!

He also thinks he is grown up because he can open the fridge and get food out for himself. Today he went and opened the fridge side and the freezer side and told me that we were out of cookies(the toll-house break and bake kind). He then told me we needed to get some more. Oh, wow! I felt like I was seeing into the future a little and had a vision of Will as a teenager.

Will has been going through a weird eating phase the past couple of days. I don't feel like I can fill him up. He is constantly wanting seconds on lunch or dinner or just needing more snacks. He ate an entire bag of goldfish yesterday. I was blown away! Usually it is a fight to get Will to eat. We have to play games and offer treats. He has always eaten when he was hungry, but that never seemed to occur around family meal time. I am pleased with this new phase and hope it is not going to pass soon. But, I also wonder if it is just a growth spurt and we will be back to normal in a few days.

Will is very much into reading right now. He has always loved books, but right now it is even cooler to read any book he can find. We spend a lot of time during the day reading. He also likes puzzles, games and playing on the computer. Will is totally into firetrucks. He got a couple for Christmas and they are a joy to him. We have seen one close-up, and had the chance to sit in it over Christmas. He didn't like that. He just wants to enjoy them from afar.

We are also experiencing a little defiance from him right now, as I'm sure most three year olds like to do. But, we are doing our best to take care of it. I won't share those stories with you. I don't want you to hold Will's not so pleasant side against him!


Now for my little Luke.



Oh, my word! I love this kid! Luke is in a really fun stage right now, and it is just plain funny! I feel like we get good laughs from Luke everyday. And the funny thing is he eats it up. I think this kid is going to grow up to be the class clown. He is just so good- natured and loves to laugh!

Luke is trying his hardest to talk. He is not saying many words right now, but he has learned the word "more". He has also learned the concept. So, he chooses to stand in the kitchen all day and just say more hoping I will give him another snack! He will also say mama and dada. But the other day he started saying dado. He also has this cute singing thing he does where he just says oh-e-oh-e-oh. I guess I should try and catch that on video. He does understand everything we are saying to him and will respond and react to what we say. We aren't worried, we know he will be talking our ears off soon!

Luke also loves to read and can't get enough of books. He went through a stage, like his brother, where he would run from me when I pulled out a book to read to him. I guess he thought that I was going to try and hold him down so I could read it to him and he wanted no part of that. Now, though, it seems to comfort him and we read often. He loves to get a book and come plop himself down in your lap. That is his way of saying ok, you can read to me now. His favorite book now is "Kitty Up", which used to be WIll's favorite too!

Luke loves to play outside and his new accomplishment is climbing the ladder on our swing set. He can get himself up into the clubhouse part by himself and slide down by himself. And of course, he doesn't need our help because he thinks he is so big. When he gets up there he is so proud of himself that he likes to clap and give you a high five. That's another of his favorite things to do right now. He can't get or give enough high fives!

One of my little readers

Fresh Air

All four of us have been sick all week long. We have been housebound and some of us couch-bound and I think we were starting to get a little cabin fever. We had to get out of the house! Yesterday was such a pretty day, sunny and 73, so we decided to take the boys to Charlestowne Landing. Mimi and Poppy got us a pass for Christmas and it was the perfect day to use it.
Now, just in case you were curious as to what C-towne Landing is...it is the piece of land where the original settlers came and set up Charles Towne back in the 1600's. It is now a state park and has some historically accurate replicas of houses and a boat that would have been used during that time. There is also a zoo where you can see animals that would have been found in this part of the country when the settlers got here.
Whether you like history of not, it made for a good outing. Afterwards we took the boys to Chick-fil-A, or Chicka-fil-a as Will calls it! The boys had a blast, Mike and I were exhausted and I think the fresh air was good for us all. I don't know if we are 100% yet, but hopefully being outside on a nice day helped.

at the otter tank

The puma~he was pacing as we walked up. Evidently, he is rarely this active so I guess we were given a rare treat!

bison...still hard for me to believe that bison lived in Charleston.



the boat replica, this was by far Will's favorite place

A Christmas Recap

I think the past two weeks went by in fast forward. Honestly, it seemed like it was just a few days before Christmas a couple of minutes ago and now here we are in January. Well, I sure hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. We sure did. Here is a little recap of our Christmas...

Christmas Eve we had the chance to meet some needs of one of the families that we delivered LOVEGAVE Food boxes to. We took the boys shopping and stopped by a friends house for donations to get the things that were needed. It was neat to be able to talk to Will about sharing, giving and serving so close to Christmas.
That night we went to church and were treated to a service that was largely child focused. For us, this was awesome because it allowed our boys to be a part of the service, but it also allowed them to hear from someone else about the things we had been teaching them at home.
Once we got home, we had a bowl of vegetable soup that had been in the crockpot all day. (Thank the Lord for crockpots!) Vegetable soup is a Fessler family tradition on Christmas Eve. Now that we are a ministry family, it made sense for us to have a quick easy meal to eat after church as opposed to a fancy meal that I needed to prepare.
After dinner we let the boys open one present before putting on jammies and heading to bed. This has become a tradition of ours as well.





Christmas Day was peaceful, relaxing and enjoyable. Since we got married we have always made sure that we were in our own home on Christmas morning. Now that we live away from family and our boys are getting older, it is important to us to allow our boys the chance to stay home and play with their new toys on Christmas Day. So, that's what we did. We let the boys take their time opening their gifts and we let them spend all day playing with them. And they did!









We left for our big family Christmas trip the day after Christmas. We went to my family first this year and spent a couple of days with them. Will and Luke got to play with their cousins and all was good until Wednesday afternoon. We noticed that Luke started running a fever and then started coughing. We called the pediatrician's office and got some advice from them. The next morning we got up and got ready to head to Mike's parent's house. Luke still didn't act like he felt great. He was still running a fever and did most of the day. In fact, we could not get it to go down. We finally felt that we needed to have him seen and we ended up spending
four hours in a local emergency room to find out that Luke had a bad ear infection. He was put on antibiotics and we thought things would be ok, but the next day Will came down with a fever and was coughing as well. His fever was manageable and came down with a dose of Tylenol, but it happened again on Saturday and by Sunday, they both felt bad and would hardly eat anything. We came back home on Sunday afternoon. Monday, both boys were miserable and just wanted to be held and Mike and I started to not feel good either. The doctor's office was closed so we all had to suffer. We finally got them in to see the doctor on Tuesday and found out that Luke's ear had not cleared up and was still infected and that Will had a double ear infection with a slight case on pneumonia! What! That was not exactly the way we wanted to spend and end our Christmas vacation.

Despite the sickness, we were blessed by the chance to go home and be with our families. Our boys were spoiled by their grandparents, got way too many toys and ate way to many Christamas cookies. But that's ok. It only happens once a year!